#We took the head of a dog and the body of a cop we were messing with nature but nobody said stop we sewed a dog head on a cop bod we were s

[knizuu]

ABJjehbjjhaeeh…

there was a uquiz about info dumping and I think I might’ve manifested too far/silly

[yourgentlegirlfriend]

Soul tied

Hi my babies! New series i am writing and i hope you guys like it i’m super excited to see what you guys think!!

DISCLAIMER!! this is 18+ ONLY, please do not interact with my blog if you are underaged or don’t have age indicator in your bio!! thank you!!

Word count: 1,760

————————————————————————

New assignments were constantly draining. Your job was just draining.

Working for the government was never easy and being as young as you are in your field, your work was always downplayed.

Though you always stayed up late doing paperwork, your messy apartment constantly smelled of coffee. You were always waiting for a new assignment but they never gave you anything. You worked your ass off to prove you’re not just some rookie, years and years of training and physical torture but they refuse to send you anywhere.

You were called to Raccoon City during the aftermath, the mask clinging to your face as you glanced across the literal ash that used to be a big corporate ran city. Having to sign off and confirm death reports put you in the biggest depression of your life but you couldn’t argue, it was your job.

The so called victims of it all worked for separate agencies, having to sign off on their paperwork and confirm they were alive wasn’t easy. Jill Valentine went missing for a while, not by choice but she definitely was ridden by trauma and you couldn’t blame the woman. The second day you came by to check on her she had a note posted on the door

“Alive and well, thanks. -J.V”

And that was enough for you. The one person you couldn’t get a hold of.. Leon Kennedy. Calling everybody you could nobody knew where the boy was. You put the phone back down onto your desk, sighing as you looked at his paperwork, he looked young, with puppy dog eyes and scrapes all over. Where could he have run off to? When it was time to turn in everybody’s paperwork, you had put a bunch of them in separate files but of course, Leons was empty and your boss was not happy but what were you supposed to do? Your boss clicked at his pen a few times before he nodded and sighed

“Right.. he’s training”

He mumbled as he scribbled out Leon’s name on his paper, your eyebrows frowned as you laid the papers down. You may have been nosy but oh well, you cleared your throat, his eyes fixating up to you.

“Training for what?”

Your training took you almost four years. Directly out of high school and even getting into the program alone was another year. It made you feel like you were in the wrong profession. Your dad was a cop, your mom a teacher. So by birth you were set up for two jobs, either working for the police department under your fathers legacy or teaching and you were never the smartest in the family and your mom knew that.

When your parents found out you got a job in the government they were more than happy, how could they not be? They didn't know exact details such as you being employed for the DSO, or how you have seen bodies of things you can’t even describe. You were under oath, and you worked your ass off for them.

“Mission training.”

“What?”

You’re kidding.

“He’s new to the agency and he was already assigned a mission that’s not fair-“

“Are we done here? You don’t get to ask questions for now, you're just an assistant.”

The words that shouldn’t have hurt you as badly as they did. It didn’t matter though, maybe he was right.

All the paperwork you stayed up doing for Raccoon City, when you should’ve been sleeping. The heavy bags under your eyes, the tears, the stress and you thought it would never end, and it didn’t.

—————————————————————-

To many years later.

The sound of your air conditioner turning on made your head rise from your pillow. You don’t even remember falling asleep. Your apartment was a mess as it usually was, paperwork scattered all over your desk and your bed barely made.

A yawn leaves your lips as you stretch, rubbing your eyes. Your feet come up off the floor when your skin realizes just how cold the wood tiles are. The rain hits your window making your eyes fixated on the dark window. What time was it?

Your finger presses at your answering machine, 25 missed calls?

“Call me back, where are you?”

“Call me when you can”

“Fuck..”

You mumbled, grabbing your phone off your desk, quickly dialing your work office number. Being immediately transferred made your heart race faster, your boss’ sigh making you bite at your nails.

“You want an assignment so bad? I got one for you, but you can’t bitch to me about it in five months.”

Your eyebrows frowned as a slight smile tugged at your lips, an assignment for you? The line was silent for a few seconds before your voice filled the void.

“Anything.”

—————————————————————

Anything.

You wish you could go back in time and just go back to sleep.

Instead you stood in the doorway of your boss’ office, arms crossing as you stared at the back of the head of some dirty blonde man in a black long sleeve.

A scoff left your lips as you pulled out the chair beside him, sitting down next to the man. Who you have never met in person but god, did he have a reputation.

Leon Scott Kennedy.

The president's lap dog, who has gotten many more assignments than you have even if you’ve been here much longer than him.

Having to sign his reports from his mission in Spain. How the press praised him and his capability to save Ashley Graham. What a joke, as if he did it by himself. Ada Wong's mystery file always lays so perfectly on your desk. Though you did feel for Kennedy, the virus he contracted and what it did to him and his body. Ashley’s testimony made your heart ache because somebody as innocent as her didn’t need to see such things. She said Leon somehow fought his way through it, and so did she.

You didn’t even notice Leon’s gaze, his head tilted down slightly so he could look at your unamused expression. Seeming bitchy was the least of your intentions genuinely, your lips in a thin line as you blinked at your boss who of course had the biggest smile on his face.

“You wanted an assignment? I gave you one.”

His fingers pressed against the paper in front of you and Leon, sliding it closer to the two of you as you glanced down at the picture of Leon shortly after he came back from Spain.. Though healed, the thick black veins ran up his chest and neck.

Leon shifted uncomfortably, his neck cranking to the side. You know so much about the man and you’ve never heard him speak.

“What does this have to do with anything”

His voice was.. gravely almost. Guilt dipping in your chest due to the fact that you had judged him so deeply.

“A group knows information regarding the virus. A group in New York. Kennedy and you will be escorted. We want information.”

Thankfully Leon was as confused as you were, your eyes finally meeting. He looked exhausted, the bags under his eyes barely hiding the fact that his hair was messy. He was probably so done with all of this.. your head started to fill with thoughts of his Raccoon City file. Your boss words we’re being blurred by your thoughts, your vision coming back into focus.

“Husband and wife”

“What?”

The words leave your lips in a laugh almost, your eyes darting back up to your boss as you scoffed.

“Sorry, I didn’t go through years of training to play house.”

Maybe this was your sign that you weren’t ready for a mission, a commitment so big, your eyes looking down into your lap as he went over the details. A ringing in your ears as you swallowed the lump in your throat, maybe Leon was just more capable. He was stronger, smarter, he obviously had more experience.

The door slamming behind you made you flinch, your attention back to the paperwork in front of you. The sound of Leon scribbling away on the paper filling the room as your shaking hand reached for a pen on the desk.

—————————————————————-

“Here.”

Your head was turned away from the man, staring out the plane window as he sat across from you. The two of you barely spoke, the car ride here and everything. Your eyes ran over his frame before you saw the ring in his hand. The whole situation made you uncomfortable, you’ve never met Leon and now you had to pretend to be his wife. You leaned forward grabbing the ring before slipping it in your finger, your legs crossing again as your eyes shot down to his left hand to see the silver band on his finger as well.

So you were really doing this? Your mission was simple. Get the sample. The facility you’re being transferred to was under the impression that you and Leon were ex umbrella scientists. The two of you have been married since you were twenty. The plan has to be flawed, you had no chemistry.

It would be a lie to say he wasn’t handsome though. It honestly left you shocked that he had grown so much from Raccoon city, it’s like he had a second puberty almost. He must’ve seen you staring, his head turning to you causing you to look down at the ring on your finger, nervously fiddling with it as Leon cleared his throat.

“Don’t be nervous, people can tell when another person is scared.”

Leon spoke as you let your shoulders loosen, cracking your knuckles as the soft chiming of the plane getting ready to land rang through your ears. You two did look expensive, Leon dressed in a black suit, his hands pushing forward a bit so he can adjust the cuffs on his wrist as he stood up from his seat. His hand extends out to you, his jaw tightening as the sigh leaves your lips and you stand holding at his arm. You both made sure your rings were on display, your fingers carefully holding at his upper arm as the two of you stood in front of the opening door.

This was going to be more than difficult. Especially with Kennedy.

[dr-spencer-reids-queen]

Outfoxed: Part One

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~1.9k

Summary: Derek has had enough and decides now is the time to work bringing you home. The team is working on two cases and stretching their agents thin but they'll do anything to bring you back into Spencer's arms.

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill

Season Five Masterlist

Author’s Note: I know I'm going to piss some people off with the way I wrote the trial and the gathering of evidence but remember, this is fiction and it's my story. I'm making it easy and convenient. I know this isn't how trials work.

I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there are any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them.

x

"Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else unless it's an enemy." - Albert Einstein

It's been another month of working hard, trying and failing to see you in prison, and trying to get through days without crying. Spencer so desperately wants to see you that he goes to prison almost every day to see if he can't get you to talk to him. He understands why you don't want to see him but you're supposed to be his other half. You're supposed to push that fear away and face him. He's not going to think less of you because you're in prison for something you didn't do.

He'd be at the prison right now if it weren't for the immediate case he's needed on. An entire family was killed except for the husband who was serving in the Army out of the country. He flew back as soon as he was informed that something had happened. He wasn't given any details so that will be a fun conversation when he touches down.

"How was your weekend?" Emily asks when Spencer arrives at the crime scene.

"Lonely." He hates sleeping alone. "Was the whole family killed?"

"Yeah."

"Hudson, this is Dr. Spencer Reid," Rossi says.

"Hi, I'm field agent Anne Hudson. The father is serving in Iraq. Three nights ago, the cops found his family buried over there."

"Buried?"

"The neighbors heard the dog barking, came over, and found him scratching at the grave. Lucy, their oldest child, was still in her swimsuit," Emily sighs.

"What does the father know?"

"Some of it. He was on patrol. It took his unit a couple of days to reach him. He arrives today."

"Last year, the Williams family was killed and found exactly the same way. They lived in Newport. The father, Dan Williams, was also serving overseas. Now, the police are overwhelmed and getting serious heat from the military. We need some answers fast."

"As do the media," JJ says. "They're already calling this the work of a serial killer."

"They're right. It is."

"Why hurt them, though? It can't be to hide the bodies."

"It's a sign of remorse and when they're done being remorseful, this will happen again."

Hotch and Rossi walk inside while the rest of the team stays outside to discuss the case. Hotch looks over the physical evidence to gather the facts.

"There's no sign of a struggle," Hotch sighs.

"So, the unsub holds a gun to one of her kids' heads. What can she do at that point? I see footprints that belong to Paul. Somehow he managed to get away. Mom gets it first and then the youngest."

"He hides in the master bedroom, the unsub finds him, and shoots him. He carries him out to the backyard, but not the mother. She's dragged out. It's quick and proficient."

"For the mother and the boys, maybe," Hotch responds, "but Lucy's drowned and not shot. Why the change in MO?"

Hotch and Rossi hear planes flying overhead so they rejoin the group outside.

"F-22 Raptors," Derek says to them.

"Yeah, it's about to get way louder and much busier. Tomorrow is Langley's 50th-anniversary air show," Anne informs.

"Where is Dan now? The father of the first family killed."

"He put in for another tour of Iraq. An IED killed him two months ago.

"Whoever did this knew both fathers were serving overseas."

"Laura Downey's wedding rings are missing. Any other valuables that were taken?" Emily asks.

"We'll have to ask the husband. From the Williams' home, only jewelry and watches were missing."

"The unsub only took what he can carry, which means he's most likely on foot," Spencer says.

"There's no sign of sexual assault in the Williams case. What about Lucy?" Rossi asks the field agent.

"Nothing is on the coroner's report. Could there be multiple suspects?"

"The mother was dragged out of the house. If there had been multiple suspects, They probably would have carried her. He knew the father was absent, therefore the dominant threat was absent. So, we could be looking for a single suspect."

"There wasn't any sign of forced entry."

"No need for one. Lucy was in the pool so the back door was opened. The unsub walked right in. Lucy probably died first."

"In both cases, the girls were suffocated and not shot. I don't think it's a coincidence."

Penelope calls JJ and she places her on speakerphone.

"Hey, Garcia. You're on speaker."

"We just got a call from Virginia Supermax Prison. One of the inmates there has received two envelopes in the last two days. The first envelope had clippings of the Newport killings. The second envelope had media clippings of the Downey family. In the second envelope was a note saying, 'Look at what I've done,' and both pieces of mail have been signed by 'an admirer.'"

"Who's the inmate?"

"Karl Arnold."

"The Fox?"

"Yeah."

"It makes sense. Family annihilator, absent father, and wedding rings. It's similar to Karl's killings of eight families four years ago. Just like in this case, he took wedding rings only he took them as trophies. He'd hide in the bushes outside the homes."

"Are we working with a copycat?" Anne asks.

"It's too early to assume anything. It could bias the profile. Not to mention the police, the media, and the military would jump all over it."

"Until we're positive, none of this information leaves the seven of us." Derek looks at Spencer who is staring at the ground. He has a heartbroken look on his face, and Derek decides that enough is enough. "Can I talk to my team alone, Anne?"

"Sure."

"Okay, this is how it's gonna go. We all agree that we need Y/N back. Virginia PD ain't doing shit because they believe they got their suspect behind bars. Her trial is coming up in the next couple of days so if we have any hope of getting her released, we need to work on it." He looks at Hotch's look and shakes his head. "I don't care if Strauss breathes fire up my ass. Hotch, you're going to go to the prison with Prentiss and speak with Karl. You know him better than any of us. Have Garcia check on all of Karl's prison correspondence and visitors for the last four years. JJ and Rossi will work with the media and Virginia PD for this case while the rest of us will work on Y/N's case. We only have a few days but I think we can pull this off. Agreed?"

"Okay, Captain Joseph Downey has arrived back at the station," JJ says.

"We can do this guys. Let's bring her home."

JJ and Rossi split up and head back to the police station while Emily and Hotch get into one of the cars so they can head to the prison where Karl is located. JJ and Rossi meet the Captain in one of the empty conference rooms. He is standing stiffly with his hands behind his back, head held high.

"Captain Downey, please, sit," JJ says.

"Thank you, but I'm fine. Tell me everything."

"Three nights ago around nine-thirty, your neighbors called the police when... Your family..." There is no easy way to put it so Rossi rips the band-aid off. "Captain Downey, your family was murdered. All of them."

The man gasps in pain and falls to the ground in tears.

"Is there someone you'd like us to call?" JJ asks.

"Um, no. No, I, uh, I'd like to go home now."

"Captain Downey. Captain Downey." Rossi tries to help the soldier up but he jerks away from Rossi's touch. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

All he can do is sob for his family and feel guilt that he wasn't there to protect them. He is given time to process and grieve while Rossi and JJ work together since they're the only ones available for this case.

"If this unsub's copying The Fox, then we profile him like The Fox. Karl Arnold worked as a psychologist's assistant, right?"

"Yeah, which made it easy for him to watch, target, and learn about the victims from a distance."

"It also made him hard to find. Like The Fox, our man here found a way to hide in plain sight."

"He's pulling from two completely different units. Williams is a medic and Downey is an army Captain. Someone knew of that military connection."

"Both families were attacked within a month of the fathers being deployed. It gave them time to settle in and get comfortable that the fathers weren't there. Once inside the home, The Fox would live with the families and then become the father. Not this unsub. He just walked in and dispensed with the family. Living with them wasn't part of the fantasy," Rossi explains.

"Agent Rossi," Anne says. "Here is the picture you requested." Rossi saw a place inside the Downey home that housed a picture that he wanted to analyze, and Anne has it. "Thanks to you, we pulled some prints off it. The prints match that of the Newport killings. It's the same killer."

"Family annihilators like The Fox start with one victim. Once they feel capable, they move on to a second victim. They don't start with entire families. There are more victims. We just haven't found them yet."

Penelope calls JJ and she steps off to the side to answer the call.

"Hey, Garcia. Got anything for us?"

"Yeah, Karl had a smattering of visits, a couple of whack jobs contact him, but nothing as direct as this admirer person."

"How are we doing on the prints on the picture?"

"I'm still running them. How are you holding up?"

"Military families always fear the worst. They know their men may not return, but this? To see a father lose so much? It's heartbreaking."

"I wish I had something for you. I truly cannot find a damn thing that connects these families."

"Geographically, both of them are thousands of miles away from their family. Communication's all they had through emails, phone calls, and letters."

"That's military communication for you. Even between families, it requires a kind of juice I'm not allowed to use."

"Come on, you hacked into the FBI database," JJ chuckles.

"And they gave me a job. I like my job. I like my life."

"Alright, I'll make some inquiries."

"Yeah, do that. Take care."

JJ hangs up and walks back to the group which is still talking about the current case.

"So, Lucy dies last and alone. This by itself doesn't really mean anything, but when we look again at the Williams file, we notice that the majority of the foreign fingerprints came from Karen Williams' room, which means the unsub spent most of his time in there with her."

"He must have separated her from the rest of the family," Anne concludes.

"Lucy was already in the pool. That much was done for the unsub. Then, this unsub is driven by some other kind of compulsion, some other need. Hotch was right. This isn't a coincidence. It's a possible signature," Rossi says to JJ. "We need to look at each of the victims as a hub with lives outside of their own families."

"Well, each one of them has their own connections outside the family like school, friends, tutors, and business colleagues. Each one of these people is considered access points back to the family."

"That could take weeks," Anne sighs.

"You have time. From remorse to the desire to kill again, the unsub will go through a gamut of emotions. It could be another year before the unsub feels the desire to kill again."

"As horrific as these crimes are, this city doesn't have the resources to commit that amount of time."

"We have full access to all military records for the fathers," JJ says.

"At least we have access to the main hub between families, the dads."

"Let's find out what connects them."

"I'll let Hotch and Prentiss know," JJ says and walks off.

x

Follow my library blog @aqueenslibrary​​​​​​ where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

[v1nnydinny]

hey! how are u?? sorry if i'm bothering but could u do headcanons of Vance Hopper x Male reader who is like very sweet, kind but also very insecure and sensitive? love your writing!!

have a good day/night<3

Yes sir I gotchu :3

I’m honestly sooo in love with Vance Hopper dude it’s not even funny- Also like- IM SO SORRY FOR IT TAKING SO DAMN LIKE FOR YOU TO GET THIS-😭 I’ve been struggling a lot so I haven’t had the energy to write but please request as my as you want because it will ALWAYS. Get done :3

TW kissing, fighting, cussing- I’m dumb ash so tell me if there’s more

Vance Hopper x male reader headcanons <3

⋆Vance adores how sweet you are, he loves that you’re still sweet and kind even when he’s upset about something. (When’s he not?🥰)

⋆If anyone and I mean anyone. Says anything that even the slightest bit upset you or makes you feel bad about yourself we all already know that persons gonna have a trip to the hospital.

⋆because your his boyfriend? He’s not gonna let anyone make his partner feel bad in any sense.

⋆if he’s ever done/said smth that made you get all sensitive he’d feel really bad. Tho Vance is rude and violent in the movie he still would put his whole life into making sure he never did something to get you in a state like that.

⋆he loves you a lot! You’re the best boyfriend he could ask for!

⋆you guys listen to music all the time together whether it’s blondie, the runaways, kizz, weezer, Joan Jett, The Cramps.

⋆i think his fav song is Cherry Bomb by the runaways. Because who could blame him? It’s an amazing ass song!

⋆Vance definitely likes caramel candy- just had to say that-

⋆again Vance loves how sweet you are. A lot of the time he’ll go to you when upset just to hear your soft voice tell him that everything is okay

⋆he loves seeing your sweet adorable smile.

⋆he loves seeing how sweet and kind you are to others

⋆and ya a lot of people do think your relationship is “weird” because Vance is loud, aggressive and rude and your quiet, soft and sweet

⋆opposites attract 🤷🏻 I don’t make the rules.

⋆if he ever says something that makes you feel insecure he’d feel horrible. He’d be all over you, kiss you everywhere especially where he made you feel insecure and if it’s nothing with your body then he’d kiss your head as a way to “kiss away the thought”

⋆you guys definitely go on walks in the forest.

⋆he buys those bags of gummy’s that have gummy rings in them and he’d take all the gummy rings and purpose to you with them all and put every single one on your fingers.

“My beloved Y/N..will you make me the happiest guy alive and be my husband forever?”

⋆he’d say teasingly and kiss your check/lips after

⋆Vance obviously LOVES dogs. Tiny dogs- big dogs- he loves them!

⋆I can’t really see him as a cat person but at the same time I do….maybe it’s just if the cat is resting on his lap while he does whatever.

⋆one time you and Vance went to the grab ‘n’ go and were getting slushies and someone had randomly pointed at you and laughed an oh boy. They knew what they had coming. Vance set his slushie down and kissed your nose and told you to look away or don’t get close and then went up to the boy and proceeded to beat the ever loving shit out of him and you had to drag Vance out (leaving your slushies behind😔🤙🏻) and run off to hide because the cashier called the cops.

⋆for Valentine’s Day he got you a teddy bear and took you to grab ‘n’ go to get a bunch of snacks you wanted and then you guys would go home and watch movies all night.

