oldbetsy | Ghosts n' Stuff

[larryface]

Who's that weirdo stalking around the girls' dorm building?

Mutters and dirty looks weren't exactly subtle as they trailed him around campus, but for what it's worth, Larry has long since learned to shrug off dirty looks. At least when they were directed at himself. As it is, the suspicious looks and creeped out muttering go seemingly unregistered as he focuses down on a device in his hands that looks suspiciously like a Gearboy. Occasionally he stops, squeezes down on the shoulder buttons of the game system, then moves on with a deep frown.

There are moments that he has to stop and apologize when he bumps into someone, and more than once they start to yell, at least until they realize that he's already walking away from them after a cursory 'sorry 'bout that'. It's only when he pauses to perch on the back of one of the campus benches to thumb impatiently at his phone that he even stops at all, still looking down with that almost constipated frown and paying no mind to anyone else.

Still with the staring and the stink eye. You'd think they'd never seen a ghost hunter before.

Comments

[oldbetsy]

"What a creep!"

Ah great, here comes Miss Loudmouth. Helga had just plunked her change into the one half-stocked vending machine on her floor when her neighbor rounded the corner with her roommate. The pair were the bane of Helga's college life thus far with their loud enthusiastic chatter cutting through the meager wall between their rooms.

She also knew if she didn't get a jump on it either of the girls would nag her ears off so as she hit the buttons for her salty evening feast Helga cocked a brow upward and called out, "What's got your shorts in a twist?"

Her neighbor rolls her eyes dramatically. "There's this guy outside sneaking around the dorm." She waves her hands as if dismissing this phantom creep, wrinkling her nose at the same time. "What kind of loser tries to catch peeks that way?"

Helga purses her lips at that. She'd been aiming to just veg out in front of her laptop but a guy skulking around outside sounded more entertaining honestly. She wasn't in the practice of picking fights quite so much anymore but what the hell, she might as well do her civic duty and gain some entertainment from it.

So chip bag in hand Helga heads back to her room. Being on the second floor had it's perks and apparently this was one of them... not that many of the other girls would consider it a perk.

She takes a moment to open her bag and then slams her window open like she means business here, starting her shouting before she even gets a look out the window to see if the guy is even still around.

"HEY! TALL, DARK AND CREEPY!"

One arm folded across the window sill still cradling her bag in her hand Helga leans halfway out.

[larryface]

While he'd heard enough of the paranoid commentary from the other girls and their friends around, hearing someone actually calling him out hadn't really occurred to him. But now, Larry cranes his neck to see just who is seemingly yelling right at him. Or at least, he can assume by the description that it's him being yelled at.

He looks a bit bewildered when he catches sight of Helga hanging out of the window, then he gives her a slow sort of smile and peace sign.

"Hey, blondie! You settling in?"

[oldbetsy]

It takes a brief second for it to click but she gives an amused snort once she figures out just who she's yelling at.

"I guess. As much as you in a place that reeks of Bath & Body works." Seriously, warm vanilla sugar should be outlawed when it came to sororities.

With her chip bag open she pops one in and doesn't hesitate to talk at the same time. "You the one creeping out the preps up here?"

[larryface]

"It's that or Axe." The guys living here on campus definitely seem to think that body spray is an appropriate replacement for good hygiene. It makes him glad that he gets to live at home and take his showers there.

He settles down into the seat properly but keeps his head back against the back of it, looking up at her from this upside-down vantage point. He's still holding his phone, but hasn't responded to the text making it buzz in his hand.

"Yeah," he replies easily. Of course he's creeping people out. It's creepy, what he's doing. It's why he'd wanted to just get it done quickly and be off. "Like, not intentionally or anything but yeah I think they hate me lurking around. It's for a good cause though!"

How much to explain, though... Who here would believe he's stalking actual ghosts?

[oldbetsy]

Helga mutters around her mouthful, "Don't remind me." If the girls smell of B&B then they guys who visit are definitely the Axe sort.

Her brows perk up though. A good cause? She seems to mull this over for a brief beat and then rustles around in her bag for another handful before she replies. Her posture is all relaxed lingering like she just hangs out in her window as a normal every day activity.

