(Disclaimer: all characters in this story belong to me. For more information on Shep and Angel, go here. For more information on LeviathanPat, go here. Sol is only mentioned for now, but they still deserve credit, so to learn more about them go here.)
(One more thing: if you’d like to use the distorted fonts you’ll be seeing in this story, go here.)
(Trigger Warnings: blood/gore, body horror, murder/death, talk of death/dying, strong language. Please let me know if I missed anything.)
“Despite how much time has passed, weather in the lower region of the state shows little sign of improving just yet. Among all the cities experiencing these unseasonably severe rainstorms and wind, the Cove Port Inlets seem to have been hit the hardest,” the anchor explained, his voice somehow droning on while the words left his mouth at about five times the speed of sound. The TV hummed around the report as though it were a much older model.
“Although there’s no need for evacuation, scattered property damage and minor flooding in the beachside areas has certainly been rough on residents. In fact, officials over there have already confirmed that the city’s usual Halloween festival will, unfortunately, have to be cancelled this year for the sake of safety.”
“Damn,” a much more familiar voice murmured (thankfully a bit slower). Part of it sounded very far away, with an ever-so-slight echo around the edges. “Sucks for them.”
“It really does,” Shep agreed with a solemn nod. He’d grown up on the other side of the country, where the weather was always sucky this time of year, where it was just a fact of life that kids would have to wear coats over their costumes. He’d moved all the way down here for the longer-lasting sunlight and heat. And even though he was still getting it, even though Macksonburg had been spared that fate (being miles and miles away from its afflicted neighbors and all), he just couldn’t feel too smug about it.
Still, it wasn’t long before he took his eyes off the report, focusing on the wire racks set up against the wall. He reached back into the box by his feet, fishing out more graphic novels to display.
Sooner or later, that voice piped up again: “Can’t you put the movies back on?”
“Nope,” Shep replied, popping his lips on the ‘p’ and then rolling his eyes at the melodramatic sigh that seemed to stir up a small, faint breeze. “C’mon, man. You know the rules.”
“Like you’ve never bent a few of them before,” the voice retorted.
There were no footsteps against the floor, no sounds of rustling fabric, but by the way the air around him suddenly dropped at least five degrees, Shep could still tell that Angel was moving away from the counter and approaching him. He didn’t look away from his task this time. (He’d already learned the hard way that certain articles had to be left in very specific places, Dewey Decimal be damned.)
“Exactly: a few of them, and Rule Five isn’t in that camp. Don’t you remember what happened the last time I missed it?” Shep glanced further back in the shop, at the very TV that Angel was referring to, and shuddered at the thought of arms reaching out from behind it.
Now, perhaps this wouldn’t be so bad on its own. But then, you wouldn’t be counting how said TV was mounted to a corner where the walls met the ceiling.
You wouldn’t be counting how the arms in question were so damn long that it should’ve been completely impossible for the owner of those arms to curl up and hide in such a tiny spot in the first place.
You wouldn’t be counting how said owner’s skin resembled a layer of insulation molded over (and still dripping) with oil.
Things had gotten very messy very fast, and although Shep had managed to restore order, he’d only been able to do so after two hours of hiding out in the stairwell that led to his apartment above.
Yeah, when he looked at the bigger picture, that particular incident could’ve turned out much worse, but he still wasn’t eager to go through it again.
So, lesson learned: at exactly nine-thirty every night, the TV had to be turned on and left on until seven o’ clock the next day. It didn’t matter what channel was playing, because sooner or later, it would always switch over to things that most certainly weren’t on the local network (let alone on this plane of existence) without anyone even touching the remote.
“The tube would still be on, wouldn’t it? It’d just have a DVD inside. I don’t think that would change things too much,” Angel mused.
Shep shrugged, absentmindedly fidgeting with the sleeves of his favorite jacket. He’d been wearing it almost everywhere since college, and the sherpa still felt soft in his hands. Other than the abstract streaks of dark green dye that curled around the torso, the material was stark-white. “Maybe, but the risk isn’t worth it.”
One more nightly task finally finished, he stepped back and turned to his buddy, giving him a Sue Me look for probably the thousandth time as he started walking over to the other side of the shop.
The majority of people couldn’t see Angel at all. For Shep (or the rare few with his skills), Angel appeared fairly translucent most of the time. It wasn’t a conscious choice on his part, though the way he felt could be a factor, and it fluctuated from time-to-time.