⋆for Valentine’s Day one of the things you got him was matching pj pants which he loved-!!

⋆I see you guys baking to together even if he smashes and egg on your head just for the fun of it🥰🤙🏻 but if that upset you in anyway and made you sad he’d apologize and help you clean it out of your hair before giving you a gentle kiss on the hand

⋆gives you lots of piggy back rides and I mean a lot- he also does the thing where he pretends drop you but doesn’t actually, but he’ll stop if you don’t like that

⋆just cuz he loves you sm :)

⋆he sneaks through your window a lot and stays that night, your caregiver wasn’t to happy at first but saw how happy you were and you guys were also so cute sleeping together. They definitely took photos and there’s some around the house in frames.

⋆whenever he doesn’t come over you guys call alllll night!

OMGG!! This was so cute to make:) lmk if I should do more because I so will 🤗

[riskybite]

Heavy rain tonight, the kind of storm that kept anybody with common sense indoors. Warnings had been issued over the radio and this small town had followed them religiously. Buildings barely visible through the rain stood dark and abandoned. Jesse drove slowly, staring past the windshield wipers for any sign of life. It was no use. This was a ghost town and he was driving on a drowning road.

Jesse had to turn back before the road completely flooded. Now you were parked outside the motel again. You stared at some occupied rooms across the lot. Their windows burned with an inviting light through the rain. You knew there were beating hearts inside those rooms. You wanted to devour them.

Your hunger set your teeth on edge. Normally you sat right beside Jesse while he drove, your head resting on his shoulder or your fingers entwined with his in your lap. But this stabbing hunger made you tense, too restless to endure touch. You sat far away from him, your face all but pressed up against the glass while you stared at those glowing windows like a starved dog.

Jesse allowed you your space, but kept his arm draped across the back of the bench seat, his fingers within reach of you. He held his jaw clenched tight. It was the only indication that he was every bit as hungry as you.

“Can’t we hunt here?” you said. Jesse had a rule about not hunting in the motels you stayed at, but you hoped he’d break that rule tonight. “Please, Jesse.”

He shook his head. “Storm might blow over by mornin’,” he said. “Somebody could find the bodies then. There’d be cops nosin’ around our room in the daylight. I can’t risk that.”

Hunger ate through your insides like acid. You hadn’t known it could hurt this bad. You bit down hard on your bottom lip. You had to taste blood. Even if it was your own.

Jesse caught the scent and snapped his head towards you. His eyes pinned you down. “Don’t go wastin’ what’s mine,” he said.

You knew he meant your blood. He liked to say it was his, when his mouth was smeared with it in the hours before dawn, when you lay in bed together after a night spent hunting.

“I’m just so hungry,” you said.

Jesse wore a water canteen on a leather strap over his shoulder. Sometimes he filled it with the blood of fresh prey, but you’d never seen him actually drink from it. He picked it up now and twisted off its cap. An awful stench hit you.

It was the blood inside the canteen. It was cold. Without the warmth of a fresh kill, the blood stunk of something stale and rotten. You shrunk back in your seat, your shoulder pressed against the car door, desperate to escape the stench of death.

“It tastes like hellfire goin’ down,” Jesse said, “but it’s better than starvin’.”

He took a swig from the canteen and nearly retched on the first swallow. Somehow he forced more of it down his throat. He could only endure a few more swallows before he yanked the canteen from his lips. He twisted the cap on tight to choke off the smell of rot.

You knew it was your turn. This was the only blood you were getting tonight. You reached for the canteen with a reluctant hand.

“No,” Jesse said. “You ain’t drinkin’ this.”

He shoved the canteen into the backseat before he reached over and pulled you onto his lap. Your thighs straddled his hips easily. He pulled you into this position often. He stared up at you in his unblinking way and tilted his head, offering you his neck.

You hesitated. You’d always bitten Jesse in teasing or in play. This time would be different. This wasn’t play. This was hunger. What if you bit too hard? What if you couldn’t stop?

“Go on,” he said.

“It’s not fair to make you carry me,” you said. It was something Jesse had told you that first night you’d been turned. You had to hunt for yourself. He wasn’t going to carry you.

Jesse’s fingers dug into the small of your back, pulling you closer against him. His long fingernails caught in your clothes and scratched you softly. “Jus’ fer tonight,” he said, “I’ll carry ya as far as ya need to go. Now, go on. Don’t make me tell ya again.”

Rain battered against the car roof. The sound deafened you as you sunk your teeth into his neck. You felt his fingers in your hair, holding you against his throat, his silent blessing for you to feed as deeply as you needed. The drumming sound of the downpour outside began to fade, replaced by the drumming of his heartbeat in your mouth. His blood was yours. It was the closest Jesse had ever come to saying he loved you.

[kaikaidenkai]

Stupid decisions get you in stupid situations CH.3|| who the fuck is this bozo?

Stupid decisions get you in stupid situations… or in which [Name] gets themself in a stupid situation, getting hit by Truck-kun which was their own fault. They transported themself into the world of their favorite anime they’ve just finished watching the last episode on, Bungo Stray Dogs. Italics with “” around it= spoken in japanese

Italics with no “” = thoughts

BSD X G/N READER

—————————————————————————

You talked to Atsushi for the rest of the train ride, making small talk. At least you’ve somewhat gained the trust of him? After getting off the train, you three made your way to the area Ranpo was called to. You were standing beside Atsushi who was standing behind him(Ranpo).

”We don’t need private investigators on this.”

Minor— I mean Minoura said.

“That’s ridiculous. Every difficult case should be overseen by a master detective like me.”

“We don’t need private investigators on this, because the victim was a cop who worked for me.”

”Eh…”

“Uh..”

You and Atsushi mumbled behind Ranpo. Why’re you even here again? Oh right, because a truck slammed into you that you would’ve been able to avoid if you hadn’t made the stupid decision to blast your music through your head phones which “isekai’d” you into this fictional world— also because Kunikida sent you here to get watched on for some reason.

that was a really long sentence.

The man took off the thing that was covering the body of the victim, there was blood on her chest which stained her clothes. Her hair was wet and damp, her mouth being slightly open.  This was.. your first time seeing a dead body. The smell was horrid and you grimaced at the sight of the cold corpse. Everyone was gathered around the victims body, Atsushi had his hand over his mouth as Ranpo took off his hat. 

”The victim’s a lady.”

Ranpo spoke.

”Yes, sir. Her body was found floating in the river this morning.”

A random ahh cop replied.

”She was shot three times in the chest. We don’t know where or when she was killed. We haven’t found the bullets either.”

Minoura said.

”Any suspects?”

”Not yet. As far as anyone in the office knew, she wasn’t in a relationship. So we doubt it’s a jealous lover.”

”Very interesting. So does that mean you don't have any leads?”

”That’s more the reason why we can’t let some amateur private eye can handle this”

A police officer then shouted,

”Hey! Looks like the nets caught something!”

”They put out nets?

Atsushi asked.

”Yeah, the net’s strung across the water. Standard practice to dredge evidence from the river.”

The random ahh cop from earlier responded.

”Look over there! It’s a man!”

Another cop shouted.

”Do you think it’s a second victim?”

You shook your head even though he wasn’t talking to you— knowing full well who it was. Atsushi just turned to you when you did so but didn’t say a thing. 

Everyone approached to what was caught jn the river, which was… a man.. Dazai Osamu who was fully well and alive.

”Eh…”

”Erm…”

Everyone sweat dropped upon seeing who it was.

”Hello, Atsushi. This is quite the strange coincidence.”

”Don’t tell me you tried to drown again, Osamu…”

”Don’t be silly. Committing suicide alone? That’s so passé these days. I have made a decision that if I am going to end everything, I’ll do it with a beautiful woman! Ah, double suicide! What a sweet ring it has. By comparison, it feels so empty to think about bidding farewell to this world all by my lonesome. That’s my new plan! I’m on the lookout for a passionate and suicidal woman to die with me!”

Dazai yapped.

”But how’d you get caught in the net?”

Dazai completely ignored Atsushi’s question and asked one of his own, planning to answer his later.

”Oh? And who’s this?”

You barely could understand what everyone was saying but was able to put two and two together with the few words you did understand.

”I’m [Name].”

Was all you said before Atsushi went to explain why you’re with them.

”They appeared in the ADA while we were cleaning out of thin air.. Kunikida said for them to come with us so I can keep a close eye on them. Though… they don’t seem like a threat.”

Was that an insult saying you look weak or a compliment which means he trusts you enough to think you won’t do any harm?.

MASTERLIST

[aghost-writer]

Between Pages

Chapter 6

This is a Yandere Bungo Stray Dogs x Female Reader Fic!

MDNI!!

Kunikida assigned Atsushi to accompany Ranpo on a murder case, a task that left Atsushi with mixed feelings. Despite the praise heaped upon Ranpo for his uncanny ability to solve the most baffling mysteries, Atsushi was still a bit skeptical. After all, Ranpo seemed oddly clueless about even the most basic tasks. His suspicions only deepened when, on their way to the crime scene, Ranpo sheepishly admitted he didn’t know how to take the train. 

“Seriously? You’ve never taken a train?” Atsushi asked, raising an eyebrow in disbelief.

Ranpo shrugged, his green eyes glinting with mischief. “Not really my style, you know? But I guess I could learn.”

Despite his reservations, Atsushi found himself helping Ranpo navigate the station, guiding him through the ticketing process and the hustle and bustle of the platforms. Watching Ranpo fumble with the train schedule and look around in confusion, Atsushi couldn’t help but feel a mix of confusion and awe. This was the master detective, yet he was utterly clueless when it came to something as mundane as public transportation.

As they finally boarded the train, Ranpo leaned back against the seat, a satisfied smile on his face. “See? Easy-peasy!” he declared, as if conquering the train ride was a significant achievement. Atsushi just shook his head, half-amused and half-concerned about what lay ahead.

When they arrived at the crime scene, Ranpo took Y/N’s hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She walked beside him in silence, her calming presence a stark contrast to the tension that hung in the air. As they approached the police blockade, however, Ranpo’s carefree attitude shifted dramatically.

Officer Minoura, a stern-looking man with a hawkish demeanor, stepped forward, arms crossed. “You’re late, Agents. And who is this?” he demanded, his eyes narrowing suspiciously as they landed on Y/N. “Where’s Yasui?”

“I’m Minoura,” he continued before they could answer. “I took over from Yasui. This case has been reassigned to our division, so we no longer need you or your agency.”

Ranpo, unfazed, waved his hand dismissively. “That’s ridiculous. Every difficult case should be overseen by a master detective like me,” he declared, his tone dripping with confidence.

Minoura scoffed, his gaze hardening. “We won’t need private investigators on this because the victim was a cop who worked for me.”

Atsushi blinked, the weight of the situation beginning to sink in. “The victim’s…a lady?” 

“Yes, sir,” Minoura replied, his voice laced with cold professionalism. “Her body was found floating in the river this morning. She was shot three times in the chest. We don’t know where or when she was killed, and we haven’t found the bullets.”

Ranpo’s eyes gleamed with interest as he leaned in, his curiosity piqued. “Any suspects?”

“Not yet. As far as anyone at the office knew, she wasn’t in a relationship, so we doubt it was a jealous lover.”

“Very interesting,” Ranpo replied smoothly. “So does that mean you don’t have any leads?”

Minoura clenched his fists in frustration. “That’s all the more reason why we can’t let some amateur private eye handle this.”

Just then, a nearby officer called out, “Hey! Looks like the nets caught something!”

Everyone turned to see what was happening. “They put out nets?” Atsushi asked, his brow furrowing.

Minoura nodded, his expression grim. “Yeah, the net’s strung across the water. Standard practice to dredge evidence from the river.”

“Look over there! It’s a man!” another officer shouted.

Atsushi gasped, his heart sinking as he recognized the figure floating in the river, entangled in the net. “Hello, Atsushi,” called out Dazai, his trademark smirk in place as he shook the water from his hair. “This is quite the strange coincidence. Don’t tell me you tried to drown again, Osamu…”

Dazai’s playful demeanor only intensified. “Don’t be silly. Committing suicide alone? That’s so passé these days. I’ve made a decision that if I’m going to end everything, I’ll do it with a beautiful woman! Ah, double suicide! What a sweet ring it has.”

Atsushi sighed, shaking his head. “I see.”

But Dazai’s attention shifted as he noticed Y/N standing silently beside Ranpo. His eyes narrowed, and in a fluid motion, he reached out to take her free hand, his grip firm yet gentle. “Excuse me, Ranpo,” he said, a glint of mischief in his gaze. “Mind if I borrow her?”

Ranpo’s grip on Y/N’s hand tightened, making it clear he wasn’t about to let go. “Don’t be silly,” he replied, meeting Dazai’s gaze with an almost defiant calm. “I’m not a two-bit detective. I don’t need an assistant.”

Dazai chuckled, his tone playfully challenging. “Oh? Then I suppose you don’t mind if I step in?” 

Y/N’s gaze flickered between the two of them, still silent but acutely aware of the tension simmering in the air. Ranpo’s fingers remained wrapped firmly around her hand, while Dazai held her other hand in a soft yet steady grip.

“Anyway,” Ranpo continued, turning back to Minoura with a dismissive air, “I’ll handle the case from here.”

Minoura’s expression hardened further. “I’m tired of all your jabber. You can’t crack hard cases just with deduction. Cases are solved through investigation: interviewing persons of interest and closely analyzing the crime scene.”

Ranpo smirked, an eyebrow raised. “Uh-huh? You’ve got a pretty thick skull. Great detectives don’t do ‘investigations.’ My ability, Ultra-Deduction, can instantly identify the killer.”

Minoura raised an eyebrow, skeptical. “Really? Then let’s have a look at it.”

Ranpo adjusted his glasses, shooting Atsushi a quick nod. “Watch closely, Atsushi. This is the ability that keeps the Agency going.”

As soon as Ranpo donned his glasses, his entire demeanor shifted, an intensity replacing his earlier nonchalance. “The killer,” he declared with a sharp edge to his voice, “is you.”

Gasps erupted from the officers, Minoura included. “What?!”

Ranpo pointed directly at Sergeant Sugimoto, whose face drained of color. “You’re the killer. You murdered her.”

Sugimoto’s expression turned incredulous. “Ridiculous! I’m not a killer!”

Ranpo’s smile was chillingly calm, a predator locking onto its prey. “Then hand me your gun. Let’s see if it’s missing three bullets.”

Sugimoto’s silence spoke volumes. His fingers twitched, his breathing quickening as he began to back away, but Atsushi and Dazai stepped in to block his escape route. “Running won’t help,” Ranpo said, his voice low and unyielding. “I already know the murder took place early yesterday morning at the abandoned shipyard upstream. We’ll find your footprints there, along with the bloodstains you tried and failed to erase.”

Sugimoto’s gaze darted around, searching for an exit, but there was none. Defeated, he sagged, the fight draining from him like water through a sieve.

With the case effectively solved, Dazai released Y/N’s hand, but not without a lingering glance that spoke of possessiveness. He turned to Ranpo, his expression thoughtful. “Not bad, Ranpo.”

Ranpo, still holding Y/N’s hand tightly, met Dazai’s gaze with a triumphant smile. “What did you expect from a master detective?”

As the tension began to ease, a new undercurrent of competition emerged between the two men, both of them vying for Y/N's attention. Each seemed to harbor a desire to protect her while simultaneously displaying their prowess in front of her. Dazai’s smirk had a hint of possessiveness, while Ranpo’s confidence was almost palpable.

Y/N watched them both, sensing the change in atmosphere. They were becoming more than just rivals in investigation; they were turning into something much more intense, fueled by a growing obsession with her presence. The realization sent a shiver down her spine, but at the same time, it thrilled her. She was at the center of their world, a fact that made her feel both powerful and vulnerable.

As the officers began to disperse, Y/N found herself caught between the two detectives, each of whom had their own ways of demonstrating their newfound yandere tendencies. Ranpo, with his casual confidence and unwavering dedication to the case, made her feel secure. Dazai, with his charismatic charm and unpredictable nature, drew her in like a moth to a flame.

In that moment, Y/N realized that the story she had stumbled into was far more intricate and dangerous than she had anticipated. The stakes were high, but she couldn’t deny the excitement that coursed through her veins. She was no longer just an observer; she was a vital part of the plot, and whatever happened next, she would face it head-on with both Ranpo and Dazai at her side.

The air in the interrogation room was heavy with a tense quiet, clinging to every corner and filling every breath. Sugimoto sat hunched over the table, his fingers wound tightly together, bloodless. He looked as though the weight of the world bore down on him. Minoura’s eyes narrowed, anger simmering beneath his professional composure, but he held back, staying silent.

Ranpo, however, was calm and detached, leaning back with an almost casual air. He hadn’t once let go of Y/N’s hand, his fingers laced firmly with hers, as though he needed to remind her of his presence. Every now and then, his grip would tighten slightly—a subtle reminder of his unyielding resolve. Dazai stood beside her, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder, occasionally tightening around her free hand in silent reassurance. He glanced between Ranpo and Sugimoto, analyzing and missing nothing.

Finally, Sugimoto spoke, his voice cracked and trembling, thick with guilt and regret. “It was never my plan… I never wanted to…” He swallowed, his voice breaking. “Yamagiwa… she thought she was following leads in a small-time corruption case. But she found something far worse—something involving a powerful, connected politician who had everything to lose.”

Ranpo’s gaze sharpened, though he remained silent, allowing Sugimoto to continue.

“He had a mole on the force—someone to destroy any evidence that came close to him,” Sugimoto said, eyes downcast. “I was that mole. I wanted to become a police officer more than anything, but I’d failed the entrance exam three times. I was desperate, broken. And he found me.” He took a shaky breath, his voice barely above a whisper. “He used his influence to make me a cop, but the price was reporting to him, following his orders. I… I didn’t have a choice.”

Minoura’s face twisted with contempt, but he allowed the confession to continue. Y/N felt her own anger stirring, though she kept her expression steady, grounded by the reassurance of both Ranpo and Dazai’s hands anchoring her.

Sugimoto’s voice grew firmer, tinged with desperation. “When I realized Yamagiwa was getting too close, I tried to warn her. I didn’t want her to get hurt. But she wouldn’t listen. She was relentless, determined. She wouldn’t back down, even when I told her he’d have her killed if she didn’t drop it.”

A memory flickered across his face, and his voice softened. “She looked me in the eyes and said, ‘Then I’ll just have to take him seriously, too.’ She didn’t care about the risk; she was brave, so brave…” He trailed off, his gaze distant.

Ranpo’s voice cut through the silence, startling Sugimoto back to the present. “And yet, you did nothing to stop it. In fact, you took it upon yourself to try and take that evidence from her.” His voice was cold, detached, as if he were examining a specimen. He never released Y/N’s hand, his thumb tracing small, calming circles.

Sugimoto winced, gaze dropping to his hands. “I thought… I thought I could protect her. I tried to get her to hand over the evidence, but she wouldn’t. I even threatened to kill myself if she didn’t give it to me.” His voice was bitter, laced with self-loathing. “She didn’t believe me. She called my bluff. And then… I don’t even know how it happened. I tried to pull the gun from her, to take it away before she could use it on herself or me, but…” His voice broke. “The gun went off.”

A heavy silence fell, thick and suffocating. Sugimoto’s shoulders shook, and for a moment, he looked utterly broken. “I didn’t mean to… I swear, I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

Ranpo’s gaze remained cold. “But you did,” he said bluntly. “And when you realized what you’d done, you called him. You called the man who’d made you his puppet. And he told you to clean up the mess, didn’t he?”

Sugimoto’s face paled, eyes widening as Ranpo continued, relentless. “He told you to make it look like a Mafia hit. To fire two more bullets into her chest, to cover up the initial shot. And then, you set her adrift in the river, hoping the water would carry away your sins along with her body.” Ranpo’s voice was steady, unwavering, yet there was a strange gentleness in his tone, as if he understood Sugimoto’s despair but had no room for pity.

Sugimoto’s face contorted, a tear sliding down his cheek. “I’m sorry… so sorry,” he whispered, his voice barely audible.

Ranpo leaned forward, his gaze piercing. “Those were her last words, weren’t they?” His voice was soft, almost compassionate. “She looked at you, and she said, ‘I’m sorry.’”

Sugimoto choked, a strangled sob escaping him. He nodded, unable to speak, his face twisted in agony as he relived that moment over and over.

Minoura finally spoke, his tone laced with disgust and a hint of pity. “And now you have to live with that,” he said quietly. “Your loyalty cost her life, Sugimoto. But maybe… maybe you can help make things right.”

Sugimoto lifted his head, his eyes hollow, defeated. “The evidence she gathered… it’s in my desk drawer. Everything she found.”

Minoura’s expression softened slightly, though his tone remained cold. “Thank you,” he said, begrudging but sincere. He turned to Ranpo, his pride struggling to accept the truth. “I… I was wrong to doubt your abilities. If we ever have another case like this… I’ll come to you first.”

