Wow ok, so it’s literally been more than a year and a half since @pretttybxby sent me this prompt, but here’s the first of probably 3 chapters! Set after part 2, each member of the Spellman family- some slower than others- realizes that the Caligari spell has left more of an impact on their Aunt Zee than they originally thought. (Massive thanks to @sibella-mysibella for helping beta this!)
Three days after the world nearly ended, Ambrose Spellman lay awake in his bed, studying the shadowed patterns on his ceiling cast by moonlight. The Witching Hour had come and gone long ago, but sleep had never followed it.
Resigning himself to the fact that rest would not come of its own accord, he tossed back his blanket and picked up one of the many dressing gowns scattered around his room; red with white pinstripes, a heavier material for an unseasonably chilly night. Knotting the ties around his waist, he cracked his door open just wide enough for him to slip through it, wincing as it creaked audibly. As quietly as possible, he crept downstairs.
After the previous evening, the flask hidden in his desk drawer was now empty, but he knew the liquor cabinet in the drawing room was fully stocked. Muttering a silencing spell, he padded into the drawing-room-turned-dormitory, mindful not to step on any unsuspecting students as he crossed to the table crowded with bottles and decanters. None of the Academy children would be so foolish as to touch Zelda’s alcohol, even the most idiotic among them knew that that would likely spell death. Ambrose, on the other hand, had more than half a century’s experience dealing with his aunt, and they had long ago come to a certain understanding on shared custody of the mortuary’s liquor supply.
He selected a mid-shelf whiskey, noticing that the bottle of Zelda’s favourite scotch was missing from its usual place. Thinking only that his aunt must have brought it up to her bedroom, he picked up a glass in his other hand and left the room as carefully as he had entered.
Stepping back into the foyer, the slightest movement in the corner of his eye made him turn his head towards the door. There in the window was a tiny speck of colour, a seemingly disembodied dot of orange. Upon closer inspection, a shadow moved- difficult to discern in the dark, but unmistakably the silhouette of his aunt, the lit end of her cigarette burning in the night. She sat on the porch, her back to the window as he watched her cigarette drift upwards again.
Ambrose frowned and squinted to check the clock in the foyer. Nearly quarter past four. His frown deepened as he heard Aunt Hilda’s words from that morning echo in his head. “Hellhounds, Zelds, you can’t be up all hours of the night!” The redhead claimed she’d had things to work on, had lost track of time, and would be in bed earlier that night. But now here she was on the porch, and Ambrose was willing to wager she had been there for quite some time.
Dissolving the silencing spell as he crossed the foyer, dexterous fingers secured both glass and bottle in one hand. With the other, he slowly eased open the front door, to minimise both creaking and the possibility of startling his aunt. He shut the door behind him, and as he hesitantly rounded the corner of the porch, Zelda turned her head to face him.
Rarely had Ambrose seen a sadness so profound in his aunt’s eyes. Sometimes he glimpsed the edges of it, and he had long thought that it must live in her always, beneath the surface, though she kept herself guarded and her emotions well-hidden. But in the darkness, illuminated only by the end of her cigarette, her eyes seemed almost heavy with it. And as he stood and looked at her looking back at him, he slowly understood that a similar sadness was echoed in his own gaze.
With a quiet sigh, Ambrose stepped forward, dropping into the wicker chair opposite the one Zelda occupied. He placed the glass and bottle on the table that sat between the chairs, mindful of Zelda’s ashtray and her own glass, unsurprisingly accompanied by the scotch missing from the drawing room. Reaching for his whiskey, he paused as he realised Zelda’s hand had beaten his to the table, already filling his glass from her own bottle. She pulled the blanket draped over her shoulders tighter around herself and exhaled another cloud of smoke into the dark. Ambrose accepted the scotch with the ghost of a smile on his lips, tucking one leg up at an angle.
They sat silently, side by side on the porch, until deep blue night gave way to a grey dawn, and birds chirped distantly in the woods. The house behind them began to wake, stairs creaking as students competed quietly for hot water in their baths, and the kitchen came to life at Hilda’s hand. Soon there would be breakfast and chatter, the warmth of a spring day, and appearances to be upheld. But for just a moment longer, aunt and nephew held a wordless conference on the porch, watching the last remnants of night disappear.
Zelda was the first to move, crushing the remains of her latest cigarette in the nearby ashtray. She stood, the blanket catching at the bend of her elbows and falling down her back as though it were a cloak. Pale hands clutched the edges of the blanket around her arms, and Ambrose felt almost uneasy at how very small she appeared in that moment, with darkness in her eyes and exhaustion in her movements.
Ambrose watched as she crossed in front of his chair on her way inside, but she paused as she came alongside him, a gentle hand floating up to rest lightly on his shoulder. He looked up at her, but she did not meet his gaze. Reaching an arm across himself, he lifted her hand from his shoulder and held it in his own, pressing a chaste kiss to her fingers. Her grasp on his hand tightened, and he glanced up at her again, seeing tears pool in her eyes for only a moment before she had released his hand and disappeared into the house.
