#a worthy grave

[punemy-spotted]

A Worthy Grave - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 - The Dead Become the Emperors of Memory

Pairing: Federal Agent!Ari Levinson x Witch!Reader

Masterlist; Chapter 1; Chapter 2

Pairing: Federal Agent!Ari Levinson x Witch!Reader

Warnings: THIS IS STILL A HORROR FIC; A Whole Lot of Body Horror; Blood and Gore; Harm to an Animal; Gruesome Murder; Religious Iconography; Straight up Heresy; Christ Imagery; Gruesome Descriptions of Organs; Ghosts; Ghouls; Violence Against Women; Discussion of Grief; Witchcraft; Blood; I Cannot Articulate Enough That This is a HORROR Fic; Dead Dove: Do Not Eat; Seriously so so dead, HEED THE WARNINGS

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT YOUR CONSUMPTION OF MEDIA IS YOUR OWN RESPONSIBILITY AND IF YOU ARE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH THE CONTENT THAT IS BEING PRESENTED, PLEASE DO NOT READ

Chapter Summary: Death was not supposed to visit you in the one place you spent your day speakin’ for it, carvin’ answers out of flesh and bone.

Notes: So yes it took me 84 years to update and I'm SORRY. Please take this update as an apology. (also yes this was on Ao3 ages ago… depression’s a bitch, y’all.)

I cannot emphasize enough that this is a horror fic so things are going to get gory going forward. PLEASE read at your own discretion, I'm begging you.

As always, I crave feedback so please let me know your thoughts! Have questions about the lore? Let me know about those too! As a reminder, reblogging fics supports authors so please let me know you want more by liking AND reblogging!

All of my work is 18+ Only, Minors DO NOT INTERACT. I do not consent to my work being posted anywhere besides Tumblr or Ao3 and I post my work there myself. Do not copy, translate, or repost any of my content.

The next morning comes with lab results and Ari Levinson bringing you coffee, bright and early.

Good coffee, too, which you note with amusement the moment you take a sip, You convince Janice to upgrade the beans?

Pretty sure she’d tell me asking wasn’t even on the budget. I went to Jed’s.

You go to his restaurant or his house?

You’re teasing him — which you’ll admit is new for you, especially with Ari fuckin’ Levinson standin’ in front of you, sipping coffee and enjoying one of Jed’s famous breakfast sandwhiches — but considerin’ your couch an’ the fact that he slept on it night before last, it’s not like you’re unjustified, is it? A fact which he, to his credit, takes in stride, taking a smug sip of coffee — if such a thing were possible, it would be Levinson to pull it off — and shrugging, Showin’ up unannounced at the ass-crack of dawn’s a privilege I reserve for you, Doc.

You roll your eyes, hide your smile behind the lip of your coffee cup, Just cuz you spent the night on my couch don’t mean I’m gonna be any nicer to you, Levinson.

Shit, Doc, you start bein’ nice to me and I might swoon here and now.

You’d refuse to admit it if he or anyone else asked you to, but that makes you laugh, hidden behind a huff that could be annoyance or amusement, Hope you ain’t expectin’ me to catch you, Levinson.

I learned my lesson last time the Chief tried makin’ us do trust exercises.

Not my fault you didn’t warn me.

He shrugs, you roll your eyes, turning back to the computer as it dings with a message for you to review, You better have ordered me a sandwich too, or I’m bannin’ you from my biscuits for the foreseeable future.

That’s for you to find out in the lunchroom, Doc.

Where the hell’s your apple butter?

In a twist of fate you will not be thankin’ anyone for — least of all Ari Levinson — there is a sandwich waiting for you in the breakroom fridge, labeled and everythin’. You pop it into the toaster oven like you always do with Jed’s takeaway, pouring yourself a glass of sweet tea and taking the time you deserve for yourself an’ your lunch break, having taken great care to make sure there’s not an ounce of paperwork or results to review while you sip tea an’ enjoy a meal to the sound of blessed silence.

