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morgana-ren · 4 years ago

Note

I noticed youd said that you get more shiggy requests. So, if you'll indulge me for a sec.

We've had gatos input on how strade would be if the roles were reversed. Mc somehow had him under their control with the shock collar on.

I want your input because your writing is so detailed i know id enjoy reading what a submissive little bitch he'd become.

Please and thank you Morgana.

ily :3

Oh OH You know me so well! This is one of my favorite things to daydream about when I get angry or annoyed because since Strade is such a garbage human being, it tickles me so much to think about how cathartic it would be to turn the tables.

So as well all know, Strade, while very experienced, is not the brightest bulb in the box. He’s got years of know-how behind his expertise in kidnapping and torture, but there’s some shit that just kind of evades him sometimes. Double checking your ropes after he gets a little too excited and wants a dirty basement floor romp, for example. Thanks to his overexcitement and shit-idiot brain fungus he’s got going on, it’s entirely possible for you to slip your bonds. This mistake, in canon, costs him his life.

But what if MC wasn’t so kind?

With a level head, you might be able to scrounge around his torture room for a little bit. Maybe he has a needle with some knockout liquid hanging around for “difficult” catches. Maybe you just wait around behind the door until he walks in and smash him on the head as hard as you can and knock his ass out. Either way, he’s got plenty of restraints, and now he’s the one cuffed to a rusty pole. The look on his dumb face when he comes to is priceless.

You’re not making the same mistakes he did. He’s triple tied to that thing. You know he’s strong, and you’re playing on his home field. You’ve got to be prepared for everything. At least long enough to get upstairs and find help or call the police. Right? Right?

But what if you don’t?

What if, after he comes to and is sputtering and howling and hissing things at you in German that would make Lindemann blush, you decide not to go for help? He’s mad. He’s oh so very mad. He does not like this, not one bit. But he’s panicking beyond what you’d expect, even for a serial killer who’s been two-timed by his own victim. There’s something else in those dilated eyes. Something you’ve become very acutely familiar with over the last few days. You can still smell it lingering on you the same way it’s staining his shirt now.

Fear. He’s afraid. And not of death or capture.

I mean, he very well might be terrified of those things, but whatever it is he’s feeling right now is far overshadowing that. His face is red, and you can practically see the veins in his neck popping in rhythm with his thrumming heartbeat. He’s sweating extensively, and while that’s not uncommon for him, there’s not that macabre jolly smile plastered across his face. He’s baring his teeth and snapping at you like a feral hound, swearing to end your miserable life in a manner that would make the ghosts of his past shudder in horror for you.

You don’t put it past him to snap these ropes any second and wrap his hands so tightly around your neck that your eyes pop like overinflated balloons. Even if the cops show up and try to escort you to safety, there’s an unspoken darkness in his glare, something that promises pain in your future even if they manage to subdue him. A promise that you can’t guarantee yourself that he can’t keep.

It strikes you that you know nothing about this man.

Surely someone out there knows about this. Someone knows about him and his little hobby. Monsters run in packs and even if you can’t see them, you know they must be there. Best case scenario, they can’t have him spilling their secrets so they find a way to end his life before the police can. Worst case scenario? Worst case, they come for you.

You’ve seen enough Hollywood horror movies to know just how wrong it can go if justice is left to the authorities. You haven’t seen much of it, but this looks like a pretty nice house. If he has money, he can just buy his way out. Who is to say that he doesn’t already have a deal with the cops? Kidnapping people is risky business, especially when folks begin to notice that you’re gone. Surely he has some safety net?

What if he’s part of a network of psychopaths? There’s been enough late-night conspiracy youtube binges in your existence to know that shit like that is perfectly plausible. What if he’s just one of many? What if they have the pull to see him set free even after you’ve gone through the proper avenues to get him locked away? What if, one night, when you think he’s rotting in a 6 x 6 cement cell miles away from you, you wake up back here in this basement with even more Strades with different names and faces but each one shares the desire to see you ripped apart at the seams and devoured?

No. HELL no. You’re not going to be the cliche victim. He can bark and screech at you until his throat is sore and his gums bleed, but the plain and simple fact of the matter is that you have this monster on a leash, and you’re not about to hand that leash over to someone else.

How many people has he killed? How many have met their end in this godless basement? How many unsuspecting people has he dragged here only to take them apart piece by piece until their eyes glaze and their final breath moistens his cheek as he watches the light in their eyes extinguish? Do you even want to know? Would it make you feel better or worse to know that, at least for now, you’ve narrowly escaped such a fate?

You have to know.

His screaming turns fearful as you ascend the stairs. Again, not for fear of being caught, but because he already has been. It’s so odd to hear the phrase “Don’t leave me here!” from his quivering chest when he’s apparently in the place he values most, and there’s a sick sense of catharsis that settles in your gut as you listen to him begin to whimper and whine. You don’t let yourself dwell on it but you do slam the door behind you loudly enough that he will be forced to acknowledge that his pathetic pleas mean nothing to you.

His house is painfully average, at least for someone like him. He’s even got portraits up with what must be friends or family or someone that cares enough to pose for a cheesy photo with him. If you didn’t know better, you’d say an upstanding, if a little tacky, upper-middle class man lives here. The furniture is unremarkable and well cared for but lived in enough to not raise suspicion. His kitchen is filled with expensive appliances that might as well be fresh out of the box. His fridge, as expected, is filled with beer and various quick meals. Not much of a cook, you guess.

The car sitting in the garage costs in the six digit range and looks like it’s the most beloved thing in the entire area. It reeks of Armor All and disinfectant, and you’re willing to bet that if he was so inclined, he could put it on a showroom floor right now. He’s got tools and cables of all sorts thrown about, but not the kind you’ve gotten so used to. Maybe he actually does use them for their intended purpose sometimes.

As you walk the length of his home, you notice a distinct lack of screaming. You can’t hear anything, not even a peep from the basement, and you are very certain he’s crying up a storm down there. Interesting. He’s go this place sound proofed. You’re not sure what you’d expected, but it’s good information to have regardless.

After you’ve sated your curiosity by observing the dragon’s den, you make your way to the upper level. He’s probably not foolish enough to leave any sort of evidence behind where friends and neighbors can see it, so whatever it is you’re looking for is going to be somewhere a little bit more personal. Perhaps like a bedroom?

Bingo.