"Okay, you've got me interested. This a safety exercise or somethin'?"

[larryface]

[Hello again, life keeps happening so much :/]

Larry glances around, catching sight of a few people that are watching their exchange with sour looks on their faces. He pulls a face of his own and cranes to look back up at Helga again.

"Somethin' like that. Get down here and I can tell you about it." To add a bit to the intrigue, he finally holds up the modified Gearboy, which even from a distance would look more like a cobbled together science experiment than any actual tool.

life is such a bastard for real

[oldbetsy]

That does the trick. Helga seemingly could give two shits about the others watching but she gets that not all things can be yelled up at a window. Even if back home it had been a major means of communication in her childhood.

It takes an elevator ride down but Helga appears soon enough. It's sort of a miracle she doesn't come down in pajama pants and sandals when she does finally appear. Instead it's a messy low bun against the back of her hair like she half-heartedly pulled it up in the elevator paired appropriately with a ratty tshirt proclaiming "Historic City Lake" and battered pants with fraying hems around her sneakers.

She's still cradling her chip bag in one hand as she plops down beside him with the casual gracefulness of a buffalo. "So what's cookin'?"

right, the worst

[larryface]

Yelling has never really been a thing that Larry has done without provocation really, and a small neighborhood like his doesn't really lend to it anyway. Walkie Talkies are more his speed.

He wouldn't have blamed her for coming down in joggers and an old tourist shirt really, never really having been one for judgment over other peoples' clothes. Gotta be comfy, man.

Scooting over a little to give her room to spread out on the bench, Larry leans forward with his elbows on his knees, the Gearboy held between his hands as he fiddles with one of the shoulder buttons, the screen flashing and going to static as if the cartridge had glitched. He holds it up and shrugs a shoulder. "Lookin' for weird shit around the dorms. There was some weird stuff on the news a few months ago, y'know?" Overstatement, really; there had been some almost mocking commentary about it on the local news, the kind of thing meant to distract and comfort people that are getting antsy about disappearances or weird shit going down in the next town over, which, in Nockfell, meant around here. "So me and some friends have been poking around. I'm the only one that's on campus here so I'm in charge of...this stuff," he finished lamely, once more looking down at the Gearboy. Its battery light is pulsing faintly. He wrinkles his nose, but he has to ask, just to either get or eliminate leads.

"So uh...seen anything weird? I mean, besides this."

[oldbetsy]

The disappearances. Helga's brow heavily furrows of that and by the darkness of her expression it's easy to guess she knows about them. It's nothing new, mostly a gossip here or there discussing it all or even someone saying they totally knew someone who disappeared.

"I sort of heard about it, sure." That gossip and the news' brief mention being the long and short of it though.

She settles back against the bench itself, rolling her gaze skyward as she rummages through her mind. Weird stuff. She sits so for a few seconds before she looks back to him, brows raised.

"Like what, chupucabra? Or ghost brides?"

[larryface]

"Chupacara's generally an American Southwest thing and ghost brides are a chinese thing, unless there's people here marrying lady corpses so they're not lonely in the afterlife and you're actually thinking of Ladies in White..." He trails off, then amends before it can get weirder, "I have a few friends that take this stuff really seriously."

Larry bites some on the inside of his lip, debating on whether to say more on the subject before she can give him that Look that people do when they think you've dropped a steaming load of bullshit in front of them.

"It's...just... Bad shit's been happening in these parts for a long time, and we've been through some shit and it's all like. Wrapped up in shit we can't explain to anyone else, y'know? So I gotta go around being the weird guy in the way that doesn't connect to the art degree."

[oldbetsy]

Helga makes a slight sound of consideration and that's really the only reaction she has to that. She raises her free hand to scratch at the back of her head and snorts, muttering to herself in clear amusement. "Sounds like Geraldo didn't get his tale about the ghost bride completely right then."

The blonde begins rummaging around in her chip bag once more even as she looks smugly pleased with this latest bit of info. She pauses before she throws another chip in her maw to gesture said chip at Larry then, now looking all intrigued.

