Work Text:
Ula Usterka Ula felt her body tense under the sensation, waves of pleasure rolling across her body and pushing soft moans and quiet grunts out of her body. Sores and marks lined her neck, more being planted along her collar as they slowly chip their way down. It was like trying to climb a mountain upside down, trying to recall how she got like this. Her legs were already twitchy and numb from the invasion of such a sacred place. This whole thing felt embarrassing… yet almost addictingly sweet. Her heart was beating like a parade march in her chest, her breathing the orchestra as her body matches the choreography. As a pooling pressure starts to tighten between her legs, she feels her consciousness fade out once more.
When she came too, it took her about 5 seconds to remember what happened. She put her uniform back on and struggled to her feet before realizing she was left in the tunnels overnight. Intense back pain takes her to her knees; maybe laying on the metal floor wasn’t a good idea. Yet Ula still struggled to remember how she got into that position, who was with her, and why any of this would happen in the first place. She places her palms against her eyes, digging her fingertips into her forehead as she tries to clear the thick sensation under her eyelids. Her hat seems to have gotten lost somewhere in the heat of the moment. Perhaps the culprit has it. Regardless, Usterka exits the tunnels and takes the day on sick leave.
Every joint felt sore. Which is strange enough because Ula was pretty fit from all the constant running for her life she does.
“Feeling like shit means you should probably wash off”
; a lesson Ula was familiar with in her line of work, and one that was taught to her by none other than Mrs Yaga herself. So almost 35 minutes after putting her uniform on, she was already taking it off and stepping into the cold water of a shower. The sharp feeling like glass against her skin was helping clear her head of all the fog and certainly woke her up well enough. Despite the benefits, she couldn’t seem to stop her teeth from chattering.
Sitting in a shower gives a lot of time to think. As Usterka scrubbed soap into her bruised and scratched skin, handling the pain surprisingly well, She drifts back to wondering who might be responsible.
Zmora? Nikia? Either of the Cutwires?
It had to be someone. Deductive evidence suggests it’s likely not Cutwire 2, as she’s too timid to try something like that so early on, right? Especially after Ula passed out. Plus Cutwire 2 seems like the type to wait for Ula to wake up first before leaving.
Maybe that’s what tomorrow held. An investigation into why and how she fucked a ghost. But before that, she would have to do some research. After finishing up in the shower and wrapping herself in her mom’s soft robe, Ula threw her uniform into the laundry and started it washing before following her mental pathways directly to her bookshelf in her room. Without even looking she pulls the dusty tome off of the shelf and blows it clean, wiping what’s left with her arm. How to Sex Ghosts for Dummies.
Ula sits in a chair at the foot of her bed and opens to the fith page, skipping the table of contents.
Type 1: Possesion:
When a specter lacks the ability to interact with the physical plane, it can be hard to figure out how a sideways tango would work. A simple solution, and often a common one employed by Specters in consensually ambiguous scenarios typically is possession. A specter will possess…
… Ula got the gist pretty quickly, and decided it wasn’t worth looking into. Even SHE knew about that one.
Type 2: Perception manipulation:
Due to a Specter’s unique circumstances, they can directly affect your perception. Perception is held by all 5 senses. Most can only manipulate one sense at a time, but the more powerful they are, the more senses they can manipulate at once. Normally this is done to cause abject horror and spawn monstrosities beyond the human mindscape localized specifically within their victim’s mind. Howerver, recent ghostfucker studies has shown that by manipulating the sensation of taste, they can manually activate any pleasure sensor in your body at varying degrees of intensity. It has been described like “using a person as a Turntable” by one enthusiastic phantom. This is employed by specters who lack physical forms most of the time. Because unless they directly alter your perception manually, they’ll never be able to show themselves to you.
That one sounded interesting, but also sounded like it’d get boring pretty fast. Plus it doesn’t seem like it’d help. Though she couldn’t help but skim through the demonstration diagrams before moving on to the last type.