His bedroom, much like the rest of his house, looks about what you’d expect. King sized bed, wooden dresser with a TV and player on top, and a desk beneath the window. Sliding closet doors with all manner of free range dad apparel inside, and honestly, it’s the closest you’ve been to laughing since you got here. He would wear cargo shorts and plaid, wouldn’t he? A scrounge through the drawers of his dresser and closet reveal nothing remarkable, but you’re willing to bet your injured thigh that there’s something special in the desk.

Just like you’d expect, the desk is locked, but you’d noticed a pair of keys sitting willy-nilly out in the living room and you’d picked them up. About 7 key changes later and the desk pops open for you like a cheap whore. He really isn’t too bright, is he? Or maybe he just wasn’t expecting this to ever be a problem. Either way, you’re grateful he’s a moron.

Inside the drawer seems to be loads of DVDs, unmarked except for dates. It feels like you’re the unprepared cop in a serial killer movie as you look down at them. You don’t need to watch them to know what they are, but you’re going to anyway. You have to know. You need to know just who you’re dealing with here.

You pick one at random and pop it into the DVD player and the scene that greets you seems all too familiar. A hunched figure, bloodied and tied to the pole you’d become so intimate with over the last week. This person was in much worse shape than you, however. You could see shadows moving off screen and the camera fuzzes and refocuses repeatedly as what you assume is Strade messes with the controls. Not long after, he emerges, practically skipping into frame. Even though most of his face is concealed behind a hideous bandana, you can tell he’s smiling. It reaches his eyes.

He says what appears to be a rehearsed greeting and you’re left wondering just how crazy is he? Is he talking to his future self? You can see him making these videos to relive his sick, sadistic fantasies but talking to himself like an absolute lunatic is just a little disconcerting. However, you also acknowledge that the only reason you’ve even thinking about this is to distract yourself from the fact that you’re watching a homemade snuff film that you almost starred in yourself.

And then he begins.

Despite the visceral horror on display before you, the urge to vomit never comes. You watch, blank faced, as this poor soul is faced with every horror a human mind can conceive. It goes on for long. Too long. And Strade never stops talking.

The realization sets in that’s because he’s not the only one watching.

He’s not talking to himself. He’s responding. This wasn’t for him. This was for them.

If you had any emotional energy to give, surely you’d be absolutely horrified, but you don’t and you can’t. You’re not even surprised. Someone like Strade, that bubbly personality and 1,000 watt smile, of course he’d find a way to utilize his talents. He’d found a market. He had a hobby and he made money from it. ‘Love your job and you’ll never work a day in your life.’ and you are just so willing to bet he loves his fucking job.

You let the video keep playing as you sit up from his bed and leave the room. You make your way down the stairs, back to the living room, and then back to the basement door. You open it and immediately are bombarded with the sounds of his screaming and hateful vitriol. It doesn’t phase you. You’re not sure anything will ever again.

Calmly, you walk into the room and stare at him. He doesn’t cease his incessant threats until he realizes you’re waiting for him to finish so that you can speak. He finally silences himself, though he continues to rip and tear at the ropes holding him hostage as you tell him you found his little home video collection.

“Let me out.” He demands, and you realize he doesn’t quite understand that he’s not the one in control anymore. Of course a dog without a tangible leash will continue to run wild. You needed to drive the point home.

You turn your back to him and begin to ruffle through his various cabinets, searching around the nooks and crannies for something that will help him understand just what position he’s found himself in. You make a very interesting discovery next to his med kit. A collar. A literal collar.

Poetic justice.

It’s thick and burdensome and more than a little hideous. It’s definitely homemade, because not even the most fucked of BDSM sites are going to offer something like this. It’s accompanied by a small remote with a large red button and not much else. You push the button and yelp in pain, the collar clattering to the floor as it slips from your fingers. It shocked you. It was so very painful, but you’re smiling.

You retrieve it from where it fell and pop it open, observing it curiously. Strade watches you through wide eyes and sniveling, trembling lips. The look on his face is a dead giveaway that you’ve found something you really shouldn’t have. The toothy grin you flash him shows him that you understand that.

Without a word, you approach him, holding the open collar in your sweating palm. His struggles begin anew and before long he’s practically yanking his arms out at the sockets trying to get away from you and your newfound toy. He’s throwing his weight around and doing whatever he can with his limited movements to make damn sure you can’t get that terrible thing around his neck, but it’s all in vain because energy is finite and he’s been expending a lot of it over the last hour.

He’s breathing heavy and you could swear he’s begging between heaves as you clap the collar around his thick neck. His flesh bulges from the side and you’re fairly certain it was made for someone much less burly than himself in mind. You get the odd urge to adjust it on him like a necklace but he’s still dangerous, even caged. You feel weirdly... proud.

“Stop-! you don’t know what you’re doing!” He hiccups, and as he pulls his head upward, you can see he is indeed crying. “Please! Don’t!”

You’ve never thought of yourself as particularly sadistic, at least in that sense, but some ghostly force pushes your thumb down on that big red button. Watching his eyes go wide and his body convulse and seize fills you with a sense of sheer euphoria that can’t properly be conveyed. The utterly satisfying clang of his head hitting the pole at mach 5 as he shakes and bumbles almost humorously while the collar sends x amount of volts through his body makes you giggle.

When you finally pull your thumb off the button, he’s still shaking from the residual shock, drool and mucus bubbling from his mouth and nose and sloping down onto his chin. He looks defeated; utterly pathetic. Is this how you looked to him all those times he stood over you grinning as he gifted you pain the likes of which had been unthinkable to you before you met him? The desire to push down again is overwhelming but you’re determined for him to understand there’s a point to this misery.

There’s a thousand thoughts going through your mind right now faster than you can comprehend them all, but they all have the same general principal. This man is a murderer. This man is a rapist. This man is contained. This man is afraid. This man is at your mercy.

And unfortunately for him, you just ran out.

‘How many’ you ask, despite already knowing. If the videos upstairs are any indication, there’s more than he can probably count. More names and faces than he can practically remember and they’re dead because of him. He looks up at you through wet lashes with a trembling lip, already caught on to the fact that there is no correct answer. Your thumb hovers over that seductive red button and he’s quick to spit out whatever he can regardless.

“I don’t know! I don’t!”

