aplaceinthedark

[aplaceinthedark]

Poltergeists: Chapter 8

Summary: It's been a year since your best friend Noah went missing, two years since you moved into the house you abandoned after he went missing from it during the night. This is a recount of events leading up to and what happened after the night he went missing and all of the strange events that occurred during your time living in that house.

Chapters: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Bonus Chapter, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Bonus Chapter, Chapter 6, Bonus Chapter, Chapter 7

Pairings: Noah Sebastian x Reader, Nicholas Ruffilo x Reader, with mentions of Matt, Folio, Jolly and Davis.

CW: Missing person, elements of supernatural horror, mentions of blood and possibly violence, unreliable narrator, implied smut. will update as it goes on. Heavy trigger warning for mentions of alcohol use, ptsd and panic attacks. This chapter contains mentions of thoughts around suicidal ideations and descriptions of drowning. Please take care of yourself.

WC: 2.6k.

AN: This series will be told throughout a variety of flashbacks and present day, all which will be marked.

Divider: Silent-stories

Tagged: @enemiestolovershoe, @fadingangelwisp, @deathblacksmoke, @1toreyouapart, @lacy1986, @chaoticwineaunt, @collisionofyourkissmakesitsohard (if anyone else wishes to be tagged lmk)

PRESENT DAY

After Jolly carries you back to the cabin and to your room, he leaves you after several minutes of fussing over you and asking if you were okay.

You insist that you are and he eventually takes the hint, leaving you with the reminder that he and the others will be close by should you need. You shouldn't, because you feel exhausted enough that the minute your head hits the pillow and you close your eyes, you pass out into Noah filled dreams.

FLASHBACK

"You told him?"

"Well yeah, he is my best friend, bubs."

"Don't 'bubs' me right now, Noah. I thought that we were going to do this together. What happened to waiting until we figured this out?"

"You're my girlfriend. We're together. What else is there to figure out? I don't know why you even worry about what they're going to think about this, they all love you."

You're stumped, your mouth hanging open as if about to make a point, but he's blocked any sensible argument you may have had. You shake your head and pull yourself back to the real point of this, he betrayed you by telling Nicholas in the first place. "That's not the point. You shouldn't have said anything, not without telling me."

"You're right. I should've warned you that I was going to tell him."

"You shouldn't have told him at all." You snipe back and you can see him recoil before he reaches for you as you slam the kitchen cupboards while putting away the dishes.

"Are we really going to let this be our first fight?"

You don't answer and you let him take you gently by your arm, guiding you towards his chest as he closes his arms around you. "Are you still not sleeping?"

"No." You mumble against his chest. It's muffled, but you know he heard you and your eyes close as you lean against him, taking in the familiar, comforting scent.

You haven't slept properly for almost a week now. Each time you do, you're plagued by more nightmares or fall into sleep paralysis. Noah's room no longer feels like the safe sanctuary it once was and while he offered to have the guys come and sleep over again if it made you feel safer to have more people around, you refused, not wanting a repeat of last time and what happened with Matt. You practically put a ban on the idea of them coming over in general.

You hate the way the house makes you feel, but you hate feeling like it's feeding off those you invite into it.

"There. That's the last one. Pull up the app and see if they work?" Noah looks over at you unlocking his phone and pulling up the app of the cameras he just installed. Despite having already installed ring cameras outside after the first incident when you were certain there was someone inside your home, Noah opted to get additional ones for inside, mostly once your sleep walking became a recurring problem.

The night you slept walked and held a knife up to Matty became the first of many nights Noah would discover you leaving the bed in a trancelike state. Most of the times he followed you, you would end up back in your own room, standing and facing the closet door. Other times he'd caught you either right about to hurt yourself, or hurt him.

One night he woke with your hands around his neck, as if to try and strangle him. Luckily you'd been putting no pressure, but that didn't lessen the concern that things were getting worse for you.

"And what's this supposed to do? Keep me safe from the boogeyman." You mock the word the same way Noah does when he's trying to make light on the weird occurrences.

You think that even he's beginning to get freaked out by them now.

"Well yes and no. If there is someone here, we'll surely see them."

"And if it's... paranormal?" What you really want to ask if it's all in your head, if you're somehow secretly crazy beneath all of this weird bullshit going on around you.

"Then we'll have some really cool footage to submit to some ghost hunting show."

You laugh because how does he make even the most terrifying of realities for you sound funny. You may not like the idea of something paranormal lurking around your home, but knowing he would be quick to submit it as evidence makes your heavy heart feel a little lighter.

"If something bad happens to me can you at least get it on camera?"

"Ditto."

PRESENT DAY

When you return from the trip you almost feel like Nicholas had been right in calling it a bad idea from the start, but you wouldn't allow him the satisfaction of knowing that, not when he still could barely look at you.

It came to a boiling point days after, when he would still refuse to speak to you beyond simple niceties or find ways of avoiding you both at home and work.

"I'm sick of this." You declare, dropping down the bag of takeout food on the counter, the one you'd bought as an olive branch or a peace offering, at this point you didn't know. "Why are you being like this?"

Your gaze narrows on him and he stops mid way towards his studio room, the place he slips off to and hides whenever you're around now.

"What are you talking about?" He says in an exasperated tone and you feel the flash of red in your eyes because it's as if he's purposely provoking you at this point.

"You're really going to play dumb, Nick?" You start walking towards him. "Well for starters, you barely talk to me. You barely even acknowledge my existence here or at work." You raise your hand, listing off each point with your fingers. 

"You left me alone in the woods!" 

That's a whole other separate argument, but you're still throwing it in and when you see him open his mouth to defend himself, you continue on and talk over his attempt. 

"You didn't even speak to me on that trip and yet I know it was you who was in my room that night!" 

You see the way his face loses almost all color as if he's been caught out and you know he's scrambling for a chance to plead his case, but you persist. 

"And  on top of that you can barely even look at me. Why? What happened?"

You're standing in front of him now, lowering your hand with the closed fist each point listed off your fingers made and you search his eyes for something, anything to give you an inclination about his thoughts.

"Because I thought it would make it easier." He sounds like he's trying not to choke on his words and you push because you need answers.

"Make what easier?"

You catch his hesitancy until his words come tumbling out of his mouth.

"My feelings for you!"

You shake your head because none of this makes sense, not from where you're standing.

"What feelings Nick? Because all I feel right now is like you hate me."

"Fuck no!" He rubs his hand over his face, exasperated once more, before he throws the words out at you. "That I love you! Okay? I'm in love with you."

You stumble back at his admission, rolling the words around in your head; he’s in love with you.

It doesn't feel real and you shake your head again because how you feel is confusing enough without Nicholas adding to that, his own confession making your own heart swell and suddenly that hole left by Noah feels a little bit smaller, not fully gone, but the ache on you ceases even slightly.

"No, no you don't. You're just saying that." You turn to walk away, now being the one who can't look at him.

"I do and I am." You feel him reach for your arm and it causes you to stop, but you still don't turn to look at him. "I've loved you for a long time and I know you know it too, bubs."

The way he says that pet name makes your heart melt and you can feel tears building in your eyes because this can't be happening. You can't have lost Noah just to move on with Nick. 

It feels unfair. 

Everything he says doesn't feel real to you but it is, because the past year he's been nothing short of sweet and attentive, but long before that there were always little signs, little things he did or said which you overlooked.

"Nick..." Your voice comes out choked and he turns you to face him as he takes a step towards you, his hand reaching out and onto your cheek but you pull back, shaking your head. "No, you can't use this excuse for why you've been ignoring me, for why you've barely looked at me since before the trip."

"Because you started to be weird with me and I thought..." He pauses and sighs. "I thought maybe I'd overstepped after your panic attack. I was just worried. You'd gone back to the house after you said you never wanted to go there again and I get a phone call that you're in the hospital?! I was out of my goddamn mind with worry!"

You don't argue because maybe it was you. 

After what Kit had said, you felt yourself pulling away but when he began to do it in return, you almost resented him for the fact. He'd done nothing wrong but you were punishing him for some assumption made by a detective with a clear vendetta. How was that fair?

"I don't know what this is..."

Your voice is soft and you feel him coming in closer to you, attempting to touch you again but this time he allows just his fingers to brush beneath your chin.

"We don't have to."

You want to believe that, but your head and heart are so separated and confused, you don't know what to do and soon that doesn't matter when you feel the tender touch of his lips against yours.

It's slow and soft and you hate how much it reminds you of the first time Noah kissed you. You feel a tear run down your cheek but you don't pull away, you lean into it and let him kiss you until you're kissing him back.

Your arm sweeps around his neck and you allow yourself to fall into it, regardless of the confusion. The kiss makes your head hazy, but in a way you welcome as you feel yourselves moving towards the bedroom, breaking only with the discarding of clothes.

First comes his shirt, your hands on his chest and grazing lightly down over his stomach and abs, before comes yours and you can feel his hand at the dip of your back pulling you closer.

His mouth leaves yours and moves across your jaw, down to your neck, his stubble rough, almost like sandpaper, almost painful against the tender skin of your throat but you welcome it. He then leans back, and looks at you before asking; "Is this okay? You can tell me to stop."

You don't tell him to stop, you urge him to continue, pushing him into the bed when you reach the bedroom before you climb onto and straddle him.

There's a small voice in your head which reminds you that you shouldn't be doing this, that this is Noah's best friend, your boyfriends best friend, but it feels right, it feels comforting and the second you feel yourself sink down onto him, that little voice is silenced, replaced by an urgency for pleasure, driven by a combination of lust and love for the person who's become your lifeline and your rock, the one you know that you can depend upon.

Pulled from your dream, you wake with a start, your eyes shooting open as you whisper under your breath. "Noah." It's dark out and your eyes take a moment to adjust. You roll onto your back to find Nicholas passed out beside you, the bed sheet covering him up to his stomach, his chest laid bare and a reminder that what happened after you confronted him had in fact been real.

You feel conflicted, the reminisce of your dream with Noah still lingering in your mind. You want to hold onto them as long as they can before they slip away into the darkest recesses. If it hadn't been for the constant reminders of him around you, you fear that you'd have forgotten about him by now. Still his absence makes the aching in your chest appear once more and you pull yourself from Nicholas' bed, grabbing a nearby shirt to slip on before you disappear into the living room.

It's darker in here, something which you always hated, but tonight you welcome the idea of the creature which lingers in the darkness. Part of you wishes for it to come out and take you, that you'd even offer yourself up willingly. 

Falling into the couch, you reach for your laptop, instantly scrolling through the various videos of Noah on there. You're missing him, or maybe you feel guilty about what had happened, maybe that had been the real reason for your dream. You pull up one of your familiar favorites, it's silliness really, him streaming but you feel that reminder of guilt when you see Nicholas sat beside him.

You shouldn't have done what you did. This is wrong.

You watch it on a loop as Noah laughs then freakout over the exploding, playing close attention to the way his home accent slips out. You always teased him when it did. He did well to hide both his lisp and the thickness of his Virginia accent, but there were times it would slip out and you never let him forget it. You miss it. You miss him.

You feel wetness on your cheeks but your tears are silent and the grief you hold over Noah is once again mixing with the guilt. "I'm sorry." You whisper to the frozen frame, your fingers reaching out to stroke over his face. You look up and into the dark shadows hugging the walls, as if he could be lurking in them. "I'm sorry." You say it again, this time there's a soft plea as if you're begging for forgiveness but for what? For what happened with Nicholas? For your drunken kiss with Matt? For not getting better? For moving you both into that stupid house? For that night?

"My beautiful boy." You're looking back to the frame, whispering your favored name for him, saying it like a prayer, as if you're praying to him, needing him.

You wish that Nicholas hadn't dumped every bottle of the alcohol in the house all those months ago because you feel like you could really do with nursing yourself better with a bottle of vodka. Noah hated it, but other than drowning your sorrows with a bottle of his favorite wine, you found vodka became your best medicine to numb the pain and the ache.

Instead you have nothing as you lay down on the couch, placing the laptop on the cushion beside you, screen facing you. You keep up the frame of Noah, convinced it will somehow comfort you, but all you feel is a greater ache and your body trembles as you muffle your cries into the cushion.

You don't know how long you lay there like that before you fall into a restless sleep, but by daylight you wake to a blanket draped over you, your laptop folded down and on the table in front and no sound of Nicholas still here.

[aplaceinthedark]

Poltergeists: Chapter 7

Summary: It's been a year since your best friend Noah went missing, two years since you moved into the house you abandoned after he went missing from it during the night. This is a recount of events leading up to and what happened after the night he went missing and all of the strange events that occurred during your time living in that house.

Chapters: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Bonus Chapter, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Bonus Chapter, Chapter 6, Bonus Chapter, Chapter 7

Pairings: Noah Sebastian x Reader, Nicholas Ruffilo x Reader, with mentions of Matt, Folio, Jolly and Davis.

CW: Missing person, elements of supernatural horror, mentions of blood and possibly violence, unreliable narrator, implied smut. will update as it goes on. Heavy trigger warning for mentions of alcohol use, ptsd and panic attacks. This chapter contains mentions of thoughts around suicidal ideations and descriptions of drowning. Please take care of yourself.

WC: 1.8k.

AN: This series will be told throughout a variety of flashbacks and present day, all which will be marked.

Divider: Silent-stories

Tagged: @enemiestolovershoe, @fadingangelwisp, @deathblacksmoke, @1toreyouapart, @lacy1986, @chaoticwineaunt, @collisionofyourkissmakesitsohard (if anyone else wishes to be tagged lmk)

PRESENT DAY

You wake with the stream of sunlight breaking through the open curtains, lifting the covers to hide your head beneath them in protest. It takes you a minute to realize that you're alone. Matt had stayed with you last night, you presumed, even after making a fool out of yourself. Again. It was becoming too much of an occurrence.

On hearing the commotion in the kitchen, you toss the covers off yourself, deciding go down the hall for breakfast. You had a whole day planned by Folio and you didn't want to waste the morning laying around in bed feeling sorry for yourself, no matter how enticing it sounded.

"Look who's finally awake." Matt says as you enter the kitchen, rubbing the sleep from your eyes. "The rest of the guys are down at the dock by the lake. They're just waiting for you."

"You didn't have to sneak out you know." Ignoring his mention of the lake and impending plans of the day, you make a joke about him leaving you this morning. "You could have woken me."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Your brow furrows because you know there was someone who got into the bed with you last night. "Then how did I end up in bed?"

"Oh that! Nicholas came in to check on you last night after the guys went to bed. He helped me with getting you into bed and then I left for my own. Why?"

Had Nicholas been the one you felt and called back to you last night?

You shake your head, dismissing the thought. "No reason."

"You'd better get ready before Folio comes searching for you. He was practically bounding around like a goddamn puppy this morning. He's so excited to take you out there."

You laugh, but it's half hearted and tired. "Yeah I bet he was." You have no doubt how Folio was acting, he was over the moon the first time you mentioned the idea about him teaching you to fish. It was one of his favorite activities and even if you don't quite see the appeal, seeing the excitement it brought your friend was what mattered the most.

When you reach the lake after something to eat and a much needed shower, pulling on something comfortable afterwards for a day out in the boat, you scan the group standing around near the dock and your eyes briefly fall onto Nicholas who shoots a momentary glance your way from behind his sunglasses before they divert again.

You want to ask him if it was him who stayed with you and if it was then why is he acting like such an asshole? And why did he leave?

"Hey guys." You reply to the chorus of hey's you receive, Folio already geared up and ready to offer you your own life vest.

"Are you ready?"

You just nod in response as you take the jacket and pull it on, clipping it into place before Folio checks the belts, tightening them as needed.

"Is someone a little hung over?" You hear Davis in the background and turn your head to look over at him, screwing up your face in mock annoyance in response.

"You missed a fun game of spin the bottle, last night." Jolly chimes in and you feel his arm around your shoulder, letting out a chuckle as he's clearly deciding to indulge in embarrassing you.

"Oh really? Who did you have to kiss?"

He points in Nicholas's direction and you get a weak smile from him, offering your own in return and it makes your heart ache a little.

Why won't he say anything to you?

"He's not a bad kisser."

"No he's—I imagine not." You quickly save yourself, though you have to wonder if Jolly didn't say that on purpose. Does he know something? You look up, eyeing him briefly before determining that he's just doing his best to fuck with you.

"Come on bubba, you ready?"

You look to Folio, his excitement palpable and nod, eagerly following him as he climbs into the boat, feeling a little unsteady at first before you sink down into the seat he pats for you.

Maybe this had been what you needed, because before long you feel yourself forgetting about every worry you have had ever since the night Noah disappeared.

Almost.

Folio offers a great distraction, talking to you about the fish and with helping your attempt at catching your first one. You lose it, but all it does is make you both laugh as you fight to even save it. You almost forgot how much fun you had when it was you and him hanging out. It felt rare now, ever since Noah had gone. It wasn't that you didn't want to hang with him, it was that you spent most of your time with Nicholas, something you find Folio isn't afraid to point out.

"I didn't think I'd get you out here, at least not on your own." He looks over at you, his big brown eyes soft and puppy like.

"Oh? Why not?"

"Cause, you've been with Nick ever since... y'know." You can hear a slight hint of sadness in his tone, the same you realize to be in his eyes before he turns his gaze away and looks back out at the water, observing his rod.

You do know and it's now you realize how much of your friendships you've neglected by choosing Nicholas as your only source of comfort, to be the only one you lean on.

"I know and I'm sorry." You almost feel like all you ever do is apologize but Folio shrugs it off. He's kind that way and pretty understanding on most matters.

"You're here now, that's all that matters." He looks at you again and the light in his eyes has returned, along with a huge grin. "Plus, I think you've got a big one this time." He gestures to your rod and you squeal at the force of the tug on the line, feeling Folio reach over to help you.

"Slow and steady, we don't wanna spook it." He begins talking you through it, trying to reel in whatever monster you've caught. It wouldn't be too big in a lake like this, Folio already dampened that expectation, but it's still thrilling to realize you're actually doing this, you're catching your first fish. Even if it is with his assistance.

Right as you expect it to emerge, the rod is tugged harshly down once more before bouncing back and you hear Folio curse under his breath. "We lost it?" You don't quite know what happened, though you feel a little deflated that even did.