Type 3: touch-to-touch
Specters that can physically touch typically prefer this option. Ranging from a pillow princess to a raging bull, this basically just opens the doors for mutual exchange in a whole ton of ways that, to be frank, normal humans can already do to each other without significant effort. The issues with this is that specters that can touch you usually want to kill you, so you better be REALLY trusting of your relationship before proceeding. Another issue is that since they don’t have a physical body, they don’t get sore or tired. This has led to death on several occasions. all around, if you survive this? Consider yourself lucky. Especially after getting lucky~
That seems to line up with what happened. And while the descriptions and vivid imagery throughout the rest of the chapter are… entertaining, they aren’t the most helpful. All it did was confirm what she already knew. Well. fuck it. Ula was bringing out the conspiracy board. However, when she checked the usual spots, it appeared to be missing as well. That genuinely hurt a little. She saved up a lot of money so she can looked like a crazed madman conspiracy theorist whenever she wanted to gather her thoughts.
That was EXTREMELY weird. Back to the notepad- oh right, she lost it. Huh. Ula doesn’t know how she’ll gather her thoughts without any of her usual thought gathering possessions. It makes her skin prick and tingle for but a second when she realizes she might’ve just left it at work during the whole Dating Advice Seminar with Yaga.
Now stress free, Ula walked over to her shoddy little bed and threw all of her tense muscles at it, feeling the stress on her body torn away like someone was ripping off clothes that were 3 sizes too small and a soothing relief as her form experienced a sort of freedom from the cage of pain.
…
Ula woke up. Tonight she hadn’t dreamed like usual, and it partly worried her. But she was determined to get back to it. She walks over to the bathroom before realizing she never dried her uniform and had left it in the washer. Quickly she threw the uniform into her dryer.
She was gonna be late. She was never late! Running back into her room, she tore through her closet, the door slamming into the wall behind the cabinet. It was at this moment she knew; she had no fucking clothes. Except some dusty old pairs from when she was smaller, there really wasn’t anything else she wore other than her Pajamas and her uniform.
It was kinda pathetic.
After simply waiting out the time in complete utter agony, she had a warm, nice, dry set of clothes to wear at the very least. Arriving at the elevation zone, Yaga was there waiting. “Not like you to be late, pup. Tell me. What’s going on?” Ula didn’t necessarily want to talk about this. An embarrassed blush covers her face as she somewhat attempts to convey how her morning went.
“... I think I get the picture. Not like it’s common for you to be late anyhow.” Yaga takes a large swig of denaturat, the burning fluid waking her up well enough on it’s own. No need for all that fancy coffee when you have alcohol made for cleaning machine parts. It’s strong shit too. “Just get to work. Sector F is lit up like a Church on Christmas. Oh, and Don’t die.”
…
The landing of Section F was surprisingly quiet today. Normally the echos of the girls fucking shit up can be heard through the entire floor, but uncharacteristically the place is dead silent. Instead of worrying about that, Ula immediately runs into the breakroom to find the Corkboard in it’s place. She embraced the metal frame and wooden backboard of the board on wheels. Now that she recalled, Zmora had straight up dragged her out like a misbehaving puppy by the scruff of her collar, so to put it. At least now she knows where it is.
…
Work was surprisingly easy too. Sure the furnace was going off, and one of the generators nearly detonated, but the girls were nowhere to be found. As if they were hiding. She caught traces of vapor left behind, but nothing more than that. This was starting to get freaky, and not in the usual sense that things tended to get freaky. And then she catches it. A glimpse of neon green dashing across the hall. Despite her very mortal body telling her it was a bad idea, she chased after the green blur, passing through the door and looking at the direction the specter went in. she catches their foot slipping through a door just barely.
It was clear now. They were avoiding her . Ula Usterka wasn’t a person that tended to mind how others thought of her socially. I mean, when you’re a Mute Tunnel Runner with an ambiguous sexual prefrence and a knack for the Paranormal you pretty much wear the title of Pariah like a doctorate. Yet despite that, this bothered her. Not only can she not piece together what the hell happened last night if she can’t find any potential witnesses, but if she had done something that made them hate her so much as to avoid her entirely that was downright horrifying! I mean, these were violent spirits that loved her as much as they wanted her dead. So to make a murder spirit so mad as to want to avoid you entirely, you must’ve done something TERRIBLE. The thought froze her veins. And yet, it gave Usterka an idea. She’d climb into the ventilation system that the Cutwires seemed to travel through when the shield was up.
