In The Dark of the Night [Eight]

It was a nice, quiet evening in the Peristylium Suzaku… aside from the storm raging on outside, an ill omen of things to come. But still, even with the storm, the atmosphere around the school felt calm and pleasant. Everyone had finished dinner and either retired to their room for the night, or they were relaxing in one of the many common rooms spread out throughout the school. A few were sitting by the windows in the hall, gazing outside at the flashes of lightning that appeared every so often, and some were peacefully studying in the library. It was a picture of pure bliss, and Cater almost felt bad for being the one disturbing force that was going to ruin someone’s evening. Almost. But not really. She was completely within her rights with what she was about to do. She’d given him a fair warning, and he’d ignored it. Cater wasn’t going to let anyone mess with her, not even her own friends.

With that thought in mind, the redhead walked quietly along the halls of the school with a set of hair pins she’d borrowed from Cinque earlier, heading straight for Jack and Eight’s room. Her beef wasn’t with Jack tonight, but with Eight, surprisingly. It wasn’t that she was out for blood or anything, but she had warned him that if he didn’t give her pencil back, she was going to come get it herself. He hadn’t given it back today, so here she was, about to take back what was hers. She wondered if the boys were in right now, or if they were out for a few more hours. It didn’t matter either way, if they weren’t in, she was just going to let herself in. Was it against the rules to break into another student’s room? Hell yes. Did Cater care? Hell no. Eight had decided his fate by ignoring her request last night. He was going to have to bear the consequences of it now.

It took a little while to get to their room, considering she was walking at a slow pace and occasionally stopped to chat with people who happened to be out at that time as well, but after a solid fifteen minutes of leaving her room, she arrived in the dark corridor leading to the boy’s room. Hairpin at the ready, Cater decided to knock first. She wasn’t completely without manners, and she wasn’t the best lockpick around, so if she could avoid getting down on her knees to mess with a lock she knew nothing about, she would take that chance. A sudden flash of lightning appeared through the window, followed by a loud noise as the thunder hit the ground somewhere. She turned around to look out the window for a second before turning back to the door, fist ready for knocking. On the door. Not on Eight. Unless Eight refused to let her into the room, in which case she wouldn’t mind physically throwing him aside. Or attempting to anyway… considering Eight was much stronger than her, physically. As soon as her fist hit the door, another thunderbolt echoed through the halls. It was loud enough that she wasn’t sure whether whoever was in at the moment had even heard her. “Eight?” she called in a bored, neutral tone of voice. Another flash of lightning and more noise followed immediately after. Looks like the storm was getting worse.

Tagged : Cater | Words : 600-ish | Notes : IT RETURNS

Finally, Eight had escaped another day of those things that other people called classes but that he called a few minutes of prison a day. While most students - better students - might have gone to the library or decided to study together, Eight didn't have any of those kinds of plans. After raiding his way through the food left in the cafeteria, he'd started heading back in the direction of his dorm, hands stuffed in his pockets. Nope, Eight wasn't doing any of that silly studying stuff tonight, even if people could kind of sort of talk him into it sometimes. Tonight, he was getting some alone time with his good friends left eyelid and right eyelid, because Jack wasn't going to be in their room doing Jack things and making too much noise for Eight to get all the sleep he wanted. Plus, it was raining outside, and everyone knew the best time to sleep was when rain was hitting against the roof. Okay, the best time to sleep in this school was anytime Eight could get it, but the rain helped too. The rain sounded like it agreed, since he heard a huge thunder clap about the time he got to his door and peered up at the ceiling with a raised eyebrow. This storm needed to calm down a little bit.