"There's always the next one, bubba."

When you return to the dock to join everyone, they're already set up with music playing, while Matt has the grill ready and running.

"Where's the big fish you promised us?"

"Yeah, what are we gonna have for lunch now?"

Between Davis and Jolly pointing out your lack of fish in your return, you rolled your eyes as you mock them, being met with a chorus of chuckles.

"What happened to men being the hunter and gather types? Huh?"

"Now that is sexist." Matt says, pointing his grilling tongs in your direction. The sight of him already set up, apron draped over and wrapped around him is enough to make you laugh.

"Say's the guy in a raccoon apron."

Unclipping the vest Folio gave you, you toss it aside and go to step from the boat, though as you do, you must have lost your footing because you feel yourself falling backwards off the dock and into the water below.

There's a brief chorus of loud voices calling for you before you're pulled beneath the cold water, depriving you of all your senses the minute you enter. You fight to pull yourself up but it almost feels like something is dragging you deeper, refusing to let you go. You're a strong swimmer, but it feels like no matter how hard you fight to reach the surface you can't fight against the invisible force holding you under.

You're running out of air and you can feel the burning in your lungs. For a moment you think that this is it, you've met your own end and it's come in the most unexpected way, but then you hear it.

You swear you can hear Noah's voice, like he's calling for you. Calling for you to come to him or to get out of the water, you're not sure. All you know is that you can hear him and suddenly the idea of dying doesn't sound too bad if you can be reunited with him.

The fight you had is slowly wearing away until you feel yourself fading, you're trying to hard to ignore the burning in your chest, the instinct to open your mouth in hopes for some air, but you know the reality of what will come. The thought of your lungs filling up with water until your life is squeezed from your body sounds more painful than resisting it, than giving into the tiredness slowly coming over you.

Right as you begin to give in, you're ripped from the water, gasping violently for air.

Everything around you is a haze, hearing only the voices of your friends as they crowd you, becoming a jumbled mess of concerns. Someone wraps a towel around you, rubbing you to dry you or keep you warm, maybe? You realize then that you're shaking.

When you whip your head around to the lake your only thought is how close you felt to Noah and if you could jump back in and follow the sound of his voice to where he was. Before you become too lost in the idea, you see Nicholas pulling himself up out from the water and onto the dock. He's your hero, you think, though he doesn't look in your direction as Folio comes over to offer him a towel.

It's Jolly who suggests everyone head back inside, sweeping you up bridal style into his arms. Under most circumstances you'd have protested, but you felt too exhausted to argue about walking back to the cabin from here. You wrap your arms around the Swedes neck, holding onto him like he's your only offer of a lifeline, but your gaze soon falls over his shoulder and onto Nicholas remaining on the dock with Folio.

He's barely spoken a word to you and most of the time he can barely look at you and yet he jumps into a lake to save your dumb ass from drowning?

Nothing could feel more complicated, nothing aside from the pang you feel in your chest at the thought of him and how much you just miss him.

[aplaceinthedark]

Poltergeists: Bonus Chapter.

Summary: It's been a year since your best friend Noah went missing, two years since you moved into the house you abandoned after he went missing from it during the night. This is a recount of events leading up to and what happened after the night he went missing and all of the strange events that occurred during your time living in that house.

Chapters: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Bonus Chapter, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Bonus Chapter, Chapter 6

Pairings: Noah Sebastian x Reader (referred to by her pet name bubs), with brief mentions of Nicholas Ruffilo

CW: Missing person, elements of supernatural horror, mentions of blood and possibly violence, unreliable narrator, implied smut. will update as it goes on. Heavy trigger warning for mentions of alcohol use, ptsd and panic attacks.

WC: 2k.

AN: This series will be told throughout a variety of flashbacks and present day, all which will be marked.

Divider: Silent-stories

Tagged: @enemiestolovershoe, @fadingangelwisp, @lma1986, @chaoticwineaunt, @collisionofyourkissmakesitsohard (if anyone else wishes to be tagged lmk)

FLASHBACK (NOAH'S POV)

I don't know why I'm so nervous.

My leg won't stop bouncing against the table and I've flipped my phone over countless times to check the lock screen for any notifications before flipping it back again as if I won't repeat the process in another couple of minutes.

Each time I hear the chime for the door I lift my head to look, hopeful it'll be her walking through.

Not this time.

I know she's only five minutes away, she text me less than two minutes ago but these five minutes are dragging out and becoming excruciatingly painful.

What if she only agreed to come meet me to tell me she thinks this is a bad idea?

"Sorry Noah, that kiss was a mistake. We're a mistake. Nothing can happen between us."

I try to shake the thought away because even the idea of that is enough to spike my nerves higher than they already are, and make me want to back out and run out the door, but when I look at it everything suddenly stops.

She's there and she doesn't even need to search the coffee shop for me, because the second she walks through that door her eyes land on me, the biggest smile on her face.

Fuck that smile makes my heart melt and this is when I realize, this wasn't a bad idea at all.

"Bubs!" I call over to her, my hand raised as if she can't already spot the tattooed giant hiding out in the corner. I scramble to my feet when she approaches, realizing I should do the gentlemanly thing of pulling back her chair. I glitch halfway into doing it because I can't take my eyes off her and fuck, she's beautiful.

"Thanks it's hard to see you hiding back here in the dark corner. You're really blending in with the decor."

Her hands gesture to the dark band hoodie I'm wearing, hood pulled up over my head, my shaggy shoulder length hair tucked inside it, and I laugh as grumble under my breath.

"Fuck off. You can get your own chair now."

She was already halfway doing it, but gave a lighthearted scoff as if I had somehow offended her. I knew I hadn't by the sly smile that played on her lips.

"What a start to a date. You know I'm going to have to rate you down now."

I'm so focused on my heart practically trying to jump out of my chest at the word date, I completely miss the obvious playfulness in her tone.

"Is that what this is then? A date?" The answer is obvious. I asked her to meet me for lunch after we shared a kiss, a long overdue one at that.

She gives me a look that acts like she's thinking over the question, but she can't hide her smile, no matter how hard she tries.

I reach for her hand on the table, it's smaller than mine and I love how easy it is to take it within my grasp and hold it there. I do just that, my fingers slipping between hers.

"I guess it is." She finally answers and I know she decided to drop whatever smart-ass retort was on the tip of her tongue.

God, I can't stop looking at her mouth.

As far as first dates went, I think I nailed it.

After lunch we went for a drive to an old hiking trail we would take back in high school.

"I don't usually go out to places like this with guys I don't know." She teased, climbing ahead of me up the trail, while I kept my eyes on her, the one leading the way with a destination in mind.

"And what about the guys you do know?"

She didn't answer me, instead giving a shrug and a coy look, as if she knew something I didn't.

That had turned out to be true when she brought us out near a lake where we spent most of our summers, running over to the tree swing that was somehow still intact. It made me realize how long I'd been in love with the girl before me, this little corner of the world had been our favorite place to go and I remember spending every day that first summer together falling in love with her, only to realize that it never went away.

Once home, I come to realize there is no walking her to the front door like the end of a traditional date. Instead, I offer to walk her to her bedroom door, which she happily accepts and it's another thing which makes her smile, and makes my heart race each time I see that very same smile lighting up her face.

I know now that none of this is a mistake.

"Well, this is me." She points towards her bedroom door, our hands still swinging between us.

I take a step forward and close the gap, my free hand lifting to cradle her cheek. "I guess this is goodnight." Our lips are merely a fraction apart as I whisper, before pressing a kiss to them, something I've thought about ever since she walked through the door to the coffee shop that afternoon.

Her lips are soft and her mouth tastes sweet as my tongue pushes forth to explore and I can feel her gripping my hoodie, tugging me closer until her back is pressed against her bedroom door and my body is flushed to hers, while towering over her. This is a thought I've had one too many times and the reality of it knocks any of those hypothetical scenarios out of the water.

I break away as we stumble back into her room when she reaches down to turn the handle, my hands grabbing at her hips to steady her.

"Are you sure?" She's offering me a silent invitation by way of nodding her head before her mouth is back on mine. The tenderness is soon shedded and replaced with something more heated, the longing and yearning I've felt finally spilling out.

Clothes are pulled off, hands touching anywhere and everywhere as we stumble back towards the bed. When we finally land, my name is a whisper in her mouth and it sends a shiver through my body. Everything's coming together slow and fast all at once.

It would be a lie if I said I hadn't thought about this scenario numerous times, particularly on the nights she comes crawling into my bed and into my arms for sanctity and warmth. I've become well acquainted with cold showers since living with her, needing to find a way to stop thinking about my best friend in a way which was inappropriate.

But she's more than that, she's the girl I love and right now she's the girl who says my name as a prayer while our bodies come together as one in the shared ecstasy as we both reached our climax, which happens not once, but twice, before I hold her to my chest as we fall asleep.

I can feel how she nudges against me and I think that's what wakes me at first, but then I hear the soft whimpers, the ones which draw me to the fact she's still asleep.

"Bubs." I whisper, trying to coax her from the nightmare which has taken a hold of her. I interchange her name and her pet name, my voice growing louder until I have to give her a gentle shake to rip her from the clutches of whatever monster has hold of her.

She sees my face, her eyes wide like a hunted deer and it takes a moment for her to register that it's me. I know when she does because her resolve breaks and she clings onto me with a soft whine. I know there's no tears, there never is, but I can hear the pain and the fear in the sounds which erupt from her throat.

I hate that I can't crawl myself inside her head and protect her from what she fears the most, from what haunts her as she sleeps.

I feel guilty because I know she hates sleeping in this room for this exact reason and I don't say anything as I drag her from the bed, her limbs wrapped tightly around me as I carry her from the the room and down the hallway into mine.

This is her sanctuary and I plan to keep her here with me, for as long as I can.

"Will you quit it!" She ignores me, tossing another one of my communion crackers at me, making fun of the fact I still have a huge tub I love to snack on. Bubs, as always, is being adorable and teasing me while I'm attempting to do some work, except this time when she's close enough I grab her and pull her onto my lap with a kiss.

That'll work as a distraction.

It doesn't, other than as one to distract me because now I can feel my dick twitch beneath her. Since when did having a girlfriend turn me into a horned up teenager again?

We haven't used the official terms yet, but I know that I want her to be that, that she is and it's as if she's reading my mind because she breaks me from the spell of my thoughts to ask.

"Does this make you my boyfriend?"

The way she says it sounds so sweet and innocent, as if she's never used that term with anyone else before. I know she has because I've unintentionally scared off a couple of guys who she bestowed that title up on.

"Do you want me to be?" Even though I know the answer, I want to hear her say it. I want to watch her pretty lips say the word yes and hear her call me her boyfriend again and again until I become sick of hearing it. Which will never be.

"Yes." She nods, her fingers playing with the neck of my shirt and I grin.

"Then I'm your boyfriend."

Just like that, the spell we're both under is broken the minute we hear the front door open and Nicholas comes walking in.

"Hey guys."

She's already off my lap and I feel my chest deflate that she was quick to remove herself in front of someone else, but I understand why. We'd danced around the idea of telling the rest of our friends before now, deciding to wait until we knew what was going on and now that we did, I couldn't wait any longer.

"Hey man." I call over to Nicholas, pushing myself out of the office chair I'd been glued to for too many hours already, and stretching out my limbs with a loud groan. "So guess what."

"What up?" He looks in my direction briefly.

I approached him standing in the kitchen and pulling out the few groceries I'd asked him to grab on the way over, my arm coming around his shoulder. I look around to check that Bubs is out of earshot, because I know she wouldn't appreciate me mentioning anything before we discuss it properly, but I can hardly keep something like this from my best friend.

"It's official." Nicholas looks at me confused, but I push on. "Me and bubs. We're... you know." I motion my head for him to pick up the sentiment behind my words. If I don't say it out loud, then technically I haven't actually told him.

"Wait, really?" I see the excitement in Nicholas's own face and it makes me feel better to have told him myself. He's been aware of my feelings since day one and always teased me for them.

"If you don't ask her, someone else will. Hell, maybe I will." He'd always tease me and I'd refute that I was going to, but years passed and it never felt like the right time, not until now.

"Yeah, but don't let her know that you know and don't tell the other guys." I try to stress the importance of this in my voice, but I know that I can trust Nicholas, I always have. He's practically a brother to me and there's no one better to keep this tidbit safe, not until we're ready.

"Your secret is safe with me, man." Nicholas assures me. "You can always trust me."

[aplaceinthedark]

Poltergeists: Chapter 6.

Summary: It's been a year since your best friend Noah went missing, two years since you moved into the house you abandoned after he went missing from it during the night. This is a recount of events leading up to and what happened after the night he went missing and all of the strange events that occurred during your time living in that house.

Chapters: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Bonus Chapter, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Bonus Chapter, Chapter 6

Pairings: Noah Sebastian x Reader, Nicholas Ruffilo x Reader, Matt Dierkes x Reader, with brief mentions of Folio and Davis.

CW: Missing person, elements of supernatural horror, mentions of blood and possibly violence, unreliable narrator. will update as it goes on. Heavy trigger warning for mentions of alcohol use, ptsd and panic attacks.

WC: 3.7K

AN: This series will be told throughout a variety of flashbacks and present day, all which will be marked.

Divider: Silent-stories

Tagged: @enemiestolovershoe, @fadingangelwisp, @collisionofyourkissmakesitsohard (if anyone else wishes to be tagged lmk)

PRESENT DAY

It's been over a week since you visited your old house and had what the doctors determined was a panic attack. You've had them before and this felt like something more, but you didn't have the energy to argue with them and their alleged diagnosis, you just wanted to go home after being told they wanted to keep you in for observation.

Nicholas hasn't let you out of his sight the entire time after, except to go to the bathroom. He's less of a prison officer and more of a guard dog. But what can he do when the thing he needs to guard you from is yourself?

Nothing more has happened between you both, you don't know if you want it to. Ever since bits from that night came flooding back all you can see is Noah's face and the terror in it as he was dragged away from you, to even contemplate kissing Nicholas again seems absurd.

That and Kit's tone as he referred to Noah as your boyfriend which has played on a loop in your mind since that day.

A WEEK EARLIER

"Oh, Nick, I think I need— Detective Green." You pause when you see him.

You were leaving the hospital today after they were satisfied with your overnight observations and it was as you were gathering everything you needed from your room that you caught Kit standing by the door.

"Can I help you?" You do your best for your voice to remain neutral, but after yesterday you're finding it rather difficult. Kit may have been present when you had your panic attack and the one to provide you help, but that didn't stop you from being suspicious of his continuous presence.

"I came to see how you were doing. The doctor said that you were leaving today."

"Yup, right now." Your tone is short, but you resolve. There seems to be a genuine look of concern on his face, not that he needs to be about you. "I'm fine." You add, attempting a more sincere tone with your reassurance.

"That's good to hear. Listen, if there was something from that night which you remembered—"

There it was, the real reason he had come by and you're quick to interject. "There wasn't."

He doesn't argue with you, but you don't take that as success and when he turns to leave you find yourself calling out to him.

"Why did you say it like that? When calling Noah my boyfriend?"

It has been on your mind ever since you woke up, something which gnawed at you and when he answers it makes you want to grab him and shake him because he's being vague again.

"Like what?"

"Boyfriend." You mimic the tone he used, an unimpressed looked on your face.

"You can tell me if it's none of my business but you and Mr Ruffilo look pretty cozy. That was Noah's best friend, am I right?"

Suddenly you hate the shift in direction of this conversation and Kit highlighting the obvious to you.

"You're right, it is none of your business." You snap.

"I'm just advising you how it might look from an outside perspective."

"Thanks but I don't need your advice."

You catch the sight of Nicholas coming to the door, over his shoulder, as he attempts to pass while eyeing Kit as though considering what conversation he's just missed out on.

You'll tell him about this later, you think.

You don't, because maybe there is a part of you which believes the weight of Kit's words and slowly, the guilt you should have felt the night you kissed Nicholas, begins to creep in.

You kissed your dead boyfriend's best friend. How could you do that?

PRESENT DAY

"What are we talking about?"

You enter the living room and the chatter between the guys dies down, but it's Folio who speaks up first, all grins and that face is enough to sway any irritation their sudden silence sparked.

"About going on a fishing trip. We—well I thought you'd want to take a little break from here."

"She doesn't want to go on a fishing trip." Nick attempts to defuse Folio's idea, but you push it forward, sitting on the arm of the sofa nearest Folio.

"I think that sounds like a good idea." You make a point to give Nicholas a slight glare. You're tired of the way he's becoming almost overbearing, or maybe you're thinking too hard about what Detective Green, not Kit because he's not your friend, said.

Everyone other than Nicholas agreed to Folio's idea, but he eventually came around to the notion of it once Folio pointed out a cabin a family friend owned that could be rented to them. The place was secluded enough you could escape the usual stares from locals and set back from a lake which brought more excitement to Folio than you'd ever seen him have.

You knew what a fan of fishing he was, but he was completely in his element the moment he saw the water, rattling on to you about the types of fish you would find and what he had planned for when you'd finally venture out there the next day. He'd already called dibs on you for a whole day, much to Nicholas's dismay. You didn't know if it was because of his recent overbearing behavior or because he genuinely wanted to have time with you and was disappointed that he wouldn't.

Come that afternoon you find Nicholas outside on the porch fiddling with the string of a bow, numerous arrows laid out on the nearby table. You're almost hesitant to speak to him. He hasn't said a word to you since before leaving for the trip and the silent treatment is getting a little tiring now.

You had been short and annoyed with him, but now the tables were turned you didn't like it.

Fortunately for you it's him who breaks the awkward silence between you first.

"Do you want to come with me?"

You look up at him, features soft and there's almost a flicker of a smile at his invitation. There's the Nicholas you know. "Please? What are you going to do out there?"

You listen as he recounts Folio mentioning the owners of the cabin set up target practice throughout the trees, your focus on listening almost slipping away as you reach for one of the arrows, your index finger dragging over the sharp point. It's Matt's voice that brings you back with a startle, almost catching yourself on the arrow head.

"Giving her something sharp and pointed, Nick. Do you really think that's a good idea after last time?"

You shoot Matt a look, fully aware of what time he is referring to, but you had a reason for that, you'd been sleepwalking.

