#intruthomality

What had appeared to be a pristine white farmhouse now gave way to, yes, a white farmhouse. However, the white paneling was obviously speckled with… something. Reds, purples, but what had splattered the most was a sickening green that had bile churning in Thomas’s gut.

Yikes. Thomas had a sudden urge to pinch his nose closed. Surely that’s not what I think it is. 

With that, there also came into view a brightly colored handmade sign that announced: Welcome to our farm! Just knock on the door or come right in, we don’t mind.

“Strange business practice.” Thomas said to the corn stalks blowing in the breeze around him.

Though… I suppose any criminal would have as hard a time as my agent did finding this place. But… then again so would the police…

Thwip!

Thomas jumped back as a blur of color flew past him, back into the cornfield it had come from. 

“Woah!” 

He craned his neck as the sound of corn brushing past each other retreated until it was gone. A single iridescent feather drifted back and forth before it landed at Thomas’s feet. He tilted his head as he regarded it.

“What was that?”

The cornfield didn’t respond. For it had no lips.

A muffled sound came from the farmhouse. Dampened by the walls, all Thomas could determine was that it was human. He was not yet close enough to discover the exact reason and source.

Strangely, there were no sounds as Thomas grew close. And he wasn’t being watched, something in him could tell.

Only once his feet hit the creaking porch steps did another sound ring out. This time, the source was much more apparent.

“No! I won’t!” A voice came, petulant and short, despite the baritone timbre.

Another voice, slightly lower yet raising as high if not higher than the first in it’s insistence. “You have to! That temp is going to be here any minute and-”

Thomas rapt his knuckles against the slightly chipped wood. The other voice fell silent. If he had time to think about it, he might have laughed at the timing.

“Hello? I’m the temp the company sent” Thomas said. “My name is-”

The door flung open. 

Beyond it, a low murmur of words rumbled in the house before one silhouette all but pushed the other into the light from the doorway.

The man very nearly matched the splashes on the side of the house. All along one side of him ran a line of that purple, red, and green substance. Decorating that, however, was a dusting of soapy suds that nowhere near dented the mess on the man’s body.

Thomas hoped that the man’s shirt had been green before whatever happened. He certainly wasn’t going to get near that side of the man.

“Ah! Hello handsome~!” The covered man smirked, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Re!” The figure from behind this ‘Re’ exclaimed. He had also stepped into the light.

Thankfully he was a fairly clean guy with a collared blue shirt and had on a pair of yellow janitorial type gloves meant for industrial cleaning rather than- Well-

At least someone was going to clean all that stuff of ‘Re’.

It was a wonder it didn’t smell. At all.

“What? I just said hello! Besides, I didn’t know the inside of a cow were ‘that sticky!’ Even Bubo didn’t know that and he climbed into-” 

Re was cut off as the blue shirted man tugged hard on the back of Re’s shirt.

“Remus, we have a guest!” The blue man said through gritted teeth.

“And remember it’s not ‘Bubo,’ it’s Beta Delta, I wouldn’t want to be remembered for just when I died. Not when I’ve done so much.” The words were barely audible from the man’s lips, so he surmised that whatever this conversation was, he wasn’t supposed to hear it.

But Thomas could make out their words anyway, plus he could see the slip of the cleaner man’s smile into faux niceness from a mile away. And strangely he got the feeling that he shouldn’t be able to understand…

Turning back to Thomas, the blue collared shirt’s smile slipped into a smile more of sympathy. “Sorry about him, he’s a bit-” An elbow from Remus. “Hard to pin down.”

“No… problem?” Thomas assured. His face turned slightly away.

“Oh! Where are my manners!” Blue man piped up, that nice, genuine smile finally leaking into his expression. “My name is Patton and you’ve probably gathered that this here is Remus.”

From behind Patton, Remus waved his hand in greeting with all the energy of a charm of hummingbirds.

Patton stretched out his hand to Thomas instead.

Yet…

Suddenly something about the act was both strangely familiar yet oddly different. Something about the shape of Patton’s fingers, the smell of hay mixed with the petrichor of the recent rain… or something…

But when Thomas grasped Patton’s hand, images flash across Thomas’s vision/mind. 

Death, life. Blood, tears. But through all of that, those two blue and green hands stretching out to meet his, intertwining with his… bound together with his.

Patton, the name that had been strange and somehow now suddenly… not, his eyes widened. He seemed to have seen what Thomas had, squeezing Thomas’s hand, exclaiming “THO! It’s you!”

With a gentle tug, the handshake turned into a gentle pull inside. A blur of words and movement as Patton began to speak a mile a minute about how long it had been. 

Before Thomas realized it, the door had closed behind him…

But despite that, with these two strangers in particular, he found he wasn’t afraid.

Actually, watching both these men jump around in excitement. his lips began to curl into a smile. Full, bright, and a well of all the emotions slamming into him.

And in the back of his mind, there’s the strangest feeling.

The feeling that despite everything, it was as if he was meeting some old friends after a long time. 

But… that couldn’t be right…