But Eight unlocked his door and slipped in, stopping when he was halfway in to crane his neck and make sure his blond, katana-toting buddy hadn't escaped from the commander's grasp yet. Nope, the room was completely empty, as far as Eight could tell. With a little "heh heh" at the sight of the room totally empty and quiet (and completely and totally messy, as it always stayed), Eight shuffled right on in and kicked the door shut behind him, locking it to make sure no one bothered his sleeping once he got around to it. Eight had to take care of first things first, though. He'd been in the training room early in the day, so he obviously didn't smell the best in the world. A man couldn't go sleeping for like fourteen hours straight without smelling good, and Eight was set on smelling good himself even if the rest of the room looked like a pigsty around him. Still looking eager to get to things, he kicked off his boots haphazardly towards the side of his bed and, shamelessly, started throwing off his uniform piece by piece as he went towards the bathroom, as only a martial artist could - a kick to toss off one leg of his pants, a fling to get rid of his cape, a quick sweep of both hands to get rid of his shirt. By the time he got to the door, all of the clothes were gone somewhere near his and Jack's massive pile of dirty clothes, and Eight stepped into the bathroom already singing some song to himself. "I got youuuuuu where I want youuuuuuuuu~" He didn't even know any more lyrics, he remembered, but the ones he did know sounded good enough for an early evening shower.

He hopped right in before forgetting to get the water from being freezing cold and, still singing the same line, danced around the stream of water with a few odd whoops whenever the coldness of it hit him. After some time of that and trying to get the water feeling right, he finally settled into his shower, suddenly remembering another line from the same song. "Heeeeeeeeeeeeey~" Well, it wasn't really a line, he decided, but he mumbled out something to add to it that sounded good. "I think you're smaaaaarteeeeeeeeee heeeeeeey...tell me your smaaaaaart thiiiiings~" And so his shower would carry on for the next few minutes, uneventfully.

His name called at the door would be too quiet for him to hear as he stepped out of the shower and started drying off, forgetting to turn the water off until after he'd almost jumped nimbly into some fresh boxers and pants. He finally did it, though, and started working on his shirt, blissfully ignorant that anyone outside wanted him. Nope, he was still trying to think of those song lines, mostly because he didn't want to do any real thinking.

Tagged : Eight | Words : 580 | Notes :

A few minutes passed by, and no response came from the other side of the door. Cater impatiently tapped her foot against the floor and crossed her arms as she decided to wait just a few more seconds. It figured Eight wouldn’t open the door though, that damned wuss. Or maybe it was Jack that had decided to be a douche and leave her standing here looking like an idiot. “Eight!” she growled again, but still no answer. Maybe he just wasn’t in… That thought made her grit her teeth and pull her leg back before sending it forward hard enough that the door actually shook a little in its hinges as she kicked it as hard as she could. Dammit, now she had to go and force the lock open… and she wasn’t that great at lockpicking either. This was going to be a long night. Of course, she could just give up and come back tomorrow, but what message would that send? It would be a sign of weakness if she didn’t make good on her promises, Eight (and everyone else) would never take her threats seriously if she didn’t act on them. And so she got down on one knee before awkwardly working the hair pins into the lock, which didn’t initially go as planned as one accidentally slipped from her grasp just as a few students happened to wander by. Whatever they were going to say about the weirdo trying to break into an innocent schoolmate’s room died on their lips when they heard the angry muttering and noticed the deep, horrible scowl that was currently etched into her face. Why hadn’t Eight just given her the damn pencil back when she asked him to? It would’ve saved both of them a lot of trouble.

It was hard to really see much of anything in this dark corridor, but thankfully the lightning flashes were bright enough that, whenever one appeared, she had a few seconds to look around the floor before having to go at it blindly again. “Ehehehehe…” she laughed to herself when her hand finally found the object in the dark room. “Yes… good… come to Cater…” she whispered and brought the hairpin up to the lock once more. This time, the two tiny accessories did their job and slid into the lock. Alright… what now? For a moment, all she could do was stare at the lock in confusion. She’d seen people do this before… uh… you just moved the pins around until they… did… something, right? Probably. No one on TV ever seemed to struggle with it, so why should she?!

Just like they did on TV, Cater started to wiggle her fingers – and with it the pins – around in the lock, she wasn’t sure what she was actually doing, but it felt right, so she just stuck with it for now. By now, word must’ve spread around that this corridor housed a creepy burglar, because fewer people walked by each time. Initially, a few small groups would walk by every so often and they all gave her odd looks as they passed by. But slowly but surely, the numbers had dwindled. It went from a small, staring and judging group, to a group that just quietly slithered by, to maybe one or two people who actively avoided eye contact… to no one. Absolutely no one had passed by in a while, which was good. The fewer witnesses she had, the better.

