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The Hangman was a devil of the nine hells. A being of infernal flame from a realm of torment eternal. He required neither sleep nor rest, burning, burning in his ever-watchful vigil to his master, the brave and glorious Fabian Aramais Seacaster, son of Bill Seacaster, who he would see protected from all harm, be it magical or mundane, by spell or by sword. His master, the greatest of heroes, would find loyalty as eternal as the fires of hell, as deep as the deepest pits, so long as The Hangman trod by his side or felt his strong, athletic thighs grace the leather of his seat. If The Hangman could prevent it, there was no villain, no enemy, be they of world-shattering might or simple high school uncoolness, who would tarnish his master’s body or name. This was The Hangman’s oath. This was his vow.
So he was a little fucking pissed when, at two in the fucking morning, The Ball Misty Stepped out of the huge shadows cast by the grandiose form of Seacaster Manor, the small goblin sheathing his sword and skulking across the front lawn under the dark cover of the night. Hangman could feel his master only faintly by their tether, enshrouded in sleep as the half-elf should be, the mild a flicker of disturbance crossing the bond overshadowed immediately by The Hangman’s burning rage. His master was asleep, the beautiful Aelwyn Abernant undoubtedly trancing in his arms after what The Hangman was certain was many excellent rounds of kissing of the highest caliber, and the last thing anyone needed was a Ball creeping around. Hangman had never seen him make an appearance this late – or early – at the manor, but whatever his reasons, they were undoubtedly either nefarious or dumb. Probably both. The goblin was a little freak, and he clearly had to be stopped.
The Hangman avoided revving his engine as he peeled out across the lawn. This form, his truest and best form, was far from the silent hunter he could be as a dog, but out of deference to his sleeping household he kept as quiet as he could, tires digging up the grassy lawn as he sped towards the unwelcome interloper. The garage door remained open at all hours now that the wretch Gilear no longer shared his living quarters. Though he did not deserve his place at Mistress Seacaster’s bedside, The Hangman would admit this was a far more favorable arrangement. It was far less inconvenient to not burst through a closed metal door at his master’s summons, and meant the garage was not constantly being refurbished to replace the damage. So too after the journey to Sylvaire, the knowledge of his master’s conviction of Gilear as the chosen one, and the more comfortable living arrangements, The Hangman could admit to a single smoldering coal of grudging fondness for the disaster man Hallariel Seacaster had chosen to claim. Which moved The Ball firmly to the top of his shit list.
Said Ball appeared not to notice his approach, too busy peering in windows like a creep, so The Hangman took great pleasure in watching him jump nearly a foot as he broadcast loudly, for only The Ball to hear, “What the fuck are you doing?”
The Ball whirled on him, gun flashing out, teeth bared, but the satisfying display of feral fight lasted only a moment before The Ball relaxed, gun barrel dropping. “Hangman. Hi.” His voice went entirely too relieved, posture too calm, an unacceptable turn of events for a little beast that should be shaking in his dumb dress shoes as an infernal motorcycle towered over him, catching him in his spying. There was a slight tension to his shoulders, but not enough, nowhere near enough to satisfy The Hangman’s ire. Again, he felt his master’s sleep disturbed, and again the rage flared hot.
Quietly, he dared to rev himself just a little, a low growl of menace meant to intimidate. For reasons The Hangman could not fathom, reasons forsaken by any deity celestial or hellish, The Ball was one of his master’s friends, so Hangman did not do what he wanted to, which was to run the little fucker over and be done with it. He repeated the question, louder and sharper, disappointed when the spooked response didn’t return, the goblin not so much as twitching at the pressure in his puny skull.
What did happen was almost acceptable, though. The Ball’s shoulders crept up to his ears, cheeks flaring dark, sickly green in the shadows. Shame, good. He ought to feel shame, even as he glanced once again towards the dark and drawn windows of Seacaster Manor, his gaze tilting up to the higher stories, where The Hangman’s master slept. Hunched and squat like an animal trapped on the lawn, The Ball swallowed visibly, his fingers going to something hanging around his neck, clutching it. Lamely – like everything else he did – The Ball said, “I was, uh. Just checking in.”
If he had true eyes in this form, The Hangman would have narrowed them. “Hmm,” he rumbled, adding all the more hellish rebuke (although not Hellish Rebuke) into the syllable to make The Ball twitch under his scrutiny like a bug. He didn’t know what The Ball was grasping – something hanging alongside his stupid tie, undoubtedly just as stupid as the rest of his dumb clothes – but the goblin didn’t have a monopoly on suspicion, and The Hangman felt justified. Only freaks lurked on other people’s lawns at night, peeping in windows, and The Ball was undoubtedly a freak.