"You know, I have heard a few things. Mainly about the library and the dorms here. I figured every place has it's urban legends though. You think that's got anything to do with whatever you all are up to?"

[larryface]

That is clearly not the reaction that Larry is used to. He looks down at the chip she points at him before it disappears into her mouth, then breathes a sigh of relief.

"The thing is, we can't know for sure until we actually look into it, but if it's paranormal and it's hurting people and we're equipped to help, it doesn't feel right not to. Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with the cult stuff but it's still important, right?

"...Oh right, there's cult stuff. And that's a lot, so maybe we can talk about that later?"

[oldbetsy]

The mention of cult stuff stops Helga's attempt to polish off her chips and that brings up more of a "wtf" look than the talk of cryptids ever could.

"Yeah, I'm going to hold you to that one."

Because Hillwood had it's share of ghostly urban legends but even the most malicious of them couldn't be compared to a cult. She doesn't immediately trample down that path because the idea of helping any kind of paranormal thing makes her quirk a brow.

"What, you go passing out exorcisms or something?"

[larryface]

"We're not exactly qualified for that, but we can overload hostile spectral entities so they explode, if that helps."

Larry glances around at the dorm building, then nods his head back at it.

"Get me inside without questions and I'll tell you everything you wanna know."

[oldbetsy]

It's at this point that Helga isn't quite sure what she thinks. Urban legends are one thing but talking about blowing up ghosts is just... well.

She mulls on it a moment though, gaze flicking from that doohickey-whatever Larry's got to the guy himself with clear weighing of the situation going on in her expression.

Then she just as abruptly shrugs her shoulder, balling her bag up in her hands and tossing it over her shoulder into the nearest bin without a second glance. "Sure, the evening was getting pretty dull anyhow. Let's see what we can shake up in there."

Tucking now empty hands in her pockets she leads the way in -- after rummaging in her pocket for her ID of course.

[larryface]

Larry slouches forward with a relieved sigh and lurches upright, grabbing his bag from under the bench and slinging it over his shoulder. Even if she's just humoring him with the hopes of seeing where this goes, he appreciates not being kicked out of the general vicinity for being creepy. Which he knows is fully possible. It's creepy. What he does is creepy.

"Sweet." He follows behind at a short enough distance that it's obvious he's not just following her without being invited. Because that's something people have to worry about on college campuses apparently. He's got the Gearboy held down so it's not super obvious that he's using it, but occasionally his finger twitches on the bumper of it and lets out a little static sound like a walkie talkie.

"So hey, what kinda weird stuff have you seen?" he asks, just hoping to make conversation and not seem quite as weird as they head inside. "Like standard ghosts or weird shadows or...whatever else?"

[oldbetsy]

Helga's ease with the situation probably does wonders too for not making it look too weird. The lobby is mostly empty at least except for one tired looking woman manning the dorm's front desk. And once she flicks her eyes up and catches Helga replying to Larry's question she seems to immediately dismiss any concerns about either of them. Maybe she's having more trouble keeping awake than anything else.

Helga has her hands tucked in her pockets as they wind their way inside and toward the elevators. She stops just as they reach the twin sets of elevators before she gestures her head toward the left one, glancing back at Larry.

"Okay for one? This elevator here. Some of the others around here were talking about it and I sort of shrugged it off. It's got a tendency though of stopping on the fifth floor -- mechanical malfunction, whatever."

She pauses there, poking the up button as she continues.

"It's nothing exactly ghastly I guess but they say one of the girls who vanished was on that floor. Or that's the gossip at any rate. So one night I thought I'd take a trip to the fifth floor, just to see what happens."

And because despite being just a little afraid of ghosts Helga just can't help but nose around sometimes. There was chatter, then the news report and the soft-hearted part of her had mostly wanted to make sure the floor was safe. Y'know, no creeps like Larry skulking around?

[larryface]

"That lines up," Larry replies as he looks over the elevator doors. They look very normal, as does the rest of the dorm building. "This stuff doesn't always have to be ghastly. Sometimes it's just mechanical breakdowns and abandoned buildings. The nasty stuff comes later or it's all underground and stuff."