Tagged : Cater | Words : 600-ish | Notes : IT RETURNS.

Eight thought - thought - he heard some thunder that sounded really close while he finished sticking his shirt on over his head...or maybe it was his door being knocked off the hinges. Whatever the sound was, it was so loud that Eight stopped his song mumbling for a few seconds and stretched out his ear to listen for it again. He only stayed listening for a couple of seconds before he decided, naaah, it was nothing, and went on with his humming and mumbling, getting the last bit of his outfit back on. It was about high time he got in that bed and caught him enough sleep to last anyone else about five months, especially if all it was gonna do outside was rain and lightning and thunder and all those things that kept people from actually wanting to do anything...and kept girls inside buildings with most of their clothes on, which made everything completely boring. He shook his head at the idea of there being nothing to look at, looked down at himself, and realized he looked...pretty okay for someone about to go asleep (which meant terrible for someone not about to go to sleep). Right, it was high time he got to that bed.

He practically jogged out of the bathroom, leaving everything still scattered, and made for his bed, sliding into the side of it on his back. Once he shifted into place, he found it perfect, just like he left it - the covers all pulled back and messed up, his pillow rolled up to the side, and the mattress with a dent in it right where Eight usually slept. He did always wonder why people did that crazy thing to their bed where they pulled all the covers back up and made the pillows neat and everything. They should have known they were just going to end up going back to sleep again that same night - it was crazy business. But Eight wasn't crazy, so he just settled back into the bed, pulled the covers up lazily, and dropped his head onto the pillow to sleep forever. Or...well, he would sleep forver in a second. He popped his head up with his eyebrows knit, trying to figure out why the heck his room sounded like it was clicking. The heck was that rain doing outside. Eight half-scowled at the windows before remembering that scowling took energy, deciding he'd just ignore the stupid rain making all of that noise and go to sleep anyway. It wasn't like a little clicking was going to keep him awake, anyway!

He dropped his head back down onto his pillow and sighed out loud. "You worked hard, Eight! You deserve this,", he told himself, despite the fact that he really hadn't done much, if any, schoolwork in the past few days and didn't plan on doing some anytime soon. He started to try and drift off without the clicking bothering him, because who the heck cared what was going on with the rest of the world when there was sleep to be had. But, in the back of his mind, a warning from the day before that he couldn't really remember but that he knew he should be worried about came into his mind, keeping him awake for a bit longer as he tried to figure out what it was...

Tagged : Eight | Words : 1123 | Notes : I think we're caught up, actually!

This was turning out a lot harder than she’d thought. No matter how much she wiggled her fingers around, the lock just wouldn’t budge. “Dammit…” Cater cussed quietly to herself before pulling the pins out of the lock and glaring at them menacingly, maybe fear would help them cooperate. Yeah right. Her already sour mood became even worse when the door refused to cooperate with her, and by now her expression was just pure irritation. There were no more moments of occasional smiles, no… Cater was just pissed. “Dammit, open!” she growled and grabbed onto the door handle and pulled it up and down a few times tentatively, maybe Eight and Jack had been foolish enough to leave the door unlocked, and that’s why she had no success in forcing the lock. …Nope. The door was definitely locked. With gritted teeth, Cater repeated the same pulling on the handle and cussing quietly to herself for a few moments before coming to her senses and realizing she was just wasting time here. By now, she’d simply sat down on the ground, since kneeling for a long time made her knees ache a little. The redhead huffed and pulled her legs up to her chest as she stared at the closed door and tried to come up with a way to open it. Maybe she should just try the window. Their windows were usually open, and Cater was small enough to squeeze in… but it was raining. People didn’t leave their windows open during a rainstorm, did they? Eight and Jack might actually, not because they were stupid or anything (well…) but because they were forgetful types. It was definitely up their alley to leave some of the less noticeable windows open even with weather like this raining down upon them. Should she try? It was wet and cold outside, but she could just sprint around the building real fast, hopefully that would ensure she wouldn’t get too wet with the rain.

