PERVERSE - Apply Fic

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Chelster was haunted by many ghosts, most of them figurative but some of them are real.

Ambrose's brother, Leander, was obsessed with the history of Chelster. He would spend his free time investigating the secrets of the town, discovering the reasons which caused each factory to be abandoned. While Ambrose spent his childhood burying dead animals, his brother liked to investigate, among other nefarious activities.

"You met any cute girls at law school?" Leander asks, sitting on the couch. Leander's arm is elbow-deep into a bag of cheese puffs.

Ambrose does not care for the living, "no."

"No cute girls at uni, none at law school, it's ridiculous," Leander points out, rolling his eyes. "What's even the point?"

Ambrose doesn't bother dignifying his brother's line of questioning. He turns his nose up, smelling the casserole in the oven. It's beginning to burn. Overhead, the fire alarm beeps and smoke begins to billow into the living room. His mother rushes down the stairs and into the kitchen. The boys can hear the sound of a tea towel flapping in the air, as their mother tries to blow the smoky air away from the fire alarm.

"Want to go for a ride?" Leander asks. "Let's pick up a pizza or something."

"Dinner will be fine!" their mother calls from the other room.

Ambrose shrugs and stands up, "sure."

Tossing aside the bag of cheese puffs, Leander gets up. He leads the way to the door. It is cold outside; it is a Canadian winter.

~~~

Barry hated funerals, so he didn't go to Lydia's. He also hadn't sung she died, hadn't listened to any music. Those moments might bring her back to life, and while Barry wished things were as easy as resurrection, he knew that Lydia was quite literally six feet under the ground.

Barry sits down by her tombstone. Not directly in front of it, because they know it is disrespectful to walk on graves, but at a distance. The snow has melted, leaving a brown slush on top of her grave. They stare at it and pull out a flask, sipping.

"You know, your album was not as good as your opera," Barry says, to no one in particular. He kicks takes a chunk of slush and throws it at her tombstone, "that stupid fucking album. I hate it. I hate it!"

The graveyard in Chelster is as old as the town, so old for Canada but young in general. Still, that means there are hundreds of graves. Thankfully, no other visitors are around to listen to Barry scream.

"And you know what else?" they collapse onto their back, so that they are lying on top of her body, staring up at the sky. "Your album, and all your music, was the most beautiful thing that I had ever heard."

~~~

The competition is easy enough, and Audrey has made it to the second round, out of four. She waits, slowly calculating, as her opponent makes the next move. He takes his time, slowly but surely. He is old, lines wrinkling his face. She needs the cash prize though. International tuition to Yale university isn't cheap.

Audrey is lucky a competition popped up in their hometown of Chelster. It gives them a break from work for a chance to win a few thousand dollars. It'll make a dent in their student loans, but not a big one.