Ranpo smiled, satisfaction flickering across his face. “Oh, you’ll need my Ultra-Deduction sooner than you think,” he replied with a smirk, casting a sidelong glance at Minoura. “I might even give you a discount.”

Minoura managed a faint nod, avoiding looking too relieved. The tension had eased, but the room still felt heavy with Sugimoto’s confession.

As they left the station, Ranpo’s grip on Y/N’s hand didn’t loosen, his fingers intertwined with hers as if he needed the contact. Dazai, still holding her other hand, broke the silence with a light, almost playful tone. “You know, Ranpo, if you’re that reluctant to let her go, we might just have to take turns.”

Ranpo didn’t respond, but his grip on Y/N’s hand tightened, his smug smile an answer in itself. Y/N could only shake her head, caught between two men whose rivalry seemed endless—both, for reasons known and unknown, unable to let her go.

Chuuya stepped quietly through the threshold of the small, sparsely decorated studio apartment, taking in the surroundings with a keen eye. Breaking in had been effortless—almost embarrassingly so. The lock on the door hadn’t put up much of a fight; he’d simply jimmied it open in seconds, slipping into her personal space as though he’d been invited. A faint smirk played at his lips, a sense of smug satisfaction filling him. If she thought she could hide from him, she was mistaken. Chuuya Nakahara didn’t play games—he won them.

The apartment was almost disappointingly ordinary. A neatly made bed took up one corner of the room, a modest desk stood against the wall with a stack of papers and a laptop, and the kitchenette was tidy and minimalistic. There was a palpable lack of character in the space—no decorations, no personal photos, no sentimental objects scattered around. It was all painfully nondescript. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but somehow he’d thought he’d learn more about her by stepping into her home.

He moved cautiously through the apartment, letting his sharp eyes scan every inch of it for any sign of… well, anything. His gaze lingered on the desk for a moment before he moved closer, his fingers ghosting over the papers. Grocery lists, work schedules, mundane reminders—nothing that pointed to him or even hinted at a personal life beyond routine. He frowned, flipping through them with a growing sense of frustration.

With a sigh, he tried the laptop, pressing a key to wake the screen. A password prompt glowed back at him, which he closed immediately, a smirk pulling at his lips. Smart girl.She wasn’t going to make this easy. He closed the laptop and moved on.

The bookshelf drew his attention next, and he approached it, scanning the titles with a faint glimmer of interest. Classics, poetry, and a few mystery novels. He pulled out a well-worn copy of a novel and flipped through it absently, as though expecting a hidden message or a slip of paper to fall out. The pages were well-loved, some dog-eared to mark favorite passages, but there was nothing of substance.

“What are you hiding, huh?” he muttered under his breath, slipping the book back into place. The frustration was beginning to bubble up in him now. She’d walked into his life as if she knew him, had left him with more questions than answers, and now there wasn’t a single hint of anything personal to tie her to. It was like she’d meticulously erased herself from her own life.

He shifted his attention to the dresser. In the top drawer, neatly folded clothes greeted him: plain T-shirts, a couple of blouses, all washed and unremarkable. As he shifted through them, he felt a strange tension. Why was he even here, hoping to find something so intimate that it would reveal her secrets to him? He pushed a couple of shirts aside, his fingertips brushing something soft and delicate—underwear, folded neatly at the back.

A flush of heat crawled up the back of his neck, and he froze, his hand hovering over the pile. For a second, his mind told him to shut the drawer, to step back, to respect whatever boundaries he hadn’t already crossed. But a rush of impulse took over, and his fingers pinched a lacey pair, pulling it from the drawer. He could feel his heartbeat quicken, his pulse thundering in his ears. The sheer absurdity of what he was doing struck him, yet he didn’t stop himself.

Chuuya stood there for a moment, the underwear held loosely in his hand, almost as if it were a fragile secret she’d unintentionally shared with him. There was no reason to take it—no logic to this—but he found himself folding the lace into his pocket anyway, as if it would somehow give him a piece of her he could hold onto, even if it made no sense.

“Guess I’m not as rational as I thought,” he murmured, almost to himself, a wry smile tugging at his lips.

Closing the drawer, he cast another look around the room, searching for anything that might lead him to answers about who she really was. Why did she know him? Why did she approach him? And why did she insist on keeping her life such a blank slate? He needed something—anything—that might offer a glimpse behind the carefully controlled surface.

He turned toward the window, noting a small hairpin left sitting on the sill. It was simple, with a tiny pearl at the end. He picked it up, turning it over between his fingers, feeling the weight of it. It was so delicate and small, easily overlooked, just like she seemed to be. He pocketed the hairpin, too, a memento of sorts, something to remind him that she was real and not just a figment of his curiosity.

Chuuya took another slow look around the apartment, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the room one final time. There was something profoundly unsettling about the emptiness of her space. No photographs, no handwritten notes, nothing to show she’d even lived here, aside from the few basic necessities. It was almost as though she’d intentionally erased herself from her own life.

Frustrated, he glanced at her bed, catching sight of a small journal tucked beneath the pillow. Finally—a potential lead. He crossed the room in two swift strides, his hand reaching under the pillow to pull it out. The journal was plain, with no name or distinguishing marks, just a well-used notebook. He thumbed through it, only to find it filled with fragments—scribbled notes, poetry lines, and a few scrawled observations. None of them mentioned him by name, but he could sense her voice through them. The words seemed like pieces of a puzzle, hints of a person who guarded herself with an unusual intensity.

With a frustrated sigh, he closed the journal and slid it back under the pillow. It told him something, perhaps, but not enough. She was guarded, careful—someone who was hiding, but from what or whom? And why did he care so much?

He found himself at the door, feeling both empty-handed and more driven than ever. She’d pulled him into her world, and yet left him standing at the edge with no way in. A challenge, perhaps. Or maybe that was all she’d meant for him to have—a single, brief encounter, a fleeting mystery.

Pulling his coat a little tighter around him, he glanced once more at the room, noting the few subtle traces of her he’d found. The lace in his pocket felt oddly significant, almost like a secret only he knew. And the hairpin, too—small, delicate, a reminder that she was more than the enigma she’d projected.

With a final sigh, he closed the door softly behind him and slipped out into the night, his mind spinning with questions that he wasn’t sure he’d ever find answers to.

Y/N walked alongside Dazai and Atsushi as they headed back to the agency, the weight of Dazai’s hand wrapped around hers a constant, comforting presence. Dazai had grabbed her hand earlier without so much as a word, his grip firm yet gentle, and he showed no signs of letting go. She could still feel the warmth of his skin against hers, grounding her amidst the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions swirling in her mind.

Ranpo had already gone on ahead after ensuring she was safe, calling over his shoulder with his usual confidence that he’d see her at the agency soon. She was already starting to miss his presence and his comforting energy, but Dazai’s touch somehow reassured her. Though, from the looks of things, Ranpo hadn’t been thrilled about Dazai’s hold on her. She could almost imagine the irritated look in his eyes.

Beside her, Atsushi’s awe-filled voice broke her thoughts. “What Ranpo did back there was amazing. I had no idea he’d figure everything out so quickly,” he said, his voice filled with admiration. “His Ultra-Deduction ability is truly incredible.”

Dazai gave a soft chuckle, his eyes twinkling. “Yes, but I might’ve figured out half of it too,” he teased, his tone light but carrying an edge that made Y/N glance up at him curiously.

Atsushi blinked, surprised. “Half of what?”

“The case we just finished,” Dazai replied smoothly, shrugging with an air of nonchalance. “I know pretty much how Ranpo figured it all out.”

Atsushi furrowed his brows. “Well… maybe, but he said his ability lets him solve cases instantly…”

“Oh, that’s right.” Dazai’s smile widened, a glimmer of mischief in his gaze. “I keep forgetting you don’t know the truth about him yet, Atsushi.” He paused for dramatic effect, glancing sideways at Atsushi before continuing, “You see, the truth is… Ranpo doesn’t actually have an ability.”

Atsushi’s eyes widened, his expression one of complete shock. “Wait… what?!”

Dazai’s grip on Y/N’s hand tightened ever so slightly, as if sharing a private joke with her. He tilted his head toward Atsushi, still wearing that enigmatic smile. “Ranpo’s a rare breed. Despite what he says, he’s an un-gifted member of the Armed Detective Agency.”

“But…” Atsushi struggled to process the revelation, glancing from Dazai to Y/N, almost as if seeking confirmation.

Y/N offered him an encouraging nod. She’d read all about Ranpo’s extraordinary powers of deduction and his insistence on calling it an ability, despite it being pure intellect. Seeing that knowledge play out before her, watching the shock ripple across Atsushi’s face—it made the moment feel even more surreal.

Dazai continued, his tone thoughtful. “Ranpo actually believes he’s using an ability. But the truth is, he’s just that brilliant. His mind works in ways the rest of us can hardly imagine. And here’s a little secret…” He leaned closer to Atsushi, lowering his voice as if he were sharing a closely guarded secret. “I even tested it out today.”

“You… tested it?” Atsushi asked, blinking.

“While he was ‘using’ his Ultra-Deduction, I was secretly pinching his hair behind him,” Dazai said with a mischievous grin. “As you know, my ability neutralizes anyone’s powers if I touch them. But Ranpo’s deduction didn’t waver one bit.”

Atsushi’s jaw practically dropped. “So… it really isn’t an ability?”

Dazai nodded. “Ranpo’s deductions are entirely his own. Pure intellect, no supernatural boost. That’s what makes him so remarkable. Even though he’s childish at times, he’s a man the rest of us respect deeply because of what he can accomplish.”

Y/N couldn’t help but feel a swell of admiration for Ranpo. The way he saw and deduced so many details that others might miss—it was almost like a superpower in its own right. She gave Dazai’s hand a squeeze, feeling her heart skip as he returned the gesture, as if silently acknowledging her thoughts.

“So then, how did he figure out that Sugimoto was the one who committed the murder?” Atsushi asked, still clearly amazed. “And the details of how he did it?”

Dazai smirked, leading them down another street. “Well, I pieced it together myself, so I’d say it’s more about paying attention to the details. Take Sugimoto’s comments, for instance: he mentioned the shots he’d fired to make it look like a Mafia hit. But no one would assume multiple shots unless they knew the victim had been killed by the first. So, it was obvious that Sugimoto knew more than he should.”

Atsushi listened intently, nodding as he processed the explanation.

“And then there was the condition of the body,” Dazai continued. “Ranpo figured out it had only been in the river for a short time, maybe a day at most. The fact that the victim was dressed hastily, without makeup, also told him the time of the murder—early morning. It all added up.”

Atsushi’s awe grew as Dazai unraveled each layer of Ranpo’s deductions. “But there were other details, too… like how he knew what her final words were,” Atsushi murmured, almost to himself.

Dazai chuckled, a rare, soft laugh. “Ah, that was easy. You see, she had an expensive wristwatch—an import she wouldn’t normally afford on her salary. Sugimoto had the same brand, only the men’s version. She trusted him enough to meet without makeup, wearing matching watches. She loved him, and he loved her too… enough to follow his orders, even though it went against his instincts.” He sighed, his expression shifting slightly, almost as if he were seeing something far off.

Y/N looked up at him, catching a glimpse of the man beneath his usual carefree mask. This was Dazai in his truest form—deeply perceptive, able to understand the darker sides of human nature. It was moments like this that made her realize how layered he truly was, and her heart thudded a bit faster.

Atsushi looked away, slightly shaken but impressed. “So, it was pure deduction… nothing supernatural at all. And yet, Ranpo’s managed to solve so many cases like this.”

Dazai nodded, his gaze turning back to Y/N. “The city’s safer because of his work, his mind. Not everyone can comprehend that kind of brilliance, Atsushi. We’re lucky to have him.”

Before she could stop herself, Y/N whispered, “He truly is a great man.” She meant every word, admiring Ranpo’s gift for what it was: an ability that came solely from his intellect and intuition. But as she spoke, she could feel Dazai’s hand tighten around hers again, his gaze sharper, holding something more—something possessive.

They continued in silence for a while before Dazai chuckled softly. “Well, all’s well that ends well for us, don’t you think?” he murmured, his eyes flicking to Y/N’s.

She felt a sudden flush, glancing down at their joined hands. Despite the light-hearted tone, there was an undeniable intensity between them, a tension lingering that neither dared break.

[alaydabug2]

Once more based on one of my theories

(Keefe Pov)

Based on one of my theories

I am FEELING the Keefe Forbidden cities angst rn

Forgive me 🤭

Keefe trudged through the muddy park. It was raining, cold, and windy. He was miserable.

He attempted to pull the hood over his head as he made it to a bench to sit on. He sat on it with a squish that made him cringe.

He didn't know where else to go. He managed to get a hold of some money, but he was too afraid to speak to get a hotel room.

He used his bag as a pillow and laid down. He curled his knees into his chest as he shivered violently. When he breathed out, he could see his breath.

No matter how hard Keefe tried, he couldn't fall asleep. So he sat there in the rain.

In the distance, he could see a few people with an umbrella. Boy, was he jealous. That's when he realized they were staring at him. He tugged the hood over his face.

They still were staring at him. One of them pulled out a weird device and seemed to be talking into it.

When they were done, they still sat there for a moment more before walking away. Keefe let out a relieved breath.

That was, of course, until he saw sirens.

The police car pulled into the parking lot. Two cops stepped out of the car and made their way over to Keefe. That made him nervous.

"Hey kid," the male officer said. "What are you doing out here."

Keefe curled up tighter and looked at the ground. He didn't want to accidentally give the cop a command.

The female asked him, "How old are you?"

He hesitated before he said, "Sixteen."

She nodded. "You live with your parents?"

Keefe shook his head.

"On your own out here?" The male officer asked.

Keefe nodded.

The officer looked to his partner. He waved to Keefe to follow them. "Alright, come with us, kid. We're getting you off the streets."

Keefe's eyebrows shot up. He gathered up his bag and let the cops take him into the car.

On the ride to the police station, the female officer started to talk into another device.

"Hey, we've got a sixteen year old boy here that needs to be taken into child protective services. He was found out in the rain trying to sleep on a bench in the park. He doesn't really speak much, usually answers with body movements. Can we find a foster home for him tonight?"

Child protective services? What was that? And where were they taking him? And foster. Were they related to Sophie?

His breathing turned quick. He didn't want anyone to take him anywhere.

The male officer turned to ask him, "You alright back there? You're shaking. If you're cold, I can turn off the A/C."

Keefe just nodded so he would stop asking questions.

They pulled into the station. Keefe was made to wait in the waiting room. He was afraid to speak, but he needed to know what was going on.

He hesitantly approached the receptionist. He cleared his throat, needing that extra second to make sure it wouldn't come out as a command.

"Excuse ma'am?" His voice was scratchy. "Can you tell me what's going on, please?"

"Oh, of course," she said. "We're just waiting on the foster family to come pick you up. You'll be staying with them for the next night or two before we can find something a little more permanent. They have a middle schooler, an elementary age kid, and a dog. That won't be an issue, will it?"

Keefe shook his head. "No, it won't be. Thank you."

He went to go back and wait in his seat. Thirty minutes later, a car pulled into a parking lot, and a couple stepped out of it. They hurried out of the rain and into the building.

They went to talk to the receptionist, and she pointed to Keefe. They couple walked over to him.

"Hello," the woman said. "I'm Layni."

"And I'm Hayes," her husband reached out to shake his hand. Keefe took it.

Soon after, they left to get into the car. When they arrived at the house, they led him inside. The couple's two kids were sitting inside watching tv.

The dog ran out of another room. It jumped on Keefe. He gave a slight smile and pet the dog.

The two kids looked up. They smiled and waved at him. He waved back.

Hayes gestured to the girl, who only seemed to be a few years younger than Keefe, then to the younger boy. "This is Ember and Jet." He then turned to gesture to Keefe. "This is Keefe. He'll be staying with us for a few nights."

Layni then started to lead him down the hall. She pointed to a door at the end of the hall. "That's where you'll be staying tonight." She pointed to another door. "That's the bathroom. I've got a towel in there for you if you want to take a shower, and I'm getting you some dry clothes for you to change into."

Keefe nodded and headed into the room. It was simple, with a bed in one corner, a dresser on the wall, and a nightstand. The floor was carpeted, and there were glowing stars on the ceiling. He dropped his stuff onto the bed and took out Mrs. Stinkbottom. She was soaking wet. He sighed.

There was a knock at the door. He went to open it. It was Hayes. He was holding a pair of sweatpants and a gray shirt.

"Hey. I've got you some clothes. Would you like me to put yours in the dryer after you change?"

Keefe nodded. Hayes got a look at what was in his hands. "Do you want me to put your little ant eater in the dryer, too?"

Keefe was hesitant to give the stuffed animal over. What really stuck out to him was Hayes calling her an ant eater. Did humans not have Gulons? He eventually handed her over.

"Alright," Hayes said. "I'll give you some privacy." He handed over the clothes.

Keefe hopped into a quick shower. When he got dressed and back into the room, his old clothes and Mrs. Stinkbottom were and dry on the bed. He grabbed the green gulon and hugged her tight. The only familiar thing that stuck with him.

Another knock on his door. Layni's voice came through the wood. "If you're hungry, we've got some food for you in the kitchen."

He took a couple of deep breaths before walking out the door. He made it back to where Layni and Hayes were sitting with their kids around the dining table.

Hayes pointed to an empty seat with a plate in front of it. "Have a seat. It's Chinese food."

Keefe sat and took a forkful of the noodles. And... was that chicken? He didn't want to be rude, so he forced it down even though it made him queasy to think about. Although he had to admit, it tasted good.

A little ways into dinner, Jett asked him, "Do you speak?"

Everyone's eyes widened. Ember elbowed him and hissed under her breath, "You don't say that!"

"Hey," Layni murmured. "You don't have to talk if you don't want to. I'm sure you've been through a lot."

Keefe nodded. He looked down and picked at his food. "Umm... e-exuse me for moment," he stammered.

He dropped his fork and practically ran to the bathroom. He splashed his face with water so he wouldn't start crying. It wasn't helping. He tried to keep his sniffles quiet, but he knew it wasn't working when Layni's voice called out.

"Are you alright? I'm going to have a talk with him about blurting stuff out."

"No," Keefe murmured. "It's fine. That's not why I'm upset. It's just... been a rough few weeks."

"I bet it has. Take your time. It's alright. We're here for you. You don't have to worry about any of that."

[tonberry-yoda]

Write for Leon Scott Kennedy coward 😳

The End - Leon Scott Kennedy

notes - THIS IS WHAT YOU GET FOR MAKING MY BRAINROT WORSE! You get a long fic now tee hee. This was so satisfying to write tbh. I loved RE2 and love Leon, so I was very happy to write this <333

word count - 2,756

WARNINGS - blood, SPOILERS FOR RE2, not proofread lolol

Wounds from Lickers, Zombies, spare glass shards, and god only knows what covered your body. You looked like a wreck who was tired and a little dead inside, but it was over. You made it out of that hellhole they called Raccoon City and were now onto a new, and hopefully better life.

"I could really use a shower," Claire laughed, picking a stick out of Sherry's hair.

"Tell me about it." You agreed, wiping what you couldn't tell was dirt or sewage off of your shoulder. You felt disgusting, but you knew that whenever you got to a shower that it was going to be the best shower of all time.

You and Claire were lucky you could still be laughing and smiling after everything that happened. And Leon... well, he had been through hell and back with it being his first day as a cop and all. You felt bad for him. He went through loss after loss and you had no clue what to say.

He was sitting in the corner of the train cart, crying. You wanted more than anything to go cheer him up or something, but how on Earth were you supposed to do that.

Apparently though, Claire saw that you were eyeing the crying cop and nudged your arm with her elbow, signaling that you should probably go talk to him. She and Sherry decided to head to another cart to look around a bit.

You took a deep breath and walked over to the blonde boy, putting your hand on his back. "You were very brave out there," you told him in a soft voice, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear.

He looked up at you a little shocked, tears staining his puffy red eyes. "No way. If anything you were the bravest here. Me and Claire were kinda prepared for anything, but you? You were just living life and got sucked into this shit."

"But I'm okay now. And you're okay! We did great out there!"

Leon just nodded and stared off into space, little tears flowing down his cheeks.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" You asked.

Leon turned to you again. Seeing him cry was about to make you cry.

"It's my fault she's gone."

"Who? Ada?" You had stuck with Leon his whole mission helping him through stupid puzzles and beating the shit out of psycho dogs. Ada was someone you met on the mission and immediately got a bad vibe from. You knew she wasn't FBI when you met her, you just didn't have the heart to tell Leon. He really seemed to like that girl. And it didn't matter how jealous you were in the little tram where she kissed him.

Leon nodded, tears welling back up in his eyes. "I could've pulled her up if I didn't get so hurt. She's gone now... because of me."

You put your hand on Leon's back. "Leon, look, she was a crazy mercenary, there's a huge, like GIANT chance that she's okay. She probably had a grappling hook in her bra or something."

That actually made Leon laugh a bit, which surprised you. "How's your arm?" You asked, wanting to quickly change the subject.

"Better." He stretched out his arm, which took some work, but he barely winced.

