Hannibal's house, Thursday

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal	Hannibal had gotten no sleep at all the previous night. At first because of the nagging feeling that someone was watching him - he had very good instincts, and had learned to trust them. And later, because said watcher had finally become too prominent to ignore. And if some damn ghost thought he was giving up his body, he was in for a nasty surprise.
Bob	Bob had over a thousand years of stubbornness on his side, not to mention actual knowledge of magic and possessions. He also had over a thousand years of learned patience, though, and he wasn't above biding his time. And, it turned out, he had no idea how to work half the things in Hannibal's house. (Hannibal? Who named a child "Hannibal" these days?)
Hannibal	It was a respected family name, thank you. And if "Bob" didn't like it, he could damn well leave! Hannibal didn't mind sharing a bit - he did that regularly with Jono, after all - but this was his life, damn it!
Bob	Really? Now, sharing (as a foothold) wasn't a bad thought. Maybe just a day or two, to let a poor, condemned soul experience a bit of life?
Hannibal	Hannibal might be young in comparison to his visitor, but he had hardly been born yesterday. But sharing (as a stopgap to figure out how to get rid of him) was certainly an option.

So yes, eventually they'd come to a bit of an agreement. Or a stalemate, depending how you looked at it. Currently, Hannibal was cooking his lunch and listening to Lucia di Lammermoor and doing his level best to politely ignore his passenger. Bob was enjoying the smells and the music.

Comments

[nuclear_snide]

Bob rolled his eyes. "Overdramatic wanker."

Utterly lacking in subtlety or finesse, Hannibal agreed.

[furnaceface]

Jono gave them both a look that involved one raised eyebrow and a wrinkled nose. Overdramatic, yes, but what he lacked in subtlety and finesse, he made up for in completely overpowering Jono.

His pride had been a bit dinged back there.

//This could get messy,// he noted. //If he's strong enough to cause small earthquakes. Should I just try three in rapid succession and hope for the best, or...//

Jono suspected Hannibal wanted his house to continue standing, today.

[sharp_as_knives]

He did, yes. And after a bit of mental...strenuous disagreement? Grumbled and took a mental step back.

[nuclear_snide]

Bob stretched and drew a few more glyphs, this time on the floor, and the shaking subsided. "A bit of shaking takes surprisingly less power than you'd think. This one's simply all about the dramatics."

[furnaceface]

//... So, you mean to tell me that he's all bluster,// Jono deadpanned. //Because what this says to me is that he can shake a house without any effort at all, and you expect me to take that as though it's no big deal at all.//

If shaking a house was no big deal, what in the world could Betelgeuse accomplish if he put his mind to it?

[nuclear_snide]

"No," Bob answered in an aggrieved tone, "what I'm expecting you to do is not to be intimidated by the trappings. He isn't all bluster, but he's counting on the bluster to rattle you. Don't let it." He looked Jono over. "Honestly, with an aura like yours, I'd expect a bit more backbone - OW!"

And that was Bob muttering about honest opinions, and Hannibal being simultaneously very smug and rather annoyed.

[furnaceface]

//It has less to do with backbone, and more to do with how badly Hannibal wants to keep his house standing,// Jono countered, giving his shoulders a roll. //Especially if he leaps in last second and takes me over again. Do you really want him at large and angry with a near-bottomless reserve of nuclear power at his disposal?//

Bob, you could see that aura. Imagine that asshole in charge of it, and actually feeling inclined to use it.

[nuclear_snide]

"As opposed to at large and already angry with nobody to control him at all?" Bob pointed out. "Just say it!" He leaned close to look Jono in the eye. "Do you think we'd be getting any reaction if this didn't stand a chance of working?"

Then he jumped a bit as if jolted.

[sharp_as_knives]

"If he tears down my house, I'll make 'Bob' fix it," Hannibal said drolly. "And he isn't wrong about that last part."

[furnaceface]

Jono was once again eyeing the both of them. But now he was at least giving a grudging nod of his head.

//Fair point,// he replied. //Well then... brace yourselves, I suppose.//

He squared his shoulders again, gave a quick scan of the area with his telepathy - not that he figured it would do him any good - and tried again.

//Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Be-- HNNGH.//

Well, that was a lot of snake teeth in his shoulder, right there. And they were all connected to the biggest, most horrifying rattlesnake Jono had ever seen.

[nuclear_snide]

And that would be a very bright bolt of greenish energy spearing into said snake, to hopefully knock him back. Not as strong or as focused as it might have been, maybe, but then Bob's attention was divided between that and urgently querying Hannibal for the location of the nearest iron.

Fireplace irons, skillet, some fixtures, Hannibal answered promptly, eyeing the snake warily.

[makemymilennium.livejournal.com]

The snake let go of Jono's shoulder, twisting his head as he did so in an attempt to leave as much damage behind as he possibly could, and reared back to hiss at the one who had thrown the energy at him in the first place.

His tail rattled angrily.

"Asshole," the snake spat, impressively eloquently for a snake as he watched the human -- and the fellow ghost -- carefully. "What the hell do you care what I do with this meatbag, huh?"

[nuclear_snide]

"Me?" Bob raised an eyebrow. "I don't care at all." Except for the whole hating sleazebags who took people over and...well never mind! "However my gracious host here rather cares for him." He shrugged. "And I don't like your face."

