Rewritten- Let Love Flow

Chapter 32: Ra

Chapter Summary: Ra is a dear friend to Casper, and Casper realizes he'll do anything to protect his friend. Anything.

Casper spent the day following Mantha and Slither around, since he actually knew where they went, unlike Ra and Thatch. He wished the two had more luck than their group. He helped move things, search chests buried under crap to see if there were useful things and generally assisting the pair to search the large, eerie location. Before long they had found several padlocks, and Slither managed to unscrew some plates off the front of an old dusty chest that they could use one of the padlocks for, but only half the padlocks they found had keys to them. The one they were favoring, a nice gold plated padlock was missing its key so they were searching for it.

They all agreed a gold-colored padlock might make Ra happy because... mummy's like gold, right? And besides, if Ra was forced to put a lock on his own bed, they wanted to give him something nice. Ra had been through so much, Casper knew every small deed could help in some way, surely.

So they ended up searching all day, but admittedly the attic was bigger than Casper first thought. They barely got done with half the room when dinner time was approaching. They called it a day, tossing their gathered items into an empty box near the door so they could keep track of them. Mantha looked so tired Casper was sure she was just going to fall to pieces if she didn't hold herself together. Casper didn't even bother flying- too much effort. The exhausted trio headed down to the cafeteria, and the ghost admittedly felt irked when he saw Ra and Thatch eating dinner and laughing, looking perfectly fine.

Casper took a calming breath and tried to remain friendly as he headed over to the table. Thatch looked up and smiled brightly. "Hey, Casper!" He greeted happily. He patted the spot right beside him, wanting the ghost to sit down. "Wow, you look exhausted. I'll go get you your tray." He decided. He then took notice of Slither and Mantha. "Oh er... I'll get them trays too." He decided and got up. Casper begrudgingly took his seat and watched as Mantha sat beside Ra and Slither... Well, Slither seemed to think sitting was too much of a hassle because the monster just curled up beside the table and settled right there for a nap.

"Slither, come on get up." Mantha yawned tiredly as she peered over the table. "Sit with us."

"Hmmn... In a minute." Slither softly muttered, using his extendable arms as his personal pillow, just seeming content to lay on the stone floor. Mantha rolled her eyes and rested back in her seat and doing her best to not glare at Ra, who was just ever so chipper as he ate his meal. Casper could see Mantha clearly wasn't too happy, but only because she was exhausted.

Casper tried to keep positive. They almost got the perfect lock for Ra. They just need to find the dumb key...

Thatch returned, struggling to balance the three trays he was carrying, but the vampire seemed pretty stubborn and refused help from Wolfie who had kindly offered it on the way. Thatch carefully set the trays down in front of Casper and Mantha, and of course in front of Slither's empty spot. It was only then Slither hissed and got up, finally crawling into his seat. As Thatch sat back down Mantha cleared her throat. "So," she started with an authoritative tone.

"We found several locks in the attic."

"Oh, that's cool," Ra said offhandedly, earning a glare from the zombie which he seemed completely oblivious to. "Once Thatch and I left the dorm Thatch remembered he had an extra set of locks and spare supplies in his coffin."

"In case one of them broke. Mom sent me 5 spare parts of everything." Thatch rolled his eyes. "Even got some tools we can use." Casper took a deep breath, trying not to flip his shit. This was handy, yes. Would have it been nice to know before they searched the attic for hours on end looking for a single golden key for the dumb gold padlock they found? Yes, it would have been fucking nice! Oh, but Casper tried to calm down. He bet Thatch's supplies was all black to match his coffin.