Most of the office would be done with their lunches by now, or eatin’ at their desks to avoid traffic in the break room. ‘Course, with your lab, the idea of eatin’ a meal with a frozen corpse in the next room waitin’ for you to finish rummagin’ around in its guts did not whet the appetite.

Least the break room don’t smell like formaldehyde all the time.

So you take your vigil here, disappearing into your thoughts and the quiet joy of pastrami on rye.

Until Ari Levinson, like a bloodhound sensin’ the exact moment you find silence in your life and choosin’ to hunt it down, comes strollin’ in, See you found the sandwich, Doc.

You might’ve been grateful you’d already finished your meal, just sippin’ tea by the time he came by, but you’re already missin’ silence and there’s a good fifteen minutes left before you need to clock back in an’ pretend you’re comfortable ‘round grieving parents, so you’d thank him to forgive you for lookin’ like he made you swallow a lemon. Whole. You bribin’ me with a sandwich to keep talkin’ to you, Levinson?

Is it working?

You open your mouth, poised to continue the time-honored tradition of tradin’ barbs with him, sarcastic quip ready to fly from your tongue, when you see her. Standin’ there in all her spectral glory, mouth open wide in a static scream of horror an’ fury, a livid necklace of purple bruises blooming around her throat, hollow eyes trained on you.

And Ari Levinson, goddamn him and his goddamn training, notices. Notices. Watches you. Makes silent note of how your mouth snaps shut, how your lips fold into a grim line and follows the trajectory of your gaze with a turn of his head, watchin’ the hallway behind him.

Hey Doc, he calls back to you, voice as level as he can probably manage it.

Yeah? You make a valiant effort at doing the same, refusin’ to take your eyes off the specter once known as Jane Doe #117.

I’m assuming you see her?

Sure do, Levinson.

There’s a pause, a moment, Ari’s hands slowly reaching for the gun at his holster and you slowly reaching a hand out to stop him, ears ringing as you try to make sense of the radio static pouring from that endless scream, your daddy’s lessons servin’ you well. Run.

A beat.

Then—Levinson, I need you to get security over to the lab.

The look he fires back at you is pure confusion, hand still poised over his gun and you know in your bones the only reason Jane Doe #117 hasn’t moved is cuz you’ve got eyes on her right now.

Bad deaths. The humanity is rotting out of her by the second, an’ no amount of cornbread offerings an’ promises to do our best are gonna keep her from lashin’ out at the humanity she’s lost, not ‘til the person who took it from her is found and named. Named for her to haunt until they too, turn to rot.

But you don’t got time to think about that right now, not when Ari’s already arguing with you ‘bout leavin’ you alone with an eyeless, bloodless, ghost. Or haint, you ain’t sure what he’ll call it—Doc, I know—

I know I didn’t stutter, Levinson. Security. Lab. Now.

It’s already too late.

Jon Doe #43 is less pleasant lookin’ than the girl whose ID he had hidden inside his flayed jaw — the girl whose radio static warning is still ringing in your ears as you take in the sight of him now, lookin’ leagues worse than he did the first time he showed up on your doorstep… two nights ago.

How quickly things move.

Ari swears low under his breath behind you, both of you frozen in place and trying to make sense of the tableau before you, the sight of a dead man strung up against the wall, arms outstretched and a crown of broken scalpels forced into the exposed bone of his scalp, head hanging low as if looking down at the figure kneeling at his bloody, skinless feet.

Is that…?

It is.

Something sick rises in your gut as you take a look at the blood-bathed figure kneelin’ before the corpse you know she’d been busy trynna put back together into somethin’ buryable, her gloved hands bound into some bastardization of penitent prayer by a line of what you’re pretty sure is John Doe #47’s own large intestine, havin’ been cleaned out after another one of your techs “recovered” it from the tupperware container it’d been found in when the whole mess’d been discovered.