"Good!" You smiled and gave Leon one more check over to make sure he wasn't in any more need for medical attention. "It looks way better!"

"Yeah, well injuries always look better than they feel." Leon chuckled and sat back to be more comfortable. None of you knew where this train was going to lead, but you were just happy to know that you would be out of that awful town.

"You're really strong, you know that?" Leon told you.

You were shocked to hear that if you were being honest, so you turned to Leon with red cheeks. "Where did that come from?"

"I mean, I already explained it earlier, come on! You've been through a lot with me. Thanks for that."

You just nodded, still thinking about Ada. You were never the jealous type, but all of the sudden you were and it was pissing you off. I mean, you couldn't blame all the ladies around you for liking Leon as much as you did because oh my god, he was perfect. He wanted to protect everyone, was kind, empathetic, and cute as fuck. He was everything anyone wanted in a partner and you were just mad that Ada got her hands on him first.

"I can't wait to get some nice clean clothes." Leon sighed, pulling you out of your mind.

"Right?!" Even thinking about the warm embrace of a blanket was making you cozy, but clean clothes? That sounded like heaven right then.

"I found a crap ton of money at the station and that should be enough to get us a couple of hotel rooms and some clean clothes until we find something better." Leon pulled out wads of cash and your jaw dropped. You knew that some of the zombies would have cash on them and you had to admit, you did take some, but you weren't expecting Leon, the cute cuddly rookie, to take any.

"Leon, did you steal that?!"

His face flushed bright red. "I-I.... They.... I just.... We needed it and uh...."

"I'm just playing with you, Kennedy." You playfully slapped his back and he cleared his throat, a little embarrassed.

"Hey guys?" Claire stuck her head back into the cart with a smile. "Sorry if I'm interrupting your flirting, but it looks like we're about to come to a stop. Looks like we're outside of Raccoon City too!"

You laughed at Claire and turned to fine Leon blushing, which made you blush too. "Alright, we'll get prepared."

"You better," Claire winked. "Because clean clothes and a bed sound like heaven itself."

The train came to a halt in an unknown area, but when you got off of the train, the world looked happy again. It was no longer the dead of night and was now early morning, where the air smelled fresh and you could hear birds chirping. It was fantastic and you didn't mind the tears that were rolling down your cheeks. The train took off behind all of you with a loud whoosh and you were now somewhere new, hoping that you wouldn't hear anymore zombies.

"Come on you guys!!!" Claire ran off to a city that was off in the distance, grabbing Sherry's hand. "Let's go!! Are you seriously gonna wait all day?!"

You and Leon looked at each other with a smile and ran after Claire to the city. Stepping in there any other day would probably be hell, with people cussing each other out and pushing each other around, but when all of you stepped in there, it was amazing. There were living breathing humans just doing their every day normal routines. It was like everything was back to normal.

You clung to Leon's arm and smiled. "Leon, can you believe it?"

He was smiling like an idiot before running into some random Target. People were looking at you like you were crazy, while others whispered about hearing what happened in Raccoon City, surprised there were survivors.

You didn't care either way, it's not like you were paying attention. Instead, you just grabbed everything you needed. Water, food, underwear, shoes, socks, clothes, normal everyday items that would be so regular to everyone, but seemed like jewels and riches to you.

You walked up to Leon with a stacked cart and a smile. "I'm about ready to check out!"

Leon looked at your stack with wide eyes. "Damn, you really went ham down those aisles, huh?"

You nodded. "I'm just thankful I had a crap ton in my savings so you don't have to pay for any of it. Thank god they have an ATM here."

"Oh, awesome!" Leon was looking at a few shirts and you pulled one off of it's hanger, handing it to him.

"You would look good in this. I'll meet you outside, okay? Tell Claire the same!"

Waiting outside in a Target parking lot wasn't ideal, but it felt heavenly out, so you weren't mad in the slightest. Honestly, you didn't care at all that you looked pathetic, you were just happy this wasn't Raccoon City.

Claire quickly ran out of the Target with her arm in Sherry's. "Let's go get that hotel room!!!" She quickly darted off and Leon ran out of the Target, limping.

"Dammit, Claire, hold on!!"

You grabbed onto Leon's arm and chuckled. "She's fine, Leon. We'll catch up. She pointed at the hotel she wants to stay in, and it's not too far off. I'm just glad she has the energy to take care of that kid right now."

Leon nodded. "Same. I can barely walk without feeling like I'm going to pass out."

You and Leon walked to the hotel, laughing about the memories you had of Mr. X trying to follow you around. Even though those scared the shit out of you in the moment, you couldn't help but laugh now.

The hotel was nice. It was bright white and covered in fancy red carpets. You looked like a bunch of homeless people.... well, you guessed you were now.

"Me and Sherry are gonna share a room," Claire said, grabbing both sides of the girls shoulders.

"Then I guess that means y/n and I will have separate rooms. I'll go pay."

Your heart dropped and immediate panic filled your body.

"W-Wait." You pulled Leon off to the side, your heart pounding for some reason.

"What's wrong?" Leon looked at you with concern and held your shoulders.

"I... Can we share a room?" You looked up at him and he smiled.

"Of course."

"I just don't know if I can sleep alone after all that and we've already been through so mu-"

Leon placed his index finger on your lips and giggled. "I don't need an excuse from you, y/n. I understand."

You waited eagerly and patiently for Leon to get each of your rooms.

"I'm gonna shower so hard, you don't even understand." Claire said, stretching, each of her bones making a small pop sound.

"Me too." You sighed, imagining the warm water running down your back.

"Here's your key, Claire. Don't lose it."

Claire snorted. "As if. Of course I'm not gonna lose it. Let's go Sherry!" They ran up the stairs, getting odd looks from other patrons and staff, but they didn't seem to care.

"You ready, y/n?"

You nodded, taking the elevator with Leon.

"I'm so glad that's over." He smiled, clicking the elevator button.

"Me too."

"I still can't believe how amazing you were back there." Leon gave you a little pat on the back.

"Well, for it being your first day, Kennedy, I'd say you killed it."

"Literally."

You both burst out into laughter. You were surprised you could still do that, but very happy about it.

"You're amazing, Leon." You set down your target bag on the elevator floor and pulled him into your arms.

He sighed, tickling your neck a bit and held you by your waist. "You're amazing."

The elevator dinged, interrupting your hug, but you couldn't help but bolt out of there and down the long hallways.

"You're going the wrong way, y/n!" Leon called out, pointing down the other end of the hall.

"Which room is it?" Before Leon could answer, you glanced at the key and took off, finding the room rather quickly. You waited like an impatient puppy and bobbed up and down as Leon opened the door.

Leon opened the door to a nice clean room that smelled slightly perfumey, but much better than rotting zombie.

As you were searching the room, you were satisfied with everything. It was cozy, roomy, had a TV, a clean bathroom, and...

"Leon?"

"Yeah?" Leon was already quick to unpack his stuff, and stuffed his mouth with chips.

"There's only one bed."

His face flushed pink. "Y-Yeah... I.... I thought it would be nice." He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. "Look.... I don't want to be that far from you, okay? I don't know why. I still feel like I have to protect you and-" You interrupted him by placing your index finger on his lips this time.

"I don't need an excuse, Leon. I really don't mind. Now, I'm gonna take a quick shower. Sorry you gotta stay musty for a little while longer."

"Eh, it's fine. It'll make the shower more worth it."

Worth it was definitely the right words to use. When you stepped into the shower, ignoring the dark red that poured off of you and the black water that formed at your feet, it was really heaven. It was the best shower you had ever taken, and you have never felt so clean in your entire life.

When you stepped out, you immediately tossed out your old clothes and put on something fresh and some pajamas that made you feel cute. It didn't really matter since you were about to pass out soon, but feeling nice was something you enjoyed and something you actually needed after all of that.

You stepped out of the bathroom and chugged some water, not even noticing that Leon had run straight past you to take a shower himself. He really deserved it though, so you didn't blame him.

You laid down on the bed and stared at the ceiling for a while. What a goddamn day. You really couldn't believe you survived all of that. It was a shit show, and for a while, before you met Leon, you didn't have anything but a metal pipe to beat the zombies off with. If not for that rookie cop, you wouldn't be here right now.

You were more thankful than he could ever know.

"Holy shit," Leon stepped out of the bathroom, drying off his hair with a little towel, in a giant shirt and a pair of basketball shorts. "That was the best shower ever."

You sat up with a smile. "Wasn't it?!"

Leon smiled when he saw you, throwing down the mini towel on a nearby table before jumping on the bed next to you. "You know," he told you, getting comfortable on the bed. "You're actually really cute not covered in blood. Wait, that came out wrong... You were cute with the blood... but uh.... shit, I messed up, can I restart?"

You giggled. "Go ahead. Restart."

"You know," Leon looked at you with the most loving smile ever. "You're really cute."

You blushed. "Says the cutest guy in the world."

"Aw, shucks, you don't mean that, do you?"

"Of course I mean that, Leon."

He smiled at you and pulled you into his arms, laying back with you on the bed. "I'm glad I found you out there." He said softly.

"I'm glad you found me."

You two sat in silence for a while, just laying in each other's arms. After being through all of that, you didn't realize how sore you were and only now was it kicking in. But thank god you had a bed.

Breaking the silence, Leon wrapped his arms around you tighter. "I never want to let you go, y/n." He whispered in your ear, placing a kiss on the lobe.

"But...." You hated yourself for asking this. "What about Ada?"

"What about her?" Leon sat up a bit, letting go of you.

"I.... You two kissed. It seemed like you really liked her."

"Ada kissed me," Leon reminded you. "We weren't that close. I knew you for longer, even if it was a couple of hours. Plus, Ada betrayed us. She was using me. You, y/n, you really care about me. I just want to protect you.... at all costs. If you'll let me."

You cupped Leon's face in your hands and smiled. "Of course I'll let you. But know I want to protect you every now and again."

Leon couldn't help himself, he pushed forward and planted his lips onto yours, pushing you right down on the bed. You quickly smiled into the kiss and pulled him closer until he was right on top of you.

He placed kiss after kiss after kiss onto you until you both passed out, snoring.

You didn't care what was ahead. As long as you had Leon, you would be fine.

~~~~~

resident evil masterlist | pinned post

2023 @tonberry-yoda – do not repost or claim ANY of my work as your own! likes, reblogs, and comments are not only welcome, but appreciated

~~~~~

[abronzeagegod]

ETS WIP Chapter 5: We're Going to Need More than Just Tech Support

[first]|[more]

Aeth's days off were nice. They had a good time at the beach, and temporarily forgot all about their bad dreams and the things that awaited them in their sleep.

They spent time with Lyta for most of the day, but the next day was Lyta's turn to go out into the field and returned to work.

When Aeth finally returned to work they had to go out in the field for their first day. They weren't super looking forward to it. Yet, it was part of the job, so it had to be done.

Everything was pretty standard, until Aeth received a call for tech support out in the Clutches.

The Clutches were the rich people district of the city, and that usually meant something very stupid and very expensive was broken.

Aeth had to mentally prepare themselves for what was coming. They could only imagine that it was pretty stupid, and that the client would treat them more like furniture than a person.

But the job was the job, and Aeth had to do it.

The job description wasn't super helpful, so Aeth dressed as neutrally as possible. Blue jumpsuit, hair up, two rings on each finger, one earring in each ear, and the standard kit bag.

When they approached the door of the mansion, they felt that this was going to be a mess of a job, something in their bones told them it was going to be a bad time.

The door was answered but someone that Aeth didn't expect: a sullen looking young man with the stubble of a man that hadn't shaved in a few days, deep bags under his eyes, and enough lip piercings to make Aeth wonder how he ate comfortably.

"Hey," he said with the disaffected tone of someone who had already considered their time on this plane as almost up. "Everything is in the basement."

"What seems to be the problem?" Aeth asked.

"You're not a cop, right?"

That was a terrible way to start the conversation. "I'm not," Aeth said, "but I'm not going to let anything terrible happen."

"Oh, no! Nothing like that! We're just making some drugs in this house we rented," the guy said.

This was getting worse and worse the more this guy talked.

Aeth slipped on two more rings. Now their thumb, pointer, and middle fingers on each hand had rings on them. Simple things with one stone each embedded in the different metal. They had a feeling like they might need it for some magic casting shortly. They also put their phone in their front pocket for easy access.

"Here," the guy said as he opened the door for Aeth, and instantly everything went right to shit.

The door opened, and they stepped inside. The room was large, some kind of entertainment space. Aeth's eyes were immediately pulled to the computer that was flashing a blue screen of death, but that's just because they always looked for the computer first.

So that's why it took them a minute to see the cage on the opposite wall.

It looked like a large plastic box that housed a demon, an orange skinned creature with the head and legs of a bird, the body of some kind of dog, and the skin texture of a reptile of some kind.

The bird demon watched Aeth and the guy walk into the room with large black eyes.

Aeth knew that this was bad, but the guy was talking and they weren't paying attention.

"Yeah so we were using Bill's computer to do some mapping of the Abyss to find the ingredients we'd need and then we were sending this summon that Garth called to go fetch the stuff for us, but the computer crapped out on us. See?" he walked over to the computer.

"DON'T!" Aeth tried to say, but the guy was too convinced of his own actions to be dissuaded and touched a couple of keys on the computer.

The computer, that was designed for playing some high fidelity video games and crafting high quality digital art images, was not remotely equipped to delve and dive into the Abyss, an act which was as dangerous as it was illegal.

But touching some buttons triggered something.

That something turned out to be a small little window into the black-purple writhing walls of the Abyss.

"Oh shit, man," the guy said, "I didn't know it could do that. That's wild."

The window was only a few inches tall and twice as wide. But a hole into another plane of existence, one as chaotic and inimical to life as the Abyss was bad.

Aeth swore and pushed the guy out of the way and sat at the computer.

The sudden heart-pounding panic made them think that the first step was to try and, very quickly, fix the computer to end whatever dumb techno-witchcraft they did to give it this capability and close the rift. Then Aeth could call the police.

They frantically tried to type away at the computer, to get it to do anything responsive and close the rift, but nothing worked.

The demon in the cage let out a noise that was almost a chattering growl. It sent shivers down Aeth's spine.

A moment before they turned to see what had caused the demon to become so concerned, they heard the plop-plop of something wet and heavy falling to the floor.

<script>character-POV-change</script>

Lyta was having an extremely boring day in the office. She was supposed to work the phones today. Which largely meant she was taking calls from random people to try and solve their problems over the phone, and occasionally assisting people out in the field with tasks that they couldn't do.

It had been mostly slow, which was not too bad, getting paid for doing not a whole lot.

But that kind of thing drove Lyta crazy since she wanted to be doing and not just sitting.

That's why she picked up the phone on the first ring.

"How can I help-" she started but was immediately cut off.

"IT'S AETH!" they yelled into the phone. Normally there were all sorts of checks and things, getting ID numbers, and checking on job codes. But this sounded bad. Aeth never did this. "I NEED YOU TO CALL THE EXTERMINATORS! FUCK!"

"Fuck me," Lyta said. Aeth never really swore, not like that. She slapped the red alarm button next to her phone.

The alarm sounded and bright lights started flashing all over the office. All non-job related tasks suddenly ground to an abrupt halt all around Lyta.

"Employee needs the Exterminators," she says into the second phone line that opened the second she pushed the button. "Employee 977 is on site at 311 North Vellaturine, in the Clutches."

"What is the nature of the emergency?" the cold voiced operator asked.

<script>meanwhile</script>

"What is the nature of the emergency?"

Aeth had their phone back in their front pocket of their coveralls. The voice came over the speaker, but Aeth was busy casting spells.

The rings on their fingers glowed as they moved them in complicated patterns to repeat the codes for the magic effect they desperately needed.

They stepped back as the bright green magic lit up as the sequence was completed and the thin barrier was established.

Aeth pushed the guy that let them in back and tried to get to a door, any door.

The computer and the desk were both long gone, consumed by a multi-headed discolored worm that had come through the rapidly widening void into the Plane of Chaos.

The demon's cage had broken open and the weird demon was fighting, hopefully it was fighting, the gross worm abominations that kept coming through.

The guy behind Aeth said, "Oh this seems bad man."

Through a door on the far side of the room, opposite where Aeth and the first guy were came in another man. This one had no shirt on and was preceded by a large waft of smoke from the room.

"Oh shit! Bill's gonna be so pissed!" he said.

"Garth man! This is bad!"

Garth, the high one, yelled, "I can fix this!"

Aeth, once again, tried their best, "Don't do anything! Just run!"

A worm, at least it kind of seemed worm like, with several "heads" that were nothing but empty space, slapped up against the barrier Aeth had made. It felt like their were trying to bite their way through it.

However, Garth was too high on his own supply to realize the true danger he was in and started casting another summoning spell.

The red flames of the hells started to form in the room as Garth channeled the energy, but one of the worms approached.

The sickly pink colored worm was much larger than the others that had come through so far, and had three heads, all empty of all features, just a matter-less hole that seemed to consume everything around it, even the light. It approached Garth quickly, who got a good look into the empty space, and stopped what he was doing. The spell was half completed as the worm did something to Garth.

Garth was entranced by the worm.

But the portal to hell was opened, and the spell wasn't finished which meant that the doorway was just left open for anything to walk through.

Through the open doorway to the hells, walked a large demon, with the works: claws, wings, horns, and red skin.

Both the worm and Garth turned to look at it.

Aeth couldn't see what happened next, but Garth moved and then the demon put their hand straight through his chest. The worm moved a second later and started biting at Garth's twitching legs, consuming him from the bottom up.

The demon snarled in it's language as it moved to fight the worm as they both tore through Garth's corpse. Aeth heard the language and it made their entire left side feel heavy.

"FUCKING SHIT!" Aeth yelled as they tried to push the guy back and out of the room, a worm still attacking the barrier. "THERE'S A HOLE TO THE ABYSS HERE! THERE'S WORMS WITH MULTIPLE HEADS AND THEY ARE FIGHTING AND CONSUMING EVERYTHING! FUCK! THERE'S ONE CASUALTY! SUMMONER! NEVER FINISHED SUMMONING DEMONS FROM HELL WHO ARE NOW POURING IN!"

Dimly, Aeth heard Lyta repeating the information.

The operator responded. "Understood. Class One Operation approved, Exterminators are en route to your location. Be advised, heavy weaponry has been approved, as has magic. Please inform anyone in the building to evacuate immediately. Police have been informed."

"Aeth!" they hear Lyta yell over the phone. "Aeth! The Exterminators are coming! Get out of there!"

For a moment, things seemed to be ok, because it was Lyta and Lyta's voice was always nice. But the panic and edge to it, smacked Aeth right back into the situation at hand.

They grabbed the guy by the shoulders and pushed him through the door.

"Garth! Bro, no!"

Aeth threw open the door and stepped through.

And right into a fractal hell.

The hallway they walked through was gone. Everything here was twisted, like someone had taken a picture of the hallway and distorted and shifted the entire thing and then made the messed up copy reality.

"Fuck!" Aeth yelled as they dropped several feet to the floor that looked like the wall. "This door led us to another dimension!"

"Oh... shit," Lyta said over the phone.

The Exterminator Operator broke their cold, passionless demeanor very briefly. "Oh fuck."

The Exterminators are the badasses of the tech world, fixing creatures and beings and banishing things that shouldn't be here. To hear that filled Aeth with a singularly potent cold dread.

"Be advised we have a level zero breach," the operator said. "Repeat, be advised we have a level zero breach."

Lyta was dimly aware of the fact that there was no movement, no sound at all in the call center. Everyone was listening in on the conversation without breathing or speaking.

"We are sending in the Knight of Doors," the operator said. "We're doing our best to get there as fast as possible. Do whatever you can to keep your people alive and safe."

my kofi where the next chapter is already up for supporters

[limjaeseven]

Blood Red Love

Pairing: Jinyoung x Yugyeom

Genre: Horror, Angst, Hannibal!AU

Rating: 18+

Warnings: Cannibalism, lots of death and gore, graphic description of murder and dead bodies

Word Count: 5,919

Summary: Yugyeom should have remembered that if something seems too good to be true, it probably was, and that something, or better, someone came in the shape of a tall, handsome, psychiatrist with an impeccable taste in fashion and a penchant for the unspeakable.

[a/n]: Written about half a century late for @flurrys-creativity's supernatural collab. This was really fun to write, I appreciate the incredible sense you have of coming up with collabs themed around the exact shows I'm obsessing over at any point of time.

Yugyeom should have known better. He worked as a cop for years, he was working for the NIS for god’s sake. If there was someone who should have seen this coming, it should have been him. He had managed to miss every red flag till it came kicking his door down.

Six months prior

The day was cold enough that Yugyeom had to pull out his thickest jacket. Dusting it off took a while, he had an impressive tolerance for the cold so it got little use. Donning it, he bid his dog a quick goodbye in the form of a pat on its head before heading off in his beat up Volvo.

His new job at the National Intelligence Service was proving to be nothing short of trouble. He hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in weeks, images of his investigation victims haunting him. His “perfect empathy” had always been there, but it became an asset when he got into law enforcement and made a bit of a name for himself.

