Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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It's a train that’s technically going nowhere, so of course Doki gets bored. 

The internet connection isn’t the best, but she could hardly blame the rat at the helm for that. Dooby is the kind of name baby’s first rubber duck has, but it’s the name a jerboa gives herself when she gains intelligence beyond sniffing dirt. It’s not the end of the weird names aboard the train either. Funny plate is the door. Bigass pole is just a handlebar. Noise chamber is just the bathroom. 

It’s amusing. Dooby isn’t stupid by any means- Mint has far more brain mush moments then the rat- but it makes for pretty funny conversations at dinner time. 

The train is like this: four cars. The front engine, a communal dining area and bar, Doki’s room, and Mint’s room at the end cause she wants to ‘throw her caboose back’. 

Dooby had said, “Uh okay.”

“She means twerking.” Doki supplies. 

She couldn’t see a damn thing behind Dooby’s dark goggles, but they give such a blind old deranged man vibe that it’s hard to take her seriously with them. 

Dooby says, “Oh, I hoped so.”

Doki snorts, leaning her hip against the train controls. The inertia of the train was weird to get used to. There’s a distant memory of flying for her, but it’s far away and covered in scars. She crosses her arms and looks out the front window. The train can largely operate by itself, but it’s an old beast run by an even older green bean of a creature. Dooby inheriting it unwillingly but taking to it like a moth before a flame was funny- especially when Dooby starts complaining. 

“This shit is always breaking.” The rat mumbles under her breath. She’s fiddling with wires under the dashboard, her tail lashing back and forth. Doki watches it passively, snapping to every movement of Dooby’s hands like the crack of a whip. “I don’t even kick here, how did it break?”

“Do you kick your dashboard?”

“Yeah.” Mulishly, Dooby says, “It’s fine.”

The tail again, this time brushing Doki’s arm in the wild strokes of it. Doki swats at it, but Dooby is utterly unaffected by it. She’s focused on her work. When it passes her again, Doki grabs it. 

Dooby goes, “Hey.”

“Hey yourself.” Doki drawls, waving the tail around with half interest. Dooby isn’t even bothered by the manhandling. Her tongue is poking out from her concentration. There’s a creak of a metal and a snap as she works. 

Doki tugs. Dooby doesn’t react. She bends and twists it, wrapping it around her wrist like an actual rope. Dooby stays working. 

Can you work like this though? She pulls. Dooby inhales, reaching up to lift her goggles, shooting a green eyed glare at her that Doki grins at. One hand against the dashboard, the other pulling her tail back until the train operator is standing, knees bumping hers, unimpressed. It’s the same kind of flat look Mint gives her when she performs this mischief. 

It’s addicting. 

“Do I gotta train you not to kick it?” Doki drawls. It comes out a lot meaner than she intended. She’s careful of moving her leg aside from Dooby’s- the kick was seriously no joke. A donkey would cower before her. 

Dooby looks up at the ceiling and to the side and back at her, “Uhhh, um, yeah I’m gonna need that back.”

“You don’t need it right now.”

“Right now? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Doki tugs it. The tail itself is taunt under Dooby’s leg, prompting her to lift her knee, her brow furrowed. Bending away from Doki as she leers, looming forward, until Dooby’s back is almost pressed against the dashboard. Not enough space to kick her legs. Tail held back behind her like she just tied and bound a bounty. 

Dooby tilts her chin up stubbornly, “I’ll cause an accident.” 

“I don’t think you want that.” 

“I can hit the breaks.”

“Do it. Bet you won’t.”

Dooby pushes down on a lever by her wrist. The inertia comes to a harsh, screeching stop. Doki tumbles forward, her head knocking against Dooby’s. She’s pressing down on her, stunned, completely frozen as their foreheads touch. Dooby is laughing about it. 

“Okay.” Dooby shoves her. “Get off.” 

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As long as she’s bound to the train, Mint can interact with it. It’s a nice boon when so often it feels like her connection to the material world is thin and faulty. At times, she’s a computer that’s lagging, her fingers slipping through her tea cup and watching in surprise as it shatters on the floor of her room.

“What was that?” Doki’s voice travels from the neighboring car. 

“Nothing! Sorry, I’m cleaning!” Mint replies, dropping her voice to mutter, “Are you kidding me?”

Cleaning takes concentration. Half the pieces she’s able to collect, while the rest she’s left to fruitlessly pluck at until her fingers can find purchase on them. It’s how Doki finds her, the sliding door to her room moving open a fraction to let the bird peek in. 

“Oh, that’s what you’re doing.” Doki says. 

Mint waves her hand at her, “I got it, I got it. Don’t step in here or you’re gonna like, cut up your foot and die.”

Doki laughs, “I’m wearing shoes.”

“It’ll get you.”

“I think I’ll live, I dunno ‘bout you though, I think it did you in.”

Mint can't help but laugh at that, “Okay, wise guy, come clean this up then.” 

“No no, you look like you’re doing just fine.” Doki leans against the doorway, aiming a crooked smile her way. “I’ll watch.”

“Yeah, you would like to watch.” Mint mutters. 

Doki steps in to swat at her. It makes contact with her shoulder. It’s typical banter, but the feeling of touch is sorely needed. It lifts her mood more than she expected it to. When she crouches down to retrieve another piece, she can’t grab it. The good mood evaporates. 

Gloved fingers gather the loathsome thing. Doki cradles it in her palm, side eyeing Mint. Oftentimes it’s easy to get wrapped up into a playful spirit. Often, the banter and arguments feel like quick turns off a wide open road that exposes too much. 

As easy as looking away, Mint says, “It was really slippery.”

“Butter fingers.” Doki says. 

“Hey, it’s because you’re wearing gloves. You had better traction.”

“Uh huh.” Doki reaches down to gather the rest, one by one, and Mint feels warmer for it. “You know we have no idea when we’re gonna reach another town to buy another one, right?”