You think.

FLASHBACK

"Shit, you look like you have your own pack of guard dogs." Davis comments as he and Matt come through the front door balancing boxes of pizza, sides and two bottles of soda between them.

You're on the sofa, cuddling up to Noah who sits on one side of you, while Nicholas sits on the other, and Jolly beside him. On the floor between yours and Nick's feet is Folio, who's taken to sitting there and looks perhaps the most like a guard dog between all of them, he even raises his hands at the comment, implying that he's ready to fight. "No demons are going to mess with us tonight."

They all laugh and so do you, because despite how frightening everything has been under this roof, you love how they're able to find the lighter side and take your mind away from the real horror you've been living.

As much as you hated staying at the house alone, staying there with all of the guys made you feel a little safer.

You catch the way Noah looks down at you and feel the creeping of blush along your cheek. You haven't told any of them yet about you two, or even figured out what's going on between you. You promised to keep it private for now, but that doesn't stop you from wanting to plant a kiss in his inviting lips right now and Noah must think the same because his head leans forward, but diverts off to brush his lips against your ear with a soft whisper. "Meet me upstairs." It sends a rush through you. Are you really about to sneak a kiss in around his best friends?

You're the first to move with an excuse while everyone begins shuffling themselves around for the pizza and the various sides you all ordered.

You almost trip running up the stairs, aware that Nicholas at least catches sight of you before you disappear down the hall. You're practically giddy waiting outside Noah's room, bouncing on the balls of your feet and you can hear him taking the stairs two at a time, the chatter between the guys downstairs easily drowning out any concerns you have about them knowing.

"Hey."

"Hi."

"Fancy meeting you here."

Suddenly you feel shy but he's quick to pull you in against his chest and with his long fingers beneath your chin, he tilts your head back, dipping forward for a kiss. You couldn't have gone the whole night without this, you feel it in the way an eruption of butterflies burst in your stomach.

When you return back downstairs, you're practically blushing, Noah following close enough behind that could easily cause a stir of whispers, but nothing comes from the chatter which surrounds you, other than the rest of the guys sharing out the remaining food.

You reach for what you presume to be your drink from the nearby table, before Nicholas interjects. "Here, this one's yours." He offers you another, switching over the glasses as he takes a sip from the one you were about to take.

You smile your thanks and lean into him with a gentle nudge against his side.

You're having another nightmare again and you can't wake up.

No matter what you do you're stuck in here, wandering around your dark house and calling out for Noah who's nowhere to be found. You just want to wake up, but you can already hear it, that thing in the darkness which calls for you, it's crawling towards you, trying to lure you in but you won't let it.

Your name is a hushed whisper, one which taunts you as it comes closer. You refuse to let it take you, you can't let it take you.

You can feel the panic building the more you realize you're stuck here and no one is coming to save you.

You're going to die in your sleep.

It's a sudden realization which spikes your adrenaline and you begin searching every cupboard and every drawer when you reach the kitchen. There's nothing, nothing except the sharp kitchen knife left precariously on the side. You reach for it, brandishing it with a purpose and hold it up, ready to defend yourself.

You're not going to let this thing take you.

When you open your eyes, you find Matt standing in front of you, his eyes wide with terror as he softly says your name as if attempting to coax you down from the edge, while his hands slowly and carefully raise to yours which are shaking. You look at them and see that they are tightly wrapped around the sheath of a kitchen knife, that he slowly takes it from you, dropping it into the nearby sink and out of reach.

The moment he does your whole body begins to shake as you break into a panicked mumble of apologies, Matt's arms quick to wrap around you and offer you comfort, gently shushing you. You had no idea what had happened, you were in a nightmare, but you were sleepwalking. Since when? You never sleepwalked as far as you were aware.

PRESENT DAY

You don't know how long you've been walking, but it's been in silence, you following behind Nicholas as he searches out the targets through the trees. When you hear the snap of another twig beneath your feet, you decide to break the silence with something more, taking a deep breath before you speak.

"Nick, about what happened. I just wanted to say that–"

"It's okay." He interrupts you and you come to a stop. "It shouldn't have happened, we can pretend like it didn't either." He doesn't even stop or turn to look at you when he says this, instead continuing on the trail and unknowingly leaving you behind.

"What?" Suddenly you're confused and a little hurt. Why did it bother you so much that Nicholas was the one acting as if your kiss had been a mistake?

Your mind begins to reel because up until then, until this week, he'd been attentive and caring and suddenly the contrast of him growing so cold felt like whiplash. You missed the Nicholas you knew, the one who would always pull you in, talk your ear off over some new thing he read or even old passionate topics he could never let go of. You'd listen to him and Noah tell the same stories a million times and now you barely got a word out of him.

When you come back from your thoughts, you're alone. You can't see Nicholas through the trees and you suddenly realize how dark everything has become. He didn't intentionally leave you, did he? He wouldn't. But he had and when you start your attempt to find your way along a trail you have no direction of, you can feel the panic rising in your chest. You're not far from the cabin, any one of them could come find you but why do you suddenly feel as if you're the only one out here?

Strike that, not the only one.

You see it in the distance, a dark figure that looms and you swear is slowly edging towards you. "No, no, no. Please no." You start to whisper under your breath as if this thing can hear you and now all you want to do is run. You don't know where, but you attempt to follow the trail back the way you came, turning your head every now and then to find the figure still in the distance and still following you.

It's when you last turn your head you feel yourself smack into something hard and it grabs you, causing you to let out a shriek.

"Woah, Hey! It's me! Calm down. It's just me." You hear Matt's soothing voice and suddenly you've never been happier to run into him, literally. You fling your arms around his neck and hold yourself close as you attempt to calm yourself and steady your breath, an incoherent jumble of words falling out from your mouth as you attempt to explain what happened.

You have no actual explanation, what you saw was no doubt crazy in your mind, but he doesn't regard you as being crazy, Matt just holds you and rubs your back as he tries to calm you down.

It's slowly working.

"Maybe we should get you something to drink." You're surprised by his suggestion, but your nerves are shot enough that he probably considers it a good idea.

You don't unravel yourself from him completely, keeping an arm around him as he guides you back inside.

When your eyes fall on Nicholas, you see the way he stops himself from rushing over to you in a panic, a giveaway that he does care and as the guys are quick to ask what happened, you choose not to let slip that he abandoned you in the middle of the woods. Mostly because you'd have to explain what prompted it and you don't know if you have the capacity to deal with them knowing about your almost kiss yet.

You lied when you said that you could handle your drink again, because you were already two drinks deep and not only finding yourself to be tipsy, but a little overly flirty towards Matt, admittedly on purpose. One because you knew that you could trust him around you and two because you saw the way it was frustrating Nicholas and maybe there was a petty part of yourself which wanted that. He'd hurt your feelings earlier and you decided you would hurt him in return. How mature are you?

"I think it's time we got you to bed."

Matt finally chooses to break up the party the moment you suggest spin the bottle. "Oh, you don't want me spinning the bottle, you want me all to yourself." You giggle and he avoids your finger as you bring it to his face, clearly frustrated by your state, but not enough to not help you.

"Don't worry, I've got her." Matt says when he sees Nicholas rising to his feet to offer his help. You catch the deflated look as he's knocked back and you know there's a smug expression on your own face as Matt's arm loops beneath yours and begins to guide you to the room you claimed for yourself down the hall.

When he drops you onto the bed, he's not graceful, but he's not mean about the state you're in, helping to at least tuck you in enough before you reach for him. "Wait, please don't go."

This is genuine now. The look on your face isn't the flirty one you'd been giving him all night, teasing him over the fact he calls you 'brat' like that wasn't supposed to work you up. You're not sober, but you're aware enough to know you really don't want to be alone, not out here and not tonight.

Matt just says your name with a sigh and it makes you flinch, because you know he's disappointed in you. Your head drops, and you feel the edge of the mattress bow as he sits himself there, leaning towards you enough to wrap his arm loosely around you in a comforting embrace.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have acted like that. I know you don't want me all to yourself or to kiss me."

"Who said I don't want to kiss you?"

You don't know what came over you.

Leaning forward you reach for his shirt, anchoring him in place as you plant a drunken, messy kiss on his lips. Had you been in front of the others while doing this, in front of Nick, it would have made sense to you that you were attempting to make him jealous, but not now. You weren't seeking to ruffle the feathers of a non existent audience, you were trying to fill that hole you felt in your chest, the one which Noah always did and Nicholas did to an extent.

Soon you break away, a roll of nausea hitting you as the regret from drinking at all after rises up your throat. You scramble from the bed and head straight for the en-suite bathroom, falling to the floor in front of the toilet bowl.

From the bedroom you can hear Matt laughing, completely unfazed by your antics. "It's been a while since I had that effect on a girl." You don't want to laugh because when you do you feel the next wave of vomit trickle out from your nose and it makes you curse him in between.

He's kind though, the usual playfully mean persona pulled back as he joins you, a hand smoothly rubbing over your back while his other moves to hold your hair back. You find yourself missing when Nicholas would do this. On all of the nights you drank too much, he was the one at your side and taking care of you, putting you to bed and even staying with you until morning on some occasions. Now it felt as though he barely wanted to speak to you, let alone comfort you.

Instead of moving from the spot on the floor, you wipe your face with the washcloth Matt dampens for you in the nearby sink, before moving to lay down, your head falling into his lap. You can feel his hesitancy at first, you're rarely this level of touchy towards him, but he soon relents and you feel his fingers comb through your hair. It's soft and reminiscent enough of Noah that you find yourself talking about him, something which you had yet to even do with Nicholas.

"I miss him Matt." Your breath catches in your throat and you press on with your words. "Some days I feel like I can't breathe. Like it should be me who's gone and not him."

He doesn't respond but his touch doesn't stop and you know he's allowing you the freedom to speak.

"I know none of you blame me, but I blame myself. Other than Noah you're the only other person who knew how bad things became in that house." You're referring to the knife incident and you can hear a faint chuckle from him as he remembers, as if he doesn't care that you came towards him with a kitchen knife.

You wish there was a magic fix, that someone could say the right thing to absolve you of this guilt you feel gnawing at your chest on a daily basis, that you could stop being held down by the weight of sadness his absence brings, but then you fear that without it you'd forget about him. You believe that the longer you allow yourself to suffer in pain, the longer you can keep him with you, as if to heal would mean to let him go, completely. And you're not ready for that yet.

You must have dozed off in Matt's lap, because you stir when you feel the covers being pulled up over you. You don't bother to open your eyes, your hand reaching out for the one you feel pulling away after tucking you in. "Don't leave." It's soft, but audible and you take hold of the hand, pulling it towards you and guiding them to stay with you. The covers don't move, but you feel the weight of who you presume to be Matt back on the bed, this time closer and welcoming you against his chest.

It's faint, but you can smell Noah's shampoo again and it fills you with a sense of comfort, the idea that he's all around you, all the time. Your face nuzzles against the chest you're resting on before feeling yourself fade completely into sleep.

[aplaceinthedark]

Poltergeists: Bonus Chapter.

Well well well, if it isn't the consequences of your actions. A little chapter on Matt's intervention when you become too reliant on the bottle.

Chapters: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Bonus Chapter, Chapter 4, Chapter 5

CW: Missing person, elements of supernatural horror, mentions of blood and possibly violence, unreliable narrator. will update as it goes on. Heavy trigger warning for mentions of alcohol use, ptsd and panic attacks.

WC: 1.4k.

Divider: Silent-stories.

When you wake a wave of embarrassment rolls over you, along with another consisting of nausea and making you roll to reach for the bucket that's been left at the side of the bed.

Nothing comes up. In fact your stomach feels empty and painful as you retch, possibly from emptying all the contents the night before.

Your mouth is dry and when you finally lift your head, you can see the glass of water and two aspirin pills Nicholas has left for you on the nightstand. It makes guilt gnaw at your chest.

Nicholas has been nothing short of sweet and caring in these past few months while you took to drowning away your sorrows, holding your hair back as you threw them up into the toilet bowl, taking you to bed with him on the nights you begged to not be left alone, and left you with your own personal hangover kit the next morning, already aware of the state you'd wake up in.

After downing the pills and half a pint of water, all you wish for is to roll over and hide under the covers and forget the day before and the day ahead, and the next day after that. You'd hide away forever if you could, but any chance of those plans are ripped from you the moment you hear a familiar voice echoing through the house and causing you to let out a muffled groan against your pillow.

You attempt to remain still, hidden beneath the covers in hope that it will deter him, as if he won't see you at all. Any hope of that is lost when you feel a rough tug of the covers ripping away from you.

"What the fuck Matt?" You yell, half rolling onto your back as you lean up to look over at him. "What if I was naked?"

"What? In Nick's bed?" He rolls his eyes and gives you a look as if to say yeah right.

You're not and you wouldn't be, but that's not the point.

"What are you doing here anyway?" You grumble, holding up your arm to block the light that comes streaming in as he opens the curtains. It's blinding and does nothing to help the pounding in your head or the nausea which rolls through you once more.

"To talk." He answers simply and gestures for you to get out of bed. He looks so smug standing there with his dumb cap on, you want to go over and knock it off him.

"About?" You answer, impatient and huffing.

"Do you really need the reminder?" The moment he says it, you regret asking because you know what's about to come. "The drinking. Going to a bar you really shouldn't be at let alone on your own. Being so drunk that anything could've happened to you. Jolly and Davis having to pull those gu—"

"Yes, I get it. I get it. You can stop now. I already feel embarrassed enough." You turn your head away, half in shame, half trying to avoid the sunlight making your eyes hurt and move to climb out of bed.

"Good. You should be, maybe that'll help you consider a few things."

You know from his tone he wasn't going to be gentle with whatever talk he had planned. Then again, he was someone who could speak from experience and he often spoke directly, especially to those he cared about. He had a soft streak, you'd seldom seen it, but you knew it existed and you knew he was only acting this way because he did care. If he didn't he would've allowed you to continue on. They all probably would have.

You move into the living room because there's less light to make your eyes hurt and head spin. You're slow and sluggish as you go and you wonder if you're still drunk, everything feels like it's going in slow-mo. When you drop into the couch, your head falls back, but Matt isn't about to let you get off easy. He snaps his fingers to get your attention and your head snaps up which causes you to feel dizzy and makes you regret it instantly but there's a bite in your tone. "I'm not your fucking dog, don't snap at me." You mimic the action and he just laughs.

You've always had a playful banter, but that doesn't feel like something you wish to engage in right now.

"Nick wasn't joking when he said that you were a mean drunk."

"I'm not–" You start but he cuts you off.

"A drunk? You can lose the attitude right now, Brat. I'm only here because I care about you, we care about you and that's why I'm telling you that you're scaring us and you've got to stop drinking before something worse happens or we lose you for good." There's a pause as if he's contemplating his next words and you don't say anything, your eyes just focused on his serious expression. "We've all already lost Noah. We don't want to lose you too."

There it was again, that pang of guilt, the one reminding you that while you allowed yourself to drown in your grief, there were others suffering too that you ignored.

"If you're going to have a go at me again, can you get it over with now? Did you really need to bring me out here for this?" You gesture to the vegetable patch in Matt's garden that he's been having you help him work on and you raise your arm to wipe the sweat from your brow.

After your brief talk this morning, he insisted on you coming with him, you know it's probably because he didn't trust you to be on your own, or maybe Nicholas didn't and asked him to. You agreed, only if he promised to stop being annoying.

He didn't.

"I thought you'd have fun. You always mentioned wanting to try gardening."

"Yeah, but not when I'm hungover." Though you refuse to give him the satisfaction, you did find that being outside eventually began to help. That as well as getting some much needed fluids and food in your system, all courtesy of Matt.

Under any other circumstances you wouldn't mind hanging out with him, it was just the underlying feeling that he wanted to berate you again which made you feel hesitant to relax.

At his offer of another Celsius from his ice box, you accept and come over towards his back deck where he takes a seat, plopping yourself down beside him.

"I don't want you to think I'm being an ass."

"Too late for that buddy." You quip but there's a slight smile on your face adding to the light humor in your tone. You crack open the can in your hand and take a sip.

"Brat." He retorts and you just roll your eyes. It's your favorite pastime to wind him up. "I just get it, I've been there and I don't want to see someone I care about ending up there. I don't want to see you ending up there."

You nod because you know he's right. Matt always cares about those closest to him in his own way, the literal definition of a ride or die type of friend. You'd been lucky to have him, even if he did take on the role of berating you like you were a child who had misbehaved.

"I think about him alot."

You take a sip of your drink because you don't really want to face having this conversation, already feeling your throat tighten and the pressure behind your nose as tears begin to build.

For the ocean of grief you've been drowning in, you've never spoken about him, not unless it's something lighthearted enough to not drive you to breaking down in tears. The guilt is something you have never mentioned. Guilt for not only what occurred and how you blame yourself for not getting out of that house before the something bad you anticipated happening, did, but for not speaking about him at all after. You held onto your grief and your memories of Noah, locking them away, convinced that if you pretended like he wasn't entirely gone, then he wasn't. 

You didn't want to accept that probability, no matter how many signs pointed to it.

"He wouldn't want you doing this." You only nod in response and he lean towards you, his shoulder bumping off yours. "Great talk." Matt says, and it's enough to get you to laugh.

"Okay, break’s over now." He declares with a slap against your thigh, while you groan in annoyance and he raises to his feet, turning and offering you his hand to help pull you up.

So much for him not being annoying.

[aplaceinthedark]

Poltergeists: Chapter 5.

Summary: It's been a year since your best friend Noah went missing, two years since you moved into the house you abandoned after he went missing from it during the night. This is a recount of events leading up to and what happened after the night he went missing and all of the strange events that occurred during your time living in that house.

Chapters: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Bonus Chapter, Chapter 4, Chapter 5

Pairings: Noah Sebastian x Reader, Nicholas Ruffilo x Reader, possibly more BO members.

CW: Missing person, elements of supernatural horror, mentions of blood and possibly violence, unreliable narrator. will update as it goes on. Heavy trigger warning for mentions of alcohol use, ptsd and panic attacks. This chapter will contain mentions of blood and implied violence.

WC: 2k.

AN: This series will be told throughout a variety of flashbacks and present day, all which will be marked.