That was definitely plan B. But before she stepped out into the cold, potentially for no reason since fate would obviously have it that all the windows were closed, she just wanted to try the door one more time. Cater took a deep breath to calm herself down a little and then stuck the pins into the lock one last time. She wringed and pressed and pulled and did whatever she thought would work, but no matter how hard she tried, the lock wouldn’t budge. “Uuurgh!” she growled loudly and in a low, unlady-like tone before standing up and giving the door one last earth shatteringly hard kick. Her kick was immediately followed by an equally loud roar of thunder. Apparently the weather agreed with her mood. Grumbling to herself, she stuck Cinque’s hairpins into her pocket and stomped over to the door leading into the garden. Dammit Eight, why couldn’t he have just given it back? Why? Her already dirty look soured even more when she reached the garden door and opened it, a harsh wind almost knocked her over, and the rain was bad enough that even just standing in the doorway, she felt her shirt getting damp. What was she doing here? Was she really going to go outside in this weather, risk getting electrocuted by the lightning, probably catch a cold while she was at it so she could break into a friend’s room just because he hadn’t returned her pencil? How important could a pencil be, really? She still had plenty of pencils left, so what was the big deal? But then, this wasn’t about the pencil anymore. This was about making sure people wouldn’t make empty promises to her. This was to show people she was not to be messed with. This was about making a statement, and by Etro, she was going to make one hell of a statement tonight.

With renewed resolve, Cater finally braved the terrible weather by stepping outside and closing the door behind her. Just to be sure, she checked whether the door could be opened from the outside, and it turned out that it could. …She wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or worried that anyone could enter this building at this hour. But oh well, it worked out in Cater’s favor tonight, so she wasn’t complaining. It took less than three seconds before she was completely soaked, no matter how hard she ran to get to the window. Well darn, thankfully there was no one around to see her though. And she’d done a good job scaring people away from the hallway connecting to Eight’s room, so she’d hopefully be able to climb in through the window, get her pencil, write a note declaring she had been in the room (because otherwise, what was the point of this whole endeavor) and then walk back out through the door and rush back to her room to get a shower and get changed. By then, she was sure to be exhausted, and had nice long rest waiting for her. But first things first; the window. Or a window really, Cater wasn’t picky. When she arrived at Eight’s room however, she was sorry to say that she’d been right in thinking the windows would be closed just to spite her. This wasn’t the only side that had windows though. As she passed by the window, the moonlight cast a large shadow into the room, but Cater herself didn’t bother looking inside as she continued to search for an opening. And at last, there it was! The bathroom window was open! Obviously the window was too high to see into, otherwise some pervert might try to sneak a peek, but if she jumped and pulled herself up, she should be able to make it.

Just as she prepared herself to jump however, a strange chill ran down her spine and back up, and for a moment, Cater felt that her body refused to move. The air seemed to get thicker, and a horrible sense of dread washed over the redhead as she stared at the wall. A flash of lightning filled the sky… and with it, a shadow was cast over her own. Cater gasped in horror before turning around to see just who that shadow belonged to. As soon as her eyes landed on the small, pale figure in the distance, her eyes widened and she instinctively pressed herself back against the wall. Oh no, so that’s why the door hadn’t been locked… But what was he doing here? Surely there was nothing to clean out here, in the garden, in the dark, during a thunderstorm…? At long last Cater had found something that genuinely frightened her, and his name was Mister Astley.

Tagged : Cater | Words : 626 | Notes : Sorry for the delay - Eight needed a muse recharge.

....The heck was that rattling sound coming from?

Despite getting all nice and cozy and wanting badly to just stay fixed in place and ignore the world around him, Eight couldn't really ignore the sound that kept reaching his ears - he'd heard it a few seconds before, and now he was hearing it again. The first time had forced him to pop one eye open to look around the bed, but this second time, he grumbled a little and sat up in the bed to peek at the room around him. He couldn't...figure out where the noise was coming from, but it was annoying and daring to keep him from his wonderful, perfect nap time. Eight searched everything in the room like he was on patrol even though he'd never paid attention to any of the commander's lectures on sharp patrols, but...okay, nothing...weird was going on. The monk frowned deeply at the room in general to warn it not to make any more noises and put his head back down on the pillow. The smile returned to his face almost instantly as he hit the soft, fluffy goodness, and he started to doze.

