Belief In The Occult

Twelve

Vague creepiness aside, Fable thought Kodiak was alright, but also unfortunately correct in his description of himself. He was boring. He had almost no opinions, that was until you asked him if he wanted to do something and it was either an idle shrug or wrinkling his nose and frowning with a refusal.

He was a poltergeist, so sometimes things around him moved. The curtains twitched, or your hair was lightly tugged, or the edge of your shirt pulled on. He didn't do any of it on purpose and tried to stop if you asked, but the constant little movements made you glance around every single time and was difficult and downright annoying to get used to.

The weirdest thing was his habit of watching clocks. He didn't do it to the digital ones, but if he was left alone near an analog one he'd always end up staring at it, and sometimes she could see him mouth numbers as he literally counted seconds. Fable didn't know why he was doing it, it might have been a ghost thing, or it might've been a Kodiak thing.

Kodiak jumped slightly as someone put a hand on his shoulder and he turned around to look at Zophie. "Hey, you cool there? Just kinda starin' off into space." she asked. She looked very tired.

"Uh... sorry..." Kodiak said, "Get lost in thought... pretty often." That was a lie. Kodiak's mind was completely blank if he could help it. The steady movement of the mechanical hands helped keep his head empty.

She stuck a thumb over her shoulder, "We're about to play some video games in the living room, do you wanna join?"

"Never... played any before..." he said, but followed her anyway.

"Really? Never?" she asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

Kodiak shook his head as he entered the living room behind her, "No... got a feeling... there's a lot of stuff... that I've never done."

Zophie paused and raised an eyebrow at him, "How old are you?"

She watched him think for a moment. "My game is five years... and some months... but I'm just over four... physically." That got a round of surprised expressions from all of them. While he looked older than Fable and Zophie and the same as Alto, and mentally at the same stage as all of them, he was definitely the youngest. But that still didn't account for a lot of the things he didn't do or didn't know how to do.

"D'you wanna watch us for a bit then decide if you want to join?"

"... Sure."

Kodiak sat quietly on the rug in front of the couch, shoulders hunched and hands in his pockets, but he seemed like he was actually paying attention, like his mind was present in the same place his body was and wasn't wandering off to wherever it usually went.

But he still didn't smile.

After a little bit, Alto looked at him while the game was loaded and let out a little chuckle, nudging Kodiak slightly with one of his narrow bat-like wings, "Aw, what's the matter?" A slight note of actual concern crept into his voice, "Are you not having fun?"

Kodiak blinked up at him, and for a split second Alto adored that look of total blatant confusion, then the expression was gone as Kodiak answered, "I dunno... what you mean."

Alto gently poked his nose with a clawed finger, "You're frowning, peaches n' pie. All the time, actually."

He blinked again, "You sound like Varick." and then he was turning back to the TV like what he had just said meant absolutely nothing. "Can't help it... kinda my thing."

While Alto reeled slightly and took a split second to recover from the mental gut punch that was being compared to the Varick, Fable cut in, "What, being miserable and sullen all the time?"

"Yep... you got it."

Alto disconnected his controller, letting Zophie and Fable continue to play as he slid down on the floor next to Kodiak. "You mean nothing makes you smile? You're sad all the time?"

"I... dunno. I'm not sad... I'm just kind of... a downer." Kodiak explained. All the eye contact was setting his nerves on edge and getting agitating.

"Is there anything you like to do?" he asked, but pulled his head back slightly as Kodiak's frown suddenly twisted into an annoyed scowl.

"I don't know how many times I have to say it... I'm not 'fun.' I don't... do anything. I'm a wet blanket, and I can't help it." he snapped, his normal pace of talking speeding up with irritation.

Before anyone else could say anything, Kodiak got up and quickly walked off, passing into the foyer. They heard as he marched up the stairs and his footsteps disappeared into another area of the house.

"A tad tense." Alto commented after a second, slowly climbing back up onto the couch cushions.

Fable patted his arm, "It's alright Alto, he's still settling in and getting used to everything. He'll warm up eventually."