seiya234:

Henry turned the corner and sighed again.

Nothing.

He was beginning to suspect that Pacifica had given him the
most confusing and befuddling directions to and from the bathroom on purpose.
On second thought, he probably should have realized that when she insisted that
he had to take a different way back to the dining room from the bathroom. 

He smiled in spite of the situation. It was clear to him
that everyone in the dining room, from Candy and Grenda who he had only met
last week, to Mr. McGucket who had discussed at great length the time he
performed an autopsy in college, to Pacifica with a set of four rings that he
just knew were cleverly disguised brass knuckles-all of them loved Mabel and
didn’t want to see her hurt. And if that meant he had to take a little hazing
and suspicion until they trusted him well. It had only been three weeks since
they started going out but he could say with confidence it was worth it. 

(lie. It was worth it after the first time they went out,
the first time they met-)

His stomach rumbled as he began yet another ridiculously
ornate and ostentatiously decorated hallway. That being said, he hoped Mabel
sent out a rescue party soon. 

Yet another corner turned and suddenly there was a man in
the hallway.

Guessing from the axe wedged neatly in his skull Henry was
going to guess that the man was a ghost. 

A second later he realized the blue flame beard should have
been a giveaway too. Perhaps he had been spending too much time around
Dipper. 

Henry scratched the back of his head awkwardly. What did one
say when meeting a ghost? 

“Um. Hi?” 

Ghostly blue ribs and a tibia were exposed to the air, the
flesh around the edges rotted and worn. Arms once mighty and powerful were now
covered in mottled skin and mold. One eye was gone and the other looked more
akin to a cue ball rather than any organ Henry had seen. The man was big and
burly and gave off the sense of a terrible, implacable will. For some reason he
reminded Henry an awful lot of his Grandpa Arnold, a man he had only met a few
times before his passing. 

The ghost continued to float in front of him, silent,
waiting. 

“Is there a reason that you have an axe in your head and in
your hand?” 

The beard flamed out longer and hotter but Henry went on. “I
don’t mean to offend you sir, but it just seems a little redundant because you
could just use the one cleaved in your head.” 

 Still nothing. 

Henry shrugged. “Just a suggestion.” 

He waited another second but there was still no movement, no
words from the ghost. Well. So much for that. 

“I’m going to go now, it was nice meeting you.” He began to
walk forward, intending to walk around the ghost but- 

A deep booming voice rang out. “Wait.” It was a voice that
reverberated throughout his bones, his blood, and Henry froze in place. 

The ghost began to circle around him, nostrils flaring
almost as if he was sniffing Henry. 

“What’s your name boy?”

(Unbidden in his head his father’s voice barking out “You’re
a shame to our name boy-”) 

“Henry. Henry Corduroy.“ 

The ghost nodded. “Thought you were one of my
get." 

Well. That was unexpected.

"Excuse me- what?" 

A flash of red hair and the weight of a child in his hands,
of a face and back worn down from work but still quick to smile, a bow tie in a
beard- 

(-mud in his lungs and the drip of blood and something grey
and pink and squishy down his face before the dark took him-) 

-and once again the ghost stood before him. Henry was
shaking from the rush of whatever that was (you know what that was Henry
Corduroy-) but the ghost went on as if nothing had happened.

“There’s been Corduroys in these parts since my brothers and
I followed President Trembly out here.” The head of his mighty axe fell to the
ground with a large thunk, and the ghost leaned against the handle, sniffing the
air once again like a bloodhound. “Seems like you’re one of mine, and not
Teddy or Al’s.”

When Mabel had told him they were going to dinner at an old
friend’s house, he wasn’t expecting that the house would be a manor, or said
old friends would be an ex-heiress and an inventor. And he certainly wasn’t
expecting to meet a long dead ancestor.

The ghost fished a toothpick out of the back pocket of his
overalls and began to chew on it. “So what brings you in here boy? No room
for our kind here.”

Henry raised an eyebrow at that but decided to ignore it for
now. “My girlfriend wanted me to meet the people that live here,
Fiddleford McGucket and Pacifica Northwest-”

At the word “Northwest”, the temperature dropped down
forty or fifty degrees, causing the mirrors and glass in the hall to crack with
the sudden change. Without any perceptible change on the ghost’s part, Henry
was suddenly, viscerally aware that he was looking at a dead man. No, more than
a dead man; a man kept from moving on, a man hanging on to this plane through
the power of his will, his rage. 

“Northwest!” the ghost roared, and the rafters rattled, what
was left of the windowpanes rattled, and his teeth rattled. 

“You…Take it you know Pacifica then?” Henry managed to gasp
out. 

The ghost pointed a sausage like finger (a finger that was
all too like the one his father had pointed at him time and time again and this
was really not the time-) at Henry.

“Her blood has wronged ours! For generations the Northwests
have made a mockery of our family! They have used us! Tricked us! BETRAYED US!”

At that last phrase, the ghost roared, and the hallway was
engulfed for a second in the blue fire of his beard. It only tickled Henry’s
skin but he knew somehow that it could burn him to cinders if the ghost so
desired. 

The fire died down and as it did Henry saw the ghost
offering him his axe. It was massive, practically half Henry’s size, and Henry
wasn’t exactly short.

“Take it boy. Take vengeance on the Northwest clan. Take
vengeance for those who have wronged us and ours.”

His stomach dropped and sweat broke out all over him.

“No. Absolutely not.”

The fire of the ghost’s beard died away, shriveled up until
it was only an inch out from his face. “What did you just say boy?”

Henry crossed his arms. “I don’t know what Pacifica’s family
did to piss you off however long ago and I don’t know what they did in the time
between then and now. But I’ve met Pacifica. And more important, I know what
she’s done for my girlfriend and her family.”

