#river ghost

    Lake and his insane connection to the Water felt nearly every pain Dewdrop himself did when he was forced from Water to Fire. Lake was paralysed by the pain, feeling that severance deep in his very soul. It lit up every fibre of his soul and he swears that sometimes, when the water is quiet, he can still hear his own screams echoing around the cave.

    As soon as River, sweet Little River, posed that question Lake felt the blood drain from his face. The cloud in his mind took over without warning, a voice in his mind screaming that it wasn’t real, that this isn’t his life, that it didn’t happen.

    Lake tried to keep a lid on it, knowing that River was watching him but he couldn’t help his eyes fixing to the mid-ground and all sensation seemed to leave him along with his own mind.

    “Y- yes…” Lake said quietly, the only word he could muster up through the fog in his head.

    River said something else but Lake couldn’t pay attention to it, couldn’t hear each word as his mind felt like it was filled up with cotton wracked with buzzing static he could feel every sensation of and yet none of it at all.

    Air’s eyebrows furrowed as he watched Lake’s shaking hands try to pet along the fluff of the plushie but retracted as if he was burned by it.

    It felt too real to Lake when nothing was real. It wasn’t real life and yet it felt so tangible. His mind was spinning with the confusion of it all and that creeping feeling of dread was nipping away at the surreal psyche inside him.

    Air coaxed Little River into one of the bedrooms with Earth, getting the feeling that his Little eyes shouldn’t be privy to whatever was going on with Lake, whatever it was. He went in and Air came over to the Water Ghoul they so rarely saw.

    “Lake, love. Can you see me?” Air asked hesitantly, having no idea what was going on.

    Lake thinks he can see Air. But he screws his eyes shut until colours bloom behind them because Air’s too real. Lake felt as if he could see each little line and crease of Air’s skin, every woven fibre of his veil and the individual hairs of his eyebrows. It was too much and yet not enough to tell Lake if it was all, in fact, reality.

    As Lake stayed on that line between real and unreal, the distress of it all started to creep up more. If none of it was real, then why did everything have to hurt so much? Who was toying with them to craft up painful stories that they had to be victim to and yet for none of it to matter because it wasn’t real? What audience was watching them suffer for no reason?

    Air watched as the cogs in Lake’s mind turned and seemed to be washed away by the tides he spent his time with. Lake’s mind finally caught up with what Air had asked and he nodded, his mind too wracked with everything imploding for words.

    The former keyboardist let out a sigh of relief at that and tried to think about what he could do. He tried to think about what Earth usually did for him when he panicked and needed some comfort but Lake was never around enough for Air to know if he enjoyed hugs and gentle words and the like.

    He watched as Lake slowly started to dig his webbed fingers into the plush more and hold it against himself tight for the pressure. He thinks this is real. If this is real, everything else may be too, right? Air took a deep breath and gently coaxed Lake as he sat on the sofa too, laying across it with his back against one of the armrests and brought Lake against his chest. Enough for touch if he wanted it, but easy enough to get out of it not.

    Lake didn’t fight one bit though and just let himself be moved. Air’s deft fingers holding him felt grounding and the gentle and rhythmic thudding – not dissimilar to the basslines he used to play - his ear was laid flat against helped to ever-so-slightly tune out the static that disrupted his life. He felt one set of those fingers come up to his own veil and almost winced at the sensation of the fabric moving against his hair but Air’s fingers persisted and he managed to relax into it a little more.

    Lake’s eyes saw double in blurry mists and yet everything in too much detail. Reality and… Well, that one may actually be reality instead - dancing in front of him and taunting him with the possibility that either or neither were true. His mind was far away, back down in his Waters where Dew’s connection to his Element laid too. Yet Dew wasn’t in Lake’s connection to the Water like River or Mist or Rain were. He was missing. Why was the little Water Ghoul missing?

    Enough of his mind was cleared by the heartbeat he laid against and the fingers teasing his hair through his veil that he managed to string a few words together.

    “Air?” He said quietly, his throat dry from panic and disuse.

    “Hm? What is it, angelfish?” Air replied just as quietly, respecting that Lake’s mind probably doesn’t need too much stimulus right now.

    “Was… was it real? Wh- what happened to Dew? Is… Is he longer Water?” Lake asked, positively terrified of the answer.

    “Yes, my dear. It was real. I know it’s hard to believe someone could do such a thing.” Air responded, his voice as gentle as his element on a Spring morning although his heart was in pieces for the young Ghoul.

    Hard to believe. Lake couldn’t believe it. His mind wouldn’t allow it.