You can’t see her face — part cuz she’s turned away from you, lookin’ up at that flayed Christ, an’ part cuz of the horned thing resting on her shoulders, a shape you wish you didn’t recognize as you take in the sight of cream-white fur stained with drippin’ viscera — but you suspect you know exactly what kinda expression she’s wearin’ underneath that “mask” forced over her.

Blood for blood.

You made a life of it, death. Cornbread offerin’s like your momma taught you the first time you met one of the wailin’ spirits of the woods ‘round your home, let ‘em gorge themselves on the vitality of food the same way a livin’ bein’ might fuel themselves with the actual thing. Tried to make sense of the static the way your daddy would when he stepped off the pulpit and into the graveyard behind your family home, always hissing warnings to the bein’s beyond to keep away from his family.

You made a life of it.

But just like the mountains, the ones meant to keep you safe if you kept ‘em safe, death was supposed to stay way the hell away from you, was supposed to keep its scythe off you an’ yours until they were good an’ ready to travel through that big black door. That was the promise written all over that big ol’ family Bible you spent  your childhood copyin’ so you’d be ready for the world outside your homemade Eden, the one you wielded like shield an’ sword against any manner of haint unwillin’ to recognize the darkness in your own blood.

Death was not supposed to visit you in the one place you spent your day speakin’ for it, carvin’ answers out of flesh and bone, woe to you who rend the flesh.

Your lab is now an active crime scene, casting you out to make your calls to next of kin — you know them, you’ve met her husband ‘bout a half-dozen times this past month alone, bringin’ her lunch when her scatterbrain forgot it, got used  to seein’ him lingerin’ sheepishly in the doorway and then hollerin’ for her to come out front an’ give her beau a kiss — and try to get used to sayin’ her name in conjunction with, There’s been… an incident.

You’re no grief counselor.

There’s no training for this, but it ain’t right. It ain’t right for someone who ain’t family to call hers, someone who don’t remember laughin’ at her gettin’ giddy over stomach contents. Someone who don’t understand what it’s like to miss the sound of her hummin’ some pop song you ain’t even heard of—

You holdin’ up alright, Doc?

Ari Levinson makes you jump for the second time in as many days, office phone clatterin’ from your hand as you spin ‘round and try not to let your heart beat out your chest, still too busy overthinkin’ to manage a glare, I’ll be fine. You get the security footage from the lab?

Yeah. Got a couple computer guys on it now, trying to figure out what happened.

Well, you sigh, rubbin’ the bridge of your nose as you lean against a metal countertop, We better hope we find out soon enough, cuz I’m ‘bout three seconds from shakin’ this whole goddamn buildin’ apart lookin’ for someone to pin this shit on.

Ari nods, mouth pressed into a thin line as the silence ‘tween you stretches out, eyes wanderin’ over to the closed-off lab, sanctuary swarmin’ with corpse beetles mournin’ the loss of one of their own as they try an’ find out whodunnit.

You know they won’t, ‘course, but it’s enough to let ‘em try.

You’d never admit it, of course — an’ maybe you’d almost forgotten it by now, those childhood truths givin’ way to the kinda truths you needed to keep your callin’ here in these mountains — but it used to terrify you. An’ why wouldn’t it, all ‘em screamin’ mouths an’ radio-static pleas beggin’ you to make sense of the injustices of the world they’d been cut right out of?

Too much, too much pain, too much horror, too much for a girl of tender years to tolerate hearin’, much less repeatin’ to those still grieving.

Problem with the dead is, well, they’re selfish. Don’t care if you’re barely old enough to understand the meaning of death, still meant to be shielded from those things that should long have left this plane of existence an’ passed through that big black door.

Ari Levinson don’t know none of that terror though, don’t know much more’n what you jammed into his head after blowin’ away another one of your ghosts, but he means well. Stands a little to close behind you like he could just peer ‘round an’ see the way your lips twitch as you swallow down blood an’ bile, holdin’ back the shadows of your daddy’s own temper.

You gonna be alright, Doc?

Ah shit.