On particularly dark nights like this—when the moon couldn’t glow and the stars couldn’t glint because a ton of huge, thick clouds had rolled in and swallowed them up—for whatever reason, his form seemed to gain a lot more depth.
His “skin” looked very pallid and gray in some areas. Other areas were adorned by dull, angry violet splotches that were outlined with sickly yellowish-green. Like bruises on steroids. It came in streaks all over Angel’s arms, and Shep would’ve put money on the ghost’s entire chest being covered.
But the best example was his face.
The stain had spread right across, almost seeming to divide it in half in a messy line. It started at his left temple, stretched over to the bridge of his nose, and then down to his right cheek. And it kept going from there, curving under his jawline and all the way down to his neck before disappearing past his shirt.
While Shep had technically been roommates with the specter for so long now, he could still never look at him without terms like Livor Mortis popping up in the back of his head.
As Angel liked to say, it was as though he’d had been at a carnival and, out of all the options for face-painting, had picked the one damn booth where the artist just so happened to be drunk.
(And, as Shep sometimes pointed out when he was feeling a type of way, Angel’s attire of a leopard-print shirt and a sleeveless jacket that was truly violent shade of raspberry hinted that he would’ve fit right in at a drunk carnival.)
As for Angel’s eyes…well, it was a bit of a stretch to call them eyes anymore. They were so damn cloudy, as though he’d been suffering from a horrible case of cataracts or corneal scarring (then again, eyes were usually the first parts to go when the real decay started). Instead of black, his pupils were a fleshy shade of white, like his head had been filled with pale, oily wine. His irises had likely been dark brown while he was still alive, but it was hard to tell if they still had that color, given how sunken the sockets were.
Shep paused at the counter, reaching over to the lava lamp that sat by the cash register and flipping its switch three times. After that, he fished around the drawers for a small tin of salt.
The unnatural chill in the air never faded away as he resumed walking, which meant Angel was still following, as he often did. “It’s just—you’ve been putting so much stuff on for the customers all month, but you still haven’t gotten to the Scream series. I was hoping for a marathon.”
“There’s a perfectly good TV in my living room,” Shep suggested, lifting up the doormat that lay just outside the main entrance. He sprinkled the salt out, pouring a few white lines on the floor, which he then covered back up. “You can always just take the movies up there.”
“Well, yeah,” Angel admitted. “But it’s not the same as watching down here.”
Shep snorted as he went back to the counter. “And since when did you get all sentimental?”
For a few long seconds, Angel stayed surprisingly silent.
“...Oh, wait!” A grin spread across Shep’s face as exchanged the salt for a microfiber cloth and his water bottle.
(The interior brick walls around here were a nice aesthetic touch. The viscous, ink-like, blister-smelling liquid that seeped through said bricks’ crevices once per week? Not so much. It’d taken a lot of digging to learn that something in the wall was simply crying, but cleaning up after it seemed to calm it back down. Besides, it was unhealthy to bottle tears up like that.)
“You just don’t want to watch it all by yourself, huh?”
Angel sputtered folding his arms across his chest with the barest whisper of cracking bones. “Excuse you! I’m just fine doing that stuff on my own. It’s just…it feels a lot more boring than it should.”
“Hey, I’m not shaming you,” Shep teasingly reassured as he moved over to the crying (or bleeding, or whatever-the-hell-it-was-actually-doing-in-an-anatomical-sense) wall. “Horror’s subjective. But once you’re grounded, it’s fun to be scared.”
“I don’t GET scared!” Angel insisted. “Think about all the parties other places around here have been throwing! That’s the ideal movie environment!”
“It’s also the ideal environment for you to screw around with people because there’s not much else to do.” Shep’s tone turned more knowing as carefully scrubbed at the first oozing streaks before they could stain any of the posters he’d set up. He thought back to all the times his own customers had done neck-snapping double-takes courtesy of Angel’s antics.
But then…could Angel really be blamed for said antics? He never meant any true harm, and being dead for as long as he had—scratch that, being dead in general, no matter what kind of shape your soul wound up in, was so, so much harder than being alive.
Even if a spirit hadn’t died painfully, they’d still feel pangs and aches that were all but beyond comprehension; and even if they’d once been human, they hadn’t exactly been set up to be able to handle something like that any better than most.
All the restlessness, stagnation, the signs that something is wrong with the world because why could this happen even when it obviously shouldn’t…
Shep knew he couldn’t truly understand (not yet, at least), but he wasn’t ignorant.