That’s when he met Lim Jaebeom, director of the Behavioural Science Unit and the reason behind Yugyeom’s torment. He had heard of Yugyeom’s skill of being able to perfectly recreate the happenings at a crime scene and recruited him to consult for a few minor cases.

Yugyeom had wondered why he had been called for it, because the cases were easy to solve, there was no way Jaebeom hadn't figured them out on his own. Well, if there's one thing Yugyeom has learned about himself, it's that he's bad at seeing things coming his way.

They didn't cross paths again for years. Yugyeom had quit the police and joined the NIS training academy as a professor. Jaebeom had dropped by one of his lectures where he offered, more like forced upon, Yugyeom a job as a profiler for a high profile case he was working on.

And that was what led him to his predicament where he's spending one of the coldest days of the year at the NIS building instead of being at home with his dog. Jaebeom wanted him to stick around after they solved the first case and it wasn't like Yugyeom had a choice. What Jaebeom wanted, he got.

“So, what does it look like?” The Director asked, having handed Yugyeom a dossier full of photos of their latest case.

“An act of justice.” Yugyeom closed his eyes and tried to concentrate but it wasn't working. “I'll need to see the scene for more, the photos don’t give me a sense of the space.”

“Well we’re basically snowed in at this point so try harder. We don't know if or when he’s going to strike again so we need to figure this out quick,” Jaebeom snapped. Yugyeom could feel a headache radiating its way up the back of his skull. Realising that his presence was probably not helping, Jaebeom left him alone to brood in his office, promising to return soon.

Sighing, Yugyeom went back to examining the photos to better understand the geography of the house so that he could piece the series of events together. Closing his eyes, he tried to picture himself in the room, turning back time on the elements around him till he was envisioning the moments before the act took place.

He found himself across from Mrs Yoo, sitting on a plush sofa in her living room. Looking down, he saw a revolver in his right hand, a glass of wine in the other. The way Mrs Yoo’s eyes shone looking at him, it had to be motherly, a mix of care, kindness and fear. She was afraid of what he had become, knowing full well that it was her fault.

Yugyeom spun the wine in his hands gently before breathing its aroma in and taking a small sip, setting the glass carefully on the side table after.

“I despise the gentleness in Mrs Yoo’s eyes. They remind me of too much pain. I left because of those eyes, because of the pity that drips from them. I need those eyes to stop staring at me, I need everyone to stop looking at me.” Yugyeom examines the gun in his hand and raises it to be level with Mrs Yoo’s head.

“I stare straight into Mrs Yoo’s eyes as she trembles in fear in front of me. She’s begging for a forgiveness she knows I can’t afford. It takes a single shot to pierce right through her left eye and end both of our misery.”

Yugyeom sighs as he opens his eyes, rubbing his face with his hands as he tries to calm his breathing. He calls Jaebeom and the staff back into the room before asking, “Does Mrs Yoo have any kids on the record, someone old enough to own a firearm?”

Youngjae, a member of the forensic team, looked through the file in his hand before replying, “Yeah, a son. He’s 25, works at a tech firm on the other side of the country. We looked into him, he doesn’t seem to have been in the area on the day of the incident.”

“Look into him again just in case,” Jaebeom said before turning to Yugyeom, “Any other possible leads?”

“Maybe an illegitimate child? It’s someone who looked up to her as a mother figure but felt betrayed. Someone into their adulthood with years to have ruminated on their feelings on Mrs Yoo and turned it into a carefully plotted murder.”

“Look into the shooting ranges nearby, see if you can link any of their regulars near the area.” Jaebeom added, pointing at the image of Mrs Yoo’s body and how cleanly the bullet had hit her eye. “Too good of a shot for an amateur.”

Yugyeom stood there, eyes wide open, feeling rattled. Doing this was hard enough when he was at the crime scene but having to construct everything just out of photos drained him of everything. He slumped into the nearest chair and let his head roll back as he tried to calm himself down. Jaebeom gave him a pat on the shoulder before leaving him alone in the lab.

It had taken him a long time to learn the best way to come down from his “sessions” without having a panic attack or scaring those around him. Some space and a series of breathing exercises were what he finally settled on, concentrating on a spot on the ceiling to keep himself focused. He was just about done when a knock on the lab door pulled him out of his head.

“Mr Kim?” The man asked. He was dressed to the nines in a three piece suit, hair perfectly styled, eyes sharp as he watched Yugyeom.

Nodding, Yugyeom stood up. “And you would be?”

“Park Jinyoung. Jaebeom’s an old friend, he wanted my help with the case.”

“You don’t look like law enforcement.”

“Oh no, these hands weren’t meant for firearms.” Jinyoung said, holding them up. “People used to say they’d be good for paintbrushes but I drifted towards scalpels first, then towards people’s minds.”

“Psychiatrist for such a low priority case?”

Jinyoung pressed a hand thoughtfully to his chin, “Would you be here if it was low priority?”

“This is not the only case of its kind, is it?” Yugyeom asked, running his hands through his hair exasperatedly.

“Fifth one in a row. Each in a different state along the east coast, all women in their late forties or early fifties. No seeming connections between them.” Jinyoung walked across the room to a table piled high with files before pulling a thin one out. “This is everything that could be found in common. We don’t even know if it’s one killer or multiple different ones.”

“And why didn’t Jaebeom tell me any of this?” Yugyeom felt anger simmer inside him. Jaebeom had done this too many times for him to be surprised but it didn’t affect him any less.

“Too many theories floating around the office. He wanted a fresh perspective.” The table was now littered with tens of photos, each one different in setting but the same in execution. “What you saw was the first one that happened three months ago. That’s why he wanted you here, because there’s no crime scene to see.”

“When was the last one?”

“Last week. Each murder has had between two and three weeks between them. Jaebeom was hoping to catch the next one before it happened but he wasn’t getting anywhere.”

“What’s your theory, Doctor?”

Jinyoung rifled through the pictures to find one of each victim, photographed from a similar angle, that of the chair opposite to where the women sat. “Odds say it was all the same killer, but it feels too intimate for that. How many years does a young boy spend at home? How many of those would he have to build a bond that burned him when it got cut?”

“They all knew each other. They planned this together. They all had to be good enough shots to hit exactly the eye from a decent distance and also have the resources to clean up after themselves.”

“Maybe the reason why Jaebeom couldn’t understand it was because he kept looking outside for answers.”

Watching cops getting arrested would never stop being unnerving to Yugyeom. After confirming the details with Jinyoung they both went to Jaebeom with their findings. It wasn’t an easy search but since they knew the killers would be inside the law enforcement system, they had enough connections.

“All foster children, brought into seemingly perfect households.” Yugyeom said as he read over the final report. He sat in Jinyoung’s office across from the man himself, a glass of scotch in his hand. “Abused for being troubled, sent to police academies to learn discipline.”

“It’s not incredibly difficult to find those of a similar disposition once inside. The cruelty of the academy breeds resentment and the resources to get away with one’s darkest desires.”

“Why left eyes though?”

Jinyoung stood up from his seat and walked over to one of the bookshelves that lined his walls. He pulled one out and handed it to Yugyeom. “Any luck reading Chinese?”

Yugyeom chuckled and flipped through the book. “My mom had one of these, she tried to get me to read it but I was never any good.”

“It’s a common text around these parts, stories, traditions and superstitions. It has a part on the twitching of eyes. Left eyes signify life in women.”

“A bit on the nose, don’t you think?”

“Maybe, but revenge blinds. It can never be measured, for it always has alterior motives.” Jinyoung took a long whiff of his wine before sipping it. “The best poet loves poetry for it’s own sake.”

“Well, glad this lot weren’t poets.” Yugyeom said.

Jinyoung laughed and raised his glass. “To amateurs, then.” Yugyeom grinned and raised his own glass. “Could I tempt you to dinner with me this weekend? Something celebratory for our accomplishment.”

“Will you tell me which wine I should bring so that I don’t pick the wrong one?”

“Find a good Chianti. Saturday, eight o’clock. I’ll have my assistant deliver you a formal invite.”

Yugyeom felt woefully underdressed when Jinyoung opened the door, dressed in another perfectly tailored three piece suit with a tastefully patterned tie. He wished he had taken his blazer to wear over his full sleeve shirt rolled up to the elbows and slacks.

“I hope this will do,” He said, extending the bottle of wine.

Jinyoung barely glanced at the label before clicking his tongue. Yugyeom felt a shiver down his spine, a sudden fear of disappointing the doctor gripping him. Jinyoung’s eyebrows furrowed for a second before they softened into a teasing smile.

“This will do perfectly. Please, come in.” Jinyoung stepped away and Yugyeom was met with an extravagant living room, decorated with utmost care. The doctor seemed like a man of exquisite taste and wealth, unafraid of indulging in the luxuries of life.

Jinyoung led him to the dining room, where a long glass topped table took up much of the space. It was decorated with an elaborate flower and fruit arrangement in the centre, with two places set up, one at the head of the table, and one to its right.

“Please take a seat,” Jinyoung said before disappearing into the kitchen. He returned with a decanter of wine in one hand and two plates artfully balanced on the other, one on his palm and the other on his wrist. With a flourish, he filled both of their glasses before setting a plate in front of Yugyeom and one in his own place before sitting down. “Stuffed Roast Heart with Devilled Kidneys and Garlic Liver Paté.”

Yugyeom stared at the food in wonder, not having seen such a beautifully plated dish before. “What is it that you can’t do, Doctor?”

“You flatter me too much, I’m merely a man of a few interests.”

“This is the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten, Doctor. I don’t think this comes just from being a hobbyist.”

Jinyoung smiled and sipped his wine before answering, “I started cooking for my sister young, then it became a passion, if you will.”

“Well I do hope we work together more often in the future if it means you’ll call me over for dinner every time.”

“It would be an absolute pleasure,” Jinyoung said before holding his glass up for a toast. “To Lim Jaebom, an eternal friend and pain.”

“To Jaebeom indeed.”

The joy of the night together was quickly sobered in the morning when Yugyeom woke up to Jaebeom calling him early in the morning.

“Dr Park will be picking you up soon, we need you two here stat.”

He barely had the time to get himself out of bed and dressed before Jinyoung showed up, looking as classy as ever, dressed slightly down in a shirt with no tie and a sport coat. “Did you eat anything?” Jinyoung asked as they got into the car.

“Nope, Jaebeom called me ten minutes ago,” said Yugyeom. “Also why’re you here? I could have gone myself.”

“I offered since your house was on the way.” Jinyoung paused for a second, glancing at Yugyeom before continuing, “And Jaebeom thought it’d be best if I was with you at the scene.”

Lim Jaebeom was hard headed, short tempered, rude, but he was also almost always right. Yugyeom was glad he had Jinyoung with him when he arrived at the scene. There was a small group of officers standing outside the local art museum looking rather green and it made sense as they stepped in.

The hall was large, lined with paintings along the walls. The centre of it featured only two pieces, well three now. Between the two displays, like a sculpture, stood a body. It was stripped naked, posed like a ballet dancer, one leg slightly raised, arms up in the air, held up by red ropes that hung from the ceiling. The body was so carefully positioned that it only rested on the ground by the toes of one foot.

Most notably, though, what captured the eye first was the fact that the corpse’s chest was cut open, split down the middle and flayed open, the ribs slightly pried apart to show a hole in the middle, filled with a small bouquet of flowers where the heart should have been.

“Okay after last night’s dinner this is probably not the best thing to happen,” Yugyeom mumbled, feeling light headed. “Sure you’re not serving up human hearts are you, Doctor?”

“Only the finest beef, Mr Kim. I can put you through to my butcher if you’d wish to confirm.” They both laughed a little to ease the tension but the glares from those around quieted them quickly.

Jaebeom stormed in immediately after, his voice loud and frustrated. “Get to work, the two of you. I need this sorted out and fast.”

“Any other similar cases anytime recently that you’d like to tell me about?” Yugyeom asked, trying his best to not sound accusatory.

“With parts of the body missing? Yes. With this level of… what do I even call it? Craftsmanship? Not so much.”

Jinyoung interjected before things had the chance to go awry. “Noted, Jaebeom. Lets just work with the assumption that this is a one off thing first, then we’ll try connecting the dots.”

Jaebeom nodded before leaving the two to examine the body. Youngjae stayed with them to brief them about the latest developments. “Jeong Jisub, 42. Luxury car salesman. Unmarried and orphaned. Wasn’t very well known even to his own neighbours and not well liked by those who did recognise him.”

“Unlikable doesn’t mean having enemies,” Yugyeom mumbled. “This doesn’t feel personal.”

“What, flowers are impersonal now?”

“What Mr Kim is trying to say, Mr Choi,” Jinyoung answered, addressing Youngjae, “Is that while the gesture of the flowers and the body may be symbolic and personal, the murder itself. or at least the choice of victim doesn’t feel so.”

Yugyeom nodded, adding, “There was a lot of care put into the act of rigging up the body, but it was the same to the killer as making a sculpture. The marble itself is immaterial to obtaining the final outcome.” He walked around the body, examining every minor detail. “Check the back, the kidneys should also be missing. This isn’t just art, it’s a message.” He turned to Jinyoung, “Doctor, you’re sure this wasn’t you, right?”

Jinyoung put up his hands, wrists pressed together. “You’ve caught me officer, take me away.” His tone was light and teasing, matching Yugyeom’s.

“Why kidneys?” Youngjae asked as he looked at the back of the body and noticed the small sutures present there that corresponded with where the organs would be present. The killer had carefully cut open the back to extract them and stitched it back up almost imperceptibly.

“Two organs of humanity, two organs of love,” Jinyoung said after a minute of pondering. “The Egyptians left the heart and kidneys inside when mummifying their corpses and many traditions considered the kidneys the locus of affection.”

“The flowers, what do they signify?” Yugyeom asked Youngjae.

The forensic analyst looked down at his file before answering, “All imply something along the lines of romantic interest, infatuation, crushes.”

“Our killer seems to have fallen in love.”

“Why ballet? Why the flowers of infatuation but organs of love?” Yugyeom wondered out loud as he once again sat at Jinyoung’s side at his dining table. Jinyoung had offered to cook lunch since they’d wrapped up early and Jaebeom wouldn’t be available to talk to till the next day.

“Some things, emotions, people are both delicate and sturdy at once. They’re fragile, easily disturbed, hurt, broken, but if nurtured correctly, they blossom powerfully, often dangerously.” Yugyeom felt Jinyoung staring into his soul as he spoke those words.

“Wait a minute—” He started, getting up from his seat abruptly. “You’re not here for Jaebeom or the cases are you?”

“Mr Kim, please, we can talk this out cordially—”

“No, you’re not getting into my head anymore. We’re done.”

“Yugyeom, Jaebeom asked me to do it out of concern for your well being. He told me about the dark places you retreat to after the cases. How the darkness from the killers’ minds seeps into your own and haunts you. How you lose yourself in the process.” Jinyoung’s eyes looked pleading as he spoke, “I want to help you.”

Yugyeom chuckled bitterly, “Help me or Jaebeom?”

“You, Yugyeom. All Jaebeom needs is a report saying that you’re fit enough for duty. I have that prepared here,” Jinyoung left the dining room for a moment before returning with a file. “You have the choice now. Tell me to stop and I’ll tell Jaebeom that my work is done.”

“Tuesdays.” Yugyeom mumbled into his drink.

“Pardon me?”

Grabbing his jacket, Yugeom moved to leave the room but turned just as he was about to step out, “Sessions on Tuesdays, I get off work early.”

It was difficult for Yugyeom to look Jinyoung or Jaebeom in the eye without getting angry knowing what they were doing to him, but the case forced them into the same room, the body on a table in front of them, pictures of the crime scene scattered on the one on the side.

“Yugyeom, what did you see yesterday?” Jaebeom asked.

Closing his eyes, Yugyeom envisioned himself back in the art gallery, the body that was once hung in front of him now lying on the floor next to him, not yet rigged up.

“I never saw Mr Jeong as a person. His life was worth less than an insect crushed under my foot. His death was quick and painless. I would have dragged it longer if I’d so desired, but I had other priorities. This display was everything. I needed it to be perfect.

“I spent hours making sure the pose was correct, rigging ropes carefully to hold the body in place. I placed the flowers in last, the finishing touch to a labour of love. A proposal, a request for courtship, proof of the power and devotion I held in my hands.”

Moments of silence ticked by as Yugyeom collected his thoughts. “It’s a letter, Jaebeom. The killer wanted someone in particular to see this, someone who’d understand what it meant. He wanted them to know what he was capable of.”

“Who in the world would appreciate a dead body with missing organs as a letter? Another killer? Don’t tell me we have two killers to deal with.”

“You said there were other cases with organs missing, right?” Jinyoung asked. Jaebeom nodded and handed him a case file.

“Twelve deaths over two years. All of them displayed one way or the other, clearly meant to be found. They were all far more detached than this one, though, more a show of ruthlessness than art.” Jaebeom thought for a moment before adding, “Don’t tell me our new killer is in love with our old one, that might just make me quit. I’ve worked tirelessly to catch the ‘Butcher’ as we call him, I don’t have time for another one.”

“I don’t think these are two killers, Jaebeom,” Jinyoung said, and Yugyeom nodded in assent. “I think the Butcher met someone who softened him.”

“All of these cases show someone with expertise with bodies, a doctor, nurse or mortician of some kind. One with a build large enough to carry them around and access to medical supplies and some sort of space to do the dissection,” Yugyeom noted, rifling through the photos.

“What does he do with the organs? And it's not just organs, some of them have flesh missing. Sometimes just sections, other times an entire limb,” asked Jaebeom.

Everyone turned to Jinyoung as the resident doctor, “Surgical trophies, maybe? He could be keeping them as a personal collection, a piece of every person he’s killed.” Turning to Youngjae who was working on the body he asked, “Anything in common between all the victims?”

“Nothing we could figure out. The gender division is pretty even, ages stick between eighteen and fifty. Some had families, others no one. They feel extremely random, half the victims originally from different parts of the country but all of them turned up in the general area of this city and two over.”

“I need time to think, Jaebeom. Start your search with medical professionals in the area, I’ll give you more details as soon as I can.”

Despite Yugyeom’s wishes, he ended up in Jinyoung’s office that evening. The scotch in his hand was the only thing keeping him sane, especially as he sat facing the doctor.

“I want this to be a place where you can be honest, Yugyeom. I am contractually obliged to not utter a word outside these walls. You can tell me whatever’s on your mind. I’m not here to judge, but listen.”

“You’ve lied to me before, why should I trust you?”

“Lies of omission are not the same, are they? But I’m not here to defend that. I’m sorry, I wasn’t able to figure out a better way for you to open up to me, but it was still wrong of me to. Would you be open to starting fresh?”

Yugyeom thought for a second before nodding. He pushed himself off his chair and started strolling around the office. The space was large, with a tall ceiling and a staircase leading up to a mezzanine lined with bookshelves end to end. Ladders rested against the bookcases on both floors, allowing access to the books stored up high.

Stopping by the nearest ladder, Yugyeom turned his back to it, resting a leg on the lowest step and leaning back against it. “This killer,” he started, “he makes me feel so many emotions.”

Jinyoung sat silently, his eyes expectant, waiting for Yugyeom to open up to him.

“I’m equal parts horrified and fascinated by him.” Yugyeom sighed and took a large swig of his drink. “I don’t know why I’m saying this but for a moment it felt like that letter was for me.”

Crossing one leg on top of the other, Jinyoung raised an eyebrow, “And why did it feel like that?”

“Jaebeom said that the person the Butcher is in love with, has to be a killer or someone who understands his work. Looking at the body, I could feel the emotions the Butcher put into it, I could understand the effort he went into to put it up there. It just felt like it was made for me, then. Like he knew I’d see it, that I’d understand him because that’s my job. To put myself into the heads of those who kill and find them inside there. Not see them as cold blooded killers but as people with motivations, desires, wants, needs. Maybe he hoped I’d see beyond the body, the murder, and see him in his art.”

Jinyoung stood up and joined Yugyeom near the ladder, standing close enough that Yugyeom got a strong whiff of the doctor’s perfume, a classy, masculine scent, much like the man himself. “What did you see of him?”

The image of the killer in Yugyeom’s head was blurry at best, but seeing the body, it felt like Yugyeom knew him. “A strong, skilled man. A bit traditional, trying to prove himself as the provider and caretaker but not one to be held down by norms. He kills not for lowly reasons of revenge but because he merely can. He sees his work as art, even when its cold and lifeless, he still wants it to be a spectacle.” Yugyeom stopped for a moment, arranging his thoughts. “He’s playing god.”

Those words hung between the two of them as they took them in. “What does that mean, Yugyeom? What does it mean to the killer?”

“He sees himself as above man. He wasn’t decorating the body, he was elevating it. He wants the person he likes to see what he’s capable of, how he can make something as repulsive as a dead body to art that moves.”