He won't admit to having nightmares about the stuff that he and his friends encountered, but he is on a pretty steady regimen of sleep aids and other meds these days. Things he's glad he doesn't have to bring up around friends this new.

He steps into the elevator when the doors slide open and immediately prods the button for the fifth floor. His phone comes out of his pocket and he fires off a quick text to let the others in his friend group know that he's finally making headway, then holds up the Gearboy to finally actually explain it on the short ride up.

"So my buddy Todd rigged this up a few years ago. It works with this possessed game-" he flips the system to show the damaged cartridge that they'd labeled with an X in sharpie some time prior, "that can tell us at least when something supernatural's leaving a signature. We've found demonic traces, powered necrolights, enabled contact with stuck spirits, learned ghosts' whole stories with this thing. My buddy Sal's better with it than I am but he's off doing his own thing right now." He sounds a little distracted as he says it, fiddling with the Gearboy and flipping through a glitching menu screen. "If there's anything here at all, this'll pick it up."

quarantine got my sleep schedule all non-existent so don't mind me lol

[oldbetsy]

Helga ends up leaning a little as he talks, first to note that X on the back and then just to watch the glitched out screens as he talks. At first it had been easy enough to wave this off as urban legend or some paranormal interest but she's getting the idea more and more that he's legitimately serious here.

Helga old girl, what kind of people are you meeting?
Ah shaddup, she retorts back to herself. Mentally, of course. Because while a part of her cries skepticism there are also her memories of one hot, sweaty trip to San Lorenzo and all that came with that little excursion.
That was pretty urban legend too -- or maybe just straight-up fantasy. And yet that had legitimately all happened so who was she to start judging what sounded weird and what didn't.

There's about a billion things she could ask in there but all she can really come up with in between her thoughts and Larry's words as she glances over that device of his is, "Stuck spirits, huh." It's said in a thoughtful tone, a little murmured all in all.

The elevator announces aloud in a crisp pre-recorded voice before Helga can comment much more. Fifth floor. And that seems to prompt her to finish up her story.

"So like I was saying, I came up here one night. Creepy vibe right off the elevator but it wasn't until I got near the bathrooms at the other end of the hall that I actually noticed anything."

Shit's fucked rn and I'm right there with you. Also I have work at 1am so that helps?

[larryface]

Helga doesn't say much on the way up, but her tone tells him a lot. Even if she doesn't believe in all of it, she's seen some stuff that she can't explain. That's something, at least. Better than getting told that it's nothing or that he's paranoid.

When the elevator slides to a stop, Larry steps out into the hall and immediately pushes the bumpers on his gadget. It flares a bright green, then goes back to neutral. The hairs on his arms stand up as he creeps further down the hall.

"No murders were in the paper when I went through 'em, but that doesn't mean much," he mutters, glancing around the floor to see if he can even find any caution tape or maybe signs talking about renovations. But maybe that's just his knowledge of the Addison Apartments talking. Not every place can follow that example, right?

...maybe they should look for garbage chutes that shouldn't be there. Just in case.

"What'd you find?" he asks, hoping to get a better idea of what, or who, might be up here. "They don't all cause the same stuff. The little girl in my building made her whole bathroom cold and dark..."

[oldbetsy]

For the most part the floor is pretty quiet. A few of the doors near the elevators have names on them but not as many as one might expect. In fact once one hits midway down the hall the names stop all together. It had struck Helga as strange until she talked to one of the resident hall assistants on one of the other floors.

"No murders but one of the RAs told me there was some water damage up here in-between semesters. Couple of the rooms on the fourth floor don't have anyone in them either." She waves a hand as she snorts, "They probably ought to keep both floor vacant but you know how that works."

She tucks the hand back into her pocket before she continues. "The bathroom down here has a stall that won't stay shut." It sounds so mundane, she thinks, as she glances over to Larry himself. "I tried it myself. You shut the stall door and it'll swing back open. It's sort of slow so I guess it could be the hinges but --"

They've come near the end of the hall and here is apparently a bathroom for everyone on the floor and a study room. With the lights dimmed in both and the way noises near echo off the concrete and tile it's a little creepy in the way any abandoned building of the modern era would be.

