Teddy (actualspaceking) wrote in evaluation, @ 2019-10-22 22:37:00 |
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Entry tags: | !rooms: one: day one, marvel: comics: billy kaplan, marvel: comics: teddy altman |
Who: Billy Kaplan & Teddy Altman
What: A hidden room is revealed
When: Day 1
Where: Bedroom #10
Ratings/Warnings: PG | Brief mention of depressive thinking
Status: Log | Complete
It was... well he had no idea what time it was honestly, but he and Teddy had decided that they needed to take a nap as he'd come straight from being on the run for twenty four straight hours and he was exhausted. But Billy hadn't really been able to sleep. He and Teddy had pushed two of the beds together and then had sort of squished onto one of them anyway, but he hadn't been able to settle his mind enough to sleep. The others had eventually drifted off to do their own thing, leaving the two of them in ther oom alone and they had been lying down for a couple of hours when he shifted and squeezed the green wrist that was wrapped around his waist.
"T?" he asked quietly, they hadn't really talked properly yet, finding the room had been tough enough. But as exhausted as Billy was, he wasn't able to actually close his eyes and sleep. There was too much buzzing around in his mind. "Teddy? You awake?"
Teddy unlike Billy didn't have trouble sleeping but in a place like this with literally no idea about why they'd all been pulled in had definitely given him a bad case of insomnia. Of course that hadn't stopped him from at least attempting it and failing miserably so by the time Billy asked him if he was awake he was definitely already conscious enough to be able to answer quickly.
"Mmhm," he hummed softly before he turned his head to look over at Billy. "Can't sleep?"
"No," Billy murmured quietly, wriggling a little so he was facing Teddy and looking at him in the darkness. "I- I just can't stop wondering why we're here." He leaned up and bumped Teddy's nose with his own before carefully extracting himself and getting to his feet. The darkness in the room was pervasive even though it was hardly the middle of the night and he was moving quietly out of habit as much as anything else.
He wet his lower lip and rubbed his hand through his hair, moving away from the bed to the other side of the room and running his fingers along a nearby shelf.
"How long do you think we'll be stuck without our powers?" he asked, knowing Teddy was close behind him.
Teddy shifted on the bed until he was sat up with the sheets pooling around his waist, pulling a slight face as the material seemed to cling to skin that was definitely damp with perspiration. Maybe it was just his imagination but it felt like the room was hotter now than it had been when they'd first arrived.
He rubbed his currently claw like fingers through his hair before he slipped out of the bed, trailing after Billy as he moved around the room.
"No idea, I mean we aren't the only ones so that's something."
Billy tugged on his collar a little and shrugged his shoulders. "That doesn't make me feel any better," he admitted softly, looking back at his fiance with a frown, brows creased in concern. He raked his own fingers through his hair, disliking the way that the back of his neck felt sweaty in a distinctly unsexy way and chewed on the inside of his lip. "It just means we're all here and powerless because of someone's random whim."
He didn't know who the author of the letters was, or why they'd been pulled into the house, or even what they were meant to solve.
His feet (sock-clad, thank you very much) made little sound on the floor as he padded around the perimeter, careful not to make too much noise by touching things.
"You think we're in danger here?" he asked, shivering as a cool breeze rippled over his skin from somewhere which, in the stark contrast to the heat of the room, made his whole body shudder.
"Well, we're not actually powerless," Teddy pointed out as he folded his arms across his chest and braced his shoulder against the nearby wall. "We don't need our powers to do something about our situation." But Billy had a point about the whole random whim thing, that was super unsettling.
Honestly? They were probably in a world of danger every second of every passing day especially given their apparent inability to stay out of the middle of pretty much... anything. "Probably? I dunno, I mean, it's weird, but statistically speaking we have pretty good odds."
He frowned when he noticed the way Billy shivered. "You okay?"
"It'd be a lot handier if I could just sit down and say 'I wish for everyone to go home'," Billy pointed out utterly deadpan. "That'd fix this whole problem in a heartbeat."
He nodded, rubbing his hand along his upper arm. He'd stripped down to the vest and underwear that had been provided which had been fine up until the draft that was licking at his ankles.