The tension ramped up in The Ball’s shoulders, his weird goblin ears pinning back like a nervous cat. The tiny part of The Hangman that didn’t hate being a dog snarled appreciatively, drooling at the anticipation. This was it. He could prove to his master The Ball was bad news, could maybe even stomp him beneath his tire tread, and no more would the dork be a thorn in Fabian Seacaster’s reputation. He would be spared, and The Hangman would have done him that great service with pride.
The Ball looked down at the thing in his hand, then back up to the balcony of his master’s bedroom. He looked back at The Hangman, and his voice was flat, not cold but obviously as frustrated with The Hangman as The Hangman was with him. “Look. I get it. I’m not ‘cool’—" and that he did air quotes emphasized that point better than The Hangman possibly could “—but I just want to look out for Fabian. He’s my best friend. Our goals, you and me? They’re basically the same. We just want to protect him. So I really don’t get why you have to be such a dick to me all the time. So, just this once, can you maybe just chill, and let me look out for my friend?”
“You chill,” The Hangman retorted, and the weakness of the comeback had him cringing. The Ball’s mere presence was obviously a taint. Goading, because it was better than sulking about it, he added, “It’s weird, creeping around at night. You’re weird. You’re a little freak.”
“What, you’d rather I just jump into the house?” The Ball’s hackles rose visibly, teeth almost bared as he spoke. “Fabian called me! Obviously not you, me!” He brandished the thing around his neck, shaking it in The Hangman’s skull face. A little charm dangled from a cord around his neck, and oh. Fuck. “He should be sleeping, because Cassandra knows I’m the only one who’s going to still be up at fuck o’clock in the morning, but something freaked him out so bad that he woke up and called me. Not with his phone, not with a text, with actual fucking magic. So forgive me if I wanted to make sure nothing was on fire or something!” His voice pitched up in volume with each word, and The Hangman growled reflexively, revving and roaring, forgetting the silence he wanted to maintain for the house, and The Ball fluffed himself up like a goddamn cat and spat a hiss back, and fuck, The Hangman liked that, liked it when the little goblin freak showed his backbone, so he growled again and for several long seconds a motorcycle and a goblin hissed and snarled at each other on the lawn of Seacaster Manor, pure vitriol and frustration turned into animal noise.
A light went on in the room above, and both beings froze, going instantly silent. It stayed on for a minute, and then went dark again, and The Hangman and The Ball both relaxed. They looked at each other, and The Ball’s expression took on a weird hesitance that sat uneasily in The Hangman’s gut. It looked sickeningly like empathy. He shoved his hands in his pockets, and mumbled, “I’m sorry.”
The last thing he needed was pity from The Ball. Hangman had felt his master’s unease, had known something disturbed him. But his master hadn’t called out for his trusty motorcycle, the one who would brave Hell and the nightmare forest and anything else, asked of him or not, to keep his master safe. He hadn’t even called out for his new girlfriend, sleeping beside him. He’d called out for The Ball, using that weird necklace he’d given him a few weeks ago, like some instinct rooted deeper even than the bond of master and steed.
The Ball rubbed the necklace charm with his thumb, expression twisted wryly. “I didn’t expect to hear from him,” he admitted, as if guessing The Hangman’s train of thought. “I know he and Aelwyn have been together a couple days now, and they left Mordred together tonight, so I figured…I mean, I know he has nightmares after everything that happened. We all do. But I figured she’d help.” He let the necklace fall, setting one hand almost unconsciously on his Sword of Shadows. “When he called, it was just kind of instinct. He didn’t send words, so much as a neon sign of danger. We’ve been through so much, I couldn’t just not come.”
The soft earnestness of the words made it much harder to maintain a burning hatred. “You are…a good friend,” The Hangman admitted grudgingly.
The Ball shrugged. “He would have done the same for me.”
The Hangman huffed. If he had haunches, he’d have sat back on them. As it was, he felt his weight shift, the burning fire inside him ebbing just a little. But so as not to alert The Ball to his waning disgust, he added, “You are very uncool.”
The Ball snorted. “Believe me, I know.” He looked at the ground, squeezing one of his arms, hugging his chest. Softly, he admitted, “It still seems crazy, sometimes. That the Bad Kids actually like me. That they want me around.” His green eyes flicked up to The Hangman, goblin pupils dilating strangely in the low light, but truly no stranger than a motorcycle with no eyes meeting his gaze. “Is that why you hate me so much? Because I’m not cool? Because that’s kind of a shitty reason to hate someone.”