This is the part where her tone shifts a touch to something a little tentative. She doesn't doubt herself, not completely, but it's sort of that same tone that always used to creep in when she tried arguing her case to others as a kid. Back when people would just label her a bully and not believe the stuff that happened to her but not caused by her. She can't help it.

"I didn't see shadows or anything but I swear to you it was like someone was whispering something. I couldn't make it out and I pretty much told myself it had to be one of the rooms down the hall but -- this is kind of a ways off from them, right?"

[larryface]

Larry listens without looking around at Helga while she talks, slowly moving up the hall and taking in the little details of the place. "Could just be a backup in the pipes, could be something pissy," he replies reasonably, figuring every option would be valid in this scenario.

At the bathroom he fires off the Gearboy again and waits for a ping to follow the energy.

"Best way to prove your case to someone's to exhaust other possibilities," he points out as he turns around in place. His mouth presses into a line as he fires it off again. "Sometimes vents carry noise and drafts. Sometimes an incorrect mounting or fucked up hinges makes doors drift. My mom's career building maintenance and I kinda learned to look at all of this stuff too, y'know? So I can tell when it's that and not something occupying a space." But he knows that all that could sound like he's being dismissive, so he turns back around to face her fully.

"When I was a kid..." He takes a deep breath, as if steeling himself. "When I was a kid, there was a d- ...something in my apartment building. I thought it was following me for like ten years. Turned out, it was following everyone. It killed some of my neighbors. It. It pulled some more bad shit. So...so you don't have to worry about trying to explain this stuff to me. Because I get it. People didn't believe me when I told 'em about it either. It sucks when people dismiss it offhand."

[oldbetsy]

The more he talks about it the more Helga's expression darkens, her forehead scrunching just a touch in the middle. It's not pity, disbelief or anger but it's something... hard to put one's finger on. It's like anyone with half a heart listening to terrible news.

She's quiet for a moment before she speaks up again in a firm enough voice marked with the typical Pataki conviction behind it (and god, when did she start sounds like Big Bob exactly here).

"That's pretty fucked up."

[larryface]

That kind of reaction and at least lowkey support was something he'd only become used to in high school. He nodded at Helga and headed across the bathroom to take a seat on one of the counters.

"Y'know that stuff that makes you just feel helpless? Like even if you're trying your damnedest it's not like you're ever gonna make a dent in it and trying to help just fucks everything up regardless? This is kinda how I'm trying to break outta that. Mom's always going on about being proactive and stuff, so why not?"

[oldbetsy]

... That's. Well.

For a moment Helga looks way more awkward than she has at any other point this evening. One of her hands rises to the back of her neck again, absentmindedly adjusting the big pink bow wrapped around that messy bun of hers. Before she talks she turns to the stalls, trying to keep the action casual as she starts checking each one.

"Kind of, I guess." Her words come out mumbled, spoken in an almost angry huff. She's only vaguely better now at facing her emotions than she was at eleven, over half a decade spent on a therapist's couch showing some benefits.

"I mean I kind of made a career out of messing everything up when I was a kid." She pushes one stall open, the door sluggish to shut when she goes to the next. It's like she's doing it to kill time because that's exactly what she's doing, one hand in her pocket the whole time. "And when I was older too."

[larryface]

He's starting to feel like he should stop talking at this point. He's gotten too used to just being able to run at the mouth about this stuff and now it's catching up with him. He watches her prodding at the doors under the guise of finding the right one.

"Oh yeah, I've met career shit-starters too. Not saying it applies to you but sometimes there's shit that precipitates that. You ok?" He's sidled up to her side as he says it, the gearboy raised to try and charge whatever might be in the broken stall. Maybe it'll just be something small and explainable. He really hopes that's the case. He doesn't want to have to bother Todd for his sigil codex... "Oh, uh, sometimes when they appear it's super awful so you might wanna not look. Unless you're cool with Cronenberg-style gore effects."

