OTA

[stomacles]

WHO: Ben and Anyone
WHEN: Backdated to October 26th-early November ish
WHERE: Can be vague / multiple locations
WHAT: Ben's hearing screams and has tossed this doll out so many times
WARNINGS: haunted doll, unintentional gaslighting, mild obscenities

One more Look
The doll was innocent enough. Handed to him by some child with dead eyes that didn't quite meet Ben's gaze as it lifted up doll in offering. Ben had picked it up, noting the uncomfortable resemblance to his brother Klaus, even down to its clothes, little goatee, and hair color, curls and length. Ben was about to return it to the child when...the child was gone. He left the doll out in the street. Somehow, though, that didn't stop the doll from finding Ben later.

It was the middle of the night, so only the people he's staying with would be aware, when Ben finds himself brought awake by the screaming doll. They, though, can't hear it. He grabs it from the foot of his bed and inspects it.

"Shut up," he tells it, firmly, like if he was talking to Klaus himself. Then he stuffs the doll under his pillow and slams his head on it.


At the Ghost
The next time, Ben rushes out of a place, carrying the screaming doll out in front of him. It doesn't move, and no one else can hear it, but he still doesn't understand why not. It's so loud. And very much Klaus. Only Klaus would be this obnoxious.

"You hear it, right?" he asks the first person he sees, and shoves the doll in their face. "It won't stop!"


Before I'm gonna make it Leave
Ben tosses the doll into the road, figures it will get trampled by passerby, ground into the dirt, but just in case, he grabs for a random person and points to the doll a few feet away.

"You see that, right? That I'm just leaving it there. It's doomed."

If he has to, next time, he's just going to burn the damn thing.


[OOC: Will do [, (, past, present, prose, whichever is most comfortable - I will follow. Feel free to contact me on plurk metaljean, on this journal, or discord midknightcat to discuss ideas.]

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one more look

[somebadnews]

Five may have to keep up his appearances of staying in the villas, but like hell he's not going to check on his recently-alive brother to make sure that he's still as solid as he was yesterday. He's noticed that he's seemed vexed about something other than the current state of politics, and when he drops in that night he swears he hears him talking to himself.

Well, at least now he knows he's awake. No need to explain that he's got a habit of stalking his family, Ben probably caught him before when he couldn't see him. He blinks into his room and only debates breaking the silence for a moment when he sees he's in bed.

"You alright?"

[stomacles]

On the one hand, for Five, that's actually kind of sweet, and it's not like Ben didn't do something similar, keeping an eye on his siblings when they were unable to see him.

Then there's the other hand - Ben's body jolts at the familiar voice. Now he's wide awake.

"Really?" he hisses out, then softens, because, well. It's Five.

"I'm...." Not alright. "There's this doll." Ben looks around as he pulls it out. "It keeps following me. And...screaming." Just like Klaus, really.

[somebadnews]

Five is mostly immune to reactions to his sudden appearances, at most raising an eyebrow that they don't expect him to appear at any given time. He moves on immediately once Ben tells him what he found. In a few short steps he's beside him to get a closer look at the doll. He barely resists taking it out of his hands, but he's had one too many bad experiences with magic.

"Screaming?" It's quiet now, but that doesn't mean he's lying. They've seen more than their share of haunted knickknacks. What Ben describes rings a bell, though he can't remember now where the last cursed doll ended up. The owner is missing now, if that's a connection. "Following you how? Where did you find it?"

[stomacles]

Ben hadn't realized Five was this obsessive. He notes the fact in his mind. Got it.

"Some creepy-ass kid handed it to me. I left it out in the streets," Ben points out. He hadn't even found it. Hadn't taken it home. There it was, all the same, though.

[somebadnews]

It doesn't take a lot to get cursed around here, but it's a tad more personal when they go after his dead brother. As far as he's concerned, this isn't an overreaction.

"A kid?" He squints and tries not to jump to insane conclusions. That kid can't just show up out of spite. There are probably plenty of creepy evil kids around that he doesn't know about. "This could be bad, or it could be... less bad. Tell me more. Does it only scream when you're not paying attention to it?"

[stomacles]

Ben appreciates the love, it's Five's way, but he would be concerned about the end consequences. For now, though, he's mainly focused on answering Five about the doll.

"Yeah. Just some random creepy kid," Ben answers. "Nothing noteworthy."

Ben looks at the doll as he answers, "It screams if I'm sleeping. Or just taking some time out to myself. But it talks, too." And he's not necessarily a fan of the words.

[somebadnews]

Nothing is random, but he's not sure what he'll do if it is the kid he's seen before. Ben doesn't need to hear that he might have a valid reason to go after their family, and it has nothing to do with Five.