“Then why the trophies? Wouldn't that be uplifting the remnants of the murders a bit too much?” Jinyoung asked, pushing Yugyeom to think harder. “What could he be doing with the organs that would put himself above them?”

“I don’t know,” Yugyeom admitted. “That’s the one thing that doesn’t make sense. But I think they have something to do with the confession too.”

“Do you think that person will like it? Will they accept the courtship?”

“I do.”

Yugyeom tried his best to explain everything they’ve figured out to Jaebeom without the detail of how he saw a little too much in the Butcher’s work. It didn’t help narrow their search much but helped them build a more detailed profile of the killer. This left Yugyeom and Jinyoung free till more evidence came up while Jaebeom’s team worked on finding suspects.

“I’m heading back to the training centre, I’ve missed too many lectures,” Yugyeom said as they wrapped up their meeting.

“I’ll see you on Tuesday then,” Jinyoung said with a soft smile. They walked out of the building together and Jinyoung helped Yugyeom get into his car before waving him off.

For the first time in two weeks Yugyeom felt himself breathe. He was, even if temporarily, free of the cases and everything related to them. Driving had always been a comforting activity for Yugyeom, giving him the space and time to think for himself. He had two hours before his lecture so he decided to just use the time driving around town and maybe grab something to eat.

As he drove, he let his thoughts wander, but it kept coming back to case. There had to be something that he was missing. The question the doctor asked still bugged him. What was the Butcher doing with the organs and flesh? Surgical trophies make sense but doesn’t explain all the cases. What would he do with chunks of meat from the back, on either side of the spine?

That’s when it hit him. Yugyeom slammed the brakes on his car and pressed his head into the steering wheel. Angry horns from behind got him to snap out for a second and he pulled the car up by the side of the road and let the world stop around him.

Meat. Of course he saw the victims as less than himself. He saw them as pigs, animals meant to be grown just enough to be killed and taken apart for personal enjoyment. Yugyeom felt himself getting sick as he thought of the Butcher, of himself in the killer’s mind, eating his spoils.

He needed Jinyoung to know when he’d realised. He couldn’t deal with the thoughts alone and so he turned the car back around and drove to the doctor’s house.

Ringing the bell didn’t reward him with an answer. The door didn’t open regardless of how long he waited. That meant that either the doctor was still at his office or Yugyeom would have to wait a while for him to return from wherever he was. Just as he was about to turn away to try the office, he felt the impulse to try turning the knob on the door and he saw the door open under his fingers.

A flash of panic swept through him as he wondered if the doctor was in trouble. He didn’t seem the type to just leave his front door open. Reaching to his side, Yugyeom pulled out the gun that he’d been allowed to keep now that he was back in service. He tiptoed through the ground floor and found nothing. The house was seemingly empty.

He was about to climb the stairs to the first floor when he heard a sound. Footsteps from somewhere below him. Searching around the house, he tried to find where the way to the basement could be, till he found a door in the kitchen that looked like any other cabinet door. It led him down a set of steps to a metal room, designed much like the forensic lab at the NIS.

Turning the corner into the room, Yugyeom held his gun up but felt his grip loosening at the sight in front of him.

On a metal table lay Lim Jaebeom, very clearly dead. “Took you long enough,” A familiar voice called from behind him, forcing Yugyeom further into the room to turn to face it.

He should have known it was Jinyoung all along. It was way too obvious and that’s exactly why he missed it. “Why?” was the only thing Yugyeom could think of asking.

“You already know, Yugyeom. You explained it all to me yourself yesterday.” Jinyoung walked closer to Yugyeom despite the gun pointed squarely at his chest.

“And you thought I’d like all of this? That I’d say yes?” Yugyeom’s hands were shaking as he tried to hold his ground.

Jinyoung reached out to wrap his hand around the barrel of the gun and push Yugyeom’s arms down and out of the way. He used his other hand to grip the side of Yugyeom’s face. “I think you already have,” he whispered.

“No! I’m not a monster like you!” Yugyeom shouted as he pulled himself free of Jinyoung’s grip.

“Am I a monster? You’ve seen the inside of my head. You’ve seen what’s there. Can you look at all of that and still call me a monster?”

“Why kill Jaebeom though, I thought he was your friend!”

Jinyoung glanced at the body with a look of inconvenience, not regret. “An unfortunate casualty. I needed insurance, Yugyeom. I’m a simple man, if I can’t have what I want, I’ll burn it all down.” He looked at Yugyeom thoughtfully before continuing, “You know what I’m capable of. Walk out of here and you get framed for the murder of not only Lim Jaebeom but of all the Butcher’s victims. A perfect liar, who had access to everything he needed to carry his killings out, with medic training from his days with the police. No one would believe your innocence, I’ve made sure of that.”

Or you can stay with me. We put Jaebeom’s body up together, a proof of our courtship and then we run away. I have enough money for us to settle down anywhere in the world and never be bothered again.” He once again held Yugyeom’s face, who was shaken to his bones as he processed everything Jinyoung was saying. “You see me for who I am, not for who you want me to be. Stay, please.”

Yugyeom felt his knees weakening as a flood of emotions washed over him. He realised that some part of him had known since he saw the Butcher’s victim for the first time. He knew it was Jinyoung, that it was meant for him, and that he’d accepted the courtship.

“You knew that I wouldn’t be able to say no to you, insurance or not,” Yugyeom said.

“I had to cut off the ropes that held you here. Jaebeom would have tracked you down wherever you were if I’d left him alive.” Jinyoung held Yugyeom as he broke down and fell to his knees, finally giving himself entirely to Jinyoung.

“I’ll stay, I’ll see you for who you are,” Yugyeom whispered, “If you promise to hold dear the darkness in me too.”

“I promise.”

[harrison-abbott]

NOCTURNAL WOODS (1992)

When I was a boy I was never able to sleep well. I hated school and when I usually slept for a couple of hours when I got in, meaning I’d be up in the evening doing what I liked to do, which was read and watch films etc. This meant that I wasn’t tired in the late evening like neurotypical people, and I’d stay up into the a.m. hours.  

My mother disliked this and I went into this routine naively, because I still needed to go to the toilet and move around the house. And when I woke her up with bangs I’d get a beating. She was quite the monster when deducted sleep. So I learned how to sneak quietly. I learned how to place my feet on the right floorboards, avoiding the others which would wince. It was intense and like a game and I enjoyed it.

I loved the dark and its sense of creation. Daylight made a new world and in the dark there were other possibilities. People are not designed to function in the night and that’s what I liked about it.  

To this day I’m usually up at night. I’m not as quick with reading as a man but I still have insomnia or am only to rest in four-hour bouts. It doesn’t bother me much.  

But, anyway, Davies gave me a new case. Two people had been murdered in a park in a south side suburb of the city. Shot. I looked over the files and information. They were shot in the early morning; one was a middle-aged man walking his dog, the other an elderly woman taking a stroll … Their bodies were found cold around nine or ten a.m. by other dogwalkers, who called the police.  

Thus the victims must have been shot when it was still dark. Or during very low light. And thus I knew that the killer must the same admiration for the night as I did. I told Davies that I’d get right on it. I was intrigued.

I drove down to this suburban area. I met up with the teams who had sealed off the most recent murder scene with the old lady. There was no possibility of her being killed for a reason. It was obvious we were dealing with somebody of a serial psychopathic nature who would be looking to attack again soon. The spot where she was shot was wide open and near a handsome little bridge above the river.

“Morning, sir,” I shook hands with the cop who was in charge.

“Morning, Walter.”

“So have your team searched around the area yet?”

“We cut the woods off to the public yesterday. We did a routine scout around the area yesterday afternoon. It was raining like crazy and we didn’t find anything.”

I looked around. The valley rose up in a steep ascent where the trees were muffled by dense ivy.  

“Did you check up the valley, sir?” I asked.

“We went over the woods in a general way, so yes, but we were waiting for today to do a proper search.”

I took this as a no.

“Okay,” I said, “I’m going to head up the valley now and have a mosey.”

The men stayed behind and I teetered up the hill alone. Indeed the strands were slippery with the recent rainfall; my breath puffed out in clumsy clouds. I got maybe fifty metres up and looked down at the bridge with the policemen by it. What I was looking for was some kind of vantage point where I expected the killer to have shot from.

I scanned the ground and went through the branches of the trees. There were many places where he could get an easy shot from this range. But I simply didn’t find any evidence of him being there. So I went back down the valley.

“Find anything, detective?” the cop said to me.

“I didn’t, no. But could you take me to the spot where the other person was shot? The man?”

As we went along the trail I scanned the landscape. These were fairly heavy woods and any whiff of urbanity was a half-mile off. We ducked away from the river where the path led down under another hillside. Rocky and craggy with birches clung to its canvass. The policeman showed me where the man had been shot.

“What happened to his dog?” I said. “The dead man’s dog.”

“His dog? Oh, I actually didn’t think about that. I think somebody found it.”

The rockface arose wildly above me. I noticed it came to an abrupt end at the top – a distance high enough to kill you if you jumped from there. I told the policeman I was going to go searching again and he could come if he wanted but he refrained and said he would stay behind.  

I obviously couldn’t climb the rock bit directly so I went into the woods the far side of it and picked my way through the ferns and thickets, using the tree roots to lever myself up. Was quite fun. I reached the top and came up to the area at the top of the cliff.  

There were footprints in the mud. Boots, a man’s size, a big man. I avoided them and edged my way towards the clifftop. I could see the policeman at the bottom. Another perfect shooting position. Then I saw something in the grass, and I went closer. It was a flask. As in, a coffee flask, lying there. He’d left it behind. By it the grass was leaden down as if somebody had been sitting there reading.

Good stuff. I knew I would have to wait for this man. He would be returning here again to kill or perhaps he was still here already, spying on me. Maybe I could lure him out and tempt him into a duel. Either way it would have to be done at night. The quickest way to catch him would be through some form of espionage. He would not strike in the day. Only in the nocturnal escapism of the woods.

I told my plan to Davies on the phone. He was uneasy about it. I told him I wanted to do it alone.  

“So you reckon there’s a good chance he’s still in the woods?” Davies said.

“I just have a hunch, boss.”

“As in, he’s camping out there? How big is the forest anyway?”

“He very well might be and it’s large enough to hide in.”

“You sure you don’t want to have a team with you?”

“It would work better with one man.”

“Well, if that’s how you want to proceed then so be it.”

I ordered the policemen in the woods to keep the area off-limits to the public. Then they could leave. I drove to the nearest supermarket and got some whisky in. I sat in my car near the woodland and read the newspaper, waiting for it to get dark. There was a pretty sunset and then the night cloaked the area and all fell silent, and I set out into the woods.  

The only tactic was to explore; I didn’t quite have a plan save to find further clues he might have left. So I took off the public trail and went into the rough parts. The ivy covered everything like an evergreen plague. And a thick frost multiplied on the leaves in a magical haze. The whiteness of the frost gave off small light which helped me in an arena which was otherwise pitch black.  

I saw something ahead of me in the gloom. It slid across the frosty ivy every so faintly. Then there was a rustle in the trees ahead of it. I followed and came to said trees and looked down the other side, onto a hillside where this shape was angling down it. He moved fast and skilful down the slope. That was him, that was the killer. I didn’t expect to find him so fast.

A tingle came over my body. I brought my bottle out and drank as his body reached the bottom of the hill. It was like being in a film, or watching something cryptic in a play. When he vanished into a new group of trees I pursued.

I was bemused at how easy he descended the slope because it was gnarly and lubricious. I fumbled down it slow and awkward, all the whiles losing time on the man below me. And I reached the bottom and looked into an abyss of trees and couldn’t see him. I’d also lost the point where I’d seen him last – was confused. I chose a location and ventured. Then I caught a smell of something.

Woodsmoke.

That pearly homely smell. It came from behind me, which proved I’d gone the wrong way. So I followed the woodsmoke instead and came to a cluster of holly bushes. Through the leaves I saw the miraculous glow of firelight. I peeled closer and peered through the branches.  

I saw him perched by a bonfire. He was working at something in front of him: I was too far away to see what it was but it looked like he was knitting. As I watched I drank, feeling smug that he didn’t know I was there. Then he stopped whatever he was doing and he put something into a bag. Then he left the bag there and moved off into the woods again and vanished from view. I came out of the hollies and went up to the bonfire.

The rucksack was small and I looked inside it. There was a bottle of water, some apples, a pencil and a notebook. I looked inside it and there were all kinds of slinky handwriting inside it. The letters were so small I couldn’t read it.  

Suddenly I heard a noise ahead of me in the trees and I flinched and tucked the book back in the bag and then ran off. I dove into the bushes as the killer came back to his fire. He came up to the flames and I saw his frame for the first proper time. He was huge. And he’d stopped and was looking at his bag. Because it had changed position. I’d moved it.  

Then he brought his rife out and started looking around the trees. I swallowed and then crouched up. The killer took a torch out and clicked it on and the battery beam of it was wondrous in the night. He held the rifle in one hand and torch in another and came towards where I was hiding. Closer and closer and suddenly the dark was undone. The torch overpowered the weeds and bushes.  

I stood up and ran and simultaneously the light hit me. He swore. Then he took aim and fired. And a gush of timber spat out of the tree trunk in front of me and I ran on. I dove through more tree trunks. He shot a second time and the bullet whistled into time but didn’t hit me. I pulled my own gun out and ran. There was no way of telling where he was and the other immediate danger was running into one of these trees.

Something snagged my foot and I fell over, cartoonish, landing on my face. Then I saw him lurking between the trees. Hunting. Thirty yards from me and then twenty and I was on the floor watching him. His torch whipped about and then it found me.

His face disappeared behind the torchlight. He brought his rifle up and shot. My body jarred and jolted aside. I felt a tremendous weakness. The torchlight beamed closer and closer. I brought my pistol out and shot at it. I shot at the torch, not the human, and that made it easier. And the torch twirled away.  

I heard the man gasp and grunt. The torch was lying in the weeds and I could dimly see the killer squirming on the floor. I’d shot him somewhere in the torso.  

My left knee was shot. First time I’d ever been whacked by a bullet. I had a clear aim at him again and it would’ve been easy to shoot a second time. I hesitated.

He grumbled up and got a stance and lumbered away from me. I could have capped him then but I didn’t, I didn’t want to.

The reverb of the gun battle still hung in the woods in failed echoes.  

I turned my lighter on and looked at my gunshot wound. It had blown away a chunk of the lower calf. Not good but not lethal if I could get to a hospital in time. Okay, so I needed to get out of the woods. First thing I needed to do was stand up. I scrawled over to a tree trunk and lifted myself up using my right leg for support. And the blood flumed down my left knee in hot currents.

There was a branch above me which might serve as a crutch for the time being. I broke it off. It was tall and sturdy enough and a lucky find. Then I drank. I downed as much as I could for the next journey.

And as I went I got thinking about my mother in the old house again, when I used to sneak around to try and play with her. My mother always seemed old and irritable. She never spoke much and never particularly liked me … Did I sneak around the house because I wanted to prove one of her tantrums? Maybe I enjoyed those explosive bells when I woke her up by mistake … And maybe I got so good at evasion that I had no relationship with her at all.

And now I was here in the woods with a firm possibility of bleeding to death. I wasn’t going to go out without being drunk. Fuck that. So I drank as much as I could and then I came to the river.  

I didn’t even know I was that close to the river but suddenly there I was and there was no other option save to jump it. So I jumped. And I landed about a yard off the bank the other side. And I tried to jump with my walking stick but it fell away and the current took it downstream. I came out of the water laughing, and headed out of the dead shrubbery. And I came upon the main trail.

The public trail – I was here! I recognised where I was suddenly, a little bit. If I followed it west I should come upon the scene where the woman was murdered. And I walked along it, an idiot, a failed detective, a failed spy. I reached the taped-off scene of the woman.  

I wondered why a good woman like that deserved to die compared to a vagabond like me. Maybe she wasn’t a good woman; maybe she had an insidious past filled with selfish vengeance and greed and was like that until she was shot in the head by some random lunatic in the forest. Who knows. That’s what crime is there for.

The trail continued and I came upon the streetlamps beyond the trees in the far distance and knew I was going to survive. There was further tape on the main entrance to the park and I ducked under it and went along the road and found my car and I got inside and tried not to think about my leg.  

I didn’t really feel much in the way of panic. Perhaps I’d been trying to kill myself for such a long time there wasn’t much difference in the current situation …  

The bottle was nearly dry. I knew that there was a big hospital on the south side of the city. It was only a ten minute drive away in fact. Handy.

It felt good to be back in urbanity. And the car warmed me up. I stuck the radio on and a national audio brought me back to society – a place where I never belonged. And I finished my bottle on the way to the hospital and met not a single other car in the indigo icy morning.

THE END

[biggerbetterbat]

WITH YOU [12] TS-19

Daryl Dixon x OC!Charlie Reed

Summary: The stay at the CDC doesn't go as planned, they get answers, but they're not what they wanted to hear. Charlie thinks about death.

Warnings: language, thoughts about death, angst, characters death (we can't see it, but we know they did)

Song: Running Delta Spirit

A/N: Hello! I bet you didn't expect the chapter today! I'm exhausted by it, the time I spent on copying the dialogs…but I like it. And with this one, we ENDED SEASON 1!!! Thank you so much for reading, liking, and commenting. I'm glad you like this and hope you enjoy this one :)

WITH YOU ON WATTPAD

She opened her eyes abruptly and tried to take a breath. The room was dark and because they were underground she didn't know if it was day or still night. Daryl's back faced her, so she assumed that he was still sleeping, she knew that he had problems with sleep, so as quiet as she could be, she walked out of the room.

Glenn looked at her once she entered the food court. Her breath just calmed, but pictures from the dream were still present in her head. Charlie saw that Lori and Carl were eating already and T-Dog was preparing something near the counter.

"Charlie!" Carl called her name as soon as he saw her.

With a frustrated sigh, Charlie rubbed her temples, feeling a headache beginning to form. She threw him an annoyed look as Carl's loud antics were making it difficult for her to live. "Shhhh."

"Are you hungover, too?" he asked.

She sat in front of Glenn- who looked just as pale as her and imitated his posture. "No. I feel as if I hit my head into a wall."

Rick couldn't help but chuckle softly to himself. "Rough night, huh, Charlie?"

"I guess you can say that," she said.

"You want one?" Rick asked and gave her two white pills from a bottle that Lori helped him open.

"Thank you." she smiled but was sure that it just looked like a wider grimace.

"Eggs!" T-Dog exclaimed, moving toward the table with a pan. "Powdered but...But I do them gooood."

Glenn groaned at the thought of eating something and from being pale as a wall he turned to a subtle green color.

"I bet you can't tell." Theodore smiled and leaned over his hungover friend. "Protein helps the hangover."

"You know T-Dog, I think I might throw up every bit of it." she looked at him. "But we don't know when we will eat something like that ever again, so I'll try, buddy."

He touched his heart and nodded his head.

"Where'd all this come from?" Rick asked.

"Jenner," Lori answered. "He thought we could use it. Some of us at least."

"Don't ever...ever...ever...let me drink again." Glen groaned as the smell of eggs got to his nose.

Then Shane entered the room and Charlie could tell that the atmosphere changed immediately. She couldn't tell who was so tense with a cop, but she knew something was up. Walsh's cold "Hey." just confirmed her suspicions.

"Feel as bad as I do?" Rick asked with a smile.

"Worse."

"What the hell happened to you?" T-Dog asked him when he was passing him by. "Your neck."

Charlie looked at the man and that's when she saw him. Shane's neck was decorated with two bright red lines."I must have done it in my sleep."

Rick scanned his body and his smile disappeared. "Never seen you do that before."

"Me neither." the cop answered while sitting at the table. "Not like me at all."

"Morning." Jenner interrupted the conversation, making the shift in the air.

"Hey, Doc."

Then Dale exchanged looks with Andrea and then looked nervously at the man who just entered the room. "Doctor, I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing..."

"But you will anyway."

"We didn't come here for the eggs," Andrea said.

"Great, let's ruin the moment again," Charlie mumbled, poking her eggs with face expression of a serial killer.

Daryl sat next to her, ready to eat as Charlie took a plate for him and asked T-Dog to put the eggs on it, too. He looked at her face, trying to read from it how she felt this morning.

"You good?" he asked.

"I was. Before they ruined the breakfast," she said quietly, so Andrea couldn't hear. "Was I horrible last night?"

"Nah," he said.

"Lair!" she nudged him. "Tell me. I want to know if I should be sorry."

"Nah." he shook his head and shoved eggs into his mouth. "What?" when he saw her face he rolled his eyes. "We talked about brothers. You talk awfully lot when you drink, even after you fell asleep."

"I talked in my sleep?" she opened her eyes wider and her heart fastened beating.

"Just random names." he shrugged.

He didn't tell her that she was throwing up in the middle of the night and he was the one holding her hair. He also didn't mention her calling his name terrified in her sleep. He could tell that she already felt like shit.

The group once again entered the big room with a huge screen. She was ready to hear the answers to their questions and find out the cure to the virus. Charlie hoped that after this conversation they would finally find out what was wrong with Jenner. However, something deep down told her that it wouldn't be a pleasurable conversation and that the whole thing was probably a scam as Atlanta's safe zone. But until she heard it from the Doc, there was still hope.