The beard blazed back again. “She’s deceived you boy! Pulled
the wool over your eyes! You’ve been had!”

(“Oh Henry, you don’t know what you’re talking about, you
don’t really feel that way, now go apologize to your father-“)

Henry shook his head. “The worst thing Pacifica Northwest
has done to me was show me her rings and convince me to try caviar. That’s it.”

One moment they were feet apart the next only an inch of air
was between them. The ghost’s breath smelt of rot and decay, and Henry could
feel the weight of time rolling off the ghost, pressing him down into the
floor.

“Kill the girl-“

The little voice inside of him that talked back, that
sassed, that got his ass kicked often rose up and said, “Well, actually, Pacifica
is a woman now.”

“You shame me-“

(“For shame Henry John Corduroy! Remember the Lord says to
honor thy father-“)

“You’re an embarrassment-“

(-a flash of being four and scared of the dark, of going to
ask Dad to look under the bed for monsters and having him tan your hide for embarrassing
him in front of all his work buddies at the table-)

“You’re weak. You’re pathetic. You are nothing.”

(“You’re weak! You disgust me!” His father shook his head
and Henry tried his best not to swallow the tooth his father had just knocked
out. “You’re a pathetic piece of nothing. Should’ve never been born-“)

The words washed over him. They hurt. He still stood there,
unmoving, hands firmly at his side.

The ghost glared at him for another minute and then snorted.

“Fine. If you aren’t man enough to finish the job then I’ll
do it myself.”

He went to walk through Henry and then suddenly shot back,
as if pushed away by something or someone. The ghost roared once again, and ran
at Henry. Henry flinched but remained standing, remained blocking the hallway.
The ghost once again approached him, this time beginning to phase through him
and Christ it felt like every cell in his body was shriveling up his heart had
stopped his lungs collapsed-

And the ghost was flung back twice as hard this time.

“HOW?!”

Henry wasn’t quite sure either but he wasn’t going to lose
this opportunity.

“I’m not going to let you hurt my friend.” Well. Really she
was more of an acquaintance at this point but now was not the time to quibble
with semantics.

The ghost raised his axe up and up until it reached over his
head.

“Boy, I’ll cut you down like a tree if you don’t get out of
the way.”

His legs were shaking and all he could think about was Mabel’s
warm brown eyes, the sound of her laugh, the whisper in his ear that she had
something cute and pink to show him tonight under her sweater…

But the little voice inside of him that had been with him
for as long as he could remember, the little voice that was there when he got a
job at a restaurant to start saving money for his escape, the voice that was
there when his father’s nose broke with a satisfying crunch under his fist… the
little voice simply said “No.”

The axe fell and the blade embedded itself in the floor at
Henry’s feet.

Henry looked at it, and then looked at the ghost, who had
begun to laugh in big pealing booms.

“Um. What?”

The ghost reached over and clapped his shoulder, or as best
as a ghost could.

“Good show son! Thought you were made of the right stuff!”

“Was… was this a test?” The part of him that was still
convinced that he was facing his imminent death felt compelled to add, “Are you
serious?”

The ghost’s laughter died down and he wiped a tear away. “I’m
sorry son, that were right mean of me, I admit-“

“So… so there’s no centuries long vendetta between our
familes.”

“Oh there was one-“ the room darkened, a chill danced up
Henry’s spine “-but our girl fixed things, made them right. She did good too.”
He eyed Henry. “In the same circumstances too, I imagine.” The ghost leaned
once again on the handle of his axe. “Thought I was ready to go but that girl
needed some looking after for a little while longer, so I stayed. But now-“

The ghost smiled, and then sniffed. He dug a hanky out of the
fire of his beard, honked, and went on. “She’s grown. She’ll be good. All I
have left to do before I go on is pass this axe of mine on. A Corduroy brave
and true, good and strong-“

A thought occurred to Henry. “Have you thought about my
cousin Wendy? She’s everything you’ve described and more-“

The ghost shook his head. “No. I’ve met the little warrior
before, had a good arm wrassle with her- she beat me y’know? Beat me three
times! Helluva woman! But no. She’s good. She’s got what she needs already. You
however-“

With an effortless yank the ghost pulled the axe out of the
floor and offered it to Henry.

“You on the other hand are going to need this one day.” The
ghost pulled a face. “Maybe. It’s hard to tell but-“ He tapped Henry’s chest
with the butt of the axe handle.

“There’s a mighty big seed in there waiting to grow. And an
even bigger heart waiting to take care of it.”

Henry was at this point completely lost.

“I… I’m not… I’m not really-“

The lumberjack sighed. “Whatever you’re going to say, it’s a
load of horse shit that ain’t true so just shut up and take the damn axe okay.”
A pause. “No matter what, it’ll always be good for cuttin’ firewood.”

Henry’s hands moved of their own volition and took the axe.
It felt… remarkably like a regular axe.

The ghost was already dissolving before his eyes, flesh then
bone then light. “Goodbye blood of my blood. Fare thee well, Woodsman-“

With that he was gone. And so was his axe, leaving not a
trace on his hands.

A thumping behind him, and Henry turned to see Mabel and an embarrassed
looking Pacifica behind him.

“There you are Henbone!” Mabel yelled, and launched herself
in his arms.

“We’ve been looking for you,” Pacifica said, quieter.

He smiled at the blonde woman. “No worries. Just got a bit
lost, is all.” He winked at her, and Pacifica blushed.

He would tell them about what happened another time. But for
now, dinner, and friends awaited.

(Years later, when he felt his flesh tear and twist into
something new, when the little voice inside turned into a roar, before he saved
his daughter Henry looked down at what used to be his hand and noticed that the
ghost’s axe was there, growing into his arm.

It had been there, waiting, all along.)