[oldbetsy]

"Huh? Yeah, I'm fine, no worries." She genuinely seems dismissive about it but that's been Helga's modus operandi with emotions for ages. At this second she feels more stupid than anything else, if only briefly. "Sometimes I just start yammering and you know how that goes."

She halts though halfway through opening the next door, finally looking over at him. What flustering there was has died off and she seems happy to abandon the previous subject.

"Videodrome or Dead Zone?"

[larryface]

"Definitely Videodrome, with a hint of Scanners depending on how badly they were disfigured when they died." And now he has a song stuck in his head. Long live the new flesh indeed.

A moment to brace upon reaching the right stall, Larry sets off the gearboy again. He breathes a sigh of relief when it doesn't seem like anything responds. "Huh...could be they need coaxing or something. Megan wouldn't appear at will until she had her necklace nearby."

[oldbetsy]

To her credit Helga doesn't blanch or react more than making a pinched face at that. Good, great. Gory spooks, that's what I need.

She relaxes as Larry breathes a sigh of relief, evidently not finding a thing. That emboldens her a bit once more so when he says coaxing she can't help but snort in amusement.

"What, like asking them to come out or something."

She turns and with usual Pataki bravado now that she's pretty sure this amounts to absolutely nothing she slams back the stall door like she's a loan shark coming to collect a payment.

"HEY PRINCESS! WE AIN'T GOT ALL DAY Y'KNOW!"

[larryface]

Larry winces as Helga starts getting loud, hoping he wouldn't have to try and be a mediator for a confused ghost. He backs up a step and sets off the gearboy again, bracing, and...

It's like a puddle of gore forms in reverse from the floor, tissue flowing upward onto bones as they materialize. a ragged skirt flows into view followed by a dirty blouse with puffed sleeves. It reads as 70s to him, which...well, it seems appropriate to him. Long, lank blond hair and a vacant eyes complete the look of a very much there and unmistakable ghost.

"Uh...uh. Hi?" He never knows how to talk to them when he sees them. That was always his friends' forte. She doesn't seem responsive, though. This explains the lack of ostentatious claims when it comes to hauntings here. She's just kinda here and not doing anything. He lowers his voice and leans toward Helga. "Dude, do you know anything about this? Like...campus stories or whatever? Girl goes missing, gets found in bathroom, stuff like that?"

[oldbetsy]

... Oh. Oh. She just watches at this thing oozes into being like some sort of terrible claymation short. Her early bravado of course flees in the face of this batch of special effects that aren't special or effects at all.

It's not until the thing is completely fleshed out that Helga seems to remember she can move. She grasps a hold of Larry's arm without a second thought like he's her lifeline on this very un-Scooby Doo adventure. And when he leans in to whisper she looks back at him with these round, big eyes.

For a moment she can't get her brain to work, not with the very not ghost-like ghost over there. Once the gears turn her first words are whispered right back and ground out just a little.

"How the hell should I know?!"

And even as she says that her brain scrounges up something. She blinks back at the spook. "I guess... there's some stories about disappearances, sure, but that was years ago.. And all over campus too. Supposed to get us not to go wandering campus at night." That's why RA's even brought them up, yeah?

[larryface]

With Helga's confirmation that she can see the thing, and that she knows of things even if not first- or secondhand, Larry swears under his breath and tucks the gearboy under the arm that Helga's got her vicegrip on. The other hand digs into his pocket for his phone, the ringback already going off in his ear after he'd speed-dialed someone else.

From there it's a one-sided conversation as far as Helga can hear, a confirmation of presences here linked to the old disappearances. It's over quickly, and he turns to her to explain as he snaps his phone shut again.

"I got a bad feeling about those disappearances." There's a grimace on his face as he looks back at the ghost girl. "Maybe it's not related, but I gotta be sure. Nockfell's fucked but maybe nowhere else has to be."

forgive me, i got tangled up in setting up another journal for 500 years

[oldbetsy]

She barely hears the call honestly because holy shit. She hadn't thought anything would actually turn up but here goes reality calling Helga Pataki's bluff once more in prime fashion at that.