"Yeah, there's just... there's a breeze, can you feel it?"
Teddy shook his head. "Not everything is easy like that, Billy. Magic doesn't fix everything." And the few times it had been used to do just that it had gone pretty horribly wrong.
He pushed away from the wall and wandered over to where Billy was stood, frowning a second or so later because yeah he could feel a draft.
"Uh, yeah, I can."
"I know," Billy reassured with a repressed sigh, "I know it just- sometimes it makes things easier and what good is having this power if I can't do stuff with it? And help people? I don't- I never mean for it to go wrong."
He stretched his hand out, feeling for the source of the breeze. "Here? Hey- hey can you move that? Quiet, though." It was easier if Teddy lifted it; he was stronger anyway. Less chance of it falling.
Billy always had good intentions but that saying about good intentions was real and completely applicable. "Well for now? Just gotta figure out new ways of helping people. Magic isn't what makes you special, Billy."
He might not have his powers but Teddy was still by sheer size and bulk alone quite strong which meant moving the nearby medical cabinet was relatively easy. It was as he did this that a hole in the wall was revealed and with knitted confusion across his brow he turned to look over at Billy.
"That'll explain the breeze."
"It kind of is," Billy pointed out with a shrug of his shoulders, "I'm okay with that for the most part. Y'know, when I've got my powers."
He offered Teddy a little grin that was only a little sad around the edges. Without his powers, he was a nerd and not much good to anyone which... well, that was the situation they were in here.
He was glad Teddy had managed to move the cabinet with minimal noise and looked at the hole in the wall, then at the alien beside him.
"You should fit," he said, disappearing briefly to get his shoes as he wasn't walking up there with socks on. "C'mon, you wanna see where the creepy hidden tunnel leads?"
"Said nobody in any horror movie ever," Teddy hissed at Billy's retreating back as he eyed said creepy hidden tunnel warily and with good reason. Ordinarily he was all about adventure and throwing himself into the deep end feet first but they were already stuck in a creepy haunted mansion without adding misadventure to their long lists of sins.
Still he knew Billy well enough to know that Billy was going to go in there without or without him and he'd rather it be with.
"Fine."
"That's my fiancé," Billy said with another grin. It was largely to hide his nerves but at least he could find something that might be helpful.
The corridor was narrow, and as they moved he could feel the warmth of the room disappearing. They'd spent a while in there, trying to settle down and at least grab a nap while the others were out and about, talking with others and mingling but it had gotten too hot and Billy's mind too noisy.
He'd managed about a dozen steps in when he turned back to check that Teddy was following, reaching and brushing his fingers along Teddy's upper arm before he kept moving until they came out the other side.
Teddy was in fact following though admittedly it was more a struggle for him than it was for Billy to squeeze into the space. He'd had to suck pretty much everything in including his wings and then replicate a penguin waddle as he'd gone through the gap sideways so he could actually get through. Not the most attractive thing in the world but that was the least of their concerns right now.
They hit stairs, neverending stairs it felt like, and Teddy would have grumbled had he not then come face to face with what he could only envision as a scene being taken straight out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre complete with masks on the wall to what looked like a sewing machine and large menacing looking chainsaw. The sort of thing you saw people who worked haunted houses carrying around as props but judging by the broken chain and the distinct covering of rust this one had clearly seen better days.
"This is not at all horrifying."
"It puts the lotion in the basket or it gets the hose again," Billy said, creeping a little closer to Teddy as he looked around. He noticed that there was a slight echo to the room and glanced up, but the ceiling wasn't high enough to be catching the baritone of Teddy's voice when he spoke, so it had to be somewhere else.
He shook his head, staring dumbly at the walls and then spotting the couches on the other side, crossing over the centre and the planks on the floor groaned ominously, creaking a little with the weight of Billy crossing over them.
He paused on the other side and then poked it with his foot. The board was springy about half a foot in, indicating that it wasn't supported.
"What do you think's under there?"
Teddy just stared at Billy with a look of complete and utter despair because it was bad enough that they were apparently in Leatherface's hidden lair but now Billy was poking at what looked to be hastily put together wooden pallets with his foot of all things. It wasn't like there was a plethora of other things he could have used to poke the boards, nope, absolutely no supplies at all.