Divider: Silent-stories

Tagged: @collisionofyourkissmakesitsohard (if anyone else wishes to be tagged lmk)

PRESENT DAY 

What compelled you to come over to your old house, you don't know, it was as though an invisible force had brought you here. It didn't look inviting, the windows staring down at you like two blackened eyes, rot spreading around the wooden panes. You still had the keys, attached to the spare for Nicholas' place and used them to let yourself in. It was as though a shadow cast over you the moment you entered, the entire house shrouded in a darkness that not even light from the mid day high point sun could reach.

Everything looked both the same and so different. Your feet shuffled slowly throughout the ground floor, eyes flickering to the corners for the signs of anything lingering there. An animal. Something worse. Switching the torch on your phone on, you shone it into the dark corners to expel any potential threats, coming up empty each time.

As you walked through the living room, you were drawn towards the fireplace, recalling one of the last few conversations you and Noah had before everything would change.

FLASHBACK

"Do you believe in the devil?" 

"What? Where did that come from?"

"I don't know." A shrug rolls off your shoulders as you press him. "Well? Do you?"

"Okay, fine I'll bite." 

You know he wants to tell you what the fuck do you think? He's a formerly raised catholic boy with an ambiguous relationship with religion in general, who likes to write songs where he can scream about giving a fuck you to God and claim to have met the devil, but he humors you anyway. 

"The devil? No. A devil? As in a demonic entity who would happily fuck with people? Yeah." 

His answer makes you pause and you wonder if he's seen it too, the creature which comes out from the shadows deep in the night, the one you know has been tormenting you on and off for the past few months.

PRESENT DAY

"Any update on that 10-23?"

You jump at the sound of radio static, turning on your heel and directing the torch right into the face of the same Detective you've dealt with every step of this investigation.

"10-4 dispatch. It was just the homeowner."

"They send detectives out on b&e's now?" You don't hold back the snark in your tone. You're not at all pleased to see him, and here of all places.

"No. I was local when they put out the call and recognized the address." He doesn't bite and somehow that infuriates you.

"Course you did." You roll your eyes. Everyone knew this address but it didn't surprise you for a minute that he did.

In the days and weeks following the investigation into Noah's disappearance, he'd been here almost every day retracing the steps of your story. You knew he'd been looking for holes in it and there were plenty, but that didn't mean you weren't innocent. There was no evidence to prove you as guilty, as much as he clearly wanted you to be.

"I'm surprised you'd come back here."

"Why? The criminal always goes back to the scene of the crime, isn't that what you say?"

"You said it, not me."

You narrow your eyes on him, another snarky retort on the tip of your tongue, but you choose to swallow it down in exchange for civility. "Can I help you, Detective?"

"A concerned neighbor called in a potential break-in. I'm just here to check that wasn't the case. And it's Kit. Technically, I'm off duty." He shrugs and your gaze stays fixed, studying him, attempting to decipher his MO. He hadn't been the nicest the first time he came by with Officer Torres, but at least he hadn't called you hysterical like his co-worker.

You knew never to trust cops, regardless of how helpful they wanted to appear, their only agenda was to butter you up for their own motives. In this case, getting you to slip up and reveal even the slightest discrepancy in your story would've been enough for KitDetective Green to bring suspicion back onto you.

"And you just happened to be in the area? At what point does it go from being a concerned officer of the law to harassment, detective?" You made a point not to say his name as he's implied for you to. You weren't going to give him the satisfaction of breaking the obvious hierarchy he had over you, or allow him to believe you considered him on friendly terms, because you didn't.

"I don't know what you're implying." He chuckles, it falters slightly and you know he does know. You may have not been found guilty but that didn't stop his suspicions, or the coincidental encounters. Never approaching you but always being in your line of sight, another looming presence in your life. Except this was one which haunted you in the light of day. "It's a small town." You can't counter that, you cross the same faces daily. It's the same reason so many know yours and who you are.

Walking around the house you're flooded with memories both from the year you had together and that night. Kit remains with you, following your footsteps, looking off into rooms as you pass them, but never speaking. He doesn't ask you any questions and somehow that unnerves you more, it's as if he's watching for your reaction, like you might somehow give away something more.

The scratch marks from Noah's bedroom, down along the dark hallway catch your attention and you lean down, your fingers brushing them before you press your own nails against them. There's still bits of blood and nail there which came off in the commotion. You never cleaned up the mess in the house, you chose to leave it how it was because you never wanted to come back anyway.

Kit crouches down beside you, his fingers joining yours and he finally speaks. "The scratch marks. We thought these were weird. Your boyfriend might have been on the slim side but no single person is going to have the strength to drag him to the point he's leaving marks like these." You don't like the tone he uses on the word boyfriend, or maybe it's because of your almost kiss with Nick that you don't like it, that it somehow confirms it as a betrayal against Noah.

"Does this mean I'm off your suspect list?" You couldn't help yourself, even if it did give him more reason to suspect you. You knew that no singular person could drag Noah to that extent, till he was clawing his way back, attempting to escape his fate.

"Very funny." He says and you take that as a no. You then follow the scratch marks down to your bedroom.

This is another reason you were suspect number one, because after claiming to have been in your room all night, how could you have missed what occurred, have slept through it even. You never wanted to tell anyone that you were with Noah that night, not when you hadn't even made your relationship official, you wanted to keep what you had sacred and yours, not have to divulge it into this investigation where it would've been stripped apart and analyzed.

Even after admitting the truth that you were in Noah's room, your story never changed. Kit still wasn't happy with it, you knew that he questioned your credibility even more, but it became satisfactory enough to drop you as the main suspect from the official investigation, even if in his mind you remained it.

Reaching the threshold of your bedroom, you stop. You can feel Kit stood close behind you, watching you as if waiting for your next move. You wonder if he's recounting the various times he brought you back here for a detailed walkthrough of that night, of you explaining where you slept, what you did when you woke up. Your story was too meticulous, perfectly rehearsed, but he couldn't find any legitimate fault, no matter how many times he tried to trip you up, you never did.

It's been so long since you've been in this house, but you can already hear it again, the low humming, the buzzing which became insistent. It's faint, but you can hear it.

"Do you hear that?" You turn your head slightly to ask him. Maybe he can. Maybe he'll be the first person to not make you think that you're crazy.

"Hear what?" Maybe not.

"Nothing." You shake it off, but he doesn't, you can see the way his hand reaches towards his belt, as if he's preparing himself for something hideous on the other side of the door. Perhaps preparing for the potential threat of you.

That would be the perfect plan, to lure out the detective who has made your life feel like even more of a nightmare than it has been, to feed it to this thing.

You push open your bedroom door and it's as it was the night everything happened. It's overwhelming. The stench of rotten, dried blood, the way it splatters over the walls and pools on the floor. Too much blood for a human body to have survived. That was what they told you. But there was no body, no proof that he had even died.

Suddenly your body begins to feel cold and you're overwhelmed, your heartbeat racing in your chest. It feels like something is crushing your throat, a vice-like grip preventing you from taking a needed breath, darkness licks at the corners of your vision before you feel it fully engulf you, dropping to your knees with a howling cry, the same one you let out that night.

FLASHBACK

I FOLLOWED YOU IN

Everything is happening in flashes.

I INVITED YOU IN

Noah ripped from your grasp, his guttural screams. You can't stop it, this thing which has a hold of him. Your voice is already horse from screaming his name. You're trying to grab him, trying to follow but you fall over your feet, knees slamming against the baseboards.

It hurts.

It hurts and it's loud, and it won't stop.

You keep screaming for it to stop.

Please stop. Please.

Stop

Stop

Stop

Stop

YOU LOVE BLOOD TOO MUCH

There's blood.

Oh god there's so much blood.

You're covered in it, you don't know where it's from and you don't know where Noah is. You can't see him but you can hear him, the cry of an animal in pain and sound which matches rips from your chest.

BUT NOT LIKE I DO

The sun rises before you finally move from the pool of Noah's blood you've been laying in all night. You feel cold and numb, you were too scared to move in the dark, not when you could hear it still lurking, hear the sound of Noah's cries which eventually died down. You don't know how long it was before they did, but it rings in your head, along with the buzzing. It was so loud last night, consuming you until it was all you heard, as if flies were crawling out your ears.

You need to move because you can't be found like this.

You wonder how the cops had not been called already, did the neighbors not hear the screams?

You have to move, you have to get up.

You know what you have to do.

PRESENT DAY

When you come to you're laid on the grass out the front of your house, Kit kneeling beside you and talking to someone on the phone. Paramedics, dispatch, you don't know but he's mentioning you coming around.

You feel dizzy, your mouth dry and there's a distinct metallic taste of blood. You try to move and sit up, but he stops you, keeping you laid back with your head supported on what you assume to be his folded jacket. He's telling you to stay awake, to keeping looking at him.

You think.

You had a panic attack he explains, but it felt like more than that. You feel it in your body, everything from that night, but most of all you can feel the pull of your eyes growing heavier.

Maybe a minute longer won't hurt.

[aplaceinthedark]

Poltergeists: Chapter 4.

Summary: It's been a year since your best friend Noah went missing, two years since you moved into the house you abandoned after he went missing from it during the night. This is a recount of events leading up to and what happened after the night he went missing and all of the strange events that occurred during your time living in that house.

Chapters: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Bonus Chapter, Chapter 4, Chapter 5

Pairings: Noah Sebastian x Reader, Nicholas Ruffilo x Reader, mentions of Jolly, Davis and Matt, possibly more BO members.

CW: Missing person, elements of supernatural horror, mentions of blood and possibly violence, unreliable narrator. will update as it goes on. Heavy trigger warning for mentions of alcohol use, ptsd and panic attacks.

WC: 1.8k.

AN: This series will be told throughout a variety of flashbacks and present day, all which will be marked.

Divider: Silent-stories

Tagged: @collisionofyourkissmakesitsohard(if anyone else wishes to be tagged lmk)

You have come to learn that grief is a tricky emotion to navigate and grief of a person who you have no idea if they are dead or alive is even harder. 

PRESENT DAY

"Are you awake?" You hear Nick whisper in the darkness. You've been awake since climbing into bed with him, laying still in your hope that sleep would eventually take pity on you and allow you to succumb to it.

It never came.

"Yeah." 

He rolls over and you follow to face him, your hands and legs briefly touching with the close proximity you now have to one another. He lets out a hiss at the sudden cold contact against his own warm limbs. "Shit, you're cold."

"I'm always cold." There's a half hearted laugh because it's not untrue. You were always cold in the house you shared with Noah, so much so that you became used to piling on layers until he would come home and welcome you into his warm embrace. It was as if he draped you in heat, protecting you from the unseen force determined to freeze you out of your own body and mind.

"Come here." Nick ushers you closer and pulls you into his embrace, his hand rubbing along your back as if attempting to stimulate some form of heat throughout your body. You can feel the heat from his own, but it does nothing to touch the coldness which has settled into your bones.

It's not out of the ordinary for him to hold you like this on occasion. After a few months spent sleeping on his couch and waking to the sound of you screaming from nightmares, he invited you into his bed if it made you feel safer. You did, but never in the way Noah made you feel safe. You still had nightmares but Nick was a light enough sleeper he could catch you the moment distress hit, his arms wrapping around you to ground you back.

Even on the rare occasion sleep paralysis hit, he was there to pull you back and hold you as you wept. He never asked you what you saw and you never liked to dwell on it. Sometimes a tearless cry was all you needed to shake the fear from your system and then you'd both sink back beneath the sheets, your head tucked against his shoulder, smelling the same familiar shampoo of Noah's.

That combination always drove you into a dream where he'd come to you, but he'd never stay long, never told you where he was no matter how many times you asked him. He would always leave by the time morning came and you felt more exhausted than ever each time they happened.

When his hand brushes against your cheek in the darkness you know that he can feel the wetness from the tears that had fallen from when you had been quietly crying, you know this because you hear the soft whisper of "Oh, bubs." It's enough to make your heart jump. 

It had always been Noah's choice of nickname for you, with Nick only casually using it here and there in a playful manner. It always felt more affectionate from Noah, but in this moment it doesn't feel playful as Nick says it, it feels like offering comfort, like if you close your eyes you can convince yourself that it's Noah here holding you and everything in the last year as been nothing more than a bad dream. 

You know it isn't possible, but that doesn't stop you from wanting to believe it, so much that you find yourself leaning towards him in the darkness, the heat of Nick's breath against your lips before they meet. It's not much of a kiss, just a touch, but something soft to ground you into the belief that you're with Noah, so much so that it feels almost reminiscent of the first time you did kiss. 

FLASHBACK

"And what about this one?" You point to another tattoo, waiting for Noah to give his deep rooted meaning behind it, but he just laughs when you continue to pick ones he got merely for the fact they're cool. In reality they all are, but some fascinate you more than others. Sometimes he'll let you sit and study them, you used to blush whenever he took his shirt off around you as teenagers, trying not to look, but the more comfortable you became around him, the more you'd not only look but you would touch, tracing the outline of some. He would shiver at your touch, but never tell you to stop or push you away, he'd let you explore and take him in like a piece of artwork you were fascinated by.

"You know that not every tattoo has to have meaning right?"

You tilt your head back to look up at him, your head tucked against his shoulder.

You'd climbed into bed with him tonight after deciding your room felt a little too eerie to be alone in and he welcomed you, the space inside his arm reserved strictly for you. The idea of sleep was soon abandoned for pillow talk, before you became curious to ask about his tattoos and explore.

Truthfully it was another reason for you to push off falling asleep. The nightmares as of late had become too much, too surreal that you were struggling to know what was real and what wasn't in your waking hours. You were supposed to be able to distinguish between what was reality and what was a dream, but every method you knew of never worked and you didn't want to tell Noah how bad things were getting.

"I know but I like hearing you talk about them."

At some point you did fall asleep, but when you wake it's still dark out, Noah's arms embracing you tight to his chest. You feel no need to move and disturb him, choosing to lay there while you make out his features in the dim light of the room. You trace them gently, the bridge of his nose being your favorite with how pointed and near perfect it looks.

As your fingers slip to his lips, you feel your heart jump in your chest when he speaks. "It's rude to disturb someone while they're sleeping." He doesn't open his eyes, his arms just giving you a squeeze as he keeps you pinned to his chest. You don't say anything and it prompts him to speak again.

"What were you thinking about?"

You wonder if he wants the truthful answer or if he believes you're up wrestling your demons again, because the truthful answer is one which you surprise yourself by saying out loud.

"About kissing you." Your voice is soft, you almost don't hear it yourself, but you know that he does because suddenly his eyes are open and you can tell that they're trained down on you.

"Bubs." Noah whispers and all you can give is a soft I know, because while this isn't entirely uncharted territory, you know how complicated things can get between friends who venture into those waters.

There must be a part of him which doesn't care about the potential for complications, because soon you feel the brush of his lips as he comes down to meet you. It's soft and sweet, everything you always imagined a kiss from him could be. You linger and your hand moves to the back of his head, fingers stroking through his hair.

You wish for this moment to never end.

PRESENT DAY

You don't address the kiss you shared the night before. You're not even sure if you should bring it up at all. Nick is acting no differently, showing no signs that he was put off by what had transpired between you, in fact he's more attentive than usual.

Before he's due to head off for his shift at the shop today, he's lingering in the kitchen with you, having actually cooked you breakfast instead of pouring you a bowl of cereal. You don't know how to feel, especially when his hand lingers on your back, his mouth pressing a tender touch to your crown. There should've been guilt and it should've mixed with the grief which continuously whirled inside you like a storm, but you felt numb. 

It feels like something Noah would do for you.

Would have.

You hate the thought of him in the past tense when he still feels ingrained in your present. Even now you feel him here, or maybe it's just Nick with his similar smelling shampoo. When you look at him you see he's wearing one of Noah's old shirts and the feeling of him there feels even more surreal.

"Eat up, bubs. I only have a couple of clients today but I'll check in at lunch, yeah?"

The check-ins were to make sure you didn't do anything stupid. Not after one time you became a little too dependent on alcohol and drowned your sorrows at the wrong bar in town.

Lucky for you there were a couple of regulars who frequented Nick's shop and were able to get a hold of him. He arrived swiftly with Davis and Jolly in tow in case he needed back up. Nothing had happened, thank god, but it was close to it. You'd caught the attention of a couple far from friendly guys and in your inebriated state, they were all over you, hands in your hair, hands on you.

Davis and Jolly pulled them off you before things got to out of hand and Nick carried you out. You'd been embarrassed by the next morning, but he just made you promise not to have another drink, not until you knew you could handle it. All of the bottles in the house were thrown out and you had an almost intervention from Matt. It had been a few home truths about where things were heading if you kept this up.

They'd all turned a blind eye for the past couple of months leading up to that, but things became concerning that night leading Nick to do check-ins and when he feared you were close to spiraling, he'd send one of the guys over to babysit you. They didn't call it that, but you knew what it was.

The idea of a check-in today after what happened last night, even though it was just a kiss, felt odd. Did that not constitute as concerning behavior to him?

You didn't have a chance to ask before Nick was out the front door, leaving you with a plate of pancakes accompanied by sliced fruit. You weren't hungry, but you forced yourself to eat some.

You didn't have work today, it would give you a break from the usual stares you found yourself on the receiving end of. No one in the shop ever said anything, you imagine they'd be kicked out if they did, but you saw the looks on their faces, noticed the sighs, the subtle shakes of their head as they looked at the girl behind the towns biggest tragedy of the past two decades.

If only they knew you hated yourself more than they could ever hate you.

[aplaceinthedark]

Poltergeists: Bonus Chapter.

Just a little flashback moment of fluff between the main characters as a sprinkling to their backstory.

Pairings: Noah Sebastian x Reader, Nicholas Ruffilo x Reader.

Main story chapters: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3

Divider: Silent-stories

"On the count of three?" 

"Nononono." You quickly back out, shaking your head in protest as you cling onto the wooden barrier of the bridge overlooking the water below.

"You're not scared are you? I promise it'll be quick and fun. You'll love it once you're down there."

You'd been watching him and Nick jumping their way off the bridge for most of the summer. You hadn't joined in, scared of the height and honestly it seemed potentially dangerous but with the summer closing to an end you decided to be brave and face it, even one time.