Helga can't help the sort of shaky snort she gives. "Yeah, what gave you bad vibes first?". She winches at her own sarcasm though, realizes she's about to break his arm here with her hold and sets him loose as she gives a long sigh.

"I dunno, Nockfell got a lot of disappearances? Could always ask the lady of the night herself." Here she hooks a thumb to Miss Ghost herself.

Welcome back from formatting hell.

[larryface]

"I am the crown prince of bad vibes," Larry replies absently; if he'd noticed the sarcasm, he isn't calling attention to it right this second. He flexes his fingers when his arm is released, a subtle tingling rolling through and fading as the circulation returns.

He steps into the stall and glances around at the somewhat grimy surfaces to see if maybe there was an anchor around the area keeping the ghost there. She wasn't responding to his presence that he could tell at any rate.

"Oh yeah. Teachers, randos, the people that worked in the old saw mill, and those are just the ones we know about."

ty, html and css hate me & i hate them too

[oldbetsy]

"Same." Like, a hard same. If Helga can do anything perfectly in her opinion it's fuck everything up. Therapy helped, sure, and she had changed some but... yeah.

Her expression scrunches up at that. Did he live in the Bermuda Triangle or something? She's still outside the stall herself but she thinks to squat down and peer around the floor for anything.

And as her gaze catches something she recalls the whole cult business he mentioned earlier. It must be real serious then and her stomach squirms a little at the thought.

"Remind me not to come visit." Then, "There's something behind the toilet, on the floor near the base."

[larryface]

Two peas in a fucked up pod, they are. The only difference is that he only believed he was why everything around him was fucking up, when it was just shit beyond his control.

To his credit, he doesn't ask her to come in and help him find anything. He has the experience here, out of the two of them. There's no reason that she should be forced to put herself in danger any more than she already has.

"Why do you think I haven't invited you to come by and meet my friends?" he snorts, craning his head as he crouches down and catches sight of what Helga had noticed. There's a moment that he hopes it's just something dead back there, or maybe something accidentally dropped, but the longer he looks, the more he realizes that it had to have been wedged there deliberately.

"Wish I had some fuckin' gloves," he mutters as he reaches back to try and pull it out.

[oldbetsy]

"Because I'm not the best with people?"

Honestly she hadn't even given it another thought. She was so used to being removed from people's typical friend groups anymore that being that 'one person on the side who isn't quite a friend but you talk to them' isn't that shocking. She chatted with girls in her dorm but she sure wouldn't call any of them friends.

[larryface]

"Shit dude, none of us are," he mutters, "'s why it's just the four of us, plus Neil when he hangs around. Hah, got it."

He plops himself down to sit on the bathroom floor, turning over the little bundled thing in his hands and unwrapping the dirty rag around it. He makes a sad sound upon realizing that he was holding a small book, and as he peeks at the first page, it's obvious it's a diary.

"Man, I don't wanna read this... Probably has evidence for why she's in here, though. Man..."

He pockets it, rather than trying to read the diary in front of the person he assumes is the owner. They could go through it on their own time. The ghost herself doesn't seem to be the violent type, so he's pretty sure they can just leave her here for a little longer.

"C'mon, let's get outta here before people start yelling about a guy in a women's bathroom."

[oldbetsy]

Helga gives an indelicate snort, flapping her hand in a sort of dismissive way. "Like anyone gives a damn."

Still she gets it. Casting a glance to the ghost herself Helga decides she looks more tired and dejected than outright scary, even if she's kind of roughed up around the edges... or more than that. It makes her feel sort of sad but it's an emotion she pushes off with her typical grace.

She hitches her thumb over her shoulder, walking backwards out of the stall for absolutely no particular reason at all, nope.

"C'mon, we'll hit up my room. If you don't want to read it I will." She cracks a faint smirk, though without it's usual sarcastic edge. "I'm kind of an expert on diaries."

She pauses where she stands out of the bathroom stall itself and flicks her gaze to the ghost again. She doesn't point but it's pretty obvious who she's addressing here. "Long as you don't care. I can't imagine you do though." Her tone implies Helga totally gets why she wouldn't either, even if she doesn't know a damn thing about said spook just yet.