You don’t doubt that he’s being honest, but it sickens you none he less. You press that button for half a second and he jolts up off the floor as much as his restraints will allow. When he comes to, his eyes can barely focus in on you and when his slumps over, you can see the burns from the collar already settling in on his tan skin. You’re not sure how to turn down the voltage or how lethal it is, but you don’t really care at the moment. If he dies, he dies. You’ll deal with the complications of that later.

You could sit here all day and grill him, literally and figuratively, about his track record of atrocities, but it won’t bring you any peace. You’re not sure that peace is something that you’ll ever feel again, all things considered. Meeting the monsters that dwell in the dark is drastically different than simply acknowledging that they exist, and through some twist of fate, you’ve been given the opportunity to show this particular monster that he’s no longer at the top of the food chain. There’s so much you could do, so many things you want to do, and it’s at that moment you realize you’ve spent too long staring into the abyss to try and claw your way out.

You’re being offered the chance they never were. You’re holding the controls now. He’s already crying and you’ve barely touched him, barely done anything besides shock him a little. You remember that feeling well. If you recall, you were already crying before he put that knife to your thigh on your first day with him.

Truth is, you decided the second he fell unconscious what you were going to do.

Maybe a revenge like this isn’t yours to take, but you’re taking it regardless. For yourself, and for every sorry sap that’s met their end in his cement hellhole. They died for you to have this opportunity, and you’d like to think that maybe they’re there with you in this moment. Even if you never knew them, you feel a strange kinship with them. After all, it was almost you.

He continues to babble underneath his breath, various pleas for mercy or sympathy or any form of compassion you can muster from your still aching body, and though you desperately wish you did, you can’t find any. You’re certain when you look in the mirror next, it won’t be your own eyes looking back at you anymore, but something closer to his. Maybe you did die in this basement, because whoever you were before you met him is long gone and has been replaced with something so much more empty.

You explain to him, as gently as you can, that it’s your turn now, and his resistance will only make this harder. You don’t delight in seeing him in pain (whether or not that’s a lie has yet to be determined) but it’s a necessary evil for all he’s done. You don’t believe his life is yours to take, but you’d be as terrible as him if you let him loose on the world again. You can’t trust anyone but yourself, and since this situation is so delicate, you need a bit more time to think on it.

He doesn’t seem to understand, at least until you’re binding his legs and securing his head snuggly to the pole. Maybe it’s overkill considering the man looks like he belongs in a shibari magazine right now, but there’s no precautions you can’t take. You can’t have him escaping. It’s far too soon, and you have such wonderful things planned.

Were you a kinder soul, maybe you would put him to sleep because it’s so apparent he’s terrified. Being bound like this has really brought out his inner little bitch, and the way he’s looking, he’s going to piss himself. But its a price it’s only fair that he pay, all things considered. You don’t know what time it is or even where you are, but you know you’ll return to him when you’ve been rejuvenated, eager and ready to begin on him. You’re only a few steps toward the door when he begins shouting, words barely discernible between his emphatic weeping and sobbing hiccups.

“D-don’t leave me here in the dark! Let me go, let me out! You can’t! You can’t leave me here like this!” You grin softly, turning slowly to face him, and tell him that you can and you will. You ask what he’s so afraid of, but you don’t wait to hear the answer as you step through the frame and shut the door behind you, leaving him to rot in his personal dungeon. It’s only been an hour and he’s already so pliable. You wonder what you can make him do when you really make it hurt. Psychology says it takes 7 years to brainwash someone and coerce them into absolute compliance, but you’re willing to bet you can have it done in a few months.

You already know one of his fears, and are very clearly not ashamed to exploit it. How many else does he have, you might wonder, already planning tomorrow’s festivities. Maybe you were sicker in the head than you thought. Maybe Strade just brought out the worst in you, stripped away all that made you human and left you with raw hurt and despair.

It’s tempting. To give in. To sit and massage your aching body while listening to his screams as they echo through the soundproofed basement. But you’re tired, and you haven’t slept in a bed in over a week. His looked awfully nice. Maybe after that, you’d wash the dried blood from your battered body, order some food, and appreciate the niceties that civilized life had to offer. Niceties you took for granted.

After that? Well, after that you had a new pet to train.

#snaspants #Strade #BTD #NSFT #tw torture mention #im mean just mean lmao #IM LOVE YOU GIRL!!

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lady-divine-writes · 8 years ago

Text

Klaine fic - “All the Beautiful Pieces” (Rated NC17)

Blaine Anderson is spending the summer after graduation flipping houses with his brother for Cooper's total home renovation show. The show features the worst houses Cooper can buy, with Blaine playing the role of lackey so that Cooper can torture him in front of his viewers. The last house Blaine has to renovate is an original Victorian House in San Diego, CA, which is in terrible condition. But this house turns out to be more than just another job. It was once owned by a famous Vaudeville ventriloquist by the name of Andrew Smythe. It houses a very interesting collection of items - among them, two life-sized puppets. Blaine isn't sure exactly why, but he's drawn to them - especially to the one with the beautiful blue eyes. He convinces Cooper to give him the puppets, and Blaine starts to restore them. In the course of the restoration, Blaine finds out that neither puppet is simply a run-of-the-mill puppet, and Andrew Smythe was hiding a secret that will be the key to saving two lives.

Okay, so, as many of you people know, this was my Reverse Bang story from way too long ago. I had it completed, but as I was uploading it, my computer crashed and obliterated this plus a ton of my other stories, which I have been writing back from memory these many years. I had this one almost down except for the last three chapters, which have been lost in the void of my brain. So, what I’ve done is start over from the beginning. I haven’t been changing the story, just freshening the language, and then I will add those last three chapters. But I’m posting it here one chapter per week so those of you who would like to can get reacquainted with the story. Of course, you could jump ahead to AO3, and cheat, re-read all 17 original chapters at once, but you’ll still have to wait for the ending, and only chapters 1-7 have been redone. Anyway, this story wouldn’t even exist without @freakingpotter who is an amazing artist and an even more amazing friend <3 Give her lots of love <333

(Warning for character death that happens in the past, hoarding, and anxiety.)

Chapter 1 (6515 words)

Blaine stares out the windshield of his rented Honda Odyssey, his jaw dropping open, stunned out of his senses at the sight of the disastrous house in front of him. His hands grip the steering wheel for support. His knees knock together, completely out of his control. A low, pitiful whining noise rattles around in the back of his throat. The house to his right, nestled incongruously behind a manicured lawn, carefully pruned rose bushes, and a well-established Mulberry tree, is so incredibly awful that he can’t stop looking at it. It’s like a horrendous traffic accident – lots of blood and twisted metal, but try as you might, you can’t make yourself look away.