    He shook his head, clutching the plushie tight to his chest as that cloud dug it’s claws back in again and took Lake back into a tsunami of panic that Air would never be able to forget for a long time…

~ He once put staining black paint in Secondos and Terzos room so when they tried to take off their paints that night they couldn’t at all

~ He had an argument with Omega, threw all his clothes into the filled bathtub and left only a flowery MooMoo in his closet (Jokes on him cause Omega looked delicious)

~ He once rubbed ghost pepper all over a sleeping Lakes hand and couldn’t stop laughing when he heard the girliest scream following with ‘OH MY FUCKING SHIT MY DICKS GONNA FALL OFF’

~ When Secondo left for a business meeting, River, Dew and Delta wrapped his entire office in kitchen foil

~ He swapped out all the hand sanitiser with glue

~ One night he got drunk with Cirrus and they grabbed all the forks in the Ministry and stabbed Primos private garden with it, there were over 6000 forks the next morning. Primo was horrified and slightly impressed and found the two ghouls sleeping under his garden table curled up together

Once everything was set up, they called River to come downstairs from the common room. He had been sitting on the couch by the window again and it took a few shouts from Lake and one loud “River!” from Alpha to snap him out of his stupor. He came out into the hallway, still out of it, and immediately slipped, sliding a few feet and letting out a high squeak that sent a rumble of laughter through his two pack mates. He sat dumbfounded for a moment, before laughing softly as he struggled to stand up. He quickly found that it wasn’t worth it, and ended up just sliding himself across the hall to the stairs where he slid down those too. 

Alpha and Lake had huge grins on their faces when he finally got down to them. Lake handed him a towel so that he could wipe the suds off of his feet and pants. “That was beautiful,” Lake announced, patting his water brother on the shoulder with a proud smile.

“Proud of yourself?” River snorted, trying to dry off the best he could.

“Awww, come on! That was a classic!”

“How unoriginal.” 

Alpha shook his head at the two water ghouls. “I just wanted to know if you wanted some tea. Figured you might like something after a long week.”

River smiled at that. “I’d appreciate it.”

Alpha nodded and the three of them walked into the kitchen, River still snickering to himself. Alpha fixed some tea and passed a mug to River who walked over to the sugar and scooped a teaspoon into his tea, stirring it. He took a sip and spat it out, coughing. 

“What the hell? Is that… salt?”

Alpha chuckled and River's eyes narrowed as River grinned. “Let the prank wars begin! May the best ghoul win.”

The next week passed in a blur. Each ghoul falls for the other's prank. Lake used the hand sanitizer that he had filled with glue and had to go to Omega to get it sorted out. Omega couldn’t help a chuckle and called River and Alpha to the scene, allowing them to witness the stupidity of his actions before warning the new ghouls about the prank war happening through the walls of the Ministry. 

The longer the prank war drags on, the more they all lose energy. Looking over their shoulder every minute of the day was draining, and it hadn’t stopped. Not even when River put staining black paint in Terzo's room so when he tried to take off his paints that night he couldn’t at all.

River had come back from helping Lake teach the new water ghoul and headed straight for his room, walking past Alpha in the den. He closed the door behind him and climbed into his bed only to jump out of it, screaming a second later. Alpha and Lake burst into his room immediately, Lake looking confused and Alpha’s eyes dancing with laughter. River on the other hand had staggered away from his bed and sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, clearly overstimulated as tears clouded his eyes. 

Alpha’s lips that had started to twitch up, turned into a frown and he stepped forward, worry clinching his eyebrows. “River?”

"I just want a nice, easy life. What's wrong with that?" he cried, burying his head in his hands. 

Alpha and Lake shared uneasy glances as Lake moved toward the bed to investigate the prank that Alpha had clearly played. He pulled the sheets back to reveal a whole bunch of toads. 

“I thought that they’d remind you of home,” Alpha grumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. 

“Frogs are freshwater, not toads,” Lake cried, throwing his hands up in a ‘what am I going to do with you?’ motion.

“Aren’t those frogs?”

“They’re toads, genius!”

A sob rips through River's throat, snapping the attention of both ghouls towards him. They lower their voices and walk over to him, sitting down on either side of him, and gently comforting him. 

“I’m sorry,” Alpha murmured, kicking his heat up a bit in an effort to soothe the water ghoul. “I thought that this would cheer you up a bit. The whole prank war was just to do that, but I think we’ve let it get too far out of hand.”

“Guilty as charged,” Lake mumbled. 

“I’m sorry,” River sobbed. “Everything is changing so much. It's too much. I barely get to see our pack together. It feels like everything is falling apart.”