Bam.

Eight could have rolled off of the bed, but he only rolled defensively onto his back and got tangled up in the covers enough that he had to punch and kick at them for a few seconds to get himself decently loose. Okay, something really weird was going on in this room, and that noise was the loudest one so far. Someone...was doing something dirty, or the room was...trying to get him not to sleep because it missed him or something. Since the second option didn't exactly sound all that sensible, Eight guessed someone was trying to play a trick on him. He was roommates with Jack, after all, and Jack was only smart when it came to bothering other people. Eight cut his eyes to the corners. "...Alright, Jack, you better stop!" He got no answer and scrunched up his nose. "I am going to nap no matter what you do! Why don't you go...find...something to eat or something." Again, there was no answer. Jack couldn't have been quiet if he was the one making all the noise, so now Eight was getting really concerned about what was going on. Against every muscle in his body, he grumpily threw off the covers and started sliding out of bed to investigate further.

He kind of sort of thought the sounds were coming from the door first, and he trudged over cautiously towards it and placed his ear against it. There wasn't a sound like anyone on the other side, so Eight pawed a little at the handle and opened it to peek out, only his eyes and the top of his head visible. No one stood outside. Okay, there was one place checked out. Eight quietly shut the door and walked deeper into the room to check his closet, then Jack's closet, in the same way he'd checked the door. No one was in either closet, so Eight just turned with his hands on his hips and let his shoulders heave with a frustrated breath. "Thissssss," he said to himself, not knowing what he was actually planning to say. About the only other place that would make any sense for a noise like the one he'd heard was maybe the bathroom. Eight had just been in the bathroom, and he kind of hoped there was no one in there...aside from...a girl who wasn't Kayla. But, it could never hurt to check. Grumbling something wordless again, he walked back towards the bathroom and stepped inside to check the place out.

Tagged : Eight | Words : 1405 | Notes : \o/

With a completely stoic expression, Cater stared at the man that gave her sleepless nights from time to time, hoping that if she showed no fear, he would go away and leave her be. Why she was this scared of Astley, she couldn’t tell you. It wasn’t like the janitor had ever done anything to her aside from mopping her shoes when she stood in the spot he wanted to clean, and slissing like a snake with each word her spoke. …and the dark soulless eyes obviously didn’t help, but other than those things he was just an old man. Cater wasn’t scared of old men, so why should she be scared of this old man? “Evening,” she tried to sound confident, but her words were laced with terror, and rather than coming out as a booming, almost manly voice, she simply squeaked them out before clasping a hand over her mouth. Oh crap, now he knew she was scared! Because the deer in headlight eyes hadn’t done the trick here. He said something to her, but the only thing she could make out over the sound of rain was a quiet ‘ssss’. OH ETRO NO HE WAS MOVING. “Stay away from me…!” she reached down for her gun, only to come to the terrible finding that she had left her gun in her room, “Get back you devil!” she squeaked pathetically, and took a step backwards, her back now fully pressed against the wall. She had to get out of here. She had to run or Mister Astley was going to get her and she was going to die and oh god she didn’t want to die! Not like this! Not with a mop shoved down her throat or whatever other means he had to brutally murder people. Her eyes danced all over the place as she tried to come up with an escape route. Astley was in front of her, so that direction was cut off. Going to the right would lead into the garden, to the left was salvation, but Astley’s direction was kind of veering to the left… if she slipped on the wet grass, it would all be over because he was close enough that he’d probably be able to grab her if he hurried his pace a little. And she could totally see him suddenly break out into superspeed like those fiends in horror movies tended to do. Behind her was a wall, so that obvio- wait a second. Peeking up and looking back at Astley in less than three seconds time, she remembered the window she’d planned to use to get into Eight’s room before. As always, Cater’s thoughts tuned out and she focused entirely on what her body, now full of adrenaline, wanted her to do.