"Come on buuuubs! The water’s great!" Nick shouted up to you from the water and you rolled your eyes at the way he dragged out Noah's pet name for you. 

"Fine." You relent, looking over to Noah for any sign of assurance to your decision.

"On the count of three." He reaches for your hand, offering himself as a lifeline, the same way he always did and with a nod he began to count to three. Releasing a yell, you jump from the edge of the wooden bridge straight down into the water below.

It was cold the moment it hit you, your fingers quickly losing their grip on Noah's long ones as you plunged into the depths, struggling to pull yourself back up from the initial shock of the water, but within seconds you were brought to the surface by his arms. "I thought I lost you there for a minute." 

"Me too." You gasp, catching your breath now the panic has finally subsided.

Everything around you felt as though it grew silent, both of you caught up with looking at the other, saying nothing and yet you couldn't help but sense the feeling there was something he wanted to say.

Whatever tension had formed between you is quickly shattered by Nick calling over to you both. "Will you two just make out already?" 

Noah rolls his eyes and you just laugh, shaking your head. "Don't get jealous. I'll come and kiss you if you want." Noah calls back, but his grip on you never loosens. 

"Please don't, I've seen what you've put in that mouth."

"He's right." You chime in and your features twist into a look of mock disgust.

"What's so bad about the things I choose to eat, huh?" 

"Plenty." You laugh as you go to pull yourself away, feeling his arm tighten around you, preventing it and pulling you against him as he uses his free arm to swim towards the shallower area of the water. You don't protest, allowing him the chance to be your savior in that moment as you cling onto him, one arm loosely around his neck.

After getting out of the water, all three of you sit in the overgrown grass in an attempt to dry off beneath the afternoon sun. Nick's laid out, an arm over his face covering it, a pair of sunglasses already perched on his face, while you're side by side with Noah who's making a daisy chain after you'd shown him how.

"He loves me, he loves me not." You sing-song, pulling off the petals from a daisy between your fingers. "He loves me."

"Who loves you?" Noah interrupts, prompting you to look up from the flower you had been tearing apart, as if it held all the answers to questions about matters of the heart.

"Jacob from chem class. He's a total dream boat." You draw out your words and roll your eyes in exaggeration. You're teasing him but watching how disgruntled he becomes over the idea of Jacob being anything more to you than a lab partner sends your stomach swirling with butterflies. 

"Well." His fingers brush past yours and it's electric, silencing you into a trance as you watch him tear the remaining petals in one motion. "It looks like he loves you not." You look into his warm brown eyes and you can't help but wonder if he's happy about that, the idea that even a childhood prediction game didn't agree with someone who wasn't him having your affections.

When he finishes making his daisy chain, he shows it off to you, prideful in his attempt, no matter how imperfect it may look. "It's not perfect." He starts with excuses but you're quick to dismiss him.

"Isn't that what makes something more special?" He never accepts the sentiment himself, but it's something he always tells you whenever you put too much pressure on yourself. He's too much of a perfectionist and control freak to accept his own mediocre efforts.

"Since you like it." Before you can argue back he raises the daisy chain towards your head, placing it atop like a crown, the act so minute, but it's enough to make you blush.

[aplaceinthedark]

Poltergeists: Chapter 3.

Summary: It's been a year since your best friend Noah went missing, two years since you moved into the house you abandoned after he went missing from it during the night. This is a recount of events leading up to and what happened after the night he went missing and all of the strange events that occurred during your time living in that house.

Chapters: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2,

Pairings: Noah Sebastian x Reader, Nicholas Ruffilo x Reader, possibly more BO members.

CW: Missing person, elements of supernatural horror, mentions of blood and possibly violence, unreliable narrator. will update as it goes on.

WC: 2.1k.

AN: This series will be told throughout a variety of flashbacks and present day, all which will be marked.

Divider: Silent-stories

Tagged: @collisionofyourkissmakesitsohard (if anyone else wishes to be tagged lmk)

PRESENT DAY

"The cops said there was no one there." 

"I know what they said Nicholas." You say his full name with a bite, your anger starting to rise despite him speaking calmly. You hate how he can remain calm and rational, even when disputing something, especially when disputing this. "But they were wrong. I know what I saw." 

"And what did you see?" 

"I- I..." You stop yourself, starting to panic as doubt creeps in and your voice goes weak. "I don't know." You resolve to the easy answer because even you no longer believe if what you saw was real.

When he looks at you it's not with blame, but sympathy and somehow that's worse. You don't want his pity, don't need it. You would rather have him blame you for what happened to Noah, perhaps because even if no one else did, you will always blame yourself. 

FLASHBACK

By the time Noah arrives home there's a cop car already outside and you're inside recounting what happened and what you saw.

What you think you saw anyway.

"I'm telling you I saw a person standing right over there!" You're tired of arguing and being dismissed, of the officers patronizing tones.

"We understand that you're a little shaken up, miss but Officer Torres and myself have searched the property and there are no signs of forced entry or anyone here."

That's because they could have easily left by now, you want to argue, but you bite your tongue.

After catching the reflection in the window, you ran back upstairs, locking yourself in your bedroom and calling 911 in a distressed panic. Under any other circumstances you wouldn't have, you'd have even laughed at the idea of acting in such a haste, but then you began to hear the footsteps on the stairs. They were getting closer, until you knew whoever you saw was stood on the other side of your bedroom door. You could see the shadow beneath the gap in the door, the way it remained still before it moved back and forth as a lion does waiting to strike on its prey.

After ten minutes the shadow retreated away from the door and the footsteps began on the stairs again before fading away. Your heart was in your throat and you'd been on the verge of passing out from your panic before you saw the flashing blue lights outside your front bedroom window.

The realization came over you that you'd trapped yourself in your bedroom, the owner of the reflection you saw possibly standing in between you and the safety you'd called to your aid.

When you opened the bedroom door and dared a glance out, the hallway was clear and you ran the entire way from your room, down the long darkened hallway and then the stairs, almost tripping on your way down, before reaching the front door.

You'd be lying if you said you weren't a distressed mess by the time you met the officers, throwing yourself outside and refusing to come back in until they'd checked it was clear.

You felt safer outside on the street than in your own home.

Noah hasn't questioned you about what happened or what you saw. He believes you, you think, because after that night he suggests getting ring cameras installed, front and back. He tells you that he's concerned about your safety and it makes you melt because he's always been like this, caring about your safety over everything else. Caring about you.

It's cliche, but your friendship has been the catalyst for the fall out of any relationship either of you have attempted. It shouldn't surprise you though that most guys, who usually lie and add a couple of extra inches, would feel intimidated by a 6'3 guy covered almost head to toe in tattoos. He looks more intimidating than he is, but he's always been the protector you needed.

You want to believe that everything has finally begun to return to some semblance of normality, but you knew it hadn't, with things only continuing to get worse.

The black patch on your kitchen ceiling seems to grow bigger and appear almost wet, as if there was black sludge pooling there. You have tried everything to get rid of it, nearly gassing yourself with a mixture of cleaning products in the process. As for the weird brown stain on the bathroom floor, it continues to return the more you scrub at it now, the faded brown color slowly darkening to a crimson, like an old blood stain returning fresh.

In the weeks following that incident, you began to hear a low buzzing or humming sound, never able to pinpoint the source. It was a sound that no one else could hear, not Noah, not Nick, or any of your friends who came over. It became a sound which tortmented you in your waking hours, but especially during those where you were home alone.

And then came the nightmares and sleep paralysis.

You're awake and you can't move. You know you're awake because you're in your new bedroom, in your bed, everything exactly as it always is. Even in the dark of the night you can make it all out, but from the corner of your eye you can make out something emerging from the darkness. There's a steady pressure building in your chest as it gets closer, as if it somehow has an invisible force field holding you down. You try to speak, to scream, to move, to do anything, but the most you manage is a breathless cry, the tips of your fingers twitching while the rest of your body remains paralyzed. From fear or this something coming towards you, you have no idea.

You close your eyes and open them again because maybe you are asleep and having the worst nightmare imaginable. Maybe you can pull yourself back out of it and you'll wake up in your room where everything will feel okay again. But you know that isn't going to work because you know you're not asleep the minute you feel the warmth of soft tears escaping the edges of your eyes. You haven't cried over a nightmare since you were a child, but somehow this feels worse.

It's getting closer now and even in the darkness you swear that you can see the flash of sharp teeth as the shadow hovers over you, mouth wide. It's like you're staring into a pit of darkness and you almost accept your fate, that whether you're dreaming or not, you're about to die.

Right as it approaches you, your body jolts and suddenly you're no longer staring at a gaping black hole, but your best friend, Noah, illuminated in the faint glow of your bedroom lights. His tattoo covered hands hold you by the top of your arms, his face full of concern as he repeats your name. You don't respond, your lip wobbling as your throat cracks with a whining cry. 

Falling towards his chest, he embraces you with a soft whisper of “oh, bubs" into your hair. Your cheeks already feel wet from tears but they're not falling now, it's as if the well has run out, but you continue your tearless whine, unable to distinguish whether what you experienced was real or not.

"I think you were having a nightmare." He still sounds so concerned and you pull back to look at him, his brow furrowed with worry lines.

He knows how you feel about this house ever since all of the weird things began to happen after you moved in. They started out as small at first, funny to him even, until you began having these nightmares.

"I think you're right." You quip back, but it's deflated of any actual humor. You're exhausted, your body sore from how tensed up you were. You still feel the weight of whatever that invisible force was upon your chest. The freedom to move your limbs again makes you feel thankful.

"Do you want me to stay with you tonight?" He asks, but he already knows the answer, climbing to join you beneath the sheets as you shuffle over. He allows you to make yourself comfortable against his chest, facing him and burying your face into it. The smell of his shirt offers you comfort and suddenly you feel safer wrapped in the warmth of his embrace.

You can feel your heart quicken slightly, though you push it off to be the remaining adrenaline from your apparent nightmare.

"Thank you." You whisper, lifting your head slightly to graze your nose against the underside of his chin.

"You know I'm always here for you, bubs." He mumbles as he buries his face into your hair and you sink further into him, because you know he is and always will be.

PRESENT

Nicholas is the first to apologize, approaching you in his living room as you unfold the blanket and sheet to turn his couch into your makeshift bed for the night. 

You ignore him calling your name at first, you don't know if you want to talk to him at the moment, but the touch of his hand on your arm breaks your resolve. "Bubs." It's soft, but he says Noah's chosen pet name for you like he knows that's the only way to get your attention.

You take a breath and shake your head as if to imply that you're fine, because if you speak you know that your voice will break and give away how upset you actually are. While you may convince yourself that Nick blames you and doesn't believe you, hearing in his voice and seeing it on his face is a different story.

His grip on your arm is gentle, turning you to look at him as he takes a seat on the low table nearby, pulling you closer and bringing you between his legs. You lift your hands to cradle his face, your thumbs stroking his cheeks.

You know this hurts him as much as it does you, perhaps you've been selfish in your own grief, completely ignoring the way Nicholas needs you and your reassurance at times. You're all eachother has left tied to the one person you shared, the one person who was both your lifeline. There's family you can lean on, friends who have also suffered the same loss, but it always felt like you and Nicholas shared something deeper with Noah, in your own ways. He was a best friend and like a brother to Nick. For you he was a best friend and an almost lover. The almost is what kills you, how close you were to having it all with him, right before it was ripped away from you.

"I'm sorry." You finally break, knowing you need to offer your own apology, to accept how selfish you have been wrapped up in your own grief. "I know that all you want is answers, the same as me and I wish that I could give you them I just..." Your voice trails off and he nods, accepting what you can’t stomach to give at the moment.

You cradle his face in your hands but all you can think about is Noah and how you would do the same, the one thought echoing in your mind so loud that the words softly fall out. "Beautiful boy."

FLASHBACK

It's late into the night and while you can't sleep, Noah is fighting it with his head in your lap. After another nightmare, he promised to stay awake with you instead, so now you’re in his room where it already feels safer. There's no boogeyman in here.

The soft light of the tv glow illuminates you both, playing some anime he's seen before but it's a comfort watch for him and he put it on to help distract you. It's not really working, because you're distracted by him, his tired eyes fighting against the inevitable as your hand cradles his cheek, gently caressing him. "Beautiful boy." You whisper. There's a my before that, a silent one that both of you know to be true and as his head turns, his mouth just brushes against the palm of your hand, his silent acknowledgment of the truth.

You're always fond of these softer moments which fall easy between your playful ones. Everything with him had always felt right, perhaps that was why you gravitated towards each other as naturally as your did, you felt it in your bones that he meant more to you than just a friend and in truth, you know that he feels the same.

[aplaceinthedark]

Poltergeists: Chapter 2.

Summary: It's been a year since your best friend Noah went missing, two years since you moved into the house you abandoned after he went missing from it during the night. This is a recount of events leading up to and what happened after the night he went missing and all of the strange events that occurred during your time living in that house.

Chapters: Prologue and Chapter 1

Pairings: Noah Sebastian x Reader, Nicholas Ruffilo x Reader, possibly more BO members.

CW: Missing person, elements of supernatural horror, mentions of blood and possibly violence, unreliable narrator. will update as it goes on.

WC: 1.4k.

AN: This series will be told throughout a variety of flashbacks and present day, all which will be marked.

Divider: Silent-stories.

FLASHBACK

"Here, come look at this." You call Noah over. You're standing on the kitchen counter, you'd been cleaning along the top of the cabinet and when moving a box you'd slid up there full of miscellaneous kitchen stuff, you discovered a black patch in the corner of the ceiling.

Noah climbs up beside you, ducking low enough to avoid hitting his head against the ceiling as he takes a look. "Ah shit. I think it's mold."

"Mold?!" Great, another thing you needed on top of the growing list of other problems.

"Don't worry, I'll call a guy." But you are worried and that must have shown on your face. Slipping an arm behind your legs, he lifts you down from the counter, placing your feet back on the floor in front of him. "We'll get it sorted." He reassures you and you want to believe him, you really do, but it's hard to shake the feeling that something doesn't feel right.

Two weeks into living here you're already finding the littlest leaks, the cracks in the foundation that are making you regret moving into the place. The house wasn't perfect when you came across it, like any home it was livable, but too much had begun to reveal itself over the course of the last week or so.

First there was an unusual stain on the bathroom floor, that no matter how many times you attempted to clean it, it wouldn't come up. Things weirdly began to go missing or moving, at least that was your belief. Noah blamed it on you possibly misplacing things and the fact we'd just moved in so nothing was in its rightful place.

That never explained the weird prickling sensation you'd get on the back of your neck whenever night came along. You hated what little light the house seemed to hold, even with half of the main ones on, it felt as if they were drained of half their usual power. It always appeared dim, with corners where the shadows lay feeling a little darker than they should've been.

You'd always slept with a nightlight, something which Noah would tease you about, but now you needed more than just your standard small touch lamp, resorting to using a variety of fairy lights and other smaller nightstand lamps to illuminate your room at night.

"It looks like Christmas in here." Noah made the joke, the one night he came in to find them all on. It may have looked like Christmas, but it felt far from the usual warm and cozy nature associated with the holiday. There was an unusual coldness in your room, like a draft was rising from some unknown place. Even with the heat on you were constantly freezing.

And there was nothing that stopped the growing, profound unease.

"Why don't you get off for the day and head home?" Nicholas called over to you from his work station, the twist of your features telling him how little you cared for that idea and Noah jumped in with a response for you.

"She won't because she's too scared." You shot him a look and a snarky no I'm not, which went ignored by his laughter anyway.

"Scared? Of what?" Nick asked, highly amused by Noah's revelation and joke at your expense.

"Of the new house. She doesn't like to be there alone, says it's creepy." The inflection in his voice is joined by a wriggle of his long, tattooed fingers, as though he was a specter threatening to reach out from the darkness.

"I'm not scared." You stand your ground, poised while busying yourself with the stack of papers you spent most of the day doodling on. Nicholas had you working in his tattoo shop part time on the front desk, but it mostly meant you spent your time finding ways to keep yourself occupied in between clients and other little tasks, and drawing had become one of those. "I just prefer not to be alone there, that's all."

"Why? Scared the boogeyman's going to get you." Yes. Nick may have been joking, but that was the fear you had, that there was something inside that house, something you couldn't see but you felt, especially at night. It would crawl in with the darkness. Sometimes, on the nights you struggled to sleep, you swore the gap beneath your door grew darker, as if there was someone or something lurking outside.

You roll your eyes and force a laugh. While you're used to their bullying antics by now, you can't help the sense that Nick is right about what you feared.

"Noah?" You call out his name at the sound of a door slam. You're up in your room and while you expect to hear the sound of his footsteps on the stairs or even a response, there was nothing. Sliding from your desk chair, you walk towards your bedroom door, hesitating as you reach for the handle.

You don't know why but you're suddenly overwhelmed with fear, your mind conjuring up vivid images for what might be on the other side of the door. You have a habit of doing that. You were always told you had an overactive imagination as a kid, able to come up with the most abhorrent things, except it followed you into adulthood and used your irrational fear of the dark against you. Every time you need to step into some form of darkness, your mind likes to conjure up a new image of a potential not at all real life threat. A creature beyond anything human, anything real.

"Get a grip of yourself." You mumble to yourself and shake out your fears before grasping the door handle and opening it with a fierce swing. You're ready to go charging into whatever imaginary threat you've conjured up if you have to.

As expected there's nothing but the dark corridor before you. The hall landing light is the only one out of the whole house which doesn't seem to work, something you hate when needing to walk down the length of it to get to the bathroom. You almost regret not taking up Noah's offer to take his room instead which was located opposite.

You can see the glow near the stairs from the downstairs lights, you'd left them all on before coming to hide away in your room. If you had to be home alone, you'd prefer to be locked up in one tight space than out in the open downstairs kitchen-living room space.

"Noah?" You try again, expecting that maybe this time he'd hear you, but you don't hear anything. No footsteps, no rustling, just silence. "Noah if this is your version of a prank, it's not funny." You try to hide the fear edging into your voice as you climb your way down the stairs, taking it slow as you look into the open space.

You can see straight through from the living room into the kitchen, but there's no sign of him. You could've sworn you heard something, or maybe it was the wind again. You're trying to convince yourself of something logical to prevent you from diving off into the deep end of your fears.