…
Nikita, Cutwire 1, Cutwire 2, and Zmora are all sitting in a room around a table. Silence fills the room as the dust begins to stir in the slight draft from the vents- it seems the power is back up. Nikita is leaning on the table, looking up at the vents across from her as if expecting a face any second. “I don’t know i I can keep this up for much longer. We’re all a little sweet on the cutie. Can’t leave her thrashing about too long…”
Zmora groans, putting her head in her arms as she scooches her chair closer to the table. “Nikita has a point. As much as I’d hate to say it, she’s smarter than she acts. And looks. She’s gonna find out eventually.”
Cutwire 1 slams her fist on the table. “WE CAN’T TELL HER! What do you think’s gonna happen if she figures it out? It’s the whole reason we’ve been hiding it. Besides that, we can’t even show ourselves! She knows us too damn well. Too good at sleuthing.
Cutwire 2 just sits there, unable to really participate. She and Nikita glance at each other before sharing a few phrases in sign language. Nikita’s form still isn’t the best, but it’s still brings a weak smile to Cutwire 2’s face.
“We can’t keep this up forever, Cutwire.” Zmora zaps away through the lightbulb above the table, causing it to flicker. Nikita walks over to Cutwire 1 whose face is buried in her hands. Gently, Nikita places a hand on their shoulder. “She’s right, Caroline. We’re running out of time. We have to prepare to face the music.” Nikita puffs away through the floor in a cloud of ash.
The two Cutwires exchange glances before nodding at each other, walking through the wall.
Ula is frozen in silence. Not that she’d speak as it was. The room is empty now. And she had enough answers. She was practically scrambling backwards out of the vents.
…
Sitting there in the breakroom, Ula stared a the board now that it was full of information. Yet she had no clue how to connect it all. There was something important missing regarding what happened yesterday, and she can hardly figure out which of her girls to talk to first.
Nikita seemed defeated and tired of the charade.
Cutwire 1 seemed angry and assertive about her stance.
Cutwire 2 felt useless due to not being able to help.
Zmora was starting to have doubts in what they were doing.
But none of that helps Ula with what or why something happened last night. As far as Ula knew, sex happened, but she doesn’t know with who or why. And it would be particularly terrible if it wasn’t with one of them. Ula decided to look to the book.
A lot of the displayed diagrams didn’t exactly help. They had no regard for what sizes they may be or how they act in terms of personality. So Ula Usterka decided that’s what was to focus on.
What she can assume for the biggest part is that Cutwire 2 would be too shy to do anything like that. Unless forced or prompted by the others and Ula herself, she wouldn’t even be thinking about that. Probably.
Zmora would probably not care. If it was her, she’d either pretend nothing was wrong, or brag about it every 5 minutes. Added bonus considering Zmora had possessed Usterka in the past.
Nikita wouldn't have a reason to hide it unless something embarrassing happened. For the most part she’s a solid brick wall when it comes to romantic stuff, never really wavering or getting flustered. On an added note, she and Cutwire 2 have a cute bond that I was previously unaware of.
Cutwire 1 would be a jerk about it. Constantly. She’d tease about details to the other girls, and use it to try and embarrass Usterka. But, there is a likely chance she’s scared to admit it to the rest of them because they’d tear her apart for manipulating Ula into fucking. But then why would the rest be avoiding her?
None of this is making any sense. And it’s only worsening Ula’s headache.
…
You can’t run from it forever.
I know.
You don’t know. She might be thrilled about it. Accepting.
But what if she isn’t?
It’s not like we have a choice. If you don’t tell her and have us all avoid her forever-
I understand. It’s lose lose… so I might as well try, then. Right?
Right there, ####.
…
Ula Usterka was miserable. She had to spend all day doing her job and didn’t get to talk to her favorite dead people. Her head hang like her neck was broken: low and empty. She had long since accepted that she’d never get the chance to figure this all out. It’d been hours shince she’d gathered her thoughts, and it was about closing time. Maybe she did do something terrible. Maybe it pissed them all off. It was all confusing.
Today was rough overall. At least work was easy.
Tomorrow would be better.
Surely.
.
.
.