You’d rather chew glass than tell him you prolly won’t be, tell him you just lost a girl you loved like your own blood, tell him you got cocky and now the very community you called your home was in danger cuz of it.

But there he is, standing in front of you like a fuckin’ sentinel while he waits for you to give him something back. Assurance, more likely, but as much as you’re used to tellin’ lies an’ keepin’ secrets, there are some falsehoods even yoou can’t keep.

Sure, you finally answer, trying to sound convincing and feeling the hollowness bitter itself on your tongue, I’ll live. Gimme a few hours an’ I’ll have somethin’ to say for her.

[st4rlady]

Working on a COD men nsfw audios for the girlies out there 'cause I want to contribute to this horny community 👀

I actually did it :)

[mamanbou]

THIS GODDAMN HOMO

[rogaire]

I will never forgive how harshly people judge Shay’s post-Lisbon experience reaction and call it overreacting, and not Achilles disregard for Shay’s words and FEELINGS.

[skinnypaleangryperson]

American culture is a living hell where poor working class wage slaves are forced to become psychotic and insane clinging onto a fictional character to pretend like they have a chance at marriage and kids and a family while the very actors that voice the characters are blaring in their face on a screen with their happy rich lives and happy healthy children that the mentally ill and working class will never have. What a living hell of a dystopia

The worst part is how fake it all is. And me, the poor insane person with nothing but characters, is supposed to be the unhinged and embarrassing one for being black pissed about it.

[mjmr493]

Okay, but we can all agree that the curse was lifted in one of two ways:

Grimm recklessly casting the counterspell while Leo was unconscious → He probably felt super guilty that Leo almost died. Especially because the curse definitely influenced Leo’s decision to save him. Grimm wouldn’t want to wait another second before getting ride of it after all the pain it’s caused.

Grimm started reciprocating feelings!!! They are legit soulmates so there’s no issue. Except the secrecy!

Either way, guys, please get it together.

[whoviandoodler]

rereading the raven cycle as someone who is no longer seventeen really just sheds light on how much of a metaphor for being seventeen it is. the feeling like you're running out of time, like your whimsy of the past has been nothing but meaningless wandering, a waste, the anger that is about to overflow and both drown you and choke you because you cannot keep doing what you've always done and what's expected of you, you cannot, and the fatigue that drags on your shoulders, the sudden waves of horrified conviction that you have no idea who you are or who your friends are or what your purpose even is- these are all things that are both the magical Unknowable and the mundane Knowable, and with every page I just have to marvel at the cleverness of intertwining those two so organically.

[torgawl]

gojo is making me cry again... he really believed the trio would reunite again, for him it was worth it to give his life for that to happen aaaaaaa

[kraniumet]

tbf. season two has been kinda slaying so far

[isakaru]

a core tenet of my beliefs is that people deserve basic kindness and respect regardless of how rude or annoying or obnoxious they are. if the most obnoxious person i know told me they couldnt afford food and i had the money for it you bet your ass im gonna buy them some food

[unhonestlymirror]

I suddenly realised why it's so hard for me to make friends and especially dating or trying to build any close relationship. When I was a kid, I was always told to not talk much about myself and be silent about our family because "evil people [who work for russia] may come for us [and kill us]". Mainly because my mom had to go through tortures and humiliation for speaking Belaruthian. I don't even want to talk about what they did to my father (in Ukraine). I just can't open up to people. Anything related to me or my family feels like a taboo topic, and if I ruin it, something very bad will happen. I just physically can't, although there is so much I want to talk about. Anyone might be an enemy. Anyone who pretends to be close.

I have very fucked up sleeping because almost every night, I have nightmares how my whole family is being killed. And I try to prevent it again and again and again. I just don't sleep. It's very destructive, but taking barbiturates or opioids is even more destructive.

[fangirl-and-doctor-help]

“These woods’ll keep you safe, if you keep ‘em safe” Everyone should read this sentence RIGHT NOW.