"Seriously?" He queried, shaking his head. "And I don't know, but I'm thinking that we probably don't want to find out."
"What?" Billy looked over at Teddy from across the room. His eyes moved over the room again and his shoulders hunched up slightly. The masks on the wall were freaky as anything. "You think that chainsaw works?" he asked, poking the floorboards with his foot again.
He crouched down and put his hand over a gap in the slats. There was a breeze that rippled across his fingers. He supposed, without Tommy here, someone had to be the dumb-and-impulsive twin and that someone had to be him.
"I promise I'll put it back, you wanna help me lift this? I can just slide it across if you'd rather go look at the wall some more..."
"It's like you have a death wish or something," Teddy pointed out dryly. "I mean first you just poke at the flimsy looking wood with your foot of all things and now? Now, you wanna figure out if the chainsaw works." The alien shapeshifter shook his head. "If this was a horror movie you'd totally be the first one getting murdered."
He snorted quietly. "Tough choice, ominous looking wooden beams or creepy AF masks that look as though somebody with really crappy sewing skills pieced one or two of them together."
Teddy huffed out a breath, peeled his attention away from one particular mask that he could have sworn was looking at him funny and wandered over to help Billy with the beams.
"I'd survive the whole horror movie, dude," Billy said, crouching down and - with Teddy's help - removing a couple of the slats to reveal the edge of what looked like a large well-mouth. Haha, well-mouth, because this place was pretty obviously some sort of portal to hell. "You'd stop anything from killing me."
He didn't need to voice his thought about how deep the hole was, he could see Teddy pondering the same question.
A small part of him, that part that had never truly gone away and made him feel like he failed at 'happiness' toyed with him. They called it the Call of the Void, or that's what his mom said. It was stronger in people like Billy, who sometimes struggled with the basic act of living. He swallowed and stood up, backing away from the hole and rubbing his hand through his hair.
"Yeah, so there's places up here people could sleep if they wanted," he muttered, going back to kick at the couch with his foot. "I just- don't think it's gonna be us."
"And what if, I dunno, leatherface had already gotten me, huh? What would you do then?" He placed a couple of slats to one side and leaned a little closer to take a better look at the cavernous black pit that they'd just revealed. "This definitely begs the question as to how this is even possible considering we just came from a room below and why there's a hole here in the first place. I mean, how deep do you think it is?"
He looked around for something - anything - to use to gauge the distance and picked up an empty spool that must have held thread before and tossed it in then listened. And nothing, literally nothing, it sounded... bottomless?
"I vote for offering it up."
Billy chuckled, "Are you sure you wanna pass up the opportunity to live in Buffalo Bill's workshop?" He rubbed the side of his head and then laced his fingers at the back of his neck, nudging the sofa again. "These look like they might be pullouts."
He let that distract him from the giant gaping hole in the floor.
"I think you were right about this place not behaving according to any rules of logic that we know. There's no way this house has a giant, bottomless hole in it. Plus, bottomless holes aren't a thing, everything has a bottom, at least, in most known realities."
Damnit, he wished he had his powers.
"Okay, so we'll offer the room up to anyone who still needs a place to crash and doesn't mind dreaming about putting the lotion in the basket. You wanna cover that up again?" He waved his hand, the signs of his discomfort subtle but there.
"Uh, yeah!" Teddy said eagerly because yep he was in fact totally creeped out and would like very much to cover the giant gaping mouth of a black hole up all over again, thank you very much. And he did just that, feeling a touch better but not much.
He blew out a breath and scrubbed his claws through his hair before he just took a further look around the room, that sensation of being watched had not lessened in the slightest.
"Probably a good idea if we tell the others what we found."
Billy nodded, glancing around the room again before he just decided to lead the way down the stairs. "Yeah- but we can do that downstairs. Where the walls don't have faces attached to them."
Teddy gave the room one last wary look before he began after Billy. "Yeah, no arguments from me here." It did feel as though they were descending into the bowels of hell though as the room they'd been staying in did seem abnormally warm.
Billy was already on the stairs, "Yeah, yeah no. I'm not messing with that. C'mon, let's go find the others."