"Give me a playback of TS-19," said Jenner, and right after that they all heard: Playback of TS-19, and the screen lit up. "Few people ever got a chance to see this. Very few."

"Is that a brain?" Carl asked.

"An extraordinary one." Jenner nodded. "Not that it matters in the end. Take us in for EIV."

Enhanced internal view.

Charlie was following what was happening on the screen with wide eyes. "What are those lights?"

"It's a person's life," Jenner said. "Experiences, memories. It's everything. Somewhere in all that organic wiring, all those ripples of light... is you." he explained. "The thing that makes you unique, and human."

"You don't make sense ever?" Daryl asked with furrowed eyebrows.

"Those are synapses, electric impulses in the brain that carry all the messages," Jenner said. "They determine everything a person says, does, or thinks from the moment of birth to the moment of death."

"Death?" Rick asked. "That's what this is, a vigil?"

"Yes." Jenner nodded. "Or rather the...playback of the vigil."

"This person died? Who?" Andrea furrowed her eyebrows.

"Test subject 19." the doctor said. "Someone who was bitten and infected...and volunteered to have us record the process," he explained. "Vi, scan forward to the first event."

Scanning to the first event.

The group saw how the brain is slowly dying. Bright, shimmery impulses slowly disappear. "What is that?"

"It invades the brain like meningitis," said Jenner."The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shutdown, then the major organs. Then death. Everything you ever were or ever will be...gone."

Sophia looked up at Carol. "Is that what happened to Jim?

"Yes." she nodded and caressed her daughter's hair.

As the brain turned black and dead, Andrea turned away from the screen, tears running down her face. Jenner looked at her.

"She lost somebody two days ago," Lori explained. "Her sister."

"I lost somebody, too. I know how devastating it is." he nodded. "Scan to the second event."

Scanning to the second event.

"The resurrection times vary wildly. We had reports of it happening in as little as three minutes. The longest we heard of was eight hours. In the case of this patient, it was two hours, one minute...seven seconds." he explained.

They saw how black brain was being lit up with red lights. At first slowly then more and more. Lori opened her eyes wider."It restarts the brain?"

"No. Just the brain stem," he said. "Basically, it gets them up and moving."

"But they're not alive?" Charlie asked.

"You tell me." he scoffed.

"It's nothing like before. Most of the brain is dark." Charlie answered.

"Dark, lifeless, dead," he said. "The frontal lobe, the neocortex, the human part...that doesn't come back. The you part. Just a shell driven by mindless instinct."

Carol jumped as she suddenly saw something tearing the skull. "God. What was that?"

"Shot," Charlie said. "He shot his patient in the head. Didn't you?"

Jenner didn't answer, he looked down and commanded something to the computer."Vi, power down the main screen and the workstations."

Powering down the main screen and workstations

"You have no idea what it is, do you?" Andrea asked, crossing her arms.

"It could be microbial, viral, parasitic...fungal..."

"Or the wrath of God?" Jacqui interrupted.

"There is that."

"Somebody must know something. Somebody somewhere." Andrea said desperately.

"There are others, right?" Carol asked. "Other facilities?"

Jenner shrugged. "There may be some. People like me."

"But you don't know. How can you not know?" Rick asked him this time.

"Everything went down. Communications, directives...all of it." he sighed. "I've been in the dark for almost a month."

"So it's not just here?" Andrea asked. "There's nothing left anywhere? Nothing? That's what you're really saying, right?"

Jacqui closed her eyes and leaned on something as she felt her legs shaking. "Jesus."

"Man, I'm gonna get shit-faced drunk again," Daryl grumbled.

"I have one more bottle under the bed," she said to Daryl. "Don't give me that look. You're welcome."

"Dr.Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you and I hate to ask one more question." Dale finally opened his mouth."But that clock...it's counting down. What happens at zero?"

"The basement generators...they run out of fuel," Jenner said, but his expression showed that he covered something.

"And then?" Charlie asked.

Jenner just walked away.

Rick looked at Charlie and then at the doctor. He licked his lips and repeated the question. "Vi, what happens when the power runs out?"

When the power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur.

"You need help?" Daryl asked from behind as he entered their room and saw her packing up.

"No. I didn't even have time to unpack." she smiled lightly. "Here. Take it."

He took the bottle from her hand and looked at her. "Don't want it?"

"I think I'm done...after last night," she said. "Feel free. After what I heard I don't need this to throw up."

"Mmm."

"You were holding my hair, right?" she asked.

Daryl opened his eyes wider and opened his mouth. "I never said..."

"I'm always throwing up."

"Then why are you drinking?"

"Cleansing method." she smiled.

The quiet noise of machines went quiet and they both looked at the doors, hearing Carol's voice. "Why is the air out?"And the lights in our room?"

"What's going on? Why is everything turned off?" Daryl looked at the doctor, leaning out of the room.

"Energy use is being prioritized," Jenner said, snatching the bottle of whiskey from Dixon's hand.

"Air isn't a priority?" Dale asked. "And lights?

"It's not up to me," Jenner answered. "Zone Five is shutting itself down."

"Hey!" Daryl yelled. "Hey, what the hell does that mean? Hey, man, I'm talking to you. What do you mean, it's shutting itself down? How can a building do anything?"

"You'd be surprised," Jenner said.

When Lori caught a glimpse of her husband, she called his name. "Rick?"

"Jenner, what's happening?" Rick asked.

"The system is dropping all nonessential uses of power," Jenner explained. "It's designed to keep the computers running as long as possible. It starts as we approach the half-hour mark. Right on schedule."

Jenner pointed at the clock, that was still going down. He took one more sip and handed the bottle back to Daryl, who took it with so much force, that the liquid almost spilled all over the floor.

"It was the French." he blurted out. "They were the last ones to hold out, as far as I know. While our people were bolting out the doors and committing suicide in the hallways, they stayed in the labs 'till the end." he elaborated. "They thought they were close to a solution."

"What happened?" Jacqui asked.

"The same thing that's happening here," Jenner said. "No power grid. Ran out of juice. The world runs on fossil fuels. I mean, how stupid is that?"

"Let me tell you..." Shawn began but was stopped by Rick's strong grip.

"To hell with it, Shane," he said. "I don't even care. Lori, grab our things. Everybody, get your stuff. We're getting out of here now!"

They were ready to leave when they heard the alarm blaring. Carl looked up at his father. "What's that?"

Thirty minutes to decontamination.

"Doc, what's going on here?!" Daryl shouted.

"Everybody, y'all heard Rick," Shane said. "Get your stuff and let's go! Go now! Go! Let's go."

But before they could walk out of the room, the door closed with a loud sound. Glenn's eyes widened in terror. "No! Did you just lock us in? He just locked us in!"

"We hit the 30-minute window." Jenner ignored their presence and turned on his computer. "I am recording..."

"Carl!" Lori screamed.

"Mom!" he cried out.

Daryl immediately moved towards Jenner, ready to smash his head on the desk. "You son of a bitch! You locked us in! You lying..."

"Wait, no! No, don't do it!" T-Dog yelled.

Daryl was panting and grunting, while he was dragged away from Jenner before he had a chance to hit him with a bottle of whiskey. Shane was holding him around his waist and T-Dog stepped between the redneck and the doctor just in case.

"Hey, Jenner, open that door now," demanded Rick.

"There's no point," Jenner answered. "Everything topside is locked down. The emergency exits are sealed."

"Well, open the damn things." Daryl backed up Rick.

"That's not something I control. The computers do. I told you once that front door closed, it wouldn't open again." Jenner explained. "You heard me say that. It's better this way."

"What is?" Charlie asked in a tone that didn't take bullshit for an answer. "What happens in twenty-eight minutes? What happens in twenty-eight minutes?!"

"You know what this place is?!" Jenner exploded angrily. "We protected the public from very nasty stuff! Weaponized smallpox! Ebola strains that could wipe out half the country! Stuff you don't want getting out! Ever! In the event of a catastrophic power failure...in a terrorist attack, for example...H.I.T.s are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out."

"H.I.T.s?" Rick asked.

"Vi, define."

H.I.T.s. High-impulse thermobaric fuel-air explosives consist of a two-stage aerosol ignition that produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration than any other known explosive except nuclear. The vacuum-pressure effect ignites the oxygen between 5,000 and 6,000 and is used when the greatest loss of life and damage to structures is desired.

"And in English?" Charlie asked.

"It sets the air on fire," Jenner said. "No pain. An end of sorrow, grief...regret. Everything."

The sound of shattered glass echoed through the room as Daryl threw the bottle at the door. "Open the damn door!"

"Out of my way!" Shane yelled as he started running toward the door, carrying an axe.

T-Dog tossed another to Daryl and the two of them started their pointless work at trying to destroy the metal. It was all they could hear with sobs of Carol and Sophia.

"You should've left well enough alone," Jenner said. "It would've been so much easier."

"Easier for who?" Lori asked.

"All of you," he replied. "You know what's out there...A short brutal life and an agonizing death." he turned to Andrea. "Your...your sister...What was her name?"

"Amy."

"Amy." he nodded."You know what this does. You've seen it. Is that really what you want for your wife and son?"

"I don't want this," Rick said.

Then Shane walked up to them, out of breath. "Can't make a dent."

"Those doors are designed to withstand a rocket launcher," Jenner said.

"Well, your head ain't!" yelled even more pissed off Daryl.

"Woah! Woah! Daryl! Daryl!" he yelled while jumping in front of Daryl. "Just back up! Back up!"

"You do want this," Jenner said to Rick. "Last night you said it was just a matter of time before everybody's love was dead."

"What? You really said that?" Shane asked with furrowed eyebrows. "After all your big talk?"

Charlie looked at Rick as if he killed her puppy. Grimes was a stranger to her, she didn't even care about him as she had known him for three days, but he seemed so confident about his words. He convinced them that they could make it.

"I had to keep hope alive, didn't I?"

"There is no hope." Jenner accented. "There never was."

"There's always hope." Rick shook his head."Maybe it won't be you, maybe not here, but somebody somewhere..."

"What part of everything's gone you don't understand?" Andrea asked, looking at Rick angrily.

"Listen to your friend. She gets it." Jenner said. "This is what takes us down. This is our extinction event."

Carol sobbed, hugging her daughter. "This isn't right. You can't just keep us here."

"One tiny moment...a millisecond. No pain." Jenner tried to reason with them.

And he caught Charlie's attention.

What death was better? Being blown up like a balloon or being teared up by the Walkers? Dream flashed right in front of her eyes. Teeth sinking into her skin, blood running down her body...the last thing she would see would be empty eyes and scary faces.

"My daughter doesn't deserve to die like this." Carol cried.

"Wouldn't it be kinder, more compassionate to just hold your loved ones and wait for the clock to run down?" Jenner asked and looked at Charlie.

But she didn't have anyone. She was alone in this world and those people could disappear in a second, they all could just split up and be gone...

A cop cocked his gun and Rick decided to step in. "Shane, no!

"Out of the way, Rick! Stay out of my way!" Shane yelled. "Open that door or I'm gonna blow your head off! Do you hear me?!" he demanded.

"Brother, brother, this is not the way you do this. We will never get out of here." Grimes tried to calm his best friend.

"Shane you listen to him," Lori begged.

"It's too late. He dies. We all die!" Rick yelled. "Shane! Shane!"

Shane yelled and fired a gun at one of the computers. Charlie jumped as she didn't expect the noise, holding Glenn's hand to find the reassurance. Right after that, Rick wrestled the gun from his friend's hands. "Are you done now? Are you done?"

"Yeah, I guess we all are," Shane said.

"I think you're lying," Rick said to Jenner.

"What?"

"You're lying...about no hope," Rick said. "If that were true, you'd have bolted with the rest or taken the easy way out. You didn't. You chose the hard path. Why?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It does matter. It always matters." Grimes insisted. "You stayed when the other ran. Why?"

"No, because I wanted to. I made a promise...to her," he said and pointed at the screen. "My wife."

"Test subject 19 was your wife?" Lori asked.

Daryl took an axe and walked away from the group, trying to let out his anger on metallic doors once again.

"She begged me to keep going as long as I could. How could I say no? She was dying." he said. "It should've been me on that table. I wouldn't have mattered to anyone. She was a loss to the world. Hell, she ran this place. I just worked here. In our field, she was an Einstein. Me? I'm just...Edwin Jenner. She could've done something about this. Not me."

"Your wife didn't have a choice. You do. That's...that's all we want...a choice, a chance." Rick begged.

"Let us keep trying as long as we can." Lori tried to help her husband and convince Jenner.

"I told you topside's locked down. I can't open those." the doctor was still refusing.

He walked away and after a moment the doors that Daryl was trying to hit, opened. "Come on, let's go!" Daryl yelled.

"Come on! Come on! Let's go! Come on!" a chorus of people started yelling as they ushered to make their escape.

Charlie just stood there, looking at Jenner. She felt so torn apart between staying and going. There was nothing left for her out there, but was it her time to die?

But Glenn decided for her as he pulled her arm almost ripping it away. She started running after him, leaving Jacqui, Andrea, and Dale behind.

"We're gonna get out of here, Sophia," Carol said to her daughter as they made their way out.

"There's your chance. Take it!" she heard Jenner's voice.

"I'm grateful," Rick answered.

The last words were muffled, but she heard: "The day will come you won't be."

As soon as they reached their cars, they saw Andrea with Dale. They were running as fast as they could, but they wouldn't make it, so they just ducked down.

"Down," Daryl demanded and forced Charlie down.

She heard the noise of falling walls and felt that everything was shaking. Then she could see burning leftovers of the CDC.

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[ritualoftheancients]

Ritual of the Ancients - Chapter 2: A Cop, of sorts

by Roan Rosser

This is a chapter of a complete vampire novel with a trans-masc main character and a gay romance subplot. New Chapters are posted every Sunday. If you like the novel and want to support the author, ebook and paperback copies can be purchased here.

*****

On the elevator, Jack prattled on about proper sun-proofing procedures and I only half listened to him as I ran through possible excuses to get away from him. Only when we stepped out into the hall on the sixth floor did I remember the second part of my problem: no keys.

I eyed Jack. Nice muscle definition was visible on his arms and chest, even through the cloth of his shirt. Plus, he was a shapeshifter, and in the movies they were always super strong. He could probably just break down the door if worse came to worse. However, plan A was that knocking on the door would wake Lindsay. She might have had her phone turned off, but she was a light sleeper. She’d be pissed at being woken up, but I wouldn’t have to pay out of my security deposit for a damaged door.

Jack, walking ahead of me, stopped abruptly, and I almost walked into his back. “Everett, you have a roommate?” Jack asked over his shoulder in a near whisper.

“Yeah, of course I do.” I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes at Jack yet again. As if a museum intern could afford an apartment on their own. I actually could have afforded it because of my little side business, but that money was for something far more important.

“Does she usually leave the door open?”

“What? No.” I pushed past Jack, unable to see past the taller man. My front door was open about a quarter of an inch. A sliver of darkness was all that was visible past the door jam.

“Get behind me,” Jack hissed, and pushed me back with one hand. With his other he reached into his jacket and drew a gun.

I was so shocked that I didn’t protest as Jack pushed me backwards. I hadn’t realized he was armed. I wondered why a werewolf—or jackal in this case—needed a gun. Jack pressed his back against the wall of the hallway next to the door and slid along it with the gun in a two-handed grip, pointed toward the ceiling. It looked like something out of a movie. Keeping his gun in the air, Jack crouched down and leaned toward the doorway. It seemed smart to me. It put his head down at crotch level, whereas anyone who was going to shoot through the door would probably shoot higher, at chest or head height.

Jack took one hand off his gun and used it to push the door the rest of the way open. From where I was standing in the hall, I couldn’t see much. Just more darkness, which itself was odd because we usually left the light in the kitchen over the sink on for midnight snack runs.

“Where’s Lindsay?” I whispered, hoping she was okay. She’d been an alright roommate, and a great friend when I’d really needed one.

“Shush,” Jack hissed over his shoulder. “Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

“Wait, shouldn’t I go first? If I’m a vampire, I’m like indestructible, right? Like in the movies?”

“It’s not that simple. This isn’t a movie, and thinking that way will get you killed.” Jack’s eyes narrowed and he whipped his head back around toward my apartment, lifting his nose and scenting like a dog. Or a jackal. Wait, Jack the jackal. I snickered. What parents named a werejackal “Jack”?

“I said to be quiet. And stay here.” Eyes wide, Jack disappeared into the dark of my apartment. I wondered why the sudden hurry after he’d urged such caution. Shrugging, I moved up to stand next to my door where Jack had been a moment before. I could still feel the heat from his body on the wall and smell his shampoo. A breeze whispered from my apartment, covering Jack’s comforting scent with a smell that I couldn’t describe, but that immediately set me on edge.

The elevator behind me dinged, and the door began to open. I glanced behind me and almost choked as I caught sight of not other tenants getting off, but two uniformed officers. When they spotted me, they both drew their guns.

Without stopping to think about it, I took two steps forward into my dark apartment, slammed the door shut behind me, and turned the deadbolt. Running on autopilot, I flipped the light switch for the front hall.

“Damn it, Everett, I told you to wait outside,” Jack yelled from somewhere farther in the apartment. “Don’t come any further.”

“I didn’t have a choice. Two cops just got off the elevator with their guns drawn and they’re headed this way.”

There was a pounding thump at the front door. “Police, open up.”

“Shit. That other guy you bit must have called them.” Jack appeared from down the hallway leading to the bedrooms. “Don’t open that. We don’t want them here in your condition, not to mention…” Jack trailed off as he got closer, and grabbed my arm to drag me away from the door and into the kitchen.

“But that happened outside, on the sidewalk. What are they doing up here?” I asked.

The pounding on the door was getting louder, more frantic.

“Questions later. We need to get out of here before they get in,” Jack said.

“Why? I thought you were a ‘cop of sorts’. Just go talk to them.” I reluctantly pulled my arm from Jack’s grasp.

Jack grimaced and glanced back the way he’d come from, down the hallway towards the bedrooms. “It’s complicated.”

Actually, it was odd that Lindsay wasn’t up, especially with the banging at the door. She was a really light sleeper, up and yelling at me for the slightest noise when I got home late from fruitlessly trolling the local gay bar for dates.

“Is Lindsay home? I need to—” I moved to leave the kitchen, and Jack blocked the exit by reaching across the small space and placing a hand on either counter.

“That’s part of the complication,” Jack said.

“Look, just let me by.” I feinted left, and then when Jack shifted, I ducked to the right under his arm. He hadn’t counted on just how short I was.

Jack tried to grab my jacket, but it was like he was moving in slow motion as I ran past him. Everything felt unreal, like a dream or a slo-mo sequence from a movie. Jack’s hand closed on empty air behind me as I bolted towards the bedrooms. Weird, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it. The strange smell I’d detected outside got stronger as I moved farther down the hall.

I opened Lindsay’s bedroom door while knocking, but stopped cold at the sight that greeted me there.

Lindsay lay on her back on her bed, her eyes open and glazed. The bed was red with pooling blood that had run down from the wide slash that ran all the way across her neck.

I tried to scream, but Jack ran up behind me and clamped a hand over my mouth, muffling my cry.

“Shh,” Jack whispered into my ear. “It’s okay, but you can see why we can’t be here when those cops come in. We need to get out of here, now.”

“Shit, shit,” I said, pushing away Jack’s hand. Now that Jack had distracted me from the body, I noticed that Lindsay’s room had been trashed. All the clothes from her closet were scattered on the floor, and the dresser drawers were all askew and empty, the contents thrown about the room. When I thought about it, when I’d run through the living room, it had been a mess too. Oh, no. My stash. I had to check on it.

“We can go out the window,” Jack said.

I let Jack pull me away and shut the door to Lindsay’s room. The pounding on the door had gone silent, which was somehow more ominous than the banging.

“I need to check my room,” I hissed to Jack, darting past him to my door at the end of the hall. Jack chased after me, but again I was faster.

As I grabbed the doorknob, I heard the front door crashing open. “Police! Freeze!”

I couldn’t see the front door from the hall, but they’d seen me come inside so they knew someone was here.

“Go, go!” Jack hissed, pushing me into my bedroom ahead of him and carefully easing the door shut behind us. Jack turned and leaned against the door, pressing his ear against it.

I reached over to flip on the light, but Jack glanced at me and shook his head. I pulled my hand back. I could see well enough anyway. Dim light from the streetlights below came in through the windows where I had failed to fully close the blinds when I’d left for work. Was it only this morning? It seemed like it had been ages since I’d last been home. So much had happened since then.

My room was as trashed as Lindsay’s had been. My dresser drawers had been pulled out, and my closet had been emptied all over the floor and bed. Even my posters had been ripped off the wall. My eyes darted to the AC vent on the floor by my bed where I kept my stash of artifacts stolen from the museum. The vent cover was missing, and the plastic bags that I’d been using to store the items were tossed on the floor, empty. They’d been taped inside the vent, out of sight of anyone casually peering inside. Someone had either known where to look, or done a very thorough search.

