Ghosts, Ghouls, and the Inbetweens

Chapter 12: Small Chat

"Theoretically, we COULD chose to use better means of punishment-"

"Or we could stop discussing this!"

Once again L.Leg and R.Leg were arguing. It was always the same topic, the harshness of the punishment, nothing new, nothing interesting. The others were tired of the debate at this point. The one who was most tired was Mouth, but that was to be expected. Mouth always had a thirst for drama, so when they first witnessed the arguments they were eating it up like a medium rare steak. But now, after thousands of years, it got boring.

Nothing to cheer on, nothing to sit and watch anxiously, and surly nothing to enjoy. Torso also got tired of it, but they were on a whole other side of the spectrum. They disliked aggression, fights and drama, one could say they were just too timid for it. But there was other things they didn't like about it: The loud noise that comes with yelling, the loud noise that comes with fighting, the loud noise that comes with feet stomping, the loud noise that... well you get the point, they just hated the noise.

They also hated repetition, something about it triggered them. And when your peers end up repeating the same thing over and over to attempt to prove a point, you have to deal with the consequences. Of course Torso could just leave, but these arguments were meant to be "debates", that meant everyone had to be apart of it. Now of course these debates couldn't be taken seriously when all they ended up doing was starting an argument between the two heads- err- legs of the operation.

Torso (and the others) had tried leaving once, but somehow, amongst all the commotion, L.Leg would see them and yell at them to get back inside the room. So escape was futile. God, why did things have to be this way?

Torso was suddenly brought back to reality by the sound of Mouth clearing their throat. "So, how long do you think this is gonna go on for?" They whispered.

"I don't know... could take hours... maybe a couple more minutes,"

"Honestly you can't tell with these two-" They said in unison, catching each other off guard. They both paused, before awkwardly laughing only seconds after. "Yeah, uh, anyways."

Mouth puckered their lips, "You ever find this boring?"

"All. The time."

"Heh, never thought that response would come out of you. I was expecting a more timid approach."

There was silence, but Mouth quickly followed up with, "Not that I view you as 100% timid, it's just in your nature. Y'know, not everyone here is black and white."

They clicked their tongue.

"We're not all some stereotype of one singular trait. I mean look at the eyes for example, both are sarcastic and snarky, yet they have their soft spots," They attempted to nudge Torso, "I'm pretty sure Ballie's soft spot is R.Leg, but it's rude to spread gossip." Torso merely gave them a confused glance, Mouth quickly realized their joke didn't land.

"Well anyways Sugar, it's only a matter of time before they stop. In the mean time-" They stopped themselves, frowning. Torso didn't notice at the time, but the loud sounds and back and forth "I'm right!" "No I'm right!" started getting to them. They didn't know why this happened to them, but these things set them off. Normally they'd just get overwhelmed and emotional, mostly just irritated. But if it continued more things would happen, now of course they couldn't do much physically due to them being just a torso, but they would start jittering.

They were jittering now, and desperately needed to get to out of that room, but of course that wouldn't happen until these two bozos they called leaders stopped arguing like children. Mouth suddenly cleared their throat, "Hey, uh, ya good?"

Torso tried to stop jittering, but couldn't. Instead they shook themselves, "N-no."

Mouth seemed to nod, their tone now soft and calm, "Is it because of their arguing?" They were more reassuring and concerned than Torso expected, but nevertheless they continued to answer their questions. "Y-yes."

"You wanna get out of here Honey?"

An attempted nod.

Mouth understood, facing back to the legs and loudly coughing. "Ahem." They said in an agitated tone, this got the others' attention. "Excuse me Mr. and Ms. Almighty leg but a dear friend of ours is getting quite upset by your pointless arguing. How about we, oh I don't know, relax for a moment." The two glanced over at Torso, then back to Mouth.

R.Leg frowned, "Oh! I'm sorry, that was rather inconsiderate of us. My apologies, we should really stop, wouldn't you agree, Lefty?" L.Leg wasn't able to say anything before R.Leg interrupted him, "Glad we can agree! Alright everyone, meeting adjourned."

With that she headed out of the room, L.Leg scowled, then smiled, then scowled again, as if he couldn't tell if he should be mad over not being able to finish arguing or take pride in "winning" the argument. Nevertheless he walked out with her, the others following. Soon it was just Mouth and Torso.

Torso had to take a moment to think. Did that just happen? It was that simple? Mouth started to smile, "Ah, Righty truly is the sympathetic type." They turned to Torso, "Well, we best be going, come on now," they headed towards the door, turning around for just a second.

"We should see how our little friend is doing."