He summoned the poker and tongs to him, then pushed a bit of energy into the poker and tossed it to Jono.

[makemymilennium.livejournal.com]

"Aw, now, that's how you go about hurting people's feelings." Betelgeuse gave a mock pout as Jono caught the poker with his good arm, and then twisted about as fast as lightning to avoid being stabbed at. "And we were gonna practically be neighbors, too. Is that how you treat neighbors? I come over for a cup of tea," another dodge, "and you try to stab me. So rude."

... Lecturing Hannibal on manners was a hilarious notion from most people. From Betelgeuse, it was practically comedy personified.

"I'll tell you what," he added, shifting back from a snake into his human form, coming up behind Jono and putting one arm around his neck, another hand to the side of his head. "You let me and my buddy here walk, and I won't snap his neck. How does that sound? Got my doubts it'll kill him, but I can sure as hell make his head hang funny."

Jono didn't struggle a hell of a lot -- he wasn't in any hurry to have his neck broken today, thank you -- but he did swing his good elbow back to try to catch Betelgeuse in the ribs. Stabbing at him with the poker would have taken more fumbling than he was willing to attempt, just yet.

Interestingly, the ghost flinched.

[nuclear_snide]

Bob's eyes narrowed.

It won't kill him, Hannibal said certainly.

Bob nodded, let his hand drop, and then flung the tongs fast as magic; they grew and twisted as they flew, aiming for entangling Betelgeuse in a web of iron arms.

[makemymilennium.livejournal.com]

"Hey, now! Bad touch! Bad touch!"

Said the horn-dog who didn't hesitate to crawl all over anyone who even remotely managed to fall within the blanket category of 'female.' Still, for as powerful as he was, it had been a while since he'd had to deal with somebody who could hold their own against a manic, shapeshifting poltergeist.

The iron arms were new and exciting. They weren't hideous sculpture or anything of the sort, and try though he might, he couldn't quite writhe his way out or even take control of the arms.

"And that's damn inconvenient," he muttered, temporarily letting go of Jono's neck in order to struggle against his bonds. If that meant backing up and trying to break them against anything nearby - walls, bookcases, whatever looked convenient and satisfyingly fragile - so be it.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal snarled and swore that one of the ghosts would be fixing those, damn it!

[nuclear_snide]

Bob ignored him for the time being, focusing his will into the iron, adding a unique binding spell to the metal.

[makemymilennium.livejournal.com]

Oh, and that was definitely new. Who the hell needed to even know his name when there were party tricks like that out there?

Betelgeuse writhed some more, letting loose with a long string of very creative curses that put everybody's mother in bed with at least two different sandworms and the devil himself, before finding that he couldn't quite stomp around quite as conveniently as he had a moment before, at that.

Hell, he was starting to feel... drowsy?

"What kind of ghost are you, anyway? C'mon, just give me a chance, here. I just want what you want, that's why I stuck around. A stab at a body, re-living the good old days. I wasn't even hurting anything."

With the possible exception of Jonothon's sanity, but that was arguably already damaged to begin with, right?

"You, buddy, are an asshole."

Compared to the other things he'd already said, at least that part was fairly polite?

[nuclear_snide]

In contrast, Bob was feeling better than ever. "No," he said patiently, smirking a bit, "I am a necromancer." One of the best, if he said so himself, but he really didn't need to brag or get cocky in front of this (occasionally literal) worm.

He soaked up the power the spell was draining off of Betelgeuse, sending a bit of it back into the spell to speed the process.

[makemymilennium.livejournal.com]

"... Shit."

Yeah, it took a lot to get Betelgeuse to recognize when he was pretty royally screwed. Apparently, necromancers were a good way to go about that.

"What- what are you doing? Look, pal, you can let me go, I'll go somewhere else, leave Furnaceface here alone, if that's all you want. Let's cut a deal, okay? Mano a mano? Spectro a spectro? You're a reasonable guy- we're both reasonable guys! So, let's reason!"

//Betelgeuse...//

"Fuuuuck, no. No, nonono. Let's not be hasty, here."

//Betelgeuse...//

"Give a guy a break!"

[nuclear_snide]

"I am very reasonable," Bob agreed equably. "You, however, are unbalanced, greedy, and..." he grimaced, "mouldy."

[makemymilennium.livejournal.com]

"I'll have you know that mold is carefully cultivated," Betelgeuse protested, squirming against the irons. "It adds character!"

It added a funky odor.

"C'mon, I didn't even hurt anything!"

... He said, as Jono picked himself up off the floor, bleeding profusely from one shoulder, where he'd been bitten by the nastiest set of teeth on the island.

"I just got out!"

//Betelgeuse.//

"ARRRRRRGH."

...

"I hate you all so much." He wasn't going anywhere, still trapped in the irons that Bob had unleashed on him. But he wasn't going to be possessing Jono any time soon. "Really. You're terrible."

[nuclear_snide]

"Thank you." With another gesture, Bob tied him up firmly and banished him to the cellar. "And good riddance."

[furnaceface]

//Good riddance,// Jono agreed, and if he was wobbly before, that really had nothing on the way he was standing now. There had been a bit too much excitement for one day, apparently. //... Ugh. I'm never going to be clean again.//

That nasty thing had been inside his body.