“I don’t have to worry about starving.” Mint drawls. 

Doki flashes her a grin, all teeth and competitive spirit. Their favorite game is afoot- who can one up each other. 

Mint… is feeling warm, less armed to throw ammo at Doki when she’s holding a broken tea cup like it’s more precious than it deserves to be. 

“Okay, well, you owe me for this.” Doki says. 

Mint says, “Okay.”

Doki glances at her, faintly surprised but more so amused, “Okay?”

“Sure, I’ll get you more broken stuff.” Mint declares. She bails out in the only way she knows- falling right through the floor to the underbelly of the car, where wood hugs against the metal frame of it. The important part is Doki’s indignant yell as she leaves. 

“Mint! Mint, come take care of this shit, I’m not cleaning your trash!” Doki calls. “I’m dumping it on your bed, I swear to-”

Dooby’s voice comes over the train intercom, “Driver asks passengers to shut up.”

“ You shut up!” Doki hollars. 

“Driver is gonna have to ask the passenger to exit the train car via the emergency exit.”

“There is no exit!”

“Window.” Dooby says ominously. It has Mint laughing hard enough she almost falls out of the floor. 

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It’s weird, she acknowledges, that she’s able to sit on top of the train and not feel cold. The night sky above twinkles in starlight blues, pinks, and light. Mint pulls her knees to her chest, lets her sleeves droop down to her shoes and pretends she has a blanket to keep herself warm, a hot drink to keep herself from getting lonely, and the ability to lose her breath to wondrous sights. 

It’s still pretty. There’s still happiness in seeing the long spanning hills around the train as it travels throughout the night. Loneliness, but she’s happy. 

The roof panel slides open a minute later, the loud metallic noise startling her. Dooby pokes her head up, reaching up to grip the bill of her hat as the wind nearly socks her in the face. 

“This might be against railroad regulations, miss.” Dooby says, adopting her squinted smile. “I’m gonna have to see your license to be up here.”

“Oh, my bad, it’s on my other train.” Mint says. 

“Other train? How many trains are you in cahoots with, huh? I see how it is.” 

Mint can’t help but laugh, “I’ll make a train stop if you know what I mean.”

“What the hell.” Dooby says blanky. The banter makes the air warmer, somehow. “Are you doin’ okay up here? I feel like I should install a chair.”

“Can you do that?” Mint asks, surprised. “That’d look really odd.” 

“Or maybe an outside speaker. You know. Have music playing.”

Mint perks up, “Oh, you’d let me put on my playlist? All my songs?”

“Okay, well, hold on-” Dooby says, grinning, and Mint feels herself smiling back. She’s turning away from the stars, scooting forward to properly sit on the edge of the panel, her legs dangling down into the operating car. Dooby leans back for her, somehow able to hang off the ladder by just her legs and tail, her arms crossed over the edge of the panel to look up at Mint with raised eyebrows. 

“Well?” Dooby prompts. 

“Well where? I don’t see no well here.” Mint replies smartly. 

Dooby huffs in amusement, “You can come inside if you want, you don’t have to stay up here, I mean, unless you like being up here.”

“I do like it. How about you come up here instead?”

“It’s too cold.” Dooby whines. “And the wifi sucks.”

Mint laughs, “I didn’t wanna bother you! I figured you were sleeping, so-”

“I can’t sleep.” Dooby says, which Mint would take as a joke if there wasn’t an ounce of mirth in Dooby’s face about that. “I just thought we could-”

“Wait.” Mint says. “Like actually?”

“What?”

“You can’t sleep?”

She can see Dooby’s tail lash, the corner of her mouth turning into a flat frown, “It’s a whole thing, kind of… weird to explain, I guess. I’ve never had to tell passengers about it, so I don’t really know how to describe it.”

“You’re a jerboa.” Mint pokes her in the forehead. 

Dooby makes a nyeh sound, “You’re made out of chocolate.”

“Okay, that’s a feature.” Mint says. 

Dooby grins, “Well, my feature is not sleeping.”

“Just like that?”

“Previous operator couldn’t sleep either. It’s part of, uh,” Dooby gestures to her head like she’s trying to pull something out, “This.”

“I miss sleeping.” Mint blurts out. It’s a loose valve, something she hadn’t meant to say, but it comes out a lot quieter than she intended. Less warm banter, more cold night air. Dooby looks at her. 

“Same.” Dooby says. “Wanna play video games?”

Mint can’t help but smile, “All night long?”

“Gotta provide the best passenger experience.” Dooby says loftily, which sounds dorky coming from her. When she holds her hand out- white glove, a little dirty from work- Mint takes it. If she holds on a few seconds more than deemed friendly, it’s only because the novelty of touch is something she misses too. 

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Dooby’s tail is the most amusing thing to watch. Mint usually struggles to entertain herself as an incorporeal ghost. She’s found a new hobby in fighting Dooby’s tail. 

Dooby is largely unaware she’s been marked for combat as she fixes herself breakfast in the cafe, “Did that show you were watching- what was it called-?”

“Witch Lies in Bed.” Mint says. She’s swatting at Dooby’s tail. The tail flicks back and forth. She knocks her knuckles against it, delighting when it wraps around her wrist. 

Dooby says, “Yeah, was it good?”

“It was okay. Not a lot of witches in bed, if you know what I mean.”

Doki, with her head nearly falling into her own food, snorts. She’s half awake from her perch at the bar. The early morning ruffles the feathers in her hair into odd angles. Morning for Dooby makes her own hair stick up weird as well, but otherwise, she doesn’t look like she needs more than brushed. Mint is always unchanged in this regard. 

The tail though. It’s practically coiled in her hand. She’s giddy as she moves it up and down. Only then does Dooby look back at her, eyebrows raised, unimpressed.

“Hey.” Dooby complains. “What are you doing?”

“It’s too cute.”

“She’s harassing you, Doob.” Doki mutters. “Kick her off the train.”