“What’s wrong, squirt?” Cooper, Blaine’s older brother, asks. “Is something wrong with my new investment?”

“Uh, I’m looking at your new investment right now,” Blaine groans, sounding strangled and pathetic, but he couldn’t care less.

“And…” Cooper asks, his voice an annoying, disembodied presence in Blaine’s Bluetooth since there is no way that Cooper Anderson would actually deign to come out to a new project house himself.

He leaves that kind of grunt work to his baby brother, Blaine.

Cooper Anderson’s Complete Home Renovation started as a way for Blaine’s brother to translate his B-list (to put it kindly) celebrity status into a steady paycheck. At first, Blaine thought this show would turn into another fad - a superficial hobby that Coop would get really excited about for a few months and then become bored with when the hard work began. Cooper had a reputation for those – Catamaran racing, model plane building, volunteering at the Greyhound rescue. But this time, Blaine had to give Coop some credit. When he started the show a year or so back, he did research, found a reputable contractor, and learned the ins and outs of foreclosed property auctions. It was the most responsible Cooper had been about something in a long while. He flipped a few houses, got a desirable time slot on a basic cable network, and made a decent amount of money doing it. But the show was dull as dishwater and the ratings tanked. That was until Cooper decided to do things his usual way, which basically meant firing every capable person involved with the production of the show, managing everything himself…and soliciting the help of his younger brother.

Cooper purchased the properties, usually through a third party company, and then turned Blaine loose on whatever disaster he had bought. Blaine would perform a preliminary walkthrough of the various houses, with Cooper accompanying him through the aid of a wireless webcam, while back at command central (Cooper’s fancy name for his breakfast nook), Cooper and his contractor, who remained silent through the walkthrough to make Cooper look like the knowledgeable one, made plans for the renovation. In no time flat, Cooper ended up with a sensational cult following, as well as a membership-only website. Members to the website got the privilege of watching the live webcam feed and witnessing all the hilarious - and embarrassing - pitfalls that Blaine suffered. Later on, the feed would be edited for television. The show became a bigger hit than Blaine could have ever imagined - which was one of the many reasons why Blaine wanted nothing to do with it.

Blaine had a strict policy not to participate in any of Cooper’s harebrained ideas. This one, being a television show, pretty much screamed, “No! Don’t! Turn back!” Blaine had dreams of being on Broadway one day, and he didn’t need his brother destroying his reputation before he even had one. But Cooper never took no for an answer, and in this case, he knew his brother’s Achilles’ heel.

College.

But not just any college.

NYADA.

The premier college for musical theater, located in none other than Blaine’s dream city – New York.

Blaine was desperate to get there, especially now that their parents decided last minute not to pay for it. It was all right for Blaine to say he wanted to go to NYADA, but in the end, his parents were counting on a more practical college choice, like Stanford or Princeton. They would even bend as far as accepting NYU, as long as Blaine majored in business or medicine, but not NYADA. No. They didn’t want another foolish child with dreams of making it big as a performer making a mockery of the Anderson family name.

Not like Cooper.

Sure, Cooper had managed some bit parts in a few movies, and a one-line speaking role on a television series, but before his renovation show took off, his claim to fame as a thespian had been one FreeCreditRatingToday.com commercial.

His parents were less than impressed.

Cooper knew Blaine was trying to find a way to save up for college, and truth be told, he felt guilty. He realized that, in a way, he had caused all these problems for Blaine, but it wasn’t in Cooper’s nature to simply come out and apologize…especially when his idea to have Blaine as a lackey on his show was so much better.

Blaine caved when he realized that Cooper’s offer, no matter how destructive it might be to his future career, was his only real hope, especially considering what Cooper was offering to pay him in comparison to working part time at the Lima Bean, which only paid minimum wage plus the occasional tip. So, Blaine spent most of his free time and all of his school breaks helping Cooper flip houses.

That included his summer vacation.

This summer would be Blaine’s final hoorah on the show until his next big school break, which prompted the idea to bring Blaine out to the West Coast to do a Fun in the Sun edition of Cooper Anderson’s Complete Home Renovation.

Blaine was initially thrilled by the idea. A couple of months at their family’s old beach house (God, they hadn’t been there in years), spending some time lying out on the sand, relaxing, rescuing his upper arms from an unsightly farmer’s tan, and escaping his mom and dad’s constant looks of disapproval every time he entered a room.

The first three vile houses he renovated in San Diego, however, almost made any fun and relaxation Blaine had planned for this trip completely immaterial.

But this house – his last house – takes the cake for sure.

“Blai-ney?” Cooper sings through the earpiece, cutting through Blaine’s thoughts and the dead air.

“Do you ever see these houses before you buy them, Coop?” Blaine asks. He tilts his head from side to side and cranes his neck to peer out the windshield, refusing to move from his seat until he absolutely has to.

“Why? Is it the wrong house?” Cooper asks in a panic. “It’s the Victorian, right? Please tell me it’s the Victorian!”

“It’s the Victorian, all right,” Blaine confirms with a long, heavy sigh. Or it will be a decent Victorian house once they get rid of the hodge-podge of vomit-worthy paint that had been slapped on for God knows how long. The house looks like the whole color scheme was chosen by a drunk toddler. The main body of the house is a bright, fire engine red; the scrolled pillars and the sconces look to be hazard orange; and everything else is either bright blue or deep purple. If the house hadn’t been declared a historical landmark, Blaine is sure that the neighbors would have torn it apart panel by panel.

“Then what’s the problem?” Cooper sounds worried at the reluctance in his brother’s voice, not that Blaine isn’t always reluctant. That’s part of the shtick. Cooper makes it a point to buy the worst houses he’s heard of, sight unseen, because Blaine’s initial reaction is a big part of his TV show’s draw.

Besides, torturing his younger brother has always been one of Cooper Anderson’s favorite past times.

“So, are you inside yet, squirt?” Cooper pipes up over Blaine’s Bluetooth. “Because I’m seeing a serious lack of anything interesting on my computer screen. Of course, I’m not all that tech savvy. Check the feed on your end.”