You quickly move around the room, checking the windows and doors, ensuring everything is locked. You go to call out for Noah once more before feeling your phone buzz in your pocket and on pulling it out you see his name light up the screen, a picture of his face covering it. Your finger almost slips in your haste to answer, your heartbeat suddenly quickening in your chest. "Noah?!" You don't even try to hide the panic in your voice.

"Hey bubs, I'm just on my way back now I wondered if you wanted anything to eat?"

"You mean... you're not back yet?" Slowly you begin to search your surroundings through your periphery, frozen to the spot as you hold your phone tight to your ear.

"No. Nick needed me to help him with a couple of things before he could close up. I didn't mean to take that long. Is everything okay?" You don't need to be looking at him to know the lines on his face are furrowed, you can hear the concern in his voice and you do your best to sound calm, clearing your throat before you answer.

"Uh, yeah. I just... I thought I heard the door and assumed you were home. It was probably just the wind or something."

"Yeah, no. Definitely not home yet, but I will be. So? What did you want to eat?"

"Surprise me." You force out the words, feeling your throat slowly closing tight as a sudden chill erupts over your body when, in the dim light, your eyes catch a glimpse of a reflection in the kitchen window.

[aplaceinthedark]

Poltergeists: Chapter 1.

Summary: It's been a year since your best friend Noah went missing, two years since you moved into the house you abandoned after he went missing from it during the night. This is a recount of events leading up to and what happened after the night he went missing and all of the strange events that occurred during your time living in that house.

Pairings: Noah Sebastian x Reader, Nicholas Ruffilo x Reader, possibly more BO members.

CW: Missing person, elements of supernatural horror, mentions of blood and possibly violence, unreliable narrator. will update as it goes on.

WC: 1.2k

AN: This series will be told throughout a variety of flashbacks and present day, all which will be marked.

Divider: Silent-stories.

FLASHBACK 

You can hear Noah talking to someone as you enter the house, carrying another box in from the truck. "Don't say that!" You bark out from behind the large object obscuring you from his view, only to be met with a laugh in response.

"Oh yeah, I forgot. You don't like horror movies." He's taunting you and you just roll your eyes, he's heard the speech you're ready to retort with about a million times.

It's not that you don't like horror movies, you just don't like those horror movies, ones like Paranormal Activity which sometimes feel too grounded in reality for your comfort. You want to watch a horror movie that doesn't toy with your imagination or your unnerving belief that you may not be entirely alone in this world. 

"What are you doing?" You change the topic after setting down the box and dodge the camera when Noah pans it in your direction. 

"Doing a house tour." You hear the duh in his tone and laugh. You don't know why he feels the need to do a house tour, or even who for. 

Opening the box you put down, you pull out the cushion which had been placed on top to pad the rest of the box's contents. "Who for? Besides, I need you to give me a hand with this stuff." You toss the cushion in his direction, hoping to strike him while he's preoccupied by the camera in his hands, but he's swift, dodging it right before it makes contact. 

"Good point." He looks up at you, playfully scowling at your futile attempt to hit him with the cushion and closes the small screen on the side of the camera before setting it down on the nearby table. 

Your front room is a mess with boxes, many of which have various room locations written on them but the idea of taking them into their rightful place feels like too much of a task on top of emptying out the remaining boxes from the truck. You wonder how likely it is that you could convince him to bring in all of the remaining boxes himself while you throw yourself down on the couch, already tired and exhausted from the early start.

You don't have time to even consider voicing your proposition before Noah's behind you, playfully swatting at your behind as he ushers you to move. "Come on, chop chop. Those boxes aren't going to move themselves, bubs."

You relent with a throaty growl, feeling his hands on your shoulders and squeezing them as guides you back out. 

By 10pm you're both dozing on the sofa, your head resting against Noah's shoulder as his arm loosely cradles you. You wake to what you think is a bang, your eyes shooting open as they adjust to the tv light illuminating the room. 

You search around for the source of the noise, feeling your heartbeat in your chest. Noah's comment about the house resembling the one from paranormal activity stirs in your mind once more, playing tricks on you. That is until you hear the sound again.

It's not a bang but a tap. 

Your eyes focus on the back window where you can see the shadow of a tree branch from the nearby tree hitting against the glass in the wind. Suddenly you relax, leaning yourself back into Noah's side with a yawn, ready to surrender yourself to sleep. 

You reach for the tv remote, switching it off as you lean over to flick on the nearby table lamp. There's something about being in the dark which has always unnerved you. 

"Hey, I was watching that." Noah says, his voice soft and groggy, his eyes still closed. 

"Oh really? Then what was happening?" You retort, interested in hearing his answer when he still had his eyes closed.

"ET was about to phone home." 

You laugh and shake your head, giving him a gentle nudge. "It wasn't ET." 

"It wasn't?" He opens one eye just enough to look at you. "Wait, leave that. I'll sort it out." He's reaching forward for you now as you gather the open pizza boxes on the table in front. 

Other than bringing in the last remaining boxes, you didn't get much further, resorting to ordering pizza and slumping into the couch for a much needed break. 

"No, I've got it. You head up to bed." You gesture towards the stairs, but you soon feel his hands at your sides before you can rise from the couch, pulling you back towards him. You release the boxes before they come cascading down with you, leaving them in a pile on the table.

"Or..." He begins his counter offer. "We stay here and leave it until the morning." 

You see no reason to protest when he's already engulfing you in his embrace, pulling the blanket which had slipped from your laps during your brief dozing period, over you both. You don't protest because truthfully you like when this happens, you can feel how warm he is against you, his body radiating heat like a furnace. Your face nuzzles into the crook of his neck and with even the slightest inhale, the smell of him is already sending you back into the slumber you were pulled from. 

The unease you had felt moments prior was quickly swept away, as easy as it was for him to sweep you into his arms, pulling you comfortably more into his lap before he finally surrendered to his need for sleep once more. 

PRESENT DAY

"Can't sleep?" Nicholas' voice pulls you from the video you've been rewatching for easily the millionth time by this point. It's your routine now. Every time you can't sleep, you pull up an old video of Noah finding some sense of comfort in them. Sometimes you watch them long enough it feels like he's there with you and you can fall back to sleep pretending that he is. 

"No. You can't either?" You ask and he just shakes his head, taking the seat beside you on the sofa. You offer him some of your blanket, placing it over his lap as he leans in to see what you're watching. 

"He always did some dumb shit in those videos." 

"You all did." 

For a moment there's silence as you go through the videos on the same rotation, before both of you end up laughing at differing points. It's soft and full of sadness, but there's a comfort in sharing this with him. 

Eventually you both fall asleep, your head on his shoulder, the same way you would fall asleep on Noah's. It's so familiar and comforting that when you wake up, in those first few minutes before you're thrown back into reality, you can almost believe that it's actually him, his face and voice so fresh in your dream, you don't even believe it was a dream. 

You can smell his shampoo, but soon reality starts to creep in and you realize it's just Nicholas, who no doubt uses the same kind. You feel your heart shatter all over again, as if you're experiencing the same wave of grief you have been for the past year. The warmth and happiness you felt at believing Noah to be there, because it all felt so real, being ripped away from you. 

It's times like these, where the dreams feel so real that you can reach out and touch him, you wish you could stay dreaming because he's always meeting you there.

[aplaceinthedark]

Poltergeists: Prologue.

With my memory restricted to a Polaroid in evidence.

Summary: It's been a year since your best friend Noah went missing, two years since you moved into the house you abandoned after he went missing from it during the night. This is a recount of events leading up to and what happened after the night he went missing and all of the strange events that occurred during your time living in that house.

Pairings: Noah Sebastian x Reader, Nicholas Ruffilo x Reader, possibly more BO members.

Tropes: Childhood best friends, friends to lovers, slow burn, fluff, angst, doomed by the narrative, haunting the narrative.

CW: Missing person, elements of supernatural horror, mentions of blood and possibly violence, unreliable narrator. will update as it goes on.

WC: < 1k.

AN: This series will be told throughout a variety of flashbacks and present day, all which will be marked. Chapter 1 (extended version) can be found here.

Divider: Silent-stories.

Search for missing 23-year-old gone cold.

The front page headline taunts you accompanied by the picture you took of Noah a year ago to the day. You don't bother to read the actual article, it's been the same regurgitated nonsense for the past year, the same speculations which throw a spotlight on you: prime suspect #1. 

No one believes you when you tell them the truth. You got tired of trying to explain, being scoffed at and mocked as you tried to defend yourself to members of a community in a town you wished you no longer lived in. You were the town pariah and chose to accept that. 

"Come on. Don't look at that." Nicholas' hand on top of yours pulls you back from your thoughts. "Don't do this to yourself."  He knows what you're doing, that you're beating yourself up again. Since Noah went missing he's been at your side, you know it's because he lost his best friend that night too but you can't help but wonder if a part of him blames you.

This never would have happened if you had just left when it first started happening. You're convinced that this is all somehow your fault, because you weren't truthful about how bad things got inside that house when something would creep in with the darkness whenever he wasn't home.

You don't answer. You sigh because you're tired of the same old merry-go-round of lies your conversations have become. He's been supportive and a good friend, allowing you to stay with him ever since because you're too scared to be inside that house even once the crime scene tape was ripped from the door. You can't sell it because no one wants a house with an active missing persons case attached to it, or to buy from the girl who is their number one suspect. You'd rip it down if you could but know that if you did whatever that thing was living inside there would only find a new home, a new person to torment. Somehow you prefer to be the one in control of that.

When you look across at Nicholas you can see it in his face he wants to ask you about it again. Every so often he gets the same look in his eye, the one that tells you he wants to ask because he doesn't believe you when you tell him what happened the night Noah disappeared.

Maybe the fact he doesn't believe you stems from the way your answer never changes, nor does the infliction in your voice. You repeat it like you're reading from a script, you weren't awake when he was yelling, it was too dark for you to even see anything, you don't know where the blood came from, you don't know anything.

Truthfully, you do because you were together that night, the same way you had been for the last few months when the nights became too unbearable for you to sleep alone. You felt safer with him, or convinced yourself that you were. Nothing came when he was there and the night terrors and sleep paralysis had come to a stop.

"I know you've told me before but what actually happened that night? Maybe... maybe you missed something?" There's a crack in his voice which betrays his emotion. You know he's fighting hard to believe you, to have sympathy. You feel guilty every time you hear that break in his voice because you want to tell him.

So you start recounting the events of that night, like reading from a script, because the only thing you know is: you can't tell anyone the truth.

[aplaceinthedark]

chapter three: ONE TASTE of the LIFE

Summary: The Appalachian Mountains hide numerous monsters, and it's up to Taylor and the Bad Omens to prevent them from causing any harm.

Word Count: 2,945

CW: Supernatural themes, Star Wars spoilers, Hand Jobs (male receiving)

A/N: I am so sorry this took so long. For the past several months, I've been dealing with job issues and major burnout depression. Whereas that's still hanging around, I think I might be in a better place to write more. If you're still hanging on despite my hiatus, thank you very muchness.

This is RPF, and thus will contain real people, but names and events will be changed. If this bothers you too much, then please leave this temple without causing harm.

Divider by: @saradika-graphics

“Taylor? Are you listening to a word I said?”

I jumped, nearly knocking my water bottle over. “N-No. I’m sorry. What were you saying?” I asked sheepishly.

Rachel smiled sympathetically. “Still worried about the break-in?” she asked. I nodded, as I had told everyone that that was the reason why I was so jumpy.

I liked Rachel. Despite being almost twenty years older than me, she was sort of my only friend outside the circle of misfits and monsters I had embedded myself in. She also didn’t live in New Hope, thankfully. She was a transfer from a bigger town, since our library desperately needed one after one of our librarians “mysteriously disappeared” last August.

Said librarian’s assistant had also “mysteriously vanished” as well, leaving a job wide open for me to fill. I didn’t mind it, being Rachel’s assistant. I might have to do grunt work a lot of the time, but at least she helped instead of just dumping it all on me.

“Anyways, as I was saying, I’m pretty sure no one has gone through the donation bin this decade, if you want to make a dent in it.”

Sitting on my ass while I sort for the next two hours? “Don’t threaten me with a good time,” I said, earning a chuckle from her as I stood up and left the front desk.

There were several boxes. She wasn’t kidding. This was going to take longer than I thought. Setting my phone off to the side, I pressed play on one of my safe-for-work playlists and started humming along to some Chappell Roan.

It had been a few days since the incident with the pale creature that had come onto my porch. There had been no repeat occurrences at our place, but someone had said something about seeing a sick-looking coyote at the edge of their yard. I hadn’t mentioned that to Nick, since I wasn’t even sure that it was the same thing that I had seen. 

And Nick was… I couldn’t burden him with any more problems. Between his time at the new tattoo place, townspeople coming to him for remedies to their ailments, and not being able to sleep very well, he was exhausted. I had woken up to him passed out on his couch this morning, Lydia loafing on his back. If I could make him sleep for an entire day, I would do it in a heartbeat.

I pulled the next box towards me and dug through the dusty contents. I was sure now that most of these donations were just from older ladies dumping the contents of their attics off on us just to free up some space. Several of these books so far were the same cookbook in different states of decay. 

I was just about to ask Rachel for a mask since I was tired of sneezing out dust when my hand pulled out a book that was different from all the others. A quick flip through revealed it was a journal. Either their handwriting was terrible or it was written in a different language, because I couldn’t make heads or tails of what it was saying. But some of the drawings in it intrigued me, so I set it in the Keep Pile, with the intention to ask Rachel what to do with it. If someone donated it without knowing, they might want it back.

By the end of my shift, my back and lungs didn’t appreciate what work I had gotten done. “Being in your thirties must be rough,” Rachel laughed as I tried popping my back several times. “Maybe you could get that cute boyfriend of yours to help you out later tonight.”

I felt a brief flush rise to the surface of my skin as I thought about Nick’s skilled fingers. “Quit it,” I mumbled, earning a cackle from her that would normally get someone in a library in trouble.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the journal in my hands.

“Oh, I found it in one of the boxes. It looks like somebody might’ve accidentally put it in the donation box. Should we ask if they want it back?” I said.

Rachel shook her head. “Sorry buttercup,” she said, using her nickname for me. “Those were anonymous, and who knows how long ago it was donated. There’s no way we’d be able to trace it back to its owner. Unless it has historic value, we’re supposed to throw it out.”

Something in my face must’ve changed her mind. “Well, if you don’t want to, I could conveniently look the other way when you leave,” she said. 

I was about to say that no, that it was fine, that I didn’t need another written book in my house when Nick was still combing through Granny’s hex books, but the words caught in my throat and I thanked her instead. Maybe if I could find its owner, that would be one good deed I’d done for this town, since they were still wary of me several months after I had moved in.

The library closed at seven, but I didn’t get to go to my car until half an hour later. Late April still meant that it was dark out when I left work, but the building was in the middle of New Hope, the forest a ways off. I dashed to my car through the rain, the water from the puddles splashing up as my feet crashed down in them. 

My fingers were wrapped around the car’s door handle when  a cold rush of air blew through my denim jacket, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I froze as the door automatically unlocked, the sound as loud as a gunshot despite the sound of the rain. Something in the reflection of the car window caught my eye.

Someone was behind me.

I slowly turned around, trying not to startle it. Meanwhile, my mind was racing in confusion and fear. Nothing came out of the woods. The town was safe.

The boys couldn’t help me if something were to happen to me out here.

So what was the shadowy figure doing in the middle of a parking lot?

It didn’t move as I stared at it. It was almost formless; I could just make out the thin, vaguely humanoid shape of it. Even if I wanted to say something, my throat had closed shut. The chill of the night increased, the wind picking up and sending some bits of trash skittering across the asphalt. But it didn’t disturb the shadow. 

I opened my mouth to say… something? Shout at it to scare it away? But another voice startled me into screaming. I whipped around. 

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Taylor!” Rachel swore, hand on her heart. She was standing a few feet away under her umbrella. “What’re you still doing here? Are you okay?”

“Uhh… yeah. Just thought I saw something,” I said. I turned back around.

Other than us, the parking lot was empty.

The smell of food coming through a cracked window greeted me as I stepped onto the front porch. My knees felt weak at the thought of Nick cooking after the heart attack I had had. I took a moment to compose myself, exhaling as I turned the doorknob and stepped into our home.

It was indeed Nick cooking, as he stood in front of the stove. His long black hair was tied up in a bun, and he was wearing his thick-rimmed glasses. “Hiya,” he said, not even turning around. 

I dropped my backpack onto one of the chairs at the kitchen table, immediately walking over and hugging him from behind. “Woah, hey. Everything alright?” He asked. His hand moved down to cover both of mine.

I should tell him; I need to tell him. Instead, I nodded into the space between his shoulders. Even though a part of me knew that the creepiness of the town's legends were true, I still couldn't believe that something would come out of the woods and into the safeness of the streets.

So what I said instead was, “I missed you,” into his shirt. 

“Missed you more,” he said in return, despite seeing each other this morning. 

“What are you making?” I asked, peering over his shoulder. 

“Just some hamburger pasta. Thought it would be good for an easy night, since it's just the two of us until later tonight.”

“Really? Not even Folio?” I asked. 

Without looking up, Nick pointed over at the kitchen calendar with the spoon in his free hand. A little black circle was drawn on today's date and the next two days. The New Moons meant that Folio was stuck in his Grim form until the first sliver of the moon shined. Kind of like a werewolf but opposite. 

“It'll be done in a few. Go get comfortable and I'll put on a movie,” he said, his own way of shooing me out of the kitchen. As I parted with him, I saw that he hadn't done the same with Lydia, who was watching from the floor with her hungry eyes. 

As I changed into some lounge pants and an old sweater of Nick's, I tried to think of a way to bring up the encounter with the shadow person. There was no way that he wouldn't get upset about it, that was a fact. Maybe after we ate.

When I came back out into the front room, Nick had helped himself to making my plate and putting it on the coffee table. I sat down next to him, I pulled my plate onto my lap. He had pulled up Rise of Skywalker for us to watch.

“So who’s coming later?” I asked as he started the movie.

“Noah,” Nick mumbled. There was an undercurrent of something in his voice, so I guess Noah had transferred something to his mind that annoyed him. 

