Lock happily let Lillith pick him up again and kissed her cheek.
"I've got my fill today," he said with a grin and a flick of his tail. He nuzzled her neck at the mention of the shop. He was about to ask when he remembered his little white lie. "Nah. I'll do it later."
He turned to Carmilla.
"I know you're gonna want to gloat," Lock said, "and it's your funeral if you do, but save the grave-digging for after practice, 'kay?"
Barrel grinned.
"Great! See you after work!"
~~~
It took a while to wash off the end result of her mischief. Shock took three baths to get most of the goop and spider-webs off, but despite her hardest scrubbing, there were still faint traces of the greenish-gray smoke on her skin. She scowled, but at least it wasn’t immediately noticeable. The hot water had soothed the bruises she got in her tumble down the tower, but her body still ached.
Having gotten as clean as she could for the moment, Shock pulled on one of her few spare outfits: an old dress that now better served as a long shirt, as the hem barely covered what it needed to. The collar was torn one one side and had a strap to keep the garment on her shoulder. The ends of the sleeves were torn at the wrists so she could still fit her hands through them. A pair of black shorts and some striped, thigh-high socks, and she was comfortable enough for the moment. Her normal outfit, she scrubbed twice and hung over the side of the tub to dry.
With the trick having gone awry, and not wanting to be seen or available for a while, Shock went to the slide and hoisted herself inside. Once down, she headed for the scorpion room and locked the door. Barrel was out of scorpion duty for today; she needed to get her mind on something else.
Something other than the dull aches and the staring eyes and the laughter and the feelings of discomfort they brought.
Shock saw her plans on the work table. She glared at them, then ran to the table with a scream and started throwing them to the floor and tearing them apart. That trick should have gone perfectly! No one saw her go in! She had everything set up! And then due to the worst possible luck, everything blew up in her face! Shock didn’t even care about the crowds, only that she tried desperately to find something, someone to blame - and she could only come up with her own clumsiness. No one else knew about this trick, not even her brothers. At least...they didn’t know what she was going to do, or when. And she knew they wouldn’t interfere with a planned trick against Jack, because she’d have their damn heads if either of them had anything to do with it.
Once her fury ran its course and the room was now a flurry of torn and scattered paper, Shock settled down. She still shook with anger at her own failure as she gripped the edge of the work table and tried to calm herself. Her bruises ached again with the knowledge that her failure wasn’t even the worst part.
It was the eyes, and the staring. She was sure every monster in Halloween Town was looking down on her and laughing. The laughing, she could handle, but the stares…
The hungry stares, like they wanted more from her. More than her humiliation and failure. More than simple amusement at the irony of getting caught by her own trick. Shock glanced up at the tanks around her. The only other living creatures in the room were her scorpions. Most of them were skittering around their tanks, some fighting, others burrowing in the sand. None of them paid her much mind save for a glance here and there. That calmed her. None of the eyes in the room with her were unfamiliar, and none of them stared.
Still, Shock couldn’t shake the feeling that somewhere, someone was still staring at her. She glanced behind her as if to catch someone, and only saw her wall of preserved pets.
There was nothing else there.
She then glanced at the shelf by the door, where Loki’s tank and many of her supplies stood on the shelf. Shock walked over and carefully opened the tank's lid, then slipped her cupped hand inside for Loki to crawl into. He immediately sensed her apprehension as Shock held him up to curl around her ear. He gently poked her temple with his tail and nibbled on the end of her ear. Shock smiled a little as the scorpion venom stung, then slipped into her veins. It - along with Loki’s love bites and pinches - calmed her down immensely. The scorpion venom would eventually soothe her wounds.
No longer feeling entirely alone, Shock quickly threw her focus into the scorpion tanks. She checked on the ones that had been infected first to get an update on their health. The healing salve had done a great job, but many of them needed another dose. Shock took them out one at a time, individually inspected them, gently rubbed some of the salve on their shells, and placed them back in the original, now-sanitized tank. After that, she set about her usual routine of feeding, milking venom, separating any that got too violent with each other, checking the tanks she set aside for harvest, and looking for any new mothers to separate into their own tanks to keep an eye on the developing scorplings.
Time passed. While Loki’s gentle bites and pinches remained a constant reminder that she wasn’t alone, Shock still felt wary and uneasy. In the back of her mind, she swore she sensed another presence.
That something still stared.
Ever since Oogie’s passing, it had been an unspoken rule that no one liked being down in the lair alone. Perhaps it was the unpleasant memories of working for the boogieman, the threats of being made into stew if they failed him, and the twisted joy they felt upon completing a task, but always with the thought of failure at the back of their minds. Perhaps they felt Oogie never truly left, that it was haunted. Perhaps some part of them still revered the lair as a sacred, unholy ground to be tread upon with care.