“I’m not in the house yet, Coop,” Blaine moans.

“Wha--- well, why not?” Cooper sputters. “Time’s a-wasting here, kiddo. We have a show to put on. Chippity-chop-chop, Blaine!”

Blaine sighs and switches on the portable webcam, focusing the lens on his own face so that Cooper can check the feed.

“There’s my handsome little man,” Cooper coos, thrilled to tease his baby brother in front of his slew of dedicated viewers. “Now go and show me the house that’s destined to become my newest masterpiece.”

Blaine’s shoulders slump, weighed down by the inevitable. He opens the minivan door, ready to step out and get the full effect of how awful it truly is, when he is hit with a smell so powerful it forces him back into his seat.

“Ugh! Blech!” He locks the doors and turns on the air conditioner to flush the evil smell out, but that doesn’t work the way he hopes. The conditioned air circulates the smell throughout the car. Immediately, the stench sticks to the upholstery and his clothes.

Blaine doesn’t want to breathe it in any more than he has to, but there’s something curious about the smell. Yes, it’s disgusting to think that the house stinks so badly he can smell it all the way from his minivan with the windows rolled up, but now that time has passed, he realizes it isn’t altogether a bad smell. It’s more odd than bad. Against his better judgment, Blaine takes a deep breath in through his nostrils and holds it, shutting his eyes to get a better idea of what the smell reminds him of.

Melancholy.

Bittersweet.

Like a musty old funeral home parlor, where each grain of wood, each fiber of carpet seems to be infused with the sorrow, pain, and tears of mourners grieving for loved ones lost.

To put it simply, the house smells sad.

Regardless, whatever is causing that smell can’t be healthy.

Even more than the smell, which is disturbing to say the least, it’s the silence that unnerves him.

Blaine had gotten lost on his way here. He had parked in the cul-de-sac on the opposite side of the street and sat for a good twenty minutes checking his GPS before he realized his mistake. Harbor Drive cuts in half with a strip of neighborhood right down its middle. He had ended up on the other side. The side he originally parked in is a lively, typical suburban neighborhood, with kids riding their bikes and people in their yards gardening, watering their lawns, talking and laughing, enjoying this beautiful Southern California afternoon.

The cul-de-sac this Victorian house sits in is much the same – the same identical houses, the same green lawns, the same suburban atmosphere - only there are no children playing here, and no busy neighbors tending to their gardens. Blaine looks up at the sky. For two whole minutes, not a single bird passes overhead, and there isn’t an insect to be seen.

Life seems to avoid this neighborhood, and probably for good reason.

Blaine can’t shake the ominous feeling that he’s being watched…and he probably isn’t the first person who’s felt that way. Blaine had heard that this house got no foot traffic. Even when it was put up for auction, few people came by to take a look at it, which is strange considering how popular real Victorian houses are in this area of the country.

But something as trivial as the possibility of a supernatural threat to his life will not deter Cooper Anderson from ratings and equity. Blaine will eventually have to get out of the Odyssey and go into the house. He reaches into his glove box and pulls out a dust mask, which Cooper must see since he starts yelling into the earpiece.

“No! Blaine! What are you doing?”

“Coop, I can smell your house all the way from the van,” Blaine explains, giving himself permission to be haughty. “I’m protecting myself from whatever lives in the air around this place.”

“No, you can’t cover your face!” Cooper complains. Blaine might find Cooper’s desperation amusing if he wasn’t trying to talk him out of keeping himself safe. “You know my viewers tune in to see my dapper brother’s handsome face. Your face is my money maker!”

“So, you’re going to risk my health, and my future as a singer, for ratings?” Blaine argues, annoyed at his brother’s overwhelming lack of concern. When he doesn’t receive a response, he decides to appeal to one of Cooper’s real loves – money. “You know, one stray mold spore gets into my lungs and your insurance premiums take a hit.”

“Hey,” Cooper says in a sly voice, “it’s a risk I’m willing to take.

But Blaine knows better than to let his brother dictate matters of life and death, and squirrels the mask into his back pocket. He won’t be on camera the whole time, and it’s an easy enough thing to slip on and off without Cooper noticing.

He had to do it for those last three houses.

Blaine grabs the webcam and climbs out of the minivan. He takes extra time to make sure the doors are locked and the windows rolled up, deliberately stalling. Finally, he gives in and walks up to the cartoon-esque fun house that smells like heartbreak and woe.

Blaine stands for a moment to take it all in. Then he trains the webcam on the house, and Cooper laughs like a hyena through Blaine’s Bluetooth.

“Holy crap!” he roars. “Stop, Blainers. Just…just give our audience a moment to appreciate the monstrosity before us.”

Blaine scans the scene, starting from the far left and moving to the right.

“What the hell colors are those?” Cooper chokes the words out between the most unattractive chortles Blaine has ever heard. “It looks like a carnival funhouse.”

“Yeah, well, you sure know how to pick ‘em, Coop,” Blaine recites in a practiced flat and sour tone. It’s one of his many catch phrases that he is required to say through the course of filming. Unoriginal, but it seems to make the viewers happy. Twice in the last six months the phrase ‘Pick a Winner, Coop’ has trended on Twitter.

And Blaine has been a huge part of that.

Yippee.

“You know, this house has a really well-kept lawn to go with that crap paint job.”

“The realtor told me that the ladies from the historical society were taking care of the landscaping,” Blaine remarks as he trots up the walk, not that Cooper actually cares, but because Blaine does his best to fill in the silences with informative little tidbits. If anything, maybe he can use it as a way to showcase his professionalism and dedication to the craft - his ability to improvise.

Blaine Anderson – Master of Finding the Silver Lining.

Blaine takes the keys out of his pocket. He had to pick them up directly from the realtor’s office. For some reason, the severe, dowdy, and unnaturally petite woman wouldn’t meet him at the house.

She said specifically that she never went down there.

That, in itself, is not a reassuring testimonial.

Blaine works to unlock the deadbolt, balancing the webcam beneath his chin and pulling the door toward him when the lock won’t turn.

“Anyone want to take a bet on what it looks like inside?” Cooper asks, filling up the empty air space while Blaine fumbles with the uncooperative lock. Blaine feels his phone buzz in his pocket which means that Cooper also tweeted that question to his viewers. “Op! Blaine’s struggling with the lock! Nobody must have gone in this house in years! This is going to be horrible! I can feel it!”