“Hey, I’m just-” Mint sputters, searching for an excuse, before deciding on the truth, “Your tail is a weapon.”

“A weapon?” Dooby echoes. “I dunno, that sounds like it’d hurt.”

“Hit me with it.”

“What?”

Doki laughs, “Don’t do it, she’s into that.”

“Shut up! We’re doing science over here, we don’t need the peanut gallery to-”

Without waiting, Dooby sharply turns, her tail yanking itself from Mint’s hand and then sharply cracking against her elbow. It doesn’t hurt in the slightest. A pillow could do more damage. Mint stares as Dooby turns back to her, plate cradled close as she spears food onto her fork. 

“So?” Dooby asks around her food, “Did you like it?”

Doki’s laughter echoes loudly in the cabin car. Just to be annoying, Mint says, “I didn’t feel it. Do it again.”

Dooby’s lips lift up a little in mischief. Mint hides her giggles behind her sleeve, suddenly too flustered to be a ghostly punching bag. She haunts her way to an empty stool, not forgetting to shove Doki’s shoulder on the way there. 

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Mint can feel things, sometimes. It’s a sensation but not technically the feeling. She touches the countertop of the bar and she can tell, this is wood. If she closes her eyes and runs her palm along every ridge, she’d know from texture and weight that it’s wood. 

When she touches Doki’s hand, she feels gun callouses. The bird is half awake, the only instance of her letting her hand be Mint’s entertainment while she’s distracted with cleaning her boots. Late at night, here in the rumbling train noise, Doki is softer. She’s less likely to take her hand away. When Mint picks it up and starts to explore every digit, Doki only hums a small complaint as she leans her chin against her other hand. 

Doki has claws, nothing that’s noticeable unless she’s looking them over closely. Bird talon nails. A trigger finger that starts to tap against her palm with quiet impatience. 

Mint giggles under her breath. 

Doki mumbles, “What?”

“Nothin’.”

With Dooby, her hands are softer, almost uncanny in how unblemished and new they are. New body is easier to see in the clearness of her skin, unmarked, almost like a blank page still needing to be filled. When Mint steals her hand, Dooby perks up, blinking at her.

“What?” Dooby asks. 

Animal response. Mint thinks with amusement. 

“I’m investigating your hand for any stolen goods.” Mint claims. “Hmm. Nothing here.”

Dooby’s eyebrows raise, her lips tilting up into a toothy smile, “I’m being searched? For what?”

“I’m looking for a rat. Haven’t found ‘em yet.”

“Oh yeah, they’re everywhere. Good luck.”

Mint giggles. 

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It’s easy to fall into neighborly banter. Dooby, the train operator. Doki, the gun slinging passenger. Mint. 

Mint is dead. 

It doesn’t bother her that often, not when she’s bound to the train. She can interact with it and everyone aboard. It feels nice. Touch, while only just the sensation, is nice when she receives it. 

“Can you possess someone?” Dooby asks, idly curious. Her tail is whipping back and forth. Mint gets distracted by it easily. It’s cute to see a visible tell to how relaxed the operator was. 

“I mean, I can.” Mint drawls slowly, squinting at her. “I don’t usually- I mean- it’s just kind of weird. It’s not my body.”

“Oh.” Dooby says, quieter, gaze flitting away to the forward window of the train. She doesn’t look bothered, but she’s hard to read. Mint feels like it bothered her but she can’t discern why.

“I’ve never done it before.” Mint offers. 

Dooby purses her lips, “So you don’t know how it’s like to feel things?”

“I don’t really remember that bit.” Mint says. She doesn’t mention how much she’s forgotten. She feels she’ll be a broken record player with how much she doesn’t remember, everything from her living memory scrubbed from her brain the moment she woke as a phantom. It’s too sad! She would rather not mention it. 

Dooby glances at her. She doesn't give anything as she says, “Wanna try on me?”

Mint stares. 

Dooby returns her look for a long time before her tail flicks nervously, “Unless you don’t want to?”

“No, it’s okay, it’s just, uh,” Mint flounders, giggling out of nervous habit, “Wait, really? Are you sure?”

“You’re not gonna kidnap me right?” Dooby asks rhetorically. There’s just the tiniest edge to her words that’s not accusatory, but it’s there. 

Mint understands. She grins, “I’ll take your body and give it the worst nap ever.”

“I dunno ‘bout that.” Dooby laughs. “How does this work, anyway? Do you just- fly? Do I have to eat you like soup?”

“I’m the hottest soup ever.” Mint laughs. They’re being ridiculous, here in the cabin of the train, barely making eye contact like flirting teenagers. She hides behind her sleeves. Her giggles felt like she was being too girly, enamored with a train operator who would offer something so simple yet means so much. 

Dooby holds her hand out, “Wanna go for a ride, miss?”

Mint laughs, “ Stop! Oh my god, alright, don’t make a weird noise or something, okay. I don’t wanna mess this up.”

“How do you mess this up?”

“I don’t know!” 

It feels like fitting into a coat. She stretches her arms out and breathes, feels it in her chest, and it startles her. There’s an airy coldness to the cabin car that comes with too many doors and windows. It’s crispy and sharp down her throat. 

“Woah.” She exhales, Dooby’s voice dropping from her lips. 

She feels Dooby too, in the weird sensation of someone standing nearly in the same spot as her, arms on top of hers, like a breath against her neck. Dooby moves her arms around experimentally. 

“I can feel you.” Dooby says. “Woah, this is weird.”

“Super weird.” Mint agrees. She laughs, because she’s getting Dooby to talk to herself. She hears Dooby’s laugh in place of her own and it only makes her laugh harder. She can feel Dooby’s mirth, a sensation down her spine that tickles her. 

The first thing she does is stick her butt in the air. She has a tail. Oh, it’s such a strange thing, a weight that moves of its own accord but pulls and pushes on her tailbone. 