Sometimes you just had to give into that desperation, if at least to get a little joy out of things that simply didn’t work for you anymore.
“...But really, I do get it,” he concluded, in a slightly softer voice. “Movies are better with friends most of the time.”
Angel huffed, and though Shep had his back to him yet again, he could tell when that he was starting to relax. “...On top of that, I can actually focus up there. You never hold still during Close-Up. Seriously, all your pacing makes me dizzy sometimes.”
In spite of himself, Shep raised an eyebrow. “You’re dead. How exactly can you get dizzy?”
“How the hell should I know?” Angel snickered. “I’m honestly surprised you don’t have a guess for that. But hey, one more thing to add to all those notes on the corkboa—”
The pause was abrupt, and Shep didn’t think much of it at first, since Angel’s attention span could be a bit all over the place at times.
But then he noticed how the air was getting even colder, causing shivers down his spine that gave off the same, sharp clarity that should have followed swallowing an ice cube by accident.
And when Angel spoke again, his voice was much smaller than before. Smaller, and shaking— “O-oh no…” —only to transition to piercing in less than a second. “Oh shIT, OH FUCK, NO!”
Shep flinched badly, both his tools falling to the floor.
“Angel?” He blurted, spinning in place to find that the specter had disappeared. A strange glow lingered in the air, like the smoke that poured out of a car’s exhaust pipe, but it was fading fast. Shep craned his neck to follow it, and saw how it was drifting up into the ceiling.
“Angel?!” He called again. No answer.
Shep sprinted through the shop, grazing his shoulder against one of the larger display cases as he dove into the stairwell in the back. “Angel, what’s wrong? What happened?”
He’d just barely stepped onto the staircase before he got an answer.
It was neither from Angel, nor the one he wanted.
Tap-tap-tap.
A sharp, clear rhythm of both nails and knuckles against glass.
There were only so many places in the shop it could’ve been coming from—the front windows, the main door, even the mirror in the restroom.
But Shep had played this game enough times. It only ever happened in one place.
And now that he was closer to it…
A sense of complete and utter dread was rolling through the air like fog, feeling both cold and hot in an awful way. So strong that even the dead could feel it.
Shep sighed, then set his jaw as he marched back down the stairs. The last step was technically a false one: it could still support a person’s weight, but part of it was hollow, with its tread acting as a sort of lid. Shep knelt down and opened it up, revealing a box that he’d stashed away…well, not too long ago when he really thought about it.
The half-mask he fished out was more ornate than a lot of the stuff he collected—carved into the shape of an oni’s jaws, complete with fangs that curved up and out of the mouth like tusks, painted with cream and pale red to create a pattern like veins or snakeskin.
But that type of elaborate crafting was kinda necessary. For most of his life, he’d approached his skills somewhat casually. But when it came to more…surreal things, protection was needed. Real equipment was needed.
Shep slipped the mask on, adjusting the straps against his curly black hair. Then, with another deep, careful breath, he approached the window that loomed at the staircase’s first landing. It looked out onto the alleyway right beside the shop, the only thing keeping it separate from the next business over. Like most alleys, it was dark, with just a smidgen of light creeping in from the streetlamps out on the sidewalk.
The way the window had been installed, it was a good few feet off the ground.
But the figure looming just outside didn’t seem to care about that.
It could tell that it’d been noticed, so it wasn’t knocking or tapping anymore. Instead, it was pressing its hands against the glass, staining it with smears that were translucent in some parts…and red in others…
It waved as Shep drew closer, the movement shaky and loose, as though a joint somewhere had popped out of place.
Shep chewed his lip as he halted a few inches from the glass. The figure was shaped like a person. In fact, it technically was a person. It had all the things a lot of people did: blue eyes, fair skin, dishwater-blonde hair, dressed in clothes that were now stained with grime from the ground.
But Shep knew better. The fair complexion soon became pallid now that he was closer. The eyes were bloodshot, with one even starting to bulge a little if you squinted.
He knew that, whoever this was, they weren’t the one driving anymore. That they’d never be driving again.
Swallowing the bile in his throat, Shep crossed his arms. “What do you want?”
The body’s head lolled to the side, as if it were thinking the question over. It then snapped back upright, blinking in a way that felt far too stiff, almost robotic.
“...To come inside!” It finally answered, a smile forcefully tugging at its lips. “Could you open the window for me?”