“I-“ The Hangman loathed the part of himself that felt like tucking a nonexistent tail between nonexistent legs. He cleared his nonexistent throat. Carefully, he offered, “My master is the best and bravest hero I have ever known.” He could not keep the pride from his voice, boasting such a fundamental truth to the world.
“I know.” The Ball said it like a foregone conclusion, and it did warm something in The Hangman’s chest. Something that wasn’t rage or hatred.
“I would follow him into the fires of Hell,” he crowed. “I would raze a thousand armies, would crack open the very earth and sky and see it all set ablaze at his command!”
The Ball bit his lip, clearly trying to contain some kind of amusement, which The Hangman appreciated much less. “Uh huh.”
The Hangman looked The Ball dead in the eye, figuratively speaking. “I would see him come to no harm.”
“I don’t want to harm Fabian. Really the opposite.”
“My master is mighty, but he is also…” The Hangman tried to think of a tactful way to put it. A way that did not sound like he was demeaning a hero of Fabian Seacaster’s caliber. “Delicate,” he decided on. “It is important to him, what others think. You do not care what others think.” It was the crux of the issue, the thing which set The Hangman’s hackles up, which stoked his ire at the dork on his master’s coattails. “You are a weird little Ball,” he snarled, some of the vitriol returning to his voice, “and I would not see my master harmed by others watching you cling to his side.”
“You think I don’t care what people think about me?” The Ball straightened, glancing around like he was admitting a secret, and if The Hangman could have blinked, he would have done so in shock when the goblin leaned in and hissed, “I care so damn much what people think about me. People look at me and see a goblin, and for most of them that’s bad enough, but then I’m weird and I’m…you know…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I think kissing is gross and I don’t really care about dating and it seems like that’s the only thing anyone else cares about and I give out weird business cards and climb into backpacks and I’m just…I’m not ‘normal’ or whatever, and I know that!” He sighed, some of the fight going out of him in a way that unsettled The Hangman. He preferred the goblin with spirit, with spine. Not floppy and sad. “But I can’t be anything else,” The Ball finished, like the statement was a damning one. He steeled himself, and straightened again. “I’m not going to pretend,” he said. “So I get it, okay? But I’m not just a ball. I’m The Ball. And Fabian’s my best friend, and he’s okay with me being weird. He’s okay with it. So you don’t have to like me, but you are going to be stuck with me, and it’d be nice if we could get along.”
Silence fell between them, heavy and uncomfortable. The Ball fidgeted with his cap. The Hangman didn’t have much of anything to fidget with, but he felt like he was fidgeting too. At last, he offered the only truce he could, even as his infernal nature rebelled at such a submission. “My master is fortunate you were willing to come to his aid.”
The Ball blushed again, more faintly. “That’s what best friends do. Not really a point to making magic friendship necklaces if you’re going to ignore the call, right?” He glanced up again. “But it seems like everything’s alright, so I’ll probably head out. Don’t want to walk in on…anything.” He made a face that The Hangman didn’t think conveyed a reasonable emotion for imagining the beauty of Fabian Aramais Seacaster and Aelwyn Abernant sharing a bed together, but to each their own, he supposed.
“I will keep watch,” he vowed. “And I will ensure you are summoned if trouble truly does arise.”
The Ball looked surprised. The Hangman could honestly say it was something he hadn’t intended to offer, but he remembered Leviathan, and the last time his master had faced trouble alone. He did not have to like The Ball, but he respected – ugh – a hero who would fight for his master with almost the same vigor The Hangman himself would dedicate to the cause. He could still enjoy the thought of The Ball being roughed up by nefarious villains, after all. Not to death, because that would hurt his master, who did care for the goblin, but imagining some light maiming did wonders for The Hangman’s mood. He might have smiled, if he were capable of it.
“Go now,” he said charitably, “And I won’t tell my master you were out here being a little freak.”
The Ball snorted and shook his head. “One of these days, we’ll end a conversation without you threatening me. We’ll get there.” And he slipped into the shadows again and vanished.
The Hangman rumbled approvingly. He wheeled around, moseying back to the garage with satisfaction burning inside. He had driven off The Ball, even if perhaps The Ball wasn’t quite the menace he would like to believe. He was still a little freak, but that did make his master look cooler, more heroic by comparison. Yes. He could accept that, and the goblin’s presence.
Maybe he’d even let the goblin ride him sometime. The Ball liked to be thrown in combat, and it could be fun, tossing him around. The dog inside him perked up at the thought of playing fetch, and The Hangman squashed it down. One thing at a time.
He wheeled himself back into the garage, settling in for the night. He kept the link open with his master, monitoring for disturbances to his peaceful sleep. The Hangman needed no rest, and as pink started to lighten the sky over the river, he knew his master would rest easy, with so many who loved him.