Dooby says, “I knew you’d do this.”

“Look at this, oh my god.” Mint laughs, delighted, wiggling her hips. “Dooby your tail!”

“Yes.” Dooby replies dryly. “I was born with it.” 

She grabs it, toying with it by wrapping it around her hands. Fur, the feeling of it, the soft end of it that she fans her face with in a dramatic fashion. She feels Dooby’s grin over her face, feels her amusement. She’s giddy with it. 

She’s not used to this short of hair, as she reaches up to her neck and brushes aside strands that are tickling her skin. Her fingers tickle at the roots of her hair, have her standing up straighter, heart in her ears as she notes every sensation in her fingers and hair. In Dooby’s hair. 

Dooby whispers, “You okay? You feel kinda…”

“You can feel me too?”

“Mm, yeah, it’s like you’re scared.”

“I’m fine.” Mint says. “I think I’m just… overwhelmed.”

“Good?” Dooby asks. 

“It’s good.”

“Let me try something.” Dooby says, steering her arms away. Mint lets her. “Do you feel this?”

Fingers, gently tracing her lips. Over her cheeks. Mint doesn’t even realize she’s holding her breath until Dooby forcefully inhales for them. It leaves her stammering, flustered, uncertain what this is- pampering? Or, in some form, being caressed? 

Dooby laughs under her breath, “Oops, sorry, I think I-”

“It’s okay.” Mint squeaks. “It’s okay, it’s fine, I just haven’t felt like this in- in ever.”

“Is it good?”

“God.” Mint breathes. She’s feeling warm, her tail lashing fast, and she knows Dooby feels it. It’s painfully obvious. Dooby is grinning. Pleased. “God, okay, I’ve had enough, I’m-”

“You sure?” Dooby asks, almost too innocent not to be a little cheeky. 

Mint huffs. She’s flying from those hands, down to the floor where she sinks to her nose to glare up at the train operator. Dooby blinks rapidly at her before crouching down, gentleman-like but mischievous. 

“Rate my service?” Dooby asks. 

“I’m not rating anything.” Mint still feels it, this phantom feeling of a blush hot over her face. She can see it still in the dusting of pink over Dooby’s cheeks. Embarrassing! “Maybe later.”

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When Doki first sees the train, she thinks it’s a trick of the light over the sand dunes. There’s no train tracks out here. She’d checked for the last hour as best as she could. It’s hard to focus with a broken leg. Her hands are occupied with her stomach, pressed down against a wound she’s losing against. The sun hurts, pressing a heavy weight down on her shoulders and eyelids. 

A bad turnout is an understatement. The graze over her check, just below her deadeye, was the last she was able to walk away with without outright dying. Vengeful bandits usually aren’t coordinated enough. She can handle an ambush. She can’t handle large numbers. It leaves her here, shuffling over sand dunes in sweaty, painful steps. 

The train comes to a stop in front of her. A gentle whine and squeak of wheels, the hiss as the door slides open. Doki stares at it, wheezing for air, half aware she’s hallucinating. 

The girl that steps out dusts a hat off her knee- bare legs, from her socks up to her shorts. Doki thinks it’s the blood loss that has her staring at this girl's legs longer then she realizes that this girl is wearing outlandish goggles over her eyes. 

“Oh.” The girl says plainly, looking at her with what Doki can only make out as wry amusement. “You’re gonna live, right?”

“What?” Doki coughs. She’s going to keep walking past this hallucination, except her head makes contact with the door and she nearly ends up careening to the ground. The girl grabs her elbow to keep her from falling to that fate. 

“Do you need help?” The girl is laughing despite this situation. 

Doki scoffs, “I need so much, dude.”

She’s helped up the steps of this train- a real train, she realizes with half lucid surprise. It’s just a single car, aligned with benches on either side and an operating console at the front. 

“Okay, well, usually it’s a lot more fun to get on this, I promise.” There’s a smile in this girl's voice as she leads Doki over to one of the seats. “Welcome to the uh… Doob express? The Doobmobile. The doobmobilion.” 

“The what?” Doki croaks. “What the hell is this?”

“The Doob.” The girl replies. “I’m Dooby.” 

“Are you tweaking right now, please, I can’t, I’ve been shot-” Doki complains. She’s sinking against her seat, hissing in pain when her leg tinges. Her stomach going numb is a frightening thing. It’s here in pained breath she notices this girl has a tail. A tail, the length of it nearly as tall as her as it sways back and forth. 

She stares at it in horror. The girl lifts her goggles up onto her hat, bright green eyes curved upwards from the volume of her smile. 

“You’ll probably be fine.” Dooby says, “Even if you’re dead, I can get you where you need to go.” 

“You’re insane.” Doki says. “This is insane. There was not a train here before. There was literally nothing.”

“I dunno.” Dooby says. She’s unbuttoning her coat and shucking it off, bundling it up on the bench seat beside Doki. “Here, you can use this as a pillow. I think this thing has something we can use…?” She’s looking around the train curiously. 

Doki whispers, “I’m going to die.” 

“Nah, nah, nah.” Dooby drawls, trotting over to a sign marked as the bathroom. “We can rub some dirt in it.”

“Do not touch me, I swear to go-”

“You’ll be fine!”

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Dooby is alone on her train. 

She doesn’t mind, as she enjoys long stretches between stops by watching the landscape pass by from the window. She has her laptop, a shoddy thing that sometimes doesn’t work, but for the most part she entertains herself by seeing new things. New scenery. 

She’s used to before- dunes, sandy hills and an infinite horizon, sunset colored skies drifting down into twilight. The farthest line to her is always a stretch. Now, she sees mountains and trees, greenery unlike any other. 

During the night, her train makes a strange noise. At first, she assumes it’s the habitable creak of its hull, the ever persistent bumps and rumbles as it glides along the tracks. When it keeps going, she thinks something might be loose. She grabs her flashlight and scans along each seat, brow furrowed against the dark of the cabin. 