Shep was shaking his head before two words even made it out. “Nope, can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one thing, you should be asking for a door like a normal person. And for another thing, we’re CLOSED. FOR. THE NIGHT.”
The body hummed, its head tilting to the side opposite of before. “It’s closed for living people. Dead people, on the other hand…”
Shep felt one of his eyes twitch, felt his knuckles turn pale as he subconsciously dug his nails into his palms.
He’d seen plenty of undead folk—hell, he’d even seen dead bodies being used as temporary vessels once or twice.
But this was not one of them. Even if it was fresher than Angel seemed to be, there was no sign of a soul anywhere. It was completely hollow, not much aside from a shell that just so happened to be made out of meat (as if a shell’s entire purpose was not to be that).
“Well, to be dead, you’d need to count a living thing in the first place,” he snapped. “Would you just cut the crap and get this over with already?!”
The body stared at him for another few seconds, still holding that fake-in-more-ways-than-one smile. Then, that grin dropped away completely, in almost perfect unison with how the eyes rolled back up into the head, leaving only glistening white exposed.
The body started convulsing, wracked with twitches and spasms that made it somewhat unclear if enough time had passed for Rigor Mortis to set in.
Outside, something else started rising up. The movement was subtle at first, just barely peeking over the bottom of the windowsill. But then it got faster, more aggressive.
It almost could’ve been mistaken for a hand—or maybe the shadow of a hand. One that was simply being cast from a decent few feet away, since it was so easy for shadows to be distorted, for an outlined wrist and fingers to stretch far too long as they reached up to the body.
But as the seconds kept ticking, as Shep kept watching, it became more and more obvious how that thing was solid. Even though it was so dark that it shouldn’t have had any real mass—so dark that it blotted out the light of the streetlamps and somehow still stood out against the gloom of the alley.
And now that “hand” looked more like some psychotic combination of octopus tentacles and tree branches. They coiled around the body’s waist with a chorus of cRiCks and snAps that weren’t nearly as muffled by the window as they should’ve been.
Something in the back of Shep’s mind wanted to sway and heave, but he focused on the weight of the mask resting against his skin. For good measure, he reached into one of his sleeves and began to slowly, carefully trace his fingernails along his dark skin.
Not to draw anything in particular—just to stimulate.
The body finally went still again…and then a horrific, slippery rustling sound oozed into the air, like overgrown worms squeezing their way through mud-caked grass.
Then, with a final, sickening POP, the body went completely limp. It doubled over, giving Shep a good, long look at torn fabric and flayed skin.
Another set of dark tendrils were sliding out of the bloody chasm, like fishing wires being reeled in. (Soon enough, Shep caught pale, glistening shapes through all the red. His instincts—and experience as a frickin' human being—told him that they were vertebrae, but another part of him insisted that they were teeth.)
The appendage as a whole actually seemed to shrink down, but only a bit. Just enough for its owner to shake it, slinging off a thin coat of blood, which splattered against the window like it’d been fired from a paintball gun.
From the upper corner of the window, another shape started writhing into view. An eye the size of Shep’s fist seemed to bloom open, giving off such a sickly pale glow that it almost seemed to burn against the rest of the void. Its pupil rattled in place, shrinking down to a pinprick in less than a second as it glared through the glass.
“§ð…” The voice seemed to pour out between long, razor-equse teeth like molten lead, buzzing and screeching around the edges as if the speaker’s gums were infested with cicadas. “Ðð ¥ðµ hå†ê åll £µñ, ðr ï§ ï† jµ§† whêñ Ì'm ïñ ðñ ï†?”
“That one. Option B,” Shep replied with no hesitation. “Definitely Option B.”
“¥êðw¢h, †hå† §†ïñg§,” the monster pouted, dramatically turning his gaze away, which led to his neck hanging at an extremely uncomfortable angle. “Ć †hï§ rå†ê, Ì mïgh† §†år† †ð †hïñk †hå† ¥ðµ Ððñ'† wåñ† mê §†ðþþïñg ߥ å† åll.”
Shep rolled his eyes. Part of him wanted to step back, but he held firm. “You say that like there’s anyone else who would.”
“...Wêll, Ì mêåñ, †hêrê'§ Ðê£ïñï†êl¥ å† lê姆 ðñê,” Pat mused as he idly turned the body over in his clutches. “Må¥ßê †wð ðr †hrêê, ï£ ¥ðµ rêåll¥ §qµïñ† å† ï†.”