Cooper chuckles wickedly and Blaine rolls his eyes. He isn’t sure that he likes the strange, sadistic pleasure Cooper gets from tormenting him like this.

Blaine jiggles the doorknob while turning the key, cranking it left and right, but it isn’t just that the lock itself is stuck. It feels like the door is being held closed from the inside. All of Blaine’s inner alarms start going off – in his head where his ears ring with Cooper’s inane laughter, in his chest where his heart races so hard that his ribs hurt, in his feet where he shifts weight from one to the other, as eager to be in the house and done with this as he is to get into his minivan and leave.

At the thought of leaving, the door finally opens, shoving in about a foot and then stopping dead. Blaine pushes and pushes, but the door won’t budge any farther.

“Uh…Blaine?” Cooper’s voice calls through the Bluetooth. “I like your shoes and that lovely sweater vest you’re wearing as much as the next guy, but do you think you could hold the webcam up so we can see what’s going on? All this bouncing around is making me want to hurl. It’s like a scene from Cloverfield or something.”

Blaine pulls the webcam out from beneath his chin and sticks it around the corner of the door. If he can’t make his way into the house, at least Cooper and his audience can see what he’s up against.

“Well…that’s a…dark room you’re showing us there, Blainers,” Cooper teases in a straight voice. “In fact, that’s an incredible shade of grey we’re seeing at the moment. Do you think you could open up a curtain or turn on a light there, squirt?”

“I’m…hmpf…I’m trying…” Blaine grumbles, struggling to keep the webcam aloft while fighting to open the door. After a few backbreaking heaves, he gives up and shimmies through the narrow crack he’s already made, sucking in his stomach to keep from snagging his sweater vest on the edge of the door. He slips through the opening, having to stop a second to maneuver his leg around the bend, and stumbles inside. His right foot comes in contact with the floor, his left foot raised behind him, and the front door slams shut.

The room he’s standing in goes from grey to black, and everything becomes eerily silent.

Even Cooper’s chuckle dies to muffled breaths over Blaine’s Bluetooth.

Blaine stands completely still, praying that nothing runs at him from out of the shadows.

Of course, it doesn’t help in the slightest that he had stayed up late last night streaming Stephen King’s mini-series Rose Red. Whatever possessed him to watch a show about a haunted house hours before coming here, he will never know.

His eyes adjust to the lack of light. They water excessively, clouded by thick layers of dust that he can smell and taste with every breath he takes. He holds his breath, sure that any monsters hiding in the dark will hear even the slightest inhale.

“Blaine?” Cooper whispers harshly. “Do…something…”

“I’m…trying…” Blaine whispers back with an added huff of annoyance.

Blaine finally dares to turn his head, sweeping the webcam around the room. He reaches out his free hand, his arm shaking as he tries to stay balanced on one foot, and feels for a light switch on the wall by the door. His fingers come in contact with one; he flips it up and down madly, but with no results.

“Coop…I thought you called SDG&E and had the power switched on,” Blaine says, continuing to flip the switch rapidly in hopes that a loose wire somewhere will spark after enough tries and the lights will flick on.

“I did,” Cooper responds in an unnecessarily low voice. “Maybe there’s a blown fuse or a busted circuit.”

Blaine whimpers. He’s not looking forward to negotiating this mess without any light. He attempts to put his elevated foot down, his knee sore from tensing to keep it bent up, but everywhere he steps he feels bulky items in his way, disinclined to be pushed aside. He finds a loose…something…and shoves at it, sliding it across the floor about a foot and making a space to take a step.

“Okay…” Blaine says, both triumphant and anxious as he creeps across the room in this manner. He can’t see anything but shapes and silhouettes that change when he relocates some blurry mystery object. He ignores the sounds of shuffling that echo through the room in response to his movements, keeping his eyes fixed on a single ray of light streaming in through a crack in the curtains. Blaine counts his steps, trying to estimate how big the room is by his strides across the floor.

“Can you see anything?” Cooper asks conversationally, keeping the show moving along while Blaine picks his way at a snail’s pace through the unseen clutter.

“Not yet,” Blaine replies, only a hair louder than a whisper because he’s still wary of talking too loudly - a hidden childhood fear of the dark rearing its ugly head. “I’m trying to make it to the curtains on the windows, but this room is large and packed with stuff.” Blaine looks down at his feet, aiming the webcam at the floor. “Do you see anything, Coop?”

“Naah, not yet, squirt…” Blaine smiles when he hears Cooper sound mildly concerned on his behalf, “just a really, really dark blur.”

“Congratulations, Coop,” Blaine chirps, tripping over something that clangs metallically when it comes in contact with his foot. “You purchased a void.”

Nervous laughter follows Blaine’s comment and he smiles wider. It’s nice to know that every so often his big brother actually cares.

“If you come across any television sets, don’t turn them on,” Cooper warns. “I wouldn’t want you getting sucked in and crossing over to the other side.”

Blaine shakes his head.

“Poltergeist? Really?” Blaine groans, hopping a few steps and finally making his way to the window. “You do know you just aged yourself, don’t yo--”

“I see some light there, squirt,” Cooper cuts in, smoothly evading the mention of his age. “Did you finally make it to the window, or do you feel like walking around in the dark for another ten minutes?”

Blaine doesn’t answer, having deftly slipped the dust mask over his mouth and nose, preparing to open the curtain, which he is sure has to be caked with dust.

He’s right.

With his free hand, he pulls open the heavy fabric of the first curtain, watching as dust motes swirl in front of his eyes, dimming the sun’s light as it pierces the grime on the windows. He moves aside the second curtain, stepping over what he can see in this new light are various metal and wooden objects, peculiar faces peering up at him, staring with chipped and empty eyes.

Dirty light is better than no light at all, but Blaine has a hard time making sense of what he’s seeing. He has been in houses before that had rooms piled high with all sorts of trash – food containers, two-liter bottles, dirty plates, newspapers and magazines with yellowing and cracked pages, even one house with rooms stuffed from floor to ceiling with filthy used diapers, but what he is currently looking at is downright bizarre. Everywhere underfoot there are twisted limbs, contorted bodies, orphaned heads, and a mass of brightly colored clothing and costumes. They’re small – child sized. He makes his way to the next set of windows and opens those curtains. Light floods the room, defused through the layer of dried gunge on the glass, giving it a sepia hue, but with better illumination, Blaine can see the room clearly.