An ominous hand print, cold condensation against the glass window, something so stark yet fading that Dooby blinks and it’s already gone. She hesitantly puts her glove against the glass, but it doesn’t leave the same kind of print as she just saw. Scary. She scans the ceiling for anything noteworthy, the light of her torch casting long shadows from the monkey bars. 

A noise like a bell, a wind chime, but with nowhere to discern where it came from. 

“Hello?” Dooby calls. 

Her flashlight burns out, just for a moment. It startles her into nearly dropping it. She hears it faintly, almost like a breath, sorry I didn’t mean… 

“Hello?” Dooby asks, softer, tail lashing back and forth with nerves and fascination, “Is someone there?”

It’s on the window, slowly, artwork that’s being scrawled into the condensation. A frowny face next to sorry. It fades under the light of her flashlight. 

Dooby blinks, uncomprehending, leaning closer to inspect the glass. It takes some time for something else to happen, the hand reappearing in the same spot. Dooby wouldn’t be able to understand a thing that’s happening, nor what sort of communication this is. Her brain operates like a mouse in the desert. Simple gestures meet simple demands.

She puts her hand against the glass, right over the print, and she hears that bell chime again. She recognizes it as a laugh, a giggle so quiet she can barely discern if it was there. It makes her tail wag. 

“Hi.” Dooby whispers.

Hi the glass says in shaky writing. It reads endearingly shy. Dooby can’t help but grin. 

“Welcome aboard.” She wishes to the something that’s not really there. “I don’t know who you are, but you know, I don’t bite.”

Paper? 

“Oh, I gotcha.” Dooby grins, taking her hand off the glass. “Sorry, I chew on my pencils sometimes, it’s kind of gross, if you’re okay with using that.”

She gets the impression she’s being laughed at. 

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When the train breaks down, it’s up to Dooby to fix it.

When Dooby is nowhere to be found, there’s nearly apocalyptic results. Mint thinks she doesn’t scare easily- she’s a ghost for crying out loud! Doki is another matter altogether who needs liquid courage in order to even face the idea of ghosts and ghouls. 

“You literally talk to me all the time!” Mint complains.

“You’re you!” Doki fires back, hiding underneath the train bench and not looking very mighty with a bottle of vodka protecting her. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”

“Can you do something?! Go find Doob! We need her to start the train!”

“I’m not going alone?!”

Doki nearly falls into hysterics, “I’m alive, you have to protect me!”

Mint bristles at that. She’s not going to take that lying down. Huffing, she falls down to the floorboards, hovering underneath them petulantly. It changes Doki’s tune swiftly. 

“Wait, Mint, where’d you go?” Doki’s voice is much quieter than before, “Mint? This isn’t funny. Come out.”

“Say something nice about me.” Mint says. Her voice is comically muffled underneath the train. 

“What?! Mint, we’re stranded we need to get help-”

“I’m dead, remember?” Mint says haughtily, “I don’t need help.”

“You would leave me to die?!”

Mint can’t help it at this point. She laughs, peeking up above the floorboards to peer at the cowering bounty hunter. For all her guff, Doki looks like a particularly lonely bird under the bench, her feathers nearly flat against her neck. 

Mint adopts a placating tone, “Okay, we share the bottle and I’ll help.”

“Why should I?” Doki mutters. 

“Just admit you need my help.”

“You know what? I’d rather die.” 

“I can arrange that.” Mint says darkly. 

Doki breaks into peels of laughter. She squirms her way out of her hiding spot, right up till both her boots are planted on either side of Mint’s head. Mint crosses her arms onto the floorboards, raising her eyebrows at the bounty hunter. 

Doki says, “Okay, we can go together, alright? Together. ”

“Do you need me to hold your hand?” Mint taunts. 

“Maybe.” Doki fires back, barely able to say it around a wheeze of laughter. “C’mon, we gotta go, we gotta fix-”

“I thought you wanted to die.” Mint drawls. 

“Mint, I will find a way to bring you back, so help me.” Doki cackles. 

Mint feels unexplainably warm with that, giggling as she allows herself to loom over Doki’s shoulder, draping her sleeves there playfully as they wander down the train car. Doki is very skittish about the whole ordeal. It makes it funny to find Dooby at the tail of the train, poking her head above an electrical panel to stare at them through her goggles. 

“Where have you been?!” Doki cries. 

“What?” Dooby asks, as if the blackout wasn’t something to be concerned with. 

Mint is laughing too hard to answer her. 

.

.

Dooby has the ability to stop the train if she wishes. It’s a good thing too, considering there’s limited supplies and running out of food is low on the list of things she wants to happen to her on the tracks. However, the train stops on its own too. The first time had been for a haggard man stranded in the middle of nowhere. The second, a girl on her way to school standing by herself. The third had been a bandit bleeding from her sternum, eyes wide as she exclaims there’s no way you exist. 

She’s learned along her journey the train stops not when she wants it to. It stops when other people want it to, maybe not consciously, or maybe some other celestial reason that she can’t wrap her rodent brain around. It’s big, higher concepts that mean very little to her in the long run. If it stops, she does her job, because she feels if it’s all she has to do in this life she must do a damn good job of it. 

She knows it happens when the inertia of the train falls. She could press any lever she wanted to accelerate. The train could be on fire and it would still slow down, easing to a hissing stop. The door slides open to a countryside stop, where there’s more farmland than houses. Dooby slides out of her chair, adjusting her hat and fixing the collar of her coat. 

Gotta look cool, she thinks. The doors click and hiss, sliding to the side to reveal a woman in a green dress. A suitcase, a thick trunk, rests beside her leg. She seems surprised, eyeing the train and glancing down to her ticket in hand with clear bewilderment. 

“You’re early.” She exclaims. “Like, four hours early. Is this the northern express?”

