he did not care for it. they were not monsters, not close to the true horrors they would not be so thrilled to find. the plastic tooth paled beside the true razor-sharp bone. some had already learned that lesson, that night. his pocket square had seen the last of the blood which had stained his pale lips a wine red, but he kept dabbing as he walked, crimson eyes staring forward until he came across an alcove seated arrangement. 

decorated hedges of ghouls and ghosts flashing white and orange littered the hedge enclosing the area, but muzan simply took a seat and did his best to ignore the tatty display. disgusting. though he knew that as much as he despised the scenes, it did allow some normalcy to his forced form, that his visage would be less quizzed in the darkness of that october eve. the fangs and nails he could not avoid displaying thus remained and as a waiter approached from the beer garden’s bar, the wave of his hand and all of those black nails with it seemed almost normal to the people around him. 

playing the role of a human was a necessity to survival. to success. humans in this era sat half-dressed in the darkness, cradling glasses betwixt their fingers. a wine was ordered, in that case. he was no fool, after all. many times had he been made to endure the festivities of man, eat and drink at their side despite it serving no purpose for him besides to better serve his image. the glass was delivered and he held it within his hand as the others did theirs, eyes only lifting from the ruby red liquid when a tall woman with... larger ears than most approached his table. with no spare tables, it seemed she had been left to search out her own.

it was well into the later hours of the night when it seemed best to at least visit the assigned home he had for the duration of his stay, though it felt more like journeying to his own cell than it did ‘going home’. it had been advised however, from many and not merely a few, that to get some rest would only prove to aid him in the long run and that the momentary confusion and uncertainty would fade as the days bled into weeks. but ever the restless sort, he imagined himself walking through the doors, merely to exit very soon following. still, he decided to visit it at least. 

the streetlamps were flicking into sleep, midnight a distant memory as the stars freckled the heavens and estinien made his way to his ‘condo’. a key, a number, a dragoon clad in the very armour he’d been taken in. he spared no mind for the noise, for the clunk clunk clunk of steel and armour as he squeezed himself into the domestic abode, knocking over several items along the way as he made his way down the hall. the sound of tearing broke the silence further, as estinien turned to enter the kitchen, one particularly pointy tip of his shoulder blade shearing part of the wallpaper. no matter. they ought not to have such flimsy decor. 

he entered the main room, a table in its centre with an array of kitchen-like items scattered about. there was a hum, a low buzzing which unnerved him, and as he fumbled about for lanterns, he soon realised there to be none of the sort. of course, the world was so unlike his own, perhaps it was his own foolishness which had him seek out something so obviously inaccessible. 

She had been right.

She was neither there or here; stuck in between worlds where every sound was background noise and the people around her became nothing but ghosts. Shock, the doctor said. But it was more than that, Andy felt hollow, like everything had been lost and it was her fault. If she had gone to the hospital, request a check-up, perhaps the death of their baby could’ve been prevented. They told her that it was the natural selection, that something had been wrong with the fetus and then forced her to give birth. 

He looked so real, a smaller version of Isla at birth; but he wasn’t alive. He wasn’t screaming because he wasn’t breathing. They wouldn’t struggle with breastfeeding, she wouldn’t cuss at him for biting her nipples or throwing up on her chest. She wouldn’t have to complain over the lack of sleep as she spent nights feeding and changing him. Isla wouldn’t have a little brother to pester. Jax wouldn’t get the chance to be there from the start. To be the dad she had robbed him off before. They wouldn’t welcome another edition to their crazy family and it was all Andromeda’s fault. She couldn’t protect him and couldn’t give him the life that he deserved.

Sitting in the bed, the small boy wrapped in a blanket in her arms, she had yet to cry. Still in shock, Andy was deluded; waiting for him to gasp as he took his first breath followed by a cry. She kept telling herself that none of this was real and that her baby boy was fine; that he was sleeping despite the fact that he was cold. Fingertips kept softly running across the cold cheek as she patiently waited for a sign of life. He was fine, he was okay and nothing was wrong. It became a mantra as she refused to leave the place where she had ended up in; neither there or here.