Tintin: Marlinspike Hall, Lair of the Evils (SLASH)
The next day, Chang walked in the backyard, looking for something to distract himself. Yesterday was truly fun, at first. The three of them had a great time, celebrating Chang’s birthday, sharing Haddock’s (yes, yes that was his name) precious Golden Claws and Loch Lomond. And then they had shared stories.
In the state of drunkenness, Tintin had confessed that he had put several Chinese to sleep. Chang, who despised drugs and alcohol when Didi was still with him, wasn’t as drunk as the other men thought. He was shocked to hear the revelation, and asked if the blood he had used as his bathwater had something to do with this.
“Yes.”
Yes.
Tintin had said it so casually, as if he was talking about weather. He didn’t know what that word means to me, Chang thought. He continued to walk around the backyard, his dagger safely tucked in his pocket. He had taken it from a certain shelf in the mental hospital, at the day he escaped. He missed his sword, it would be very useful.
This place was like a private cemetery. Tintin had confessed that he had put many people to sleep, and this was where they were buried. Chang continued to walk, but stopped when he saw a certain ‘grave’. He stopped and knelt in front of it.
The grave had a small photo stabbed on it. Haddock said it was because Tintin loved to cherish people he had put into sleep. Chang’s blood ran cold as he saw such a familiar face.
He stared at Didi’s photo for a long time before ran into Tintin and Haddock’s bedroom.
“You… you killed my brother,” he panted.
“Who is he?”
“Didi. You know! That Chinese man you talked about yesterday.”
Tintin crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Oh, him. Annoying man, he was. I had no choice, Chang. He annoyed me. People can't annoy me. Rest assured, Chang, you're not like him.”
Chang was so angry he automatically pulled out his dagger and launched himself toward Tintin. But before he could reach the sandy-haired lad, a gunshot was heard and he fell to the ground, life slipped away his body.
“I told you he can be dangerous, mon Tintin.” Haddock’s voice was heard after he put down his gun. “Am I not enough for you? Is Snowy not enough for you?”
Tintin looked back at him, his face grim. “Yes. You two are enough for me.” He looked back at Chang’s body. “Traitorous brat.”
**
It was one of the stories she held. She? Yes, she.
She was Marlinspike Hall. She was born in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and was still standing proudly in one certain Belgium countryside. People saw her as a grand house, one old, beautiful house. She always stood there, watching changes around her in centuries. She always knew what happened to people who lived in her inner walls.
But nothing was like her new masters.
She knew when Chang’s lifeless body hit the ground. She knew when Tintin kicked the body so it was hidden below their king sized bed, together with Rastapopoulus and Allan’s. She knew when their blood started to mingle. She knew when the smells of blood, dead bodies, and worse of all, betrayal, were strong in her inner walls.
A certain air purifier the old man had put on could neutralize that smell, at least until Tintin and Haddock were sane enough to bury the bodies together with people Tintin had put into sleep (he still couldn’t say that he killed them) in their backyard. Tintin had a tendency to keep dead bodies for months before burying it improperly.
But she, too, knew that after the bodies were well hidden below Tintin and Haddock’s bed, they would kiss like there was no tomorrow. Haddock would make love to his pretty young lover with gentleness she couldn’t find in his interaction with anyone else. She could feel their twisted love, vibrating all her inner walls. She knew they loved each other. One Sakharine who ever lived in her inner walls once told his friend that love was enough, and she believed it. Until now.
After those deaths, surely her days would back like she used to. She knew that she had to let go of her memories of her old days. Now her masters were these people, not some pack of luxurious Sakharines, and she had to love them like she loved her former masters.
But her loving toward the twisted people inside her inner walls didn’t last long. Three years after Chang’s death, Haddock died in overdose, and Tintin was more than a wreck. He committed suicide, dragging his destructive black lab with him. Their bodies were found pale and completely dead at the bottom of the river near the place Marlinspike was standing.
The genius professor died too, she heard people said around her. “An experiment gone wrong,” they had said. She didn’t know what that meant, but the only thing she knew that was those protection things in her inner walls he had put on were disposed, returning her into a natural, grand, old mansion. She never heard about the huge woman, but she thought that she might be heartbroken after the old man died and went away.
The twins with bowler hats and canes and clumsy attitudes didn’t come anymore. They usually demanded Golden Claws from Haddock, and probably had found somewhere else to demand after Haddock’s death and Tintin’s suicidal action.
All people Tintin had ‘put into sleep’ were moved and buried properly in the town cemetery. He was considered insane, and after his escape from the mental hospital, he had never caught again. He was responsible of the deaths of almost fifty people, including Allan Thompson, one of Belgium’s private investigators and Martine Vandezande, one of Belgium's trusted spy who, foolishly, had fallen in love with him.
Meanwhile, his lover, Archibald Haddock (it took her years to know his first name), nicknamed Captain, was responsible of huge operation of opium smuggling from Belgium to countries like Borduria and Syldavia, also for the death of Roberto J. Rastapopoulus, the chief police officer in his days and Chang Chong-Chen, another mental hospital patient who betrayed Tintin after he found out that Tintin put his beloved brother to sleep.
**
Now, it has been sixty-five years after Tintin and Snowy’s deaths, and she is occupied by a huge family. They are cheerful, unlike the twisted people like her former masters. There is an old couple too, she reckons their names are Nestor and Irma. The Wagg family, that is the name of the big family, seems oblivious of Marlinspike’s darkest past. And she is more than happy when she realizes that.
She knows that this family is like the Sakharines, cheerful and happy. Maybe she can back into her old days, like what she always dreams about. To make long story short, Marlinspike Hall knows every incident happens near her. But although Marlinspike Hall knows every secret hidden in her inner walls, she can, and will never tell.
**THE END**