It has been nearly 3 days since she has seen any of them. Not only had her job become frighteningly easy, but extraordinarily miserable. She caught glimpses now and then of their green energy, but never more than a faint line in the corner of her vision that is gone faster than she can chase it. Ula had been crying about it about every night. And i mean, wouldn’t you? Try going from having 4 handfuls that all love you to LITERAL pieces, only to have all those beloved lovers stripped from you like some asshole snatching candy from your hands. I’d like to think that ya’ll would cry nightly too. During the day, she’s barely going through the motions. The one moment of tranquility being her nightly shower.
the others see this degeneration. Guilt racks each of them for their own reasons. It’s quickly becoming unbearable. Not only are they bored out of their minds, but worried about the consequences of abandoning Ula.
That’s why Cutwire 2 stops the miserable slag of purple in her tracks. Usterka nearly walked through her due to finding more interest in what was on the floor than the drab drearyness in front of her.
Both look up at each other.
Ula wanted to scream, cry, and hug Cutwire 2 all at the same time.
Cutwire 2 wanted to apologize, cry, and hug Ula.
Take a guess at what happened.
And I mean of course they kissed. After all, they had both missed each other for a while. Nothing eye opening, just something short and cute. Immediately after, Ula started dragging her fellow mute off to the break room.
Now, I know what you may be thinking. Cutwire 2 was thinking of something different too. Which almost put her off entirely. I mean, Ula has always been forward in her advances, of course, so why would this be any different?
But sex wasn’t on this mechanic’s mind. No. it was the board. Ula thought for a moment and tried to remember what she had been learning at her sign language classes, and yet had nothing. So instead, she grabbed a marker from out of a nearby cabinet, flipped the board around, and began writing a 12 paragraph essay of questions.
…
In the end, after about 4 hours straight of conversation, it was all starting to make sense.
That night, Ula had been… intoxicated. Not on purpose mind you, but Cutwire and Zmora had replaced Ula’s water with Vodka that Striga had in her study. Some relic from when she was still alive or something like that. And while the two had had their fun laughing at Usterka’s stupid behavior, nobody else had known the overarching consequences.
Ula Usterka, was a flirty drunk.
for most people this wouldn’t be an issue. It’s as simple as not taking it seriously. She’s not even very good at it… much better at it when she’s conscious of her actions, and the only reason it tends to work out is because she’s so cheesy it circles around from bad to cute again. Even if she can’t use her words, there’s no greater truth than to ever underestimate body language.
And that was exactly what Cutwire 2 fell victim too. Being a rather new entity, she was a little naive about things like this. While she’s technically still also Caroline, she’s clearly a lot more nervous and emotionally tuned than her counterpart; perhaps in their mitosis, she had taken all the naivety.
For she fell hook line and sinker for the Drunken Ula’s plays. And, mind you, had no idea she was intoxicated either. Only after a… few hours… did she find out from Her sister, Cutwire 1. And so here she was, apologising. She feared she had “taken advantage” of someone she cared about.
She felt useless for not being able to help.
Ula stood there and took in all the information.
A smile crept across her face. No wonder she couldn’t remember anything! She must’ve been blasted!
Immediately, she bursts into laughter, which makes Cutwire 2 nervous for a moment. And then she tries to think about it from Ula’s perspective; in her drunken state, Ula had seduced one of her lovers successfully. The rest of it wasn’t that funny, but that part was absolutely hilarious for Ula when she tried to imagine it.
And she thanked Cutwire 2.
This whole thing had been a nightmare and a half from the beginning. For it all to have such a lighthearted ending was more than anyone to ask for.
They wiped the whiteboard clean together, smiling the whole time.
Of course Miss Usterka would never hold it against Cutwire 2. To think she’d been stressed about this the whole time. Ula is a forgiving woman, especially to those she cares about. Like a lonely dog, she smiles bright at the chance to see someone, even if that someone is bad.
This whole thing seemed rather silly now.
Ula was a little peeved that they all avoided her over this. Even Zmora and Nikita, both who didn’t seem to really believe in this stalling maneuver, never showed face.
Ula gave Cutwire 2 a small kiss on the cheek before sending her off.
The minute Ula can remember how she got the Conspiracy Board down here in the first place, she could go home.
But for now, at least officially,
Ula Usterka was…
Off the Clock.
Though one question does linger on Ula’s mind…
Where the hell did she get a book about fucking ghosts!?