“That's fine,” I said, squeezing his thigh. 

After eating, I curled up into Nick, and he wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “We should dress up as Kylo and Rey for Halloween again,” he said.

“Your hair’s getting too long for you to be Kylo,” I said, poking the side of his head.

“Yeah, because Rey is totally a blonde.”

“It was last minute!”

We kept up the light commentary for most of the film. I was fine up until the part when Rey sacrificed herself to kill the Emperor. As Ben Solo sacrificed himself to resurrect her, I threaded my fingers through his. A moment passed, and then Nick squeezed my hand. 

When the credits rolled, I tried to get up to take our dishes back to the kitchen sink. Nick pulled me back down. “And where do you think you’re going?” he asked, pulling me onto his lap. He wrapped his arms around me.

“Was gonna do the dishes, since you made dinner,” I said.

He pulled my head gently to rest on his shoulder. “Just stay here. With me,” he said, quietly. He would do this if he thought I was about to have one of my moments. 

He started playing with my hair, making my eyes flutter shut. “Okay,” I said. 

He kissed my forehead, but as he was pulling away, I reached up to cup his face and direct him further down. His lips brushed mine before pressing down once, soft and tender, but then he tried pulling away again. “Are you su–”

“Nick,” I pleaded, his name coming out in a rush. If he had any resolve before, it came crumbling down within milliseconds.

He was still a bit hesitant, flicking his tongue against my lips. But I wasn’t made of glass, so I pushed his chest until his back was pressed onto the couch cushions. I crawled up him until I was straddling his hips, my knees pressing into the sides of his waist. The kiss never broke.

It didn’t take long for him to harden beneath me, and I couldn’t help the small, satisfactory grin that rose to my lips. I ran my hand down his chest, down his stomach to the waistband of his shorts. When I finally parted with Nick, his hand shot up to curl around the back of my head. “Bun–”

“Can I touch you?” I asked.

“Oh, fuck yes. Please,” he pleaded.

I lifted myself a little bit, just enough to give me some room to slip my hand underneath the waistband of his boxer-briefs. The angle might’ve been a little bit awkward, but it didn’t really matter when I wrapped my fingers around the considerable size of him.

“Fuck,” he groaned, throwing his head back against the pillows. The movement caused him to bare the pretty tan skin over his throat, and I practically descended upon it. The minute I mouthed over his pulse point, his hips rolled up, rutting into my hand. On the upstroke I rubbed my thumb over the tip, and he made my favorite sound of–

Click.

We both froze, my hand down his pants. I quickly raised my head and our eyes locked on each other at the sound of the door unlocking. As the front door opened, I quickly rose up to stand on my knees. Noah stopped dead in his tracks, confusion written on his face. 

“Am I interrupting something?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said immediately, Nick echoing my words from below me.

Noah’s eyes roamed over me for a second, and his face hardened. “Please, continue. I don’t want to interrupt you guys making out in–”

Nick sat up, crawling out from underneath me. If he stood up, Noah could easily see that we were doing more than making out. “When we agreed on later, I mean late.” 

“It’s after eleven. I think that’s late enough,” Noah said, striding across the kitchen to the fridge, where he took out a beer. 

As Nick straightened himself, I caught the look on his face that said he was communicating with Noah through the bond that he had with everyone. Was there something agreed upon that didn’t require me knowing about? 

My thought was all but confirmed when Nick put his hand on my waist. “You wanna go to bed, Bun?” he asked, looking up at me with big green eyes. In this lighting, they were dark as the evergreens outside.

“No, I’m not tired,” I said. I fixed him with a look that said that I wasn’t going to be kept in the dark. Again.

He sighed. “Hang on, I gotta get the hex book,” he said, standing up. He then walked to the spare bedroom.

I looked over at Noah, who was leaning back against the fridge. He perked an eyebrow. “How was work?” he asked before taking a sip of his beer.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I was gonna tell him.”

“But you got distracted, didn’t you?”

“Fuck off, Bambi.”

“Oh, I’m about to do worse than that.”

I tilted my head. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Nick came back with a small, leatherbound notebook. He tossed it onto the kitchen table, as if it personally offended him. “We’ve been doing this all wrong,” he said. He practically collapsed into one of the chairs. 

“Doing what wrong? What is ‘this’?” I asked.

“There’s a reason why the Valley has been getting worse these past few years. More things showing up, resurfacing, growing bolder enough to where people can catch glimpses of them. Pale Things showing up shouldn’t be a surprise, really.” He was babbling, practically. But then he took in a deep breath and closed his eyes.

“Those sacrifices weren’t just for Vessels. They were also to keep the Woods from getting worse.”

Noah’s lips thinned. “I told you, I’m not killing any more innocent people.”

“Yeah, I know, and I think I found a way around that, but…” Nick trailed off. He then silently opened the hex book and flipped to a page he had marked. He then held it out towards me.

“Why me?” I asked.

“I’ve already seen it,” Noah said. 

I took the book and glanced at the pages. It wasn’t in any readable context: Granny wrote in some kind of “language” that had been passed down through her family as to keep their practice a secret from others. Nick had been slowly translating them over the past few months into his own notebooks.

“What is this?” I finally asked. 

“It's a… Fertility Ritual.” Nick swallowed thickly. “My ancestors would send someone into the forest so the Forest would be… sated.”

“A sacrifice. Like what happened with you guys.” I waved a hand over Noah. 

“No! Well… sort of,” Nick said. He bit his lip. 

“That was more the Black Stag's version. Though it wanted sacrifices so it could take a mortal form.” Noah folded his arms over his chest. “This is a… less bloody version.”

I skimmed over the page again, and it finally clicked. “When you say ‘fertility’, you mean… Noah's got to knock someone up?”

“No!” The two shouted at the same time. “God, fuck no,” Nick sighed. “But the baby making process is the main part.”

“He has to have sex with someone?” I asked incredulously. 

“Not just someone…” Nick lowered his voice to a mumble. “Someone with a… someone of the opposite sex.”

“Well how the fuck is he gonna do that?” I asked. “Everyone around here will recognize him, and then you got the antlers to deal with.”

The two were quiet suddenly. Nick put his head in his hands. “Bun…”

“What?”

“He's talking about you,” Noah put bluntly.

tysm for reading! If you enjoyed this, please reblog to share the word of the Revered Father. Next chapter coming soon.

Featured Creatures

@ladyveronikawrites @lilhobgobbler @deathblacksmoke @cookiesupplier @thatchickwiththecamera

@roley-poley-foley @hedonists @philomenie @shilohrosechicken @comforting-madness @sitkowski

@screamsinsilver @darksigns-exe @nojoyontheburn @baddestomens

[aplaceinthedark]

New banner w/ our lil rabbit, Taylor!

LOST in the LABYRINTH

Down in the Shenandoah Valley, they barely speak of the Watcher of the Woods.

A Bad Omens Paranormal AU Story

He Has Many Names, for his true name can't be spoken by mortal tongue. They range from benevolent epithets, such as The Guardian of the Grove, to sinister titles such as The Black Stag. But the most common spoken by the old and the new, however, is simply the Watcher.

They say that the Watcher holds court in the heart of the Shenandoah, where the trees turn the woods cold with frost and black with rot. The woods here are drier than the bones scattered amongst the pine needles 'cause the rain can't ever penetrate through the leaves.

The legends say that the Watcher is as old as the Appalachian Range itself. Most people say that the Watcher is an old urban legend created by our mamaws and papaws to scare our children into staying out of the woods.

And few say that the Watcher was just a lonely boy who wandered into the woods and never looked back.

LOST in the LABYRINTH

Nick Ruffilo x Taylor (original non-binary character) (complete)

TALES from the GROVE OF SECRETS

A series of tales from the Circle of Omens and Thorns (complete)

LOOKING for the MEANING

Sequel to LOST in the LABYRINTH (in progress)

Miscellaneous

MADE BREATH and SKIN (an alternate version of WILDER than the WIND) Noah Sebastian x Taylor (original non-binary character)

[aplaceinthedark]

chapter three: ONE TASTE of the LIFE

Summary: The Appalachian Mountains hide numerous monsters, and it's up to Taylor and the Bad Omens to prevent them from causing any harm.

Word Count: 2,945

CW: Supernatural themes, Star Wars spoilers, Hand Jobs (male receiving)

A/N: I am so sorry this took so long. For the past several months, I've been dealing with job issues and major burnout depression. Whereas that's still hanging around, I think I might be in a better place to write more. If you're still hanging on despite my hiatus, thank you very muchness.

This is RPF, and thus will contain real people, but names and events will be changed. If this bothers you too much, then please leave this temple without causing harm.

Divider by: @saradika-graphics

“Taylor? Are you listening to a word I said?”

I jumped, nearly knocking my water bottle over. “N-No. I’m sorry. What were you saying?” I asked sheepishly.

Rachel smiled sympathetically. “Still worried about the break-in?” she asked. I nodded, as I had told everyone that that was the reason why I was so jumpy.

I liked Rachel. Despite being almost twenty years older than me, she was sort of my only friend outside the circle of misfits and monsters I had embedded myself in. She also didn’t live in New Hope, thankfully. She was a transfer from a bigger town, since our library desperately needed one after one of our librarians “mysteriously disappeared” last August.

Said librarian’s assistant had also “mysteriously vanished” as well, leaving a job wide open for me to fill. I didn’t mind it, being Rachel’s assistant. I might have to do grunt work a lot of the time, but at least she helped instead of just dumping it all on me.

“Anyways, as I was saying, I’m pretty sure no one has gone through the donation bin this decade, if you want to make a dent in it.”

Sitting on my ass while I sort for the next two hours? “Don’t threaten me with a good time,” I said, earning a chuckle from her as I stood up and left the front desk.

There were several boxes. She wasn’t kidding. This was going to take longer than I thought. Setting my phone off to the side, I pressed play on one of my safe-for-work playlists and started humming along to some Chappell Roan.

It had been a few days since the incident with the pale creature that had come onto my porch. There had been no repeat occurrences at our place, but someone had said something about seeing a sick-looking coyote at the edge of their yard. I hadn’t mentioned that to Nick, since I wasn’t even sure that it was the same thing that I had seen. 

And Nick was… I couldn’t burden him with any more problems. Between his time at the new tattoo place, townspeople coming to him for remedies to their ailments, and not being able to sleep very well, he was exhausted. I had woken up to him passed out on his couch this morning, Lydia loafing on his back. If I could make him sleep for an entire day, I would do it in a heartbeat.

I pulled the next box towards me and dug through the dusty contents. I was sure now that most of these donations were just from older ladies dumping the contents of their attics off on us just to free up some space. Several of these books so far were the same cookbook in different states of decay. 

I was just about to ask Rachel for a mask since I was tired of sneezing out dust when my hand pulled out a book that was different from all the others. A quick flip through revealed it was a journal. Either their handwriting was terrible or it was written in a different language, because I couldn’t make heads or tails of what it was saying. But some of the drawings in it intrigued me, so I set it in the Keep Pile, with the intention to ask Rachel what to do with it. If someone donated it without knowing, they might want it back.

By the end of my shift, my back and lungs didn’t appreciate what work I had gotten done. “Being in your thirties must be rough,” Rachel laughed as I tried popping my back several times. “Maybe you could get that cute boyfriend of yours to help you out later tonight.”

I felt a brief flush rise to the surface of my skin as I thought about Nick’s skilled fingers. “Quit it,” I mumbled, earning a cackle from her that would normally get someone in a library in trouble.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the journal in my hands.

“Oh, I found it in one of the boxes. It looks like somebody might’ve accidentally put it in the donation box. Should we ask if they want it back?” I said.

Rachel shook her head. “Sorry buttercup,” she said, using her nickname for me. “Those were anonymous, and who knows how long ago it was donated. There’s no way we’d be able to trace it back to its owner. Unless it has historic value, we’re supposed to throw it out.”

Something in my face must’ve changed her mind. “Well, if you don’t want to, I could conveniently look the other way when you leave,” she said. 

I was about to say that no, that it was fine, that I didn’t need another written book in my house when Nick was still combing through Granny’s hex books, but the words caught in my throat and I thanked her instead. Maybe if I could find its owner, that would be one good deed I’d done for this town, since they were still wary of me several months after I had moved in.

The library closed at seven, but I didn’t get to go to my car until half an hour later. Late April still meant that it was dark out when I left work, but the building was in the middle of New Hope, the forest a ways off. I dashed to my car through the rain, the water from the puddles splashing up as my feet crashed down in them. 

My fingers were wrapped around the car’s door handle when  a cold rush of air blew through my denim jacket, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I froze as the door automatically unlocked, the sound as loud as a gunshot despite the sound of the rain. Something in the reflection of the car window caught my eye.

Someone was behind me.

I slowly turned around, trying not to startle it. Meanwhile, my mind was racing in confusion and fear. Nothing came out of the woods. The town was safe.

The boys couldn’t help me if something were to happen to me out here.

So what was the shadowy figure doing in the middle of a parking lot?

It didn’t move as I stared at it. It was almost formless; I could just make out the thin, vaguely humanoid shape of it. Even if I wanted to say something, my throat had closed shut. The chill of the night increased, the wind picking up and sending some bits of trash skittering across the asphalt. But it didn’t disturb the shadow. 

I opened my mouth to say… something? Shout at it to scare it away? But another voice startled me into screaming. I whipped around. 

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Taylor!” Rachel swore, hand on her heart. She was standing a few feet away under her umbrella. “What’re you still doing here? Are you okay?”

“Uhh… yeah. Just thought I saw something,” I said. I turned back around.

Other than us, the parking lot was empty.

The smell of food coming through a cracked window greeted me as I stepped onto the front porch. My knees felt weak at the thought of Nick cooking after the heart attack I had had. I took a moment to compose myself, exhaling as I turned the doorknob and stepped into our home.

It was indeed Nick cooking, as he stood in front of the stove. His long black hair was tied up in a bun, and he was wearing his thick-rimmed glasses. “Hiya,” he said, not even turning around. 

I dropped my backpack onto one of the chairs at the kitchen table, immediately walking over and hugging him from behind. “Woah, hey. Everything alright?” He asked. His hand moved down to cover both of mine.

I should tell him; I need to tell him. Instead, I nodded into the space between his shoulders. Even though a part of me knew that the creepiness of the town's legends were true, I still couldn't believe that something would come out of the woods and into the safeness of the streets.

So what I said instead was, “I missed you,” into his shirt. 

“Missed you more,” he said in return, despite seeing each other this morning. 

“What are you making?” I asked, peering over his shoulder. 

“Just some hamburger pasta. Thought it would be good for an easy night, since it's just the two of us until later tonight.”

“Really? Not even Folio?” I asked. 

Without looking up, Nick pointed over at the kitchen calendar with the spoon in his free hand. A little black circle was drawn on today's date and the next two days. The New Moons meant that Folio was stuck in his Grim form until the first sliver of the moon shined. Kind of like a werewolf but opposite. 

“It'll be done in a few. Go get comfortable and I'll put on a movie,” he said, his own way of shooing me out of the kitchen. As I parted with him, I saw that he hadn't done the same with Lydia, who was watching from the floor with her hungry eyes. 

As I changed into some lounge pants and an old sweater of Nick's, I tried to think of a way to bring up the encounter with the shadow person. There was no way that he wouldn't get upset about it, that was a fact. Maybe after we ate.

When I came back out into the front room, Nick had helped himself to making my plate and putting it on the coffee table. I sat down next to him, I pulled my plate onto my lap. He had pulled up Rise of Skywalker for us to watch.

“So who’s coming later?” I asked as he started the movie.

“Noah,” Nick mumbled. There was an undercurrent of something in his voice, so I guess Noah had transferred something to his mind that annoyed him. 

“That's fine,” I said, squeezing his thigh. 

After eating, I curled up into Nick, and he wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “We should dress up as Kylo and Rey for Halloween again,” he said.

“Your hair’s getting too long for you to be Kylo,” I said, poking the side of his head.

“Yeah, because Rey is totally a blonde.”

“It was last minute!”

We kept up the light commentary for most of the film. I was fine up until the part when Rey sacrificed herself to kill the Emperor. As Ben Solo sacrificed himself to resurrect her, I threaded my fingers through his. A moment passed, and then Nick squeezed my hand. 

When the credits rolled, I tried to get up to take our dishes back to the kitchen sink. Nick pulled me back down. “And where do you think you’re going?” he asked, pulling me onto his lap. He wrapped his arms around me.

“Was gonna do the dishes, since you made dinner,” I said.

He pulled my head gently to rest on his shoulder. “Just stay here. With me,” he said, quietly. He would do this if he thought I was about to have one of my moments. 

He started playing with my hair, making my eyes flutter shut. “Okay,” I said. 

He kissed my forehead, but as he was pulling away, I reached up to cup his face and direct him further down. His lips brushed mine before pressing down once, soft and tender, but then he tried pulling away again. “Are you su–”

“Nick,” I pleaded, his name coming out in a rush. If he had any resolve before, it came crumbling down within milliseconds.

He was still a bit hesitant, flicking his tongue against my lips. But I wasn’t made of glass, so I pushed his chest until his back was pressed onto the couch cushions. I crawled up him until I was straddling his hips, my knees pressing into the sides of his waist. The kiss never broke.

It didn’t take long for him to harden beneath me, and I couldn’t help the small, satisfactory grin that rose to my lips. I ran my hand down his chest, down his stomach to the waistband of his shorts. When I finally parted with Nick, his hand shot up to curl around the back of my head. “Bun–”

“Can I touch you?” I asked.

“Oh, fuck yes. Please,” he pleaded.

I lifted myself a little bit, just enough to give me some room to slip my hand underneath the waistband of his boxer-briefs. The angle might’ve been a little bit awkward, but it didn’t really matter when I wrapped my fingers around the considerable size of him.

“Fuck,” he groaned, throwing his head back against the pillows. The movement caused him to bare the pretty tan skin over his throat, and I practically descended upon it. The minute I mouthed over his pulse point, his hips rolled up, rutting into my hand. On the upstroke I rubbed my thumb over the tip, and he made my favorite sound of–

Click.

We both froze, my hand down his pants. I quickly raised my head and our eyes locked on each other at the sound of the door unlocking. As the front door opened, I quickly rose up to stand on my knees. Noah stopped dead in his tracks, confusion written on his face. 