Toys. Piles and piles of toys - dolls, puppets, trains, cars, stuffed animals by the pound. Some are stacked along the walls, mint in their boxes, but the majority lay in heaps, overflowing mountains and dunes, filling the room from corner to corner.

“Holy...”

Cooper’s voice cuts off when Blaine turns and focuses the camera on a long hallway, as foreboding as the living room but inconceivably darker. Blaine swallows hard, knowing that’s the next place Cooper will tell him to go.

“Whoa, Blaine…look at that…”

Yeah, yeah, Blaine thinks, taking a step in that direction. I’m going.

“Hold up,” Cooper says. “Go back to the toys on the floor.”

Blaine breathes a sigh of relief at his temporary reprieve. He aims the camera down, trying to get the best view he can in the low light of the toys scattered over the floor.

“Are those made of metal?” Cooper asks.

“Yup,” Blaine says, moving the mask away from his mouth so he can speak. “Well, some of them. Some of them appear to be wood.”

“Get a closer shot, Blaine. I want to look at those.”

Blaine moves from toy to toy, holding the webcam still for a few seconds so his brother can get some decent screenshots. He hears Cooper typing frantically, researching something on his computer.

“Are you seeing this, Blaine?” Cooper asks excitedly over the earpiece. “Those tin banks? That’s some early 1900s shit. And there’re loads of them! The stuff in that room alone could be worth a fortune! Imagine what we might find in the rest of the house?”

We, Blaine thinks, shaking his head. Right.

Blaine hears more frantic typing, quiet cheering, some scribbling and muttering as Cooper takes down notes on his end of the line. “Okay, Blaine,” Cooper continues, not revealing any of the information he uncovered on his web search, “why don’t you head down that hallway and see what else we’re dealing with?”

Blaine lifts the webcam to show the view of the hallway, partially blocked by a mound of what looks like original Care Bears, and columns of stacked board games. Blaine catches sight of a familiar yellow box with the word OPERATION written across the side in red block letters. It immediately brings to mind all those days he spent kneeling at the coffee table in his living room, playing the game over and over…even if he played mostly by himself.

Good times, he thinks. Good times.

At least he has that happy memory to carry with him into the afterlife, because he is fairly certain that he is going to be murdered in this house.

Blaine has never been in a house before that has so much emotion attached to it. In his property searches, Cooper gravitates toward houses previously owned by hoarders since they have the potential to be the most horrendous, but the one thing Blaine has learned by visiting these houses is that hoarders have a tendency to attach importance to the most off-the-wall things.

It’s not the item, of course, but what or who it represents – and the inability to let go.

Maybe he doesn’t always understand the reason behind the hoard, but it breaks his heart to see it every time.

Hoarding toys, though - this he can understand. It’s holding tight to the best part of a person’s life – their childhood.

Blaine makes his way to the hall, opening the last two sets of curtains along the way until the room is nearly, but not quite, cheerful.

Something still troubles him. Something the immense dark wasn’t hiding after all. The feeling of being watched lingers, but it’s joined by a feeling of being called. As insane as it sounds, Blaine feels there’s something in this house that wants him to find it.

When he gets closer to the hallway, he can see that the extreme darkness of this narrow pathway is an illusion. The mountain of toys blocks the living room light head on, and throws shadows along the floor, but as soon as he turns into it, it becomes a tunnel of light. Behind him, the sunlight in the living room extends its way to the hallway. Blaine sees square windows lining the walls, as grimy as the living room windows, but letting in more light as the sun moves across the sky. This space is littered with toys on the floor just like in the living room, but less so because here they also hang from the walls.

“Blaine, is that a puppet?” Cooper asks.

Blaine takes a step back. “I think so.”

“Blaine, turn to the puppet on the wall - the one with the red hair.”

Blaine turns toward the wall, where a row of puppets hang from wires by thumbtacks embedded in the plaster.

“That…that looks like an original Howdy Doody puppet. That’s got to be worth some money. What do you say, Blainers?”

“I imagine so,” Blaine agrees, taking off his mask and stuffing it in his pocket for the time being since the air here doesn’t seem as dusty. He’s getting sweaty with that thing on anyway.

“Don’t you know?” Cooper sounds distracted, and Blaine hears Cooper typing again. “Aren’t you all puppet savvy and whatnot?”

“I make puppets,” Blaine corrects his brother, moving on to the next puppet down the line. “I don’t collect them.”

“Same diff,” Cooper comments. “It’s still creepy as hell. Let’s see the next one.”

The next puppet is an animal puppet, but what kind of animal, Blaine can’t really tell. It might be a horse…or a dog…or a bear. It’s a scruff of brown fur with eyes and a pointy snout. He vaguely recognizes it as being from an old kids’ TV show that he saw mentioned in a documentary about Vaudeville performers on PBS. Blaine looks down the length of the wall ahead of him to where it dips back into the semi-darkness and sees additional animal puppets, most of them from the same show.

The hallway leads straight to the dining room. From where Blaine stands, he sees only two pieces of furniture - a round, wooden table sitting right at the entrance, its top covered in newspapers and photo albums; and a matching China cabinet standing up against a far wall. This room, too, is full of toys, stacked on the floor and along the walls, but the boxes of these toys look better cared for, the colors crisper. These toys are newer, Barbie dolls and G. I. Joes from the last thirty or forty years perhaps. There are so many that Blaine can’t pick out one specific doll or action figure from the lot. But this room has one interesting feature that the living room and hallway don’t have.

There are posters all over the walls, framed beneath glass.

“Jesus H...we can open our own toy store with this much crap,” Cooper mumbles, but Blaine ignores him. He points the webcam at the boxes, but his own focus drifts to the posters. They’re hard to see through the inches of dust obscuring his view, but they look like antique theater posters. He leans in close, careful not to breathe and disturb the micro-organisms snoozing away amidst the crud. He narrows his eyelids and tries to make out the words or the pictures, but the sunlight reflects off the glass and into his eyes. He starts thinking of a way to clean the dust off and examine the poster properly, but a chuckle in his earpiece tips him off that his brother has made a new discovery, and Blaine is going to have to investigate.