I was in trouble. I owed those items to the boss, and she wasn’t going to be happy I had lost them. I physically grabbed my right arm with my left hand to stop myself from feeling for the amulet in my pocket to check that it was still there. If I was right, what I had there might make up for the missing items. If I was wrong, well, I was in a lot more trouble than I thought.

“What happened in here?” I whispered.

“I don’t know, but we need to leave before the men out there find us in here,” Jack hissed to me. “We can talk about the how and why later.”

“Fine,” I whispered back. I started stepping over the wreckage of my room. I spotted my testosterone prescription bottle in the mess and scooped it up without stopping, stuffing the little vial in my jacket pocket and zipping it closed.

Jack unlatched the window and pushed it open, letting in the cool night air. He grabbed the sides of the screen and twisted it out, letting it go to drop out into the night. It was a very long drop to the grass below. Jack grabbed my arm and shoved me at the window. I grabbed the window sill and tried not to look down, feeling a little faint. It had started raining since we’d come inside, and rain droplets pattered my face and hands.

“Jump,” Jack urged in a whisper, glancing nervously over his shoulder at the closed bedroom door.

“What? Are you crazy? I’ll break a leg or worse,” I whispered back.

“You’re a vampire. You’ll be fine. Now hurry!”

He seemed so sure of himself. Sighing, I put my hands on the ledge, preparing to climb out, but caught sight of the ground below and froze.

“Hurry!” Jack urged. “We don’t have time.”

“I can’t, it’s too high!” I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to back away, but Jack shoved me forward.

The door behind us banged open. “Freeze, police! Put your hands where we can see them and step away from the window.” Their voices were muffled. I think they were in Lindsay’s room across the hall. It’d only be moments before they found us.

I startled and would have backed away, except for Jack standing right behind me. My pulse raced.

“Shit. Sorry.”

I wanted to ask what he was sorry for when Jack’s hands moved down to my hips, grabbing my pants and lifting me up. “Out you go!” Jack hefted, flinging me up and out.

“No!” I shrieked, flailing for the window frame as the ground came into view. My fingernails scratched the paint on the window frame on my way out, but I didn’t manage to get a grip with Jack’s continued pushing at my butt and legs.

Next thing I knew I was falling, spinning through the air as wind rushed past me. I felt almost weightless as I spun in freefall, at least until I landed on my back on the grass behind the apartment building. The impact knocked the breath out of me and I felt my spine snap. It hurt, but not as much as I would have expected. I felt another pop and gritted my teeth against the wave of pain that wracked me.

I opened my eyes in time to see Jack jump straight out of the window like a superhero, sailing easily over my position. Without thinking I rolled over to watch him, enthralled by the sight. The vial in my pocket shattered as I rolled over it, and the oily residue soaked through the windbreaker. Shit.

Jack landed in a crouch that turned into a roll about ten feet away from the building. It looked as if he’d just jumped from a burning or exploding building in a movie scene, a comparison not at all harmed by his rugged good looks and muscled physique. He sprang to his feet as if he’d just done a somersault, not jumped from the sixth floor. “Follow me, I’m parked up this way.” He jerked his head to indicate the far end of the building. Without watching to see if I followed him, he jogged off toward the sidewalk.

“I can’t, I think I broke my back,” I called after him.

Jack slowed and turned, but didn’t stop, continuing to walk backwards. “You’re fine. You’re a vampire. You’re already healed.”

I sat up, and Jack was right. The pain was gone and nothing felt broken. Maybe... maybe Jack was telling the truth and I was a vampire now.

My head spun. I thought through my options and realized I had none. My work had been compromised, and so had my apartment. Jack was an unknown element. As long as Lindsay’s killer remained unaware of Jack, I might have a chance of staying safe. I also needed to keep Jack from finding out about the stolen amulet. Cursing, I climbed to my feet to run after him, wiping grass from the back of my damp jeans.

[ghostbustersreborn]

Chapter 4

having to spend the night in jail was one of the worst experiences tara has had in her entire life.

she had four panic attacks. three anxiety attacks. and every little thing made her burst into tears.

at five am. tara eventually fell asleep by laying on all three of the boys.

with her head in egon's lap. upper body in peter's and legs on ray.

it was very uncomfortable for all three of the boys.

now, today was their court hearing.

they had louis tully as their lawyer.

this was really bad.

"the law does not recognize the existence of ghosts. and i don't believe in them either." spoke the judge. "i don't want to hear a lot of malarkey about goblins, spooks, and demons."

a police officer handed him papers.

"we're going to stick to the facts in this case and leave the ghost stories to the kiddies, understood?" requested the judge.

winston stopped by their table a few minutes before the hearing started.

tara was feeling the most anxious out of all of them today.

she didn't want to go to jail.

she was only sixteen. she didn't want to spend the rest of her life behind bars.

she had her best friend emmy. emmy didn't want to be friends with someone in prison and tara couldn't blame her.

"wow, sounds like a pretty open-minded guy, huh?" winston remarked.

"i want to die." tara mumbled.

"yeah, they call him "the hammer"." egon mentioned.

"what can we do? it's all in the hands of our lawyer now." ray said to egon.

tara buried her face in her hands.

"we're so screwed." she agonized.

as if on cue, louis appeared with his arms full of books.

"i think you guys are making a big mistake." louis stated.

"i think we are." tara agreed with him.

"i do mostly tax law and some probate stuff occasionally." he explained. "i got my law degree at night school."

"well, that's fine, louis." ray told him. "we got arrested at night."

ray's head dropped to the table.

tara's did too.

"violating a judicial restraining order, willful destruction of public property, fraud malicious mischief." jack chuckled. "see you in a couple of years at your first parole hearing."

just as he walked away, peter went "you'll never take us alive."

"all right, all right, let's get on with it." spoke the judge.

tara lifted her head. she had tears in her eyes.

time seemed to go by slow. tara was exhausted, so were the boys. it felt like this was going on for hours, expect it was only about thirty minutes in..

"your honor." louis spoke nervously. "ladies and gentlemen of the.. the audience." he turned to them.

"oh god. why did we choose him to be our lawyer?" tara whispered.

"i have no idea." egon whispered back.

"i don't think it's fair to call my clients frauds, okay, so the blackout was a big problem for everybody, okay? i was stuck in an elevator for two hours." he mentioned.

tara slumped down in her chair. this was getting worse not better. worse.

"and i had to make the whole time. but i don't blame them, because one time i turned into a dog and they helped me." he explained.

tara closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"thank you."

louis returned back to his chair.

they could hear people chuckling.

tara never felt more humiliated in her life.

"very good, louis. short, but pointless." egon commented.

time skip to another thirty minutes.

the proton packs were put out on display. something, the boys had to hold ray back for when the officers were taking them out of the ecto-1.

"mr.finaella." said the prosecutor. "please look at exhibits "A" through "F" on the table over here."

on the table next to the proton packs was the slime, ray collected from underground.

"do you recognize this equipment?"

"yeah." finella said. "that's the stuff that the cops took from their truck."

tara rolled her eyes.

"dumbass." she muttered.

"do you know what this equipment is used for?" asked the woman.

finella sighed. "i don't know. uh, catching ghosts, maybe. i don't know." he took a guess.

the judge gave him a look.

"may i remind that the defendants are under a judicial restraining order that strictly forbids them from performing services as paranormal investigators or eliminators."

louis got up, quickly handing the judge his paper after the woman did.

"thanks for the reminder lady." tara grumbled.

"so noted." the judge said, taking the papers.

"now, mr finella, can you identify the substance in this jar marked exhibit "F"?" she questioned as she picked up the jar and took it over to him.

he took the jar, examining it.

"yeah, yeah that's the stuff." he hummed.

tara rose a brow at him.

"your honor, i've been working underground for con ed for 27 years. i never saw anything like this in my life." mr finella honestly answered.

"hmm." nodded the judge.

"whatever's down there, they must of put it there."

ray stood up. "no, we didn't!" he objected.

egon and peter coaxed ray to sit back down.

tara let out a shaky breath, she ran her fingers through her hair.

the judge banged his gavel. "shut up!" he ordered. (idk why but that sounds so wrong 😂😂)

now, peter was sat at the chair with louis speaking. well, more like peter feeding him words and louis trying his best to repeat what he said out to the audience and to the judge.

"so, you were just trying to help out a friend?" louis stuttered out.

"a friend. who was frightened." peter whispered.

"who was a scared of what was happening to her." louis stumbled over his words.

tara clasped her hands together. "oh, god please help us all." she prayed.

"there's no choice in praying to god now, god can't help us." egon informed her.

tara whimpered. "aw, man." she pouted.

"and when you're scared, what?" louis turned to him.

"there was no evil intent." venkman repeated himself.

"there was no evil intent and no malice." louis echoed. "because you live here and when you live in a place, and you love it like you do."

the prosecutor slowly stood up, when she saw what was happening.

"you don't want nothin bad to happen.. what?" louis again turned to him. "it'll never happen again. it's an isolated incident, it's a one-shot deal." he blabbed.

"objection, your honor." the woman interrupted louis and peter.

"what?" louis stepped forward.

"he's leading the witness." she called them out.

"sustained!"

"give me a break, we're both lawyers." he said to her.

"mr. tully, do you have any questions for this witness that might have some bearing on the case?" the judge inquired.

louis turned to peter and asked; "do i?"

"no, we've helped them out already." peter denied.

"no, your honor." just as he walked away he looked over to the woman and went; "your witness."

"dr. venkman." the woman said as she walked over. "would you please tell the court why it is that you and your co-defendants took it upon yourself to dig a very big hole in the middle of the first avenue?"

"well, there's so many holes in first avenue, we really didn't think anyone would notice." he joked.

the audience laughed.

"you keep that up mister, i'll find you in contempt." threatened the judge.

tara went to go flip the judge off before egon gave her a look which made her put the middle finger down.

the slime gurgled.

"i'm truly sorry, your honor." peter apologized.

"i'll ask you again, dr.venkman. why were you digging the hole?" the prosecutor pressed. "and please remember you're under oath."

peter smiled. "there are some things in this world, that go way beyond human understanding. things that cannot be explained, things that most people don't want to know about. that is where we come in."

ray nodded his head, agreeing with everything peter said.

she stepped forward. "so, what you're saying is that the world of the supernatural is your exclusive province?" she questioned.

"kitten, i think what i'm saying is that sometimes... shit happens, someone has to deal with it, and who you gonna call?" peter exclaimed.

the audience erupted in cheers.

i mean, as they should.

"shut up!" the judge snapped.

time skip again, towards the end of the hearing.

"peter venkman, raymond stantz, egon spengler, tara venkman, stand up!" he yelled. "get up!"

they did as they were told.

tara's breathing hitched.

"i don't want to go to jail." she murmured.

"you too, mr tully." he included.

louis reluctantly got up with the others.

tara shut her eyes tight as the judge told off what they were guilty for.

tears ran down her face.

the slime began to gurgle again.

she reopened her eyes, that was the first thing she saw.

was the slime.

tara's brows furrowed.

"what the?" she whispered.

ray noticed it too.

"egy, she's twitching." ray relayed to egon.

egon looked over. his eyes widened too.

"i'm not finished!" the judge thundered.

the slime gurgled more, rising up to the surface of the jar.

"on a more personal note, let me just go on record as saying that there's no place for fake charlatans.."

"uh, your honor?" egon spoke up.

"shut up!" he barked. "tricksters like you in decent society.."

"uh, your honor this is really serious." tara interrupted him.

the slime bubbled over onto the table.

"you play on the gullibility of innocent people." he continued.

"yes, sir.." ray spoke up.

"be quiet!" he demanded.

some kind of wind picked up in the court, making the scene more intense.

tara had her eyes set on the slime.

what was it going to do?

what was going to happen?

"but." ray pointed.

"if my hands weren't tied by the unalterable tethers of the law"

the slime covered the table in it's pink goopy substance.

if this wasn't serious right now, tara would have smiled.

"i would invoke the tradition of our illustrious forbearers, reach back to a purer, sterner justice."

egon pointed to the floor.

everyone slowly got down, shielding themselves from the slime.

"and have you burned at the stake!"

tully gasped, slowly lowering himself down to the ground and under the table.

an explosion went off, eliciting screams from the audience.

tara gasped.

"woah!" she said in awe seeing two bright blue ghosts chained to chairs appear before them.

the ghosts laughed hysterically.

papers flew off of tables as the wind picked up in speed.

"wow!" ray also said in awe.

more screams erupted from the audience as they all tried scurrying away.

and people said ghosts weren't real.

"oh my god, the scoleri brothers!" the judge gasped.

the judge jumped over his bench and ran over to the group. he dropped to the floor, trying his best to stay hidden from the two ghosts.

"the scoleri brothers!" he exclaimed again.

"friends of yours?" tara sarcastically asked him.

"i tried them for murder, gave them the chair!" he explained.

the ghosts shrieked as it continued to wreak havoc in the courtroom.

this was intense.

at least tara wasn't feeling so stressed anymore.

"you gotta do something!" he said to them.

"why don't you just tell them you don't believe in ghosts?" egon sassed.

ray nodded in agreement.

the table lifted from them. they all screamed. they quickly got up, hurrying out of the way of any of the ghosts oncoming attacks.

they made it to the door.

the judge tried to open it. but alas the door wouldn't budge.

the ghosts had obviously locked it.

the judge knocked on the door repeatedly.

the ghost laughed.

the judge then turned to ray, holding onto him for dear life.

"you gotta do something! help me!" he begged.

tara snickered. finding this amusing.

"don't talk to me, talk to my attorney." spoke ray.

"and that's me!" louis cried.

the judge slowly turned to him.

"my guys (he quickly looked over to tara) and girl are still under a judicial mistrangement order." louis reminded him. "that blue thing i got from her." he said, referring to the prosecutor. "they could be exposing themselves."

"and you don't want us exposing ourselves!" peter stepped in.

"not after the shit you put us through today." tara added in.

speaking of the prosecutor..

she let out a scream as the two ghosts grabbed hold of her, dragging her out of the court room.

they all ran over, watching her being taken away.

tara smirked.

"bye, bitch." she waved.

the judge turned away. he had his hands on his head.

"oh, no!" he shouted.

peter went over to him with a smile.

"you're next, bubbles." he told him.

"all right! all right! i rescind the order, case dismissed." he gave in.

"hooray, we won the case!" louis cheered.

"now do something!" he ordered.

they came out from their hiding spot, going over to their proton packs.

they picked them up, putting them on. even tara put one on.

peter groaned as he put his on.

"i always hated this part of the business." he confessed.

tara laughed.

"wuss." she teased.

"shut it, or you're going to jail." peter joked.

they got out their neutrona wands, ready to attack.

"you know, it's been a couple of years since we've used this stuff." peter realized. "i hope it still works."

"it should. power cells have a half-life of 5,000 years." egon addressed.

"well, there's no time for a bench test." ray said. "heat 'em up."

as they turned their neutrona wands on..

"do."

"re."

"egon."

egon smirked when peter gave him a look.

"oh, so egon "i'm always serious" spengler has a sense of humor now?" tara commented.

this was some character development, if i do say so myself.

they looked ahead, just waiting for the ghosts to reappear.

ready to fire at any given moment.

the silence was so loud. it was deafening.

the wind wooshed as they each took a step forward.

chairs began to flip over on it's own. indicating the ghosts were here.

"whoa!" ray exclaimed.

the chairs bounced over one by one.

they started firing at the ghosts who now made their appearance(s).

the boys yelled out.

the ghosts growled at them.

sparks flew about in the room. as the group struggled capturing the insane ghosts.

"jesus! what are they a class five or something?" tara wondered.

"no, a class three. your nose would be bleeding if they were any higher." egon informed her.

the ghosts flew out of their reach, disappearing into thin air.

peter let out a yell.

silence filled the air.

did they catch them?

they started to laugh.

even egon laughed.

but their celebration was soon abruptly stopped by one of the ghosts reappearing.

"oh, shit!" tara swore, jumping a little.

louis screamed, running out of the way.

tara turned on her netruona wand again. she glared at the ghost.

"okay! hold it!" egon instructed her.

tara brought the ghost out to the middle of the room. she followed her proton stream.

once getting a perfect capture stream on the ghost. all three of the boys smiled in victory.

"you got him! you got him!" ray proudly exclaimed. "spengy, get the trap." he ordered.

"okay! okay!" egon said as he went to go grab the trap.

just as he did, the second ghost arrived. coming towards him, laughing it's eerie sinister laugh.

"behind you, ray!" egon pointed with the trapper.

egon ducked right as ray sent out his proton stream towards the ghost.

glass shattered, having most of it land onto the judge.

"hold him, ray!" he demanded.

peter stepped in and helped tara handle the first ghost.

"the both of you, start bringing him back!" egon told the father-daughter duo.

they did as they were told. slowly bringing it out of the center of the court room.

"come on, you fish eater. let's go. yeah tubby." peter insulted the ghost.

egon kneeled down, with the trap in hand.

"ray, keep pulling to the right." he commanded. "okay, the trap's going in." egon said once both tara and peter were closer to him.

egon slid the trap over.

"now, now, now!" yelled ray.

"hold it, ray!"

"hit it!"

egon hit the pedal, opening up the trap.

slowly but surely both the ghosts were zapped inside.

the trap beeped. they all stared at it with bated breath, just waiting for the ghosts to pop out.

once, they were for certain the ghosts were fully trapped inside..

tara let out a sigh she hadn't known she had been holding.

"oh my god. i thought it was never going to end." she expressed, holding a hand to her chest.

all four stepped over to the trap, with smiling faces.

"two in the box!" ray declared.

"ready to go." egon said back.

"we be fast." peter went.

"and they be slow!" all four exclaimed, pointing to the trap.

louis came into view and stared down at the trap.

"wow!"

*

the boys and tara walked out with many people from the press wanting to interview them.

"we're the best! we're the beautiful! we're the only, ghostbusters." peter declared.

the ghostbusters were back.

*

[prqltothesql]

I know I posted about this a year or so ago. But it pops up all the time.

The PTSD of experiencing death first hand gets to me so much.

When my uncle died in 2003, I was a room away and heard my Aunt scream and cry. He had cancer and was in the spare room they had in a very small one-story house. They went to move him and he couldn't do it and he died.

In 2006, I went to visit my mom who had cancer. Two weeks before, I had left something at her house and was sent to go pick it up. Her husband Mike told me "When it happens, you need to be here." When me and my sister were dropped off for visitation, he told me, "She is not good." A few minutes later, she stumbled out of the bedroom and sat on the couch, in severe pain and borderline unresponsive. We sat there with her for a few minutes and then I went to my room with my cousin to distract him. A few minutes later, Mike screams, "She's gone!" from the living room and me and my cousin just stopped and stared at each other. I instantly started re-packing all the stuff I'd unpacked just a few minutes before. Luckily, from the hallway to the kitchen to the back door of the house, my sister's room was connected and I was able to go through there to leave without seeing my mom's dead body.

In 2019, I had to take my dog Ty to the vet. He was in severe pain and needed to be put down, my dad was a hysterical mess because that was his dog. So the combination of having to leave work early to come home and get him, and then drive him to the vet and take him in and have him put down, and then sitting in the room as they injected him and seeing the nurse check his pulse and sadly nod.

In 2022, I came downstairs to see my dad I'm pretty sure laying dead on the floor. He'd had a heart attack and my sister sat with him and waited too long to come get me. His eyes were sunken, his tongue was blue. I called 911 and they came rather quickly. Cops showed up, firefighters and paramedics were there but there was nothing they could do to get his pulse back. I took my sister out to the back room to be out of the way. I still remember the chief guy pulling me aside and telling me there was nothing they could do, they tried everything, they couldn't get his heart started again and he had passed away. I remember calling the funeral home to arrange pickup. I remember them telling me that they'd prepped him and we could say goodbye if we wanted. He was laying there on the gurney, his hands covered as I held his hands and sobbed, apologizing over and over. I remember calling my friends out back as I paced on the patio, I remember calling my therapist and telling her. I remember finally when everyone left a few hours later, and I was just alone with my sister, I showered, and then came upstairs and told her, "You understand our dad is dead right, and he's never coming back. Everything in our life is different now."

Later that year, I had to take my dog Angel to get put down and it was the same thing. I remember vividly. And it was Christmas Eve. We took her in, we were both sobbing crying, so upset, I was incoherent talking to the vet arranging paperwork and stuff. And afterwards me and my sister went to the mall just to walk around and clear our heads cause both of us were so upset.

I have so much PTSD from this stuff. Particularly my dad and my dog Ty. The Angel thing felt like such a blur because it was Christmas Eve, it was first thing in the morning, Rachel was sad but not hysterical, we went somewhere to clear our heads right after, and then two days later I went to GMU for a camp. But being there for an animal being put down for the first time, and then my best friend for 31 years dying and I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye. It's crushing. And these memories constantly force their way into my head and I don't know what to do about it and how to get it to stop.