“Oh, that’s nice!” Shep snarked. “Did you find a friendly sewer-clown? Something like that? That wouldn’t be too different from whatever company you usually keep.”
Pat’s face twisted, a handful of smaller eyes sprouting around his primaries. A long, ropey tongue flicked in and out of his mouth like a party favor as he hissed at the comment. “¥ðµ †hïñk ¥ðµ håvê rððm †ð †ålk whêñ ¥ðµ’rê ålw奧 Ðêålïñg wï†h ÐêåÐ †hïñg§?”
The snarl warped back into a grin like a blur, more and more teeth squeezing their way into the rows lining his maw. “Må¥ßê åll †hð§ê vðï¢ê§ årê £ïñåll¥ §†år†ïñg †ð gê† †ð ¥ðµ…”
Shep felt his eyes widen, felt his temper boil. But by the time he realized that he had to hide that, it was already too late.
Pat’s smile stretched even further along his face, not caring one iota how his lips tore. He wasn’t mincing his words; he knew exactly what a statement like that really meant to Shep, and now he was getting to savor it.
His teeth all clattered and sheared together like knives against sharpening rods as he chuckled.
As Shep fought to not glance away, he caught sight of something behind all those teeth. A faint, weak, struggling glow that was nothing like Pat’s eyes. It was getting dimmer and dimmer by the minute, clearly in the process being buried somewhere deep, although little bits were caught in the monster’s mouth.
The body…that hollow, vacant body that was just being used in a ventriloquist act that was even more screwed-up than usual…
Even through all the fear, Part of Shep had naturally wondered at where its soul could’ve gone. Well, he had a pretty good hint now.
Shep’s stomach churned, and his eyes began to sting as he thought back to Angel’s panic.
He’s safe, he had to remind himself. This building is the barrier he needs.
“Not. A chance. In hell,” Shep declared through gritted teeth, glaring up at the monster with every bit of anger he had right now. “I’m not having any problems.”
Pat hummed and leaned back, his eyes still glinting with smug, sadistic humor. “Whå†êvêr ¥ðµ §å¥.”
“Yeah, it is whatever I say,” Shep shot back. “And I say you should go ahead and hit the road.” He fidgeted in place, about to finally resume his march up to the apartment. Sure, Pat would likely still hang around, but that didn’t mean he had to give him any more entertainment.
“HðlÐ ðñ, Ì †hðµgh† wê wêrê håvïñg å ¢ðñvêr§å†ïðñ,” Pat protsested.
“No, we weren’t!” Shep argued. “You killed someone out of nowhere just to try and scare me into a deal! That’s what’s been going on!”
Pat shook his head at the charge, his eyes rolling like bubbles in oil. “Whð §åïÐ †hå† Ì kïllêÐ †hï§ mêå†ßåg hêrê?” He raised the corpse for emphasis, shaking it like it was a chicken with some stubborn fluff on it.
A good portion of fear up and vanished as Shep blinked, putting a hand on his hip. “Oh, so you just so happened to find a dead body in the alley? Is that what you’re saying?
“†hå†'§ êx墆l¥ whå† Ì'm §å¥ïñg.” Pat nodded.
Shockingly enough, his tone…didn’t sound all that dishonest. The rules he was bound to didn’t keep him from lying through is malformed jaws, but…Shep had plenty of practice when it came to reading people (as well as things that vaguely felt like people but weren’t trying nearly hard enough).
Still, Shep wasn’t about to give something like this total benefit of the doubt. “Well, if that’s the case, did you at least see who actually did it?”
“Må¥ßê, må¥ßê ñð†,” Pat replied with a coy smirk. “Ç'mðñ, †hêrê'§ µ§µåll¥ ñð†hïñg ïñ †hê§ê ållꥧ êx¢êþ† llê k¥-¢å†§.”
“Right. Sure.” Something in Shep’s brain perked up at that, but he shoved it aside. He’d already wasted enough time. “Y’know, for all the attention you’ve got on your nest, you sure don’t seem to have much going on with it lately. Since you came all this way to bother me.”
He thought about the huge macabre museum at the very edge of downtown. He hadn’t paid it a visit just yet, but he’d heard plenty of his own customers talking about it.
But then there were the rumors that didn’t come from more typical sources. The ones that slipped through the cracks in the sidewalks, or clung to the lights in his shop for a little while before they had to keep moving.