“Am I interrupting something?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said immediately, Nick echoing my words from below me.

Noah’s eyes roamed over me for a second, and his face hardened. “Please, continue. I don’t want to interrupt you guys making out in–”

Nick sat up, crawling out from underneath me. If he stood up, Noah could easily see that we were doing more than making out. “When we agreed on later, I mean late.” 

“It’s after eleven. I think that’s late enough,” Noah said, striding across the kitchen to the fridge, where he took out a beer. 

As Nick straightened himself, I caught the look on his face that said he was communicating with Noah through the bond that he had with everyone. Was there something agreed upon that didn’t require me knowing about? 

My thought was all but confirmed when Nick put his hand on my waist. “You wanna go to bed, Bun?” he asked, looking up at me with big green eyes. In this lighting, they were dark as the evergreens outside.

“No, I’m not tired,” I said. I fixed him with a look that said that I wasn’t going to be kept in the dark. Again.

He sighed. “Hang on, I gotta get the hex book,” he said, standing up. He then walked to the spare bedroom.

I looked over at Noah, who was leaning back against the fridge. He perked an eyebrow. “How was work?” he asked before taking a sip of his beer.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I was gonna tell him.”

“But you got distracted, didn’t you?”

“Fuck off, Bambi.”

“Oh, I’m about to do worse than that.”

I tilted my head. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Nick came back with a small, leatherbound notebook. He tossed it onto the kitchen table, as if it personally offended him. “We’ve been doing this all wrong,” he said. He practically collapsed into one of the chairs. 

“Doing what wrong? What is ‘this’?” I asked.

“There’s a reason why the Valley has been getting worse these past few years. More things showing up, resurfacing, growing bolder enough to where people can catch glimpses of them. Pale Things showing up shouldn’t be a surprise, really.” He was babbling, practically. But then he took in a deep breath and closed his eyes.

“Those sacrifices weren’t just for Vessels. They were also to keep the Woods from getting worse.”

Noah’s lips thinned. “I told you, I’m not killing any more innocent people.”

“Yeah, I know, and I think I found a way around that, but…” Nick trailed off. He then silently opened the hex book and flipped to a page he had marked. He then held it out towards me.

“Why me?” I asked.

“I’ve already seen it,” Noah said. 

I took the book and glanced at the pages. It wasn’t in any readable context: Granny wrote in some kind of “language” that had been passed down through her family as to keep their practice a secret from others. Nick had been slowly translating them over the past few months into his own notebooks.

“What is this?” I finally asked. 

“It's a… Fertility Ritual.” Nick swallowed thickly. “My ancestors would send someone into the forest so the Forest would be… sated.”

“A sacrifice. Like what happened with you guys.” I waved a hand over Noah. 

“No! Well… sort of,” Nick said. He bit his lip. 

“That was more the Black Stag's version. Though it wanted sacrifices so it could take a mortal form.” Noah folded his arms over his chest. “This is a… less bloody version.”

I skimmed over the page again, and it finally clicked. “When you say ‘fertility’, you mean… Noah's got to knock someone up?”

“No!” The two shouted at the same time. “God, fuck no,” Nick sighed. “But the baby making process is the main part.”

“He has to have sex with someone?” I asked incredulously. 

“Not just someone…” Nick lowered his voice to a mumble. “Someone with a… someone of the opposite sex.”

“Well how the fuck is he gonna do that?” I asked. “Everyone around here will recognize him, and then you got the antlers to deal with.”

The two were quiet suddenly. Nick put his head in his hands. “Bun…”

“What?”

“He's talking about you,” Noah put bluntly.

tysm for reading! If you enjoyed this, please reblog to share the word of the Revered Father. Next chapter coming soon.

Featured Creatures

@ladyveronikawrites @lilhobgobbler @deathblacksmoke @cookiesupplier @thatchickwiththecamera

@roley-poley-foley @hedonists @philomenie @shilohrosechicken @comforting-madness @sitkowski

@screamsinsilver @darksigns-exe @nojoyontheburn @baddestomens

[aplaceinthedark]

To sign up to be a Featured Creature of the Dark, please fill out this form.

LOST in the LABYRINTH Masterlist

Miscellaneous

Anything > Human // A Noah Sebastian one-shot

[aplaceinthedark]

chapter three: ONE TASTE of the LIFE

Summary: The Appalachian Mountains hide numerous monsters, and it's up to Taylor and the Bad Omens to prevent them from causing any harm.

Word Count: 2,945

CW: Supernatural themes, Star Wars spoilers, Hand Jobs (male receiving)

A/N: I am so sorry this took so long. For the past several months, I've been dealing with job issues and major burnout depression. Whereas that's still hanging around, I think I might be in a better place to write more. If you're still hanging on despite my hiatus, thank you very muchness.

This is RPF, and thus will contain real people, but names and events will be changed. If this bothers you too much, then please leave this temple without causing harm.

Divider by: @saradika-graphics

“Taylor? Are you listening to a word I said?”

I jumped, nearly knocking my water bottle over. “N-No. I’m sorry. What were you saying?” I asked sheepishly.

Rachel smiled sympathetically. “Still worried about the break-in?” she asked. I nodded, as I had told everyone that that was the reason why I was so jumpy.

I liked Rachel. Despite being almost twenty years older than me, she was sort of my only friend outside the circle of misfits and monsters I had embedded myself in. She also didn’t live in New Hope, thankfully. She was a transfer from a bigger town, since our library desperately needed one after one of our librarians “mysteriously disappeared” last August.

Said librarian’s assistant had also “mysteriously vanished” as well, leaving a job wide open for me to fill. I didn’t mind it, being Rachel’s assistant. I might have to do grunt work a lot of the time, but at least she helped instead of just dumping it all on me.

“Anyways, as I was saying, I’m pretty sure no one has gone through the donation bin this decade, if you want to make a dent in it.”

Sitting on my ass while I sort for the next two hours? “Don’t threaten me with a good time,” I said, earning a chuckle from her as I stood up and left the front desk.

There were several boxes. She wasn’t kidding. This was going to take longer than I thought. Setting my phone off to the side, I pressed play on one of my safe-for-work playlists and started humming along to some Chappell Roan.

It had been a few days since the incident with the pale creature that had come onto my porch. There had been no repeat occurrences at our place, but someone had said something about seeing a sick-looking coyote at the edge of their yard. I hadn’t mentioned that to Nick, since I wasn’t even sure that it was the same thing that I had seen. 

And Nick was… I couldn’t burden him with any more problems. Between his time at the new tattoo place, townspeople coming to him for remedies to their ailments, and not being able to sleep very well, he was exhausted. I had woken up to him passed out on his couch this morning, Lydia loafing on his back. If I could make him sleep for an entire day, I would do it in a heartbeat.

I pulled the next box towards me and dug through the dusty contents. I was sure now that most of these donations were just from older ladies dumping the contents of their attics off on us just to free up some space. Several of these books so far were the same cookbook in different states of decay. 

I was just about to ask Rachel for a mask since I was tired of sneezing out dust when my hand pulled out a book that was different from all the others. A quick flip through revealed it was a journal. Either their handwriting was terrible or it was written in a different language, because I couldn’t make heads or tails of what it was saying. But some of the drawings in it intrigued me, so I set it in the Keep Pile, with the intention to ask Rachel what to do with it. If someone donated it without knowing, they might want it back.

By the end of my shift, my back and lungs didn’t appreciate what work I had gotten done. “Being in your thirties must be rough,” Rachel laughed as I tried popping my back several times. “Maybe you could get that cute boyfriend of yours to help you out later tonight.”

I felt a brief flush rise to the surface of my skin as I thought about Nick’s skilled fingers. “Quit it,” I mumbled, earning a cackle from her that would normally get someone in a library in trouble.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the journal in my hands.

“Oh, I found it in one of the boxes. It looks like somebody might’ve accidentally put it in the donation box. Should we ask if they want it back?” I said.

Rachel shook her head. “Sorry buttercup,” she said, using her nickname for me. “Those were anonymous, and who knows how long ago it was donated. There’s no way we’d be able to trace it back to its owner. Unless it has historic value, we’re supposed to throw it out.”

Something in my face must’ve changed her mind. “Well, if you don’t want to, I could conveniently look the other way when you leave,” she said. 

I was about to say that no, that it was fine, that I didn’t need another written book in my house when Nick was still combing through Granny’s hex books, but the words caught in my throat and I thanked her instead. Maybe if I could find its owner, that would be one good deed I’d done for this town, since they were still wary of me several months after I had moved in.

The library closed at seven, but I didn’t get to go to my car until half an hour later. Late April still meant that it was dark out when I left work, but the building was in the middle of New Hope, the forest a ways off. I dashed to my car through the rain, the water from the puddles splashing up as my feet crashed down in them. 

My fingers were wrapped around the car’s door handle when  a cold rush of air blew through my denim jacket, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I froze as the door automatically unlocked, the sound as loud as a gunshot despite the sound of the rain. Something in the reflection of the car window caught my eye.

Someone was behind me.

I slowly turned around, trying not to startle it. Meanwhile, my mind was racing in confusion and fear. Nothing came out of the woods. The town was safe.

The boys couldn’t help me if something were to happen to me out here.

So what was the shadowy figure doing in the middle of a parking lot?

It didn’t move as I stared at it. It was almost formless; I could just make out the thin, vaguely humanoid shape of it. Even if I wanted to say something, my throat had closed shut. The chill of the night increased, the wind picking up and sending some bits of trash skittering across the asphalt. But it didn’t disturb the shadow. 

I opened my mouth to say… something? Shout at it to scare it away? But another voice startled me into screaming. I whipped around. 

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Taylor!” Rachel swore, hand on her heart. She was standing a few feet away under her umbrella. “What’re you still doing here? Are you okay?”

“Uhh… yeah. Just thought I saw something,” I said. I turned back around.

Other than us, the parking lot was empty.

The smell of food coming through a cracked window greeted me as I stepped onto the front porch. My knees felt weak at the thought of Nick cooking after the heart attack I had had. I took a moment to compose myself, exhaling as I turned the doorknob and stepped into our home.

It was indeed Nick cooking, as he stood in front of the stove. His long black hair was tied up in a bun, and he was wearing his thick-rimmed glasses. “Hiya,” he said, not even turning around. 

I dropped my backpack onto one of the chairs at the kitchen table, immediately walking over and hugging him from behind. “Woah, hey. Everything alright?” He asked. His hand moved down to cover both of mine.

I should tell him; I need to tell him. Instead, I nodded into the space between his shoulders. Even though a part of me knew that the creepiness of the town's legends were true, I still couldn't believe that something would come out of the woods and into the safeness of the streets.

So what I said instead was, “I missed you,” into his shirt. 

“Missed you more,” he said in return, despite seeing each other this morning. 

“What are you making?” I asked, peering over his shoulder. 

“Just some hamburger pasta. Thought it would be good for an easy night, since it's just the two of us until later tonight.”

“Really? Not even Folio?” I asked. 

Without looking up, Nick pointed over at the kitchen calendar with the spoon in his free hand. A little black circle was drawn on today's date and the next two days. The New Moons meant that Folio was stuck in his Grim form until the first sliver of the moon shined. Kind of like a werewolf but opposite. 

“It'll be done in a few. Go get comfortable and I'll put on a movie,” he said, his own way of shooing me out of the kitchen. As I parted with him, I saw that he hadn't done the same with Lydia, who was watching from the floor with her hungry eyes. 

As I changed into some lounge pants and an old sweater of Nick's, I tried to think of a way to bring up the encounter with the shadow person. There was no way that he wouldn't get upset about it, that was a fact. Maybe after we ate.

When I came back out into the front room, Nick had helped himself to making my plate and putting it on the coffee table. I sat down next to him, I pulled my plate onto my lap. He had pulled up Rise of Skywalker for us to watch.

“So who’s coming later?” I asked as he started the movie.

“Noah,” Nick mumbled. There was an undercurrent of something in his voice, so I guess Noah had transferred something to his mind that annoyed him. 

“That's fine,” I said, squeezing his thigh. 

After eating, I curled up into Nick, and he wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “We should dress up as Kylo and Rey for Halloween again,” he said.

“Your hair’s getting too long for you to be Kylo,” I said, poking the side of his head.

“Yeah, because Rey is totally a blonde.”

“It was last minute!”

We kept up the light commentary for most of the film. I was fine up until the part when Rey sacrificed herself to kill the Emperor. As Ben Solo sacrificed himself to resurrect her, I threaded my fingers through his. A moment passed, and then Nick squeezed my hand. 

When the credits rolled, I tried to get up to take our dishes back to the kitchen sink. Nick pulled me back down. “And where do you think you’re going?” he asked, pulling me onto his lap. He wrapped his arms around me.

“Was gonna do the dishes, since you made dinner,” I said.

He pulled my head gently to rest on his shoulder. “Just stay here. With me,” he said, quietly. He would do this if he thought I was about to have one of my moments. 

He started playing with my hair, making my eyes flutter shut. “Okay,” I said. 

He kissed my forehead, but as he was pulling away, I reached up to cup his face and direct him further down. His lips brushed mine before pressing down once, soft and tender, but then he tried pulling away again. “Are you su–”

“Nick,” I pleaded, his name coming out in a rush. If he had any resolve before, it came crumbling down within milliseconds.

He was still a bit hesitant, flicking his tongue against my lips. But I wasn’t made of glass, so I pushed his chest until his back was pressed onto the couch cushions. I crawled up him until I was straddling his hips, my knees pressing into the sides of his waist. The kiss never broke.

It didn’t take long for him to harden beneath me, and I couldn’t help the small, satisfactory grin that rose to my lips. I ran my hand down his chest, down his stomach to the waistband of his shorts. When I finally parted with Nick, his hand shot up to curl around the back of my head. “Bun–”

“Can I touch you?” I asked.

“Oh, fuck yes. Please,” he pleaded.

I lifted myself a little bit, just enough to give me some room to slip my hand underneath the waistband of his boxer-briefs. The angle might’ve been a little bit awkward, but it didn’t really matter when I wrapped my fingers around the considerable size of him.

“Fuck,” he groaned, throwing his head back against the pillows. The movement caused him to bare the pretty tan skin over his throat, and I practically descended upon it. The minute I mouthed over his pulse point, his hips rolled up, rutting into my hand. On the upstroke I rubbed my thumb over the tip, and he made my favorite sound of–

Click.

We both froze, my hand down his pants. I quickly raised my head and our eyes locked on each other at the sound of the door unlocking. As the front door opened, I quickly rose up to stand on my knees. Noah stopped dead in his tracks, confusion written on his face. 

“Am I interrupting something?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said immediately, Nick echoing my words from below me.

Noah’s eyes roamed over me for a second, and his face hardened. “Please, continue. I don’t want to interrupt you guys making out in–”

Nick sat up, crawling out from underneath me. If he stood up, Noah could easily see that we were doing more than making out. “When we agreed on later, I mean late.” 

“It’s after eleven. I think that’s late enough,” Noah said, striding across the kitchen to the fridge, where he took out a beer. 

As Nick straightened himself, I caught the look on his face that said he was communicating with Noah through the bond that he had with everyone. Was there something agreed upon that didn’t require me knowing about? 

My thought was all but confirmed when Nick put his hand on my waist. “You wanna go to bed, Bun?” he asked, looking up at me with big green eyes. In this lighting, they were dark as the evergreens outside.

“No, I’m not tired,” I said. I fixed him with a look that said that I wasn’t going to be kept in the dark. Again.

He sighed. “Hang on, I gotta get the hex book,” he said, standing up. He then walked to the spare bedroom.

I looked over at Noah, who was leaning back against the fridge. He perked an eyebrow. “How was work?” he asked before taking a sip of his beer.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I was gonna tell him.”

“But you got distracted, didn’t you?”

“Fuck off, Bambi.”

“Oh, I’m about to do worse than that.”

I tilted my head. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Nick came back with a small, leatherbound notebook. He tossed it onto the kitchen table, as if it personally offended him. “We’ve been doing this all wrong,” he said. He practically collapsed into one of the chairs. 

“Doing what wrong? What is ‘this’?” I asked.

“There’s a reason why the Valley has been getting worse these past few years. More things showing up, resurfacing, growing bolder enough to where people can catch glimpses of them. Pale Things showing up shouldn’t be a surprise, really.” He was babbling, practically. But then he took in a deep breath and closed his eyes.

“Those sacrifices weren’t just for Vessels. They were also to keep the Woods from getting worse.”

Noah’s lips thinned. “I told you, I’m not killing any more innocent people.”

“Yeah, I know, and I think I found a way around that, but…” Nick trailed off. He then silently opened the hex book and flipped to a page he had marked. He then held it out towards me.

“Why me?” I asked.

“I’ve already seen it,” Noah said. 

I took the book and glanced at the pages. It wasn’t in any readable context: Granny wrote in some kind of “language” that had been passed down through her family as to keep their practice a secret from others. Nick had been slowly translating them over the past few months into his own notebooks.

“What is this?” I finally asked. 

“It's a… Fertility Ritual.” Nick swallowed thickly. “My ancestors would send someone into the forest so the Forest would be… sated.”

“A sacrifice. Like what happened with you guys.” I waved a hand over Noah. 

“No! Well… sort of,” Nick said. He bit his lip. 

“That was more the Black Stag's version. Though it wanted sacrifices so it could take a mortal form.” Noah folded his arms over his chest. “This is a… less bloody version.”

I skimmed over the page again, and it finally clicked. “When you say ‘fertility’, you mean… Noah's got to knock someone up?”

“No!” The two shouted at the same time. “God, fuck no,” Nick sighed. “But the baby making process is the main part.”

“He has to have sex with someone?” I asked incredulously. 

“Not just someone…” Nick lowered his voice to a mumble. “Someone with a… someone of the opposite sex.”

“Well how the fuck is he gonna do that?” I asked. “Everyone around here will recognize him, and then you got the antlers to deal with.”

The two were quiet suddenly. Nick put his head in his hands. “Bun…”

“What?”

“He's talking about you,” Noah put bluntly.

tysm for reading! If you enjoyed this, please reblog to share the word of the Revered Father. Next chapter coming soon.

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