“It might as well be.” Dooby grips the bill of her hat. She can’t help but grin. Her little train is a mystery that always makes people give her the same expression- befuddled, but curious. “Do you need help with your bag?”

“Oh, thank you.” The woman nudges the trunk sheepishly. The ears on her head twitch in tandem to every flick of her eyes. Dooby steps out, bowing to heft the trunk up. It makes the girl laugh. “Wow, okay, I feel weak.”

“After you.” Dooby wishes. 

“After me.” The nurse repeats delightedly, taking the steps up into the train with awkward inexperience. “I’m Nimi, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Doobed to meet you.” Dooby replies.

“What?”

“Uh, just call me Dooby.”

There it is, that bright incredulous laughter that comes with her name. Her tail flicks happily as she moves to set the trunk up on the top storage. Nimi takes a seat on the bench, inspecting the train around her with barely contained enthusiasm. 

“You can go explore.” Dooby offers. “We have a cafe car. If you stay long enough you can get your own room.”

“Is that how that works?’ Nimi asks. “I don’t have money to pay for that.”

“No fee.”

“Okay, now I know you’re pulling my leg.” Nimi laughs. 

Dooby grins, pulling her goggles down over her eyes as she goes back to her seat. She’s not going to argue with it- it’s the same thing Doki said too. Doki has a room now. That’s just how her train works. 

.

.

Maybe Mint pays too much attention. 

Her interactions with the corporeal world are limited, but she’s able to interact with it when she has the energy to. When she feels weak, her fingers fall through the handle of her cup, watching dispassionately as it sits on the countertop and she has to get over her pride to sip at it like a particularly goofy looking bird. Other times, she reaches out to take someone's hand and she doesn’t make contact. 

Her eyes always snap up to meet their eyes. She’s laughing, practiced, a motion she’s familiar with- she’s a ghost! It’s funny! Doki laughs with her, an amicable mood that makes her relieved. The less she thinks about it, the better. 

One day, Doki gets sick, grumpily curled into one of the booths of the cafe car. Nimi sits beside her, tittering laughter as she tries to coax the cagey bounty hunter out from her corner. She’s better about it then Mint would be- nevermind that Mint would sooner stab a thermometer in Doki’s ear for all her complaining and whining. Nimi’s bedside manner is far better. 

That doesn’t mean Mint won’t take an opportunity to tease Doki for it. 

“Does the baby need a washcloth?” Mint asks, floating over the back of the bench. 

Doki sputters angrily, “I’m sick, do you want me to die-”

“A little fever is perfectly curable.” Nimi soothes, smiling widely at their antics. “Mint? Could you go get my bag from the engine car?”

“Yeah, I can do that.” Mine says. 

“ Whipped. ” Doki hisses at her. 

“ Snot nosed. ” Mint whispers back. Doki flips her off, where Nimi laughs, gently batting her hand down. The fact Doki sulks about it makes Mint laugh too, fluttering butterflies in her tummy as she floats through the walls of the cabs to the control car. 

She catches Dooby spinning in her chair, lounging back in near boredom. She stops when she spots Mint, her expression unreadable behind her goggles, “Oh, hi.” 

“Hi.” Mint replies, feeling impish. Dooby always has a whimsical mad scientist air to her that makes her unexplainably giddy. “I’m looking for Nimi’s-?”

“Oh, her bag.” Dooby says, hoping out of her chair with ease. She grabs onto the poles by the bench and hikes a leg up on the seat, climbing up less like a jerboa and more like a monkey as she hooks her arm around Nimi’s medical bag. She hops down with it, offering it to Mint with a half smile, “How’s everything back there?”

“Oh, you know, the baby olympics.” Mint drawls. Dooby’s smile widens and it makes Mint giggle, reaching for the bag-

No grip. Dooby stumbles, catching the bag before it goes tumbling to the floor. 

Mint says, “Shoot, sorry, um- shoot-” Now, of all times? She flounders, unsure what to do, suddenly shy. Dooby holds the bag to her chest, her other hand reaching up to lift her goggles. Her eyes are warm. 

“I can carry it, I’m not busy.”

“Thank you.” Mint murmurs, sleeves tucked against her chest and nearly hiding the smile growing over her face. “I’ve lost control of my life, not that I ever had one.”

“Is it because you’re so goopy?”

“ Who’s goopy?”

Dooby laughs heartily, “I mean like- you’re kinda-”

“I’m kinda what?” Mint challenges, feeling playful. “I’m not some swamp ghost, you know. I’m clean!” 

She floats beside Dooby’s shoulder as the train conductor walks out the car, barely hindered by the bag's weight. Mint thinks she’s paying too close attention to the crooked tilt of Dooby’s smile and the ease in which she lets that event slide off her back. 

“Thank you.” Mint says again, quieter. 

“At your service.” Dooby says warmly. 

.

.

Sometimes, when the train stops, Doki steps off to perform a few hunts. She’s learned that the train won’t leave without her, much to Mint’s chagrin when Doki takes her sweet time out in the town whenever she pleases. It’s a nice break from the constant motion of the train. Not to mention, she can experience new places and fresh new hunts. The money is good too. 

Bounty boards are usually at the police station. There’s a few rare occasions where she can poke her head into the train station security office and steal whatever they got on their cork boards. It’s something she does on her way back to the train for the night. Something to entertain her for the ride. If she’s lucky, the train will just stop right at the town she needs to be to hunt the next bastard. She loves mystical bullshit. 

She swipes three papers. Two of them aren’t local, at large robbers that don’t have that big of bounties but she supposes beggars can’t be choosers. 

The third paper has her standing cold in the middle of the station. The glow of the lights around her feel eerie in the evening dark. Despite the low lighting, she couldn’t miss those features. She’s seen this person everyday. 

It’s a grayscale picture of her. She’s been missing for a long time, long enough her case had gone cold. Light hair. It’s a submitted picture, a smile aimed at the camera over the plastic cup she’s holding. Doki stares at it a long time, uncomprehendingly, that’s her real name. 