To be fair, a ton of people entered that museum on a somewhat regular basis. That meant it’d be hard to pick out those who never left.
“Öh, ßµÐÐ¥…”
The words hit Shep’s ears like frostbite, and he felt his heart legitimately skip a beat. The air felt so much heavier than it already had.
He had to swallow a lump in his throat, had to fight the oily chill that was now clutching at his lungs.
Pat drew closer to the window, letting the body of his latest plaything slip out of sight. His form seemed to drain as he reached a height not all that different from the average human. He suddenly only had two eyes, had only one mouth, had teeth that were actually being hidden by his lips.
Somehow, that was even worse than all the times he went ham on his shapeshifting.
He looked Shep up and down, with a smile so calm and so knowing that it could’ve turned anyone else’s hair white. “…¥ðµ'vê gð† ñÖ ÌÐÈÄ hðw wrðñg ¥ðµ årê.”
Shep couldn’t help it—he blinked. He knew he shouldn’t have, but he had to.
His eyes were only closed for half a second.
But once he was looking though the window again, Pat was gone.
Against his better judgement, he stepped closer, peered out a bit further.
The alley was empty. Even the body had disappeared.
Shep pursed his lips, tugged at his jacket to try and make the shivers stop.
With another deep breath, he ascended the next flight of stairs. Angel always hid in the apartment when things got serious; Shep knew he was up there somewhere, and he had to check on him. To make sure he was alright.
…Shep didn’t take his mask off, though. He’d leave it on for a little while longer.
i know that post has been close to a year. I haven't gotten the motivation to write because of school 😭 I hope in the summer I'll be able to write more. I'll think of something!
If you have a request you want to send, by all means do I need inspo
Hey, I’m Jay from the Kubz Scouts and welcome to another episode of Tomodachi Life myths. Now, before we begin, I wanna give a big shout-out to @yanderedev for making such a kickass game! I’d also like to thank @kubzscouts because he’s that DUDE!
Let the Yandere Simulator Tomodachi Life Crossover challenge...BEGIIIIIIN!
Remember how I made Cruz as a Christmas present for @sammys-magical-au ? Well, I figured I’d do something similar this year, as a little Halloween present for my equally lovely other friend, @insane4fandoms !
And remember how I eventually brought Sol, Moses and ColosSeptic into the fray as the lore of my Eldritch AU (Stanning the Uncanny) kept growing? Well, again, same thing here with an extra character!
Yeah, it’s severely last-minute, and yeah, that’s totally my fault. I really thought the motivational issues I’ve been experiencing would’ve been taken care of by now, but I guess those things can’t always be so easy.
Despite that, I promise you’re gonna be seeing these guys in action very, VERY soon…
___
Shepherd “Shep” Moorehouse
My very first fanego based off of CoryxKenshin
Much like Cruz, Sol, and Moses, he just sort of has a knack of the supernatural. For as long as he can remember, he’s been able to perceive things that most humans can’t. And he has no idea how or why, since nobody else in his family shares this ability. Ghosts (and other types of undead) are the most common example, but he’s also aware of…much more surreal things that can somehow still hide in plain sight.
And, since of course I can’t write anything without at least a smidge of angst: yes, this caused some problems while Shep was growing up. His family wasn’t abusive toward him, but they never believed his claims about seeing ghosts and the like. They saw it as mental illness, and pushed both therapies and medication on him despite neither ever going anywhere. On top of this, he faced some ostracism in school; he was the subject of rumors and bullying due to “talking to himself” or “seeing things that aren’t there.”
In spite of those difficulties, he actually grew up pretty well-adjusted. He’ll never deny what he sees, but he had to come to terms with keeping certain things to himself, because most people around him are just better off not knowing. He had to do a lot of learning (both the easy way and the hard way) on his own, but by now, he’s quite knowledgeable and experienced with the supernatural.
In a similar vein, Shep is also a skilled lucid-dreamer. He’s capable of dreaming, but he usually chooses not to, since dreams can often form gateways into a person’s head. And he’s already had one too many nightmares in his youth to NOT want certain things trying to crawl their way through that gate. He knows that the risk isn’t always there…but he also knows that, by the time you actually see that risk, it’s probably already too late. So, might as well avoid it altogether. It’d take a lot of convincing or a deadly-serious scenario for him to let himself dream while he sleeps.