Shock reached up to pet Loki and shoved the thought back. If there was anything down here, he would notice. While she knew her favorite pet could sense her uneasiness, that he was calm himself soothed her. That none of the other scorpions seemed bothered further eased her mind and let her believe that it was her mind playing tricks on her, that perhaps this place simply held too many foul memories to ever truly reclaim it. Calmer now, Shock started to pick up the torn pieces of her failed plans to dispose of.
As Loki gently nibbled on her ear, she briefly envied him. Loki’s world consisted of his tank, food, the tricks she taught him, and their special bond since he was born and showed devious promise as the runt of the brood and outsmarted some of his siblings to get more food. Such a simple creature, having never dealt with the pain and memories and complicated emotions about the lair, or the drudgery of day-to-day life in Halloween Town, or the complex relationships with other monsters or the horror of growing up while everything else stood still. Even more, Loki had never lived his life as a tolerated outcast. He had only ever known her love and devotion, and always lived in relative comfort. Shock gently stroked his shell with a brief smile. Like all her pets, she ensured he had a good life, because something in the lair should have one. The wall of her preserved pets served as trophies that Oogie’s influence couldn’t taint everything down here.
The area cleared, Shock threw the papers away and took a seat at the work table. She then pulled out her ledger to start with the drollest part of her work: checking debts, tracking supplies, and figuring out how to compensate the harvest schedule now that she was behind. While she and her brothers sometimes traded favors for things that they needed, and Lock and Barrel sometimes scoured the forest and sewers for things other monsters found too troublesome to gather themselves, the scorpion business was their quickest, greatest source of income. The infected tank was definitely going to set them back.
She still felt the staring eyes on her as she worked. Shock tried to push that niggling sense away and just focus on the numbers before her. The more she stared, the less sense they made. They even blurred together. Her body still felt stiff and ached. Sitting still, the last of her adrenaline drained as all of the day’s events finally started to weigh down on her now that she wasn't busying herself with scorpion work. Shock rested her head in one hand and stifled back a yawn. She briefly thought of going upstairs, but already her mind felt hazy and weary. She looked back down at the ledger.
Maybe just for a moment…
Shock closed her eyes. Loki still obediently clung to her ear and gently pinched. A moment later, Shock’s arm slipped. Her head fell into the crook of her elbow and curled into it like a pillow. Loki felt her pulse even out. He pinched her ear, but Shock didn’t move. He nuzzled his head against her neck and settled down himself as he recognized Mom was exhausted. He was content to curl up where he was and rest with her.
For a long while, Shock slept, quiet and still. A shadow formed behind her. None of the scorpions paid it any mind. Having been raised here, down in the lair, they knew its presence like their own tails. The eldest trickster shuddered in her sleep as the shadow moved closer to her. Her movement alerted Loki, who looked up at the shadow.
“No need to fear, little scorpion,” it said as it reached a dark hand towards him. Slowly, the shadow became flesh and lightened into a soft, pale gray. The shadow cupped its palm near Shock’s ear to let Loki step down. “You know I won’t harm her.”
Loki chittered, then stepped into the shadow’s hand. The shadow gently stroked his shell, then brought him back to his container. The shadow then plucked a beetle from one of Shock’s jars to give to Loki to munch on. Her favorite scorpion safe and content, the shadow moved back to Shock. She shuddered again, but stilled as the shadow carefully picked her up and cradled her in its arms like an overgrown child. Loki glanced up only once to ensure Shock was fine, then went back to his beetle.
The door to the scorpion room unlocked by itself and opened. The shadow carried Shock across the hall to Oogie’s old bedroom. The door creaked open on its own. The trio rarely ventured in here, save for an occasional private moment to collect one’s thoughts. Lock and Lillith had their fun in here once, but swore to never do it again after noticeable feelings of discomfort. Lock even guiltily cleaned the sheets afterward, which was why they weren’t covered in dust like so many other items in the room. The massive bed waited in a twisted frame. The springs in the mattress were delightfully uneven, the comforter thick and worn. It held a patchwork of card suits and skulls.
Carefully, the shadow set Shock down on the bed and gently crossed her arms over her chest like a corpse waiting for burial. It even chose the springs carefully to dig into her back, not unlike her favorite floorboard up in the tree house. She comfortably settled in, but stilled again.
“Rest, child,” the shadow said. “We’ll meet again soon enough.”
With that, it morphed into the darkness and disappeared.