The more he says, the more he wonders why he didn't bring this up the very first time it happened. Does Allison know?

"What does it say?"

[stomacles]

Luckily for them both, this is likely not the kid Five is thinking of.

"It just," Ben looks at the doll before he hisses out - eyes still not meeting Five's - "stuff Klaus might say. Like, 'Why didn't you flirt with that girl? You thought she was cute.'"

[somebadnews]

Klaus? Five hovers over the doll to give it a closer look. Apparently the rest didn't seem to stick, because now all his focus is on what that could mean.

"...It does kind of look like him." Then back to Ben, appropriately concerned. "It only does this when no one else is around?

[stomacles]

"It screams when no one else is around," Ben admits, then wonders, the talking....

"Other people usually aren't around, because it talks to me at night."

He reaches over and pokes the doll, with aggravation.

[somebadnews]

Lucky Five happened to be stalking him this night then. He watches Ben poke the doll, and to his credit, he gives it a generous amount of time before he can see that nothing is happening.

"It screams and taunts you, but doesn't react to anything else? Something only you can hear." He doesn't think he's crazy, any more than he was when they were making him see Dolores in every window. "That seems... specific. It's either a curse, or Klaus has been hiding out in a doll this whole time we've been looking."

[stomacles]

"I don't think it's Klaus," Ben admits. "But maybe I don't want it to be." Or maybe he does, but he isn't going to admit that part.

[somebadnews]

He can’t blame him there. If it’s Klaus they’ve got an arguably bigger problem on their hands. Unfortunately, he can’t completely rule that out. Yet.

There’s possibly more to that last statement he could pry into, but he saves it for now.

“That leave a curse.” He sighs. Even he was here for a couple of months before he got cursed, and that was his one fault. “I know a guy who would be able to tell. We can show it to him.”

before i'm gonna make it leave

[rumorate]

Allison watches this with a level of curious amusement. She's not sure where Ben picked up this doll of his, but given the way he's behaving she's starting to think it's not just any doll.

"You okay, Ben?"

[stomacles]

"Yeah, I'm fine," he insists.

"But it keeps following me. There's something wrong with that doll."

[rumorate]

"What do you mean, something wrong?" Allison frowns as she goes to move closer and get a better look. She hasn't really paid much attention to it, but things that are weird around these parts usually have something up about them. "It doesn't have any body parts in it or something, does it?"

[stomacles]

Ben's face scrunches up.

"No. Nothing like that." Pause. "Have you found dolls with body parts inside?" He looks put off by that.

"Just mean something wrong because I keep tossing it out, and it keeps showing up in my room."

[rumorate]

"Not me, but Five was carrying around an undead finger for a while."

A pause because she knows that's going to need explanation:

"No, I don't know where he got it or why he kept it but I don't think he has it anymore."

[stomacles]

Ben's face scrunches up to that, with confused disgust.

"What does an undead finger even do? Does it move on its own?"

[rumorate]

"Not that I saw? Honestly, Five got into a lot of questionable stuff before I got here. But you know how he gets when he's on his own."

Spiraling down into his own world of paranoia with no one to be a counterweight about why you can't just murder everyone, or in the case of the current situation, pick up things he probably shouldn't pick up.

[stomacles]

Ben breathes in and opens his mouth, then stops, only able to say, "Yeah. Five is good at getting into trouble. Only one that beats him there is Klaus."

His own words cause him to look at the doll on the street, and he turns away and starts to put distance between himself and the doll. Five isn't the only one to spiral, but Ben mostly has his head on right.

"What other weird things have you seen here?"

[rumorate]

"Harpies made of tar. Dead things that don't stay dead. This weird black water that is apparently trying to absorb us all."

Allison shakes her head.

"Honestly, all of this has been crazy. It's hard to nail down just one."

[stomacles]

Ben purses his lips together and looks at Allison for a second then admits, "I only know of the black water. It's annoying as fuck, too."

He shakes his head. "Maybe we're all just bad at getting into trouble."

[rumorate]

"I can't deny that one. We have stumbled into three apocalypses at this point."

Four, technically, for Allison, but Ben Prime hasn't gotten to that one. And she still can't help but feel that this world is in the middle of an apocalypse - a slow one, but an ending all the same.

"It's like we can't avoid them."

[stomacles]

"Has it really been three?" Ben thinks that over, face scrunched up. He knows it's been more than one. This world probably does count, though it is a lot less flashier than what they're accustomed to. It's usually way more obvious.

"Or they're just drawn to us. Like we're trouble magnets. Or apocalypse magnets."