One of his hobbies is urban exploration. He never records himself in the process, but he’s always felt drawn to abandoned places, or areas that most others would deem creepy and avoid. There have certainly been times where that did NOT work out well for him, but he’s too stubborn to stay scared for long. He can’t do it as much as he used to, but he’ll often look up places to check out whenever he finally has enough free time.
He’s the owner and manager of The Dyed Fleece, a shop that specializes in all things entertainment: art stuff, movies, video games, comic books/graphic novels, you name it. It’s an older building that he got for a steal, especially considering it came with a second-story apartment attached. In fact, you might say that it was a bit too much of a steal…Now, Shep did see some of the writing on the wall, but it was only after he was fully moved in and fixing the place up that he realized just how much he actually signed up for.
So, yeah, turns out The Dyed Fleece is a bit of a hotspot for certain entities. Plenty of ghosts tend to come and go, some sticking around longer—and causing more problems—than others. (In fact, a lot of them specifically seek it out as a sort of sanctuary, since there are…let’s say bigger fish lurking around other parts of the city.) And that’s just the tip of the uncanny iceberg. Shep’s had many different encounters, and has had to arrange many different things around the shop to keep it from caving in on his head. (There’s a very long, extremely specific list of things he has to do for the shop. Especially when it comes to closing up at night.) But, as mentioned before, Shep is both supernaturally-inclined and stubborn as hell, so he’s been able to manage pretty well so far.
And last but not least: while he doesn’t actively engage in occult-esque things, he still has some tools at the ready to keep himself protected. Mainly a half-mask that can help him look at things that really shouldn’t be looked at with human eyes. (And yes, I’m specifically drawing inspiration from an oni mask because you just can’t have a CoryxKenshin ego without nodding to Cory’s samurai schtick.) Remember, he’s developed quite a strong mind and will, so he actually doesn’t need quite as much shielding as other characters do. He’s not completely invulnerable to the more raw stuff, but the mask is pretty damn resilient.
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Angel Casares
My very first fanego based off of KubzScouts
He’s good friends with Shep, despite there being so many differences between them. The biggest one being that Angel has been dead for several years. But sometimes it just be like that, and in times like this, nobody can really afford to be a loner. Before the two of them met, Angel didn’t think anyone was capable of actually seeing ghosts, let alone talking/interacting with them. So, Shep became an instant cure for boredom in his eyes.
Unlike most of the other ghosts who come around The Dyed Fleece, Angel has an actual connection to the building, since it was where he died in the first place. He’s been haunting it long before Shep bought it and fixed it up. Angel is the type who can’t remember the details of his death; the same goes for his former life. He’s aware that finding those memories would help him to move on and rest, but he’s surprisingly in no rush to do so. Yeah, death is pretty damn limiting in a lot of ways, but it can also give you a few opportunities. Such as, for instance, no longer having to hold your tongue about anything. In that regard, his name is even more ironic, because if you know irl Jay, then you know he certainly doesn’t talk like an angel.
…That said, while Angel doesn’t have much to worry about with most living beings, he can absolutely be harmed by other undead/otherwordly beings. Due to how many of those very entities are drawn to the shop, Angel has been the direct cause of more than one fiasco that Shep has had to handle.
In a similar vein: while Shep is curious about Angel’s death, there truly aren’t many clues about it. Unless you count the vague, flickering shapes that sometimes appear on Angel’s “skin.” It could be a sign of bruises, or scars, or bloodstains, or handprints, or…but then, it’s just hard to make out, even for someone with skills like Shep’s.
In the earlier stages of their afterlives, most ghosts can’t move very far from the place they died. There’s a few different ways to remedy this; one of the most simple ones is for the ghost to siphon energy off of living beings. This is Angel’s personal approach, and thanks to Shep opening the shop, he’s able to do it pretty frequently, although he tries to be careful about it. (After all, it wouldn’t be good for business if the shop’s owner and clientele were constantly falling unconscious within minutes.) That energy only lasts so long, though, and Angel always has to return sooner or later (when he isn’t rushing back in a panic because a more dangerous entity noticed him, at least).
Yes, he’s capable of possessing living bodies (although the results can be varied). And yes, he’s possessed Shep at least once in the past, mainly just to see what would happen. It led to an Incident will live in infamy, and both of them try—and fail—to pretend it never happened. On top of that, he also has limited telekinetic ability, not unlike your average poltergeist (even though that’s bascially the same as him just manually moving things around people who, unlike Shep, can’t see him).