Missing, the paper says. Never confirmed dead. Doki stops reading when the paper starts to mention family. She looks up into the lights overhead, concentrated on the gnats buzzing around it. She’s been met with many crossroads in her life. Moving on from thieving to hunting hadn’t been a drastic change, but it felt better in the long run. Maybe worse at the same time. This decision felt insurmountably heavy. 

Mint… didn’t care for her life. She’s expressed that multiple times despite having no memory of it. Despite this, Doki can’t wrap her head around what she’s seeing in her hand now. Her first instinct is to go running to the train Mint! Her next instinct is to hide it, coy-like, tease her about it like you wouldn’t believe what I found. 

Missing, it says. 

How did Mint die? Obviously, that’s a question Mint also doesn’t care for. She jokes about it. Doki has even heckled her about it before. The curiosity hits her, staring at the details and unsure if she wants to memorize them. 

She throws it into the trash. She can hear Mint in her head squawking, going you’d treat me like that?! She snorts. She walks back to the train with her hands stuffed into her pockets, a thoughtful quiet following in her wake. The train opens for her, with or without Dooby’s prompting. She steps in, exhaling, rubbing the back of her head and feeling a headache. Why couldn’t I have found some random hit, instead of-?

“Hi, long face.” Dooby comments. She’s got her laptop in her lap, tail coiled around her chair. Green eyes glance at her from over her screen. “Got anything good?”

“Mm.” Doki hums. She wipes her boots on a nearby seat. 

Dooby says, “You’re cleaning that.”

They both know she won’t. Her sullen silence is making Dooby raise her eyebrows. 

“You okay?”

“Have you ever had a secret you know the other person doesn’t want to hear but you don’t want to hold on to it?” Doki asks. 

“I don’t know.” Dooby says distantly. “That sounds scary. I was a jerboa up till recently, you know. Not a lot of secrets going on.”

“Ah.” Doki rubs her forehead wearily. “Right, okay, I’ll just drink and forget about it.”

“Top cabinet.” Dooby says. 

“God, I love you.” 

Dooby shoots her with a finger gun. Doki can’t help but laugh. She trudges her way to the cafe, shoulders drooping, knowing what she’ll find there and unsurprised to see Mint tending to it. She’s in her element, hovering around with a hum as she cleans the countertops and goes about reorganizing the shelves. She glances over her shoulder when Doki enters. 

“Oh hi, welcome back.” Mint says. She’s starting to grin. “No luck?”

“No luck.” Doki confirms. It helps explain her mood. She goes for whining, dragging herself to the bar like a sorry looking slug, “Need driiiiiink. ”

“I’ll put it on your tab.” Mint says slyly. She’s reaching up for it. Doki lounges onto the stool, barely sitting and her head down on the counter. Mint turns back to her and pauses, her smile swimming. “You good?”

“Ugh.” Doki grumbles. 

“That bad, huh?”

“Just…” Doki exhales. She’s got her nose into her arms as she glances at Mint. Through her eyelashes, she can see Mint giving her a wry smile. Sometimes, she feels so real it’s hard to remember she’s dead. “... got too much on my mind.”

“Oh no.” Mint drawls, pouring her a shot. “With how small it is, I’m sure that’s catastrophic.”

“Okay.” Doki laughs. “First of all-”

“Am I wrong?”

“If mine is small, yours is microscopic.” 

“Mine is so well adjusted and pretty.”

“Sure.” Doki agrees. She’d meant for it to sound sarcastic, but it sounds genuine, quiet. Mint grows quiet too, hovering amicably at the counter until Doki dusts off her drink. She doesn’t look worried about Doki, but there’s a respectful air to her that relaxes Doki’s shoulders. 

“Wanna play video games?” Mint finally asks. 

Doki says, “Yes, god, do I need it.”

Mint grins. It’s the same kind of grin from the photograph, Doki recognizes. She ignores that feeling as best as she can. 

.

.

There’s not a lot of nightmares on this train. Nimi doesn’t complain about that- she devours nightmares, but her heart is enthralled by good dreams too. The problem is very simple.

Mint doesn’t sleep and neither does Dooby. 

“I suppose I could try. ” Dooby drawls wryly, more amused than anything else. Mint is hovering overhead, sleeves touching just over Dooby’s shoulders. “If I close my eyes really hard, maybe”

“What if we knocked you out?” Mint asks. 

Dooby frowns, “I don’t want to be knocked out.”

“Medically knocked out?” Nimi prompts.

“That sounds scary!” Dooby makes a gesture across the cafe to where Doki had acquired a safe distance from them, peeking over the back of her booth to watch them hawkishly. “Doki can sleep, go eat her.” 

“Don’t say that!” Doki yells. 

Nimi hums. Doki would sometimes doze off in the control car, but her sleep was mostly behind the locked door of her room. It wasn’t quite paranoia, moreso born out of years dodging curious eyes. The former thief is eyeing them shrewdly. 

Mint says, “Don’t be a baby. I’m sure it feels nice.”

“She’s eating my mind.” Doki protests.

“It’s your dreams!” Nimi protests, laughing brightly. Dooby is grinning too. “Well, I suppose I can take a trip out to town for a snack…”

Dooby’s tail lashes, “What’s the ‘medical knock out’ way?”

“My pipe can put you to sleep.”

“Do I have to smoke it like a bong?”

Nimi covers her mouth to hide her smile, “No. I use the pipe.”

“She doesn’t even share.” Mint whispers conspiratorially in Dooby’s ear. 

“Fucked up.” Dooby whispers back.

Dooby agrees, curiosity winning over any nerves she has. An experimental eye to her has her listing, exhaustion and sleep weighing her down so heavily she ends up with her head against Nimi’s shoulder. Still awake, despite the green glow of dreams and nightmares circling overhead. Nimi fiddles with her pipe, thoughtful. 