“Blaine, I’m looking at the floor plan that the realtor emailed me, and there should be two doors in this room – one with a staircase that goes to the upper level, and one with a staircase that goes down to…” A strain of sinister music plays and Blaine puts a hand to his head, squeezing his eyes shut to banish the headache that’s starting to grow – “the basement.”

Blaine opens his eyes and finds the doors quickly, situated between the China cabinet and a shuttered window. He walks to the window and pulls at the clasp on the shutter. The metal hook has rusted completely into the looped eye it’s been buried in for decades, but Blaine shakes the hook back and forth until it slides free. He pulls open the shutters and smiles. This window isn’t as coated in dirt as the others, and now the room is brightly lit.

“So here’s the question,” Coopers rambles on. “Do we send Blaine upstairs to take a look at the bedrooms, or do we send him downstairs to the basement?”

Blaine hears more tinny, old tyme horror music, with dramatic organ notes playing in a minor chord. He can’t help but laugh. This whole thing is ridiculous, but at least Cooper has found his niche in the world.

Blaine opens the doors one at a time. He knows he’s going to be sent to the basement eventually, so he decides to hurry things along. The staircases are pitch black, but the longer he spends in the house, the less perturbing it seems. He feels like he’s being led along, like a hand is guiding him, and when he opens the door revealing a staircase leading down, he wastes no time.

“Hey, wait!” Cooper objects. “We didn’t finish voting!”

“Too late,” Blaine quips, his feet scuttling down the concrete steps. “You took too long.” He jumps off the last step and is encompassed by another sea of pure inky nothingness, but this time he doesn’t hesitate. He feels around the walls, looking for a fuse box as he makes his way deeper into the room. The air down in the basement is colder, less inviting, and the walls are damp, but that sensation of being called is stronger down here.

It feels urgent, and he actually becomes excited by what he might find down here.

Blaine’s hand crawls across the wall until he hits a covered metal box.

“I think I found the fuse box,” Blaine grunts, pulling at the box, trying to find a way to open it. He tugs it left and right with no success. He considers hitting it with his fist, but the cover suddenly pops off and falls to the floor. Inside the box is a single, long-handled switch. Blaine grabs it and pushes it in an attempt to flip it up. It takes a little shimmying before it flies upward with a loud clack.

Blaine leaps back and waits for the lights to come on.

Nothing happens.

He hears a buzz…then a pop.

A bulb blinks overhead – off…on, off……on – its rhythm punctuated by an unnerving spit. The buzzing gets louder. The popping increases in tempo and becomes a hum. The blinking bulb clicks on and starts crackling. Then it burns. The yellow light from that single bulb lights the entire room. When Blaine can finally see without spots dancing in front of his eyes – a side effect of jumping the terminus between dark and bright – his jaw drops.

Down in this dreary basement is a fully-equipped workshop, with several sturdy work benches lined up in rows, each one running the width of the room and covered in tools – newer shop saws, drills, and lathes sitting alongside older, antique picks and files, along with some handmade metal implements. On a final bench pushed up against the far wall are wooden blanks in all shapes and sizes, and bolts of cloth printed in dated patterns. Above it, more puppets hang from pegs on the wall – bare wooden skeletons, some with porcelain heads, unpainted and unfinished.

“Come on, Blaine,” Cooper says, reminding Blaine that he’s not alone, “pan around and let us get a good look. What’s with all the tools?”

Blaine walks toward a saw that has the partial remains of an unfinished cut piece (an arm, maybe a leg) beneath its blade. The saw looks almost brand new, and the wooden appendage appears freshly cut, with a mound of sawdust collected nearby, as though some craftsman might have been working on it yesterday.

“I think” - Blaine moves down the workbench to examine a lathe - “this is a workshop for making puppets.”

“Geesh. This guy must have had a serious puppet fetish.”

“I don’t usually like to agree with you, Coop,” Blaine says with more fascination than disgust, “but you might be right.”

Blaine’s webcam trails over the many benches, holding saws stopped likewise in the middle of unfinished projects. In the corner sits a squat, oblong kiln, about the size of an average nightstand. He runs his fingers over its surface as he passes by. He stops to peruse the contents of cardboard boxes with their tops hanging open. There are more tools, more wood pieces, more body parts and heads than Blaine has ever seen in his lifetime, definitely more than he had to work with in the arts and crafts class he took at McKinley. Blaine lifts the lens to take in the view of the puppets on the walls, the bolts, and then another door. He comes to a full stop and stares at it. He’s drawn to it, but he doesn’t know why. As Blaine walks toward it, he can hear the rustle of papers and the clattering of computer keys on Cooper’s end of the line.

“Uh, Blaine?”

“Yeah? What is it?” Blaine approaches the door as he speaks. He has a strong feeling that what he’s searching for, what’s calling to him, is somewhere behind this door. He reaches out his hand for the knob when Cooper talks again.

“Be careful when you open that door, Blainers.”

There’s a tone in Cooper’s voice that sends a chill down Blaine’s spine.

“Why is that?” Blaine asks, his fingers resting on the doorknob while he waits for an answer.

“Umm…because that door isn’t on the blueprints.”

Blaine’s brow furrows, but he doesn’t remove his hand.

“What do you mean it’s not on the blueprints?”

“That means there isn’t supposed to be a door there, Blaine. No room, no closet, no staircase. It’s not listed, so just…be careful.”

Blaine breathes in sharply and nods. He understands his brother’s trepidation. Homeowners sometimes do unpermitted renovations on their houses, and a lot of them are unsafe, but Blaine feels very sure that he needs to open the door in front of him.

He grabs the doorknob and holds tight, turning slowly.

The action of the tumblers feels smooth, not sticky or rusted like the other fixtures he’s encountered. He turns the knob till he hears everything unwind, and the door gives. It creaks open, swinging outward easily. The light from the basement breaches the opening, and a shaft of it falls on the floor, filling the room to the left and right of it with shadows. Carpet in a deep crimson color covers the ground. Blaine follows the path of the light with his webcam up from the floor and looks further into the room.

Cooper sees it before Blaine does, and lets out a scream of terror.

“H-holy f-fucking shit, Blaine!” he hears Cooper yell into the earpiece. “Oh my God! Are you seeing this? Go back! Go back down!”

Blaine pans down, following the webcam with his eyes, and his heart leaps into his throat.

Lying on the floor at his feet he sees a partially dismembered body, and a smashed in human head.

#klaine fanfiction #klaine fic #klaine #frankie writes

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