The act of turning your back on your potential attacker carried a heavy risk, but the prize was freedom and salvation. Eight’s windows were closed, and not even Mister Astley would be able to open them from the outside… or she hoped he couldn’t. He was also too small and frail to jump up and hoist himself in through the tiny bathroom window as well, and he couldn’t phase through walls last she checked, and Eight and maybe even Jack were in there so even if he did manage to get in, it would be three against one. Surely they’d be able to win that fight? Jumping once, her hand slipped off the wet window sill and she ended up landing on the grass again. “Come on come on come on…” she whimpered helplessly before bending her knee and jumping as high as she could again. Her hand slipped once more and Cater honestly felt like crying right now. Astley had to be pretty close by now… but she didn’t dare turn around and look, she needed to focus on escaping, and there was little time left for that. One final brave grab for the window did the trick, but although she would’ve usually laughed and cheered for herself for getting the job done, she remained completely silent now as she put all the strength she possessed into pulling herself up while her feet slipped and slided along the wall on the climb up. As soon as she managed to get her elbows up on the window sill, she started to frantically drag her entire body through the tiny opening. Now that she was almost safe, the redhead dared a peek over her shoulder, and the sight below was one she wouldn’t soon forget. Astley stood right below her, staring up at her with those soulless eyes and an arm holding a mop stretched above his head, poking at her feet as though he tried to clean the mud from underneath her shoes. What was up with this monstrous man? At long last she managed to push herself through the window, but her landing wasn’t as gracious as it usually was. With nothing to hold onto anymore, Cater slipped through the window and crashed down into the shower. On the way down, she made a daring grab for the shower curtains, which weren’t as strong and capable of supporting her weight as she would’ve hoped, and with a lot of horrible tearing and crashing noises, Cater tore the shower curtain off from where it had been hanging, only to have it fall on top of her in a disturbingly quiet fashion.

Rather than try to crawl out from underneath the shower curtain, Cater remained perfectly still. That fall had hurt quite a bit, but not nearly enough for her to go make a sound in case Astley really did have wall-phasing abilities. She’d be safe under this curtain… he couldn’t see her here… he couldn’t find her here… it was safe. But then she heard footsteps and she almost whimpered again. The redhead was this close to curling up in a ball and calling her mommy. Arecia would probably be ashamed to see what was supposed to be her bravest child lying on a bathroom floor, covered in a shower curtain like this, but if the older woman were perfectly honest, she’d admit that being afraid of Astley was one of those few genuinely rational fears. Glancing up, she could vaguely make out a short figure standing by the doorway. Had she been thinking clearly rather than acting on impulse, she would’ve realized the figure belonged to the very person she’d been trying to visit, that douchebag that had stolen her pencil and put her in this spot; Eight. But her mind was so focused on Astley that all she could see was the old man. Astley wasn’t tall or broad either, and his silhouette looked similar enough to Eight’s from underneath the curtain. Alright then… she couldn’t climb back up through the window, and Astley blocked the only exit route.

…fine. If she was going to die tragically, she might as well go down fighting. Scrambling to her feet with the curtain still covering her, she broke into a sudden dash her arms held out in front of her. Pushing wouldn’t be enough, she’d need to use everything in her power to take the man down and make sure he stayed down long enough for her to run out the room and to another part of the building. A part that actually had people in it. There was strength in numbers after all. “RAAAAARGGGHHHHH!!” she growled almost animalistically as she stormed at the figure standing by the door, and once she got close enough, she launched herself off her heel and jumped the last bit, resembling a dragoon more than had been her intention. With the curtain around her arms she tackled and wrapped the fabric around Astley’s face, making sure it was tangled up enough that even he wouldn’t be able to escape easily. The impact knocked them both over, and Cater took this opportunity to firmly plant her knees on either side of his hips while her hands went about fixing the curtain in place. That’s right fool! Don’t mess with Cater, don’t you ever mess with Cater! She thought bravely, but at the same time she felt tears of terror burning in her eyes. Thankfully there was no one around to see this mess of a display, though even if they did, who could blame her for reacting to Mister Astley this way? No one, that’s who.