Mint is comically wiggling her fingers at Dooby, “Ohhh, sleep, you’re sooo sleepy, oooh.”

“Mhm.” Dooby hums. 

Nimi laughed half heartedly, “I don’t think it’s working. I only made you tired.”

“Mhm.” 

“It’s really strange though.” Mint muses. “You really are cursed.”

Dooby doesn’t respond to that. Nimi wonders about this silence. Mint recognizes it, swiftly changing the subject with, “I can whip you up some tea to wake you back up.”

“Thank you.” Dooby yawns. 

.

.

There’s a problem with being cursed with wakefulness. 

Dooby isn’t a stranger to injury. Even far before her time as a train conductor, the dusty hills and dry desert offered day to day cuts and bruises just from surviving. Nowadays, a lot of what she faces is a bruised elbow or a busted up knee. Climbing around into the innards of her beast, moving around wires with all the air of a mad scientist ready to see how its heart ticks.

Maybe I’ll find a way to change-

In any case, fumbling around with tools and equipment on a train is bound to result in some kind of safety hazard. She was climbing up to the roof when she lost grip on the ladder, her fingers slipping. It’s one big nasty fall, with her forehead knocking against the ladder and her arm hitting the catwalk outside the control car. The railing catches her from completely falling off the train, but her legs meet it first, a loud clang rattling up every bone in her body. 

She lays there, stunned, waves of pain rolling over her. Her head is a fog of pain. She feels like something is trying to pull her under, but her body refuses to doze even with her eyes closed. She groans miserably. Her arm feels numb and her legs are stinging.

It takes an absurd amount of effort to roll over. Lifting herself up by her hands ends up with her careening twice back to the metal below her. Her legs hurt. She attempts again with barely better results- she uses the railing for leverage. Nausea surges and makes her stumble. She would have gone head first into the door if a pair of hands didn’t catch her before her doom. 

“Woah, woah, oh my god, what did you do?” Mint’s voice squeaks. She’s wiggling under Dooby’s arm, supporting her better, though Dooby can feel herself listing even with the extra help.

“Fell.” Dooby whines. “Hurt- hurt my… um…”

“Everything.” Mint surmises, worriedly tugging her inside the train. Once the door is closed, she calls out, “Nimi! Nimi Nightmare, please come here, really fast, please!”

Dooby winces away from the noise. Her vision swims grey. She wonders if this is what it feels like to be on the verge of passing out but never allowed to, forced to live with a concussion like it’s a common headache. The nausea grows worse. 

Nimi swoops in around the corner, blinking hugely at them, “Oh, wow, okay. Are we under attack?”

“No, Dooby fell.”

“Fell.” Dooby complains. She hopes how pitiful she looks will give the curse enough incentive to knock her out cold. Unfortunately, no such thing happens, and throwing up in the toilet is a far cry from getting the rest she wants. Nimi feeds her medicine, anxious hands that check the goosebump on her head and gently move her arm into a resting position.

“You broke something.” Nimi tells her gravely. “Your legs are just bruises, but that’s definitely a concussion.”

“I wish to be unconscious.” Dooby says, hoping Nimi had any kind of wish granting spell to go with her dreams. 

Nimi smiles wryly at her, “I’ll wish for that too. Maybe it’ll come true.”

Dooby doesn’t have a car of her own- she stays in the control car, after all, she really never required one when she doesn’t sleep at all to begin with. It leads her to being carried and tucked away into Nimi’s bed, the dream eater humming as she checks her over a second time, her palm cool against Dooby’s forehead. 

“Thanks for trying.” Dooby mutters. 

“I hope one day I can do more for you.” Nimi replies gently. “Anyway, laying down still helps your body rest. You’ll need lots of it.”

“But-” The train! There was still so much work to do. 

Nimi looks amused, “I’m sure the others have it handled.”

She must have made a face. Nimi laughs.

.

.

Cranberry chicken salad, spinach, reuben sandwiches and french onion soup. Coffee, thick in the air with caramel and ginger tea. The cafe car is fragrant, the menu open for selection. There’s an outside door to the station that allows guests to enter whenever the train is docked. For now, since Doki was off hunting, it was stopped. That offered Mint a chance to flex her skills, but also her fabulous performance as someone passing for a real, very alive person. It works most of the time when sometimes a tray of food falls through her palm as she has to pretend she’s clumsy. 

The train turned off meant Dooby was on break as well, sitting thoughtfully at a booth across from Nimi. Nimi’s choice was a parfait and chai, talking animatedly about the cute parks in town. Dooby is nibbling at a croissant, nearly cross eyed with concentration. Mind swoops over with two glasses of water, deposited them on the table with a self satisfied smirk. 

“Enjoying everything, ladies?” Mint asks slyly.

“It’s so yummy, thank you.” Nimi says.

“It’s good.” Dooby says, but there’s an air about her that looks like a dog that’s trying peanut butter for the first time. 

Mint can’t help but laugh, “What’s with that?”

“What?”

Nimi adds on, “You have a really cute face right now.”

Dooby’s nose wrinkles. Beside her croissant is a veggie wrap, the kind packed with tomatoes, avocado, carrots, cucumbers, and baby spinach. When she takes a bite, she reels, her tail lashing so fast it smacks against Mint’s elbow. Mint laughs, delighted. It was the most innocent display of joy for food of all things. A compliment unsaid yet felt warmly. 

Dooby mutters, “What’s in this? ” 

“Do you like it? It’s got a bit of everything.” Mint smugly pours them tea, displaying all her skills in the way she waterfalls the pitcher over their cups. Nimi claps for her, amused. 

“Just wait till you try the club sandwich.” Mint says. 

“I don’t think I can even finish this.” Dooby whispers. When she takes a bite, she takes her time to chew, focusing on the sandwich like it’s an opponent rather than food. 

“No problem, there’s always next time.” 

.

.