“Could ask you the same thing, Doc, how long you been up?” ARI AS A FED IS A CONCEPT I’VE NEVER READ BUT I’M SO INNNN (who am I kidding? He could be anyone but as ling as he’s Ari, this is enough for my heart to beat faster)

“What, can’t check in on you, Doc?” Stooooooop

“One day I’m gonna have you arrested for trespassin’,” why do I feel like he’d enjoy it? 😏

“The thing about names is how much power they hold.” I love how you brought this concept here

“Rogers”

“That night, the spirit formerly known as Jane Doe #117 comes with a friend. John Doe #43 is… less pleasant lookin’ than the girl whose ID he had hidden inside his flayed jaw, eyeless face staring at you from your kitchen window and tapping on the glass to be let in.” Not to be dramatic but I would shit my pants.

“Oh c’mon, Doc. I don’t fuckin’ know. Do you even know my birthday?” Ouch

“You know you have a skinless corpse on your porch?” So other people see them too?

“Personal protection, why else? There’s two dead bodies less than ten miles out from your property, Doc, or did you not notice?” Oh she noticed

“Please don’t tell me you came all the way over to my house just to tell me to use protection.” When she says it like that it sound a little… well you know 😏

“You watch him, stirring about three tablespoons worth of honey into your coffee,” honey in your coffee? Jail.

“I said I went to the crime scene, Doc. And then I walked for four miles… on a hunch.” I call bullshit

This is giving me Haunting of The Hill House vibes and I’m HERE FOR IT!

A Worthy Grave - Chapter 1

Chapter 1 - Everybody Dies Alone

Pairing: Federal Agent!Ari Levinson x Witch!Reader

Warnings: THIS IS A HORROR FIC, True Crime Elements, Police Procedural Elements, Possibly a little Twin Peaks, Violence, Murder, Death, Flayed Bodies, Ghosts, Ghouls, Violence Against Women, Violence Against Random Hikers, The Woods are Dangerous, Serial Killers, Choking, Gutting, Witchcraft, Blood, Appalachian Gothic Horror, Eventual Smut, Plot with Porn

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT YOUR CONSUMPTION OF MEDIA IS YOUR OWN RESPONSIBILITY AND IF YOU ARE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH THE CONTENT THAT IS BEING PRESENTED, PLEASE DO NOT READ

Chapter Summary: Any place with enough history in it is gonna have ghosts. And sometimes they call your name.

O Mother It is that fear that moves both heart and tongue To draw tight curtains so that we might let the darker hours pass unseen. We hear you call in the deepest night. We hear you call to us in voices that belong to our dead and gone And we know better, but we follow you into The darkened woods all the same.

— Old Gods of Appalachia Episode 31: Season 3 Prologue

Notes: I’M BACK, BITCHES. This fic is a sort of direct sequel to Glory, Amen, so keep that in mind as you read it, except I decided to include MORE CE babes into this fic and may also include other CE babes in the future. This is gonna be more Twin Peaks inspired than anything else, and I hope you enjoy it! I crave feedback, so tell me what you think!

All of my work is 18+ Only, Minors DO NOT INTERACT. I do not consent to my work being posted anywhere besides Tumblr or Ao3 and I post my work there myself. Do not copy, translate, or repost any of my content.

Any place with enough history in it is gonna have ghosts, and these mountains in particular — being the oldest mountains in the world — have the type of ghosts that predate the very humanity the spine of this land is afflicted with. The type of ghosts that — if you’re good and careful, if you find the right gaps ‘tween then and now t’slip between, say the right words to invite ‘em into your space — might just come pay you a visit.

Other times, you don’t gotta say shit.

These woods’ll keep you safe, if you keep ‘em safe, your momma would warn you with all the gravity of a stormcloud, wrist-deep in the rich black earth of her garden, digging out root vegetables and other sorts of magic from that treasure trove of life she’d spent more years cultivating than you’d actually been alive, This mountain will sustain you proper, if you sustain it.

These woods are deep and dark an’ full of the type of demons even your daddy’s Bible would have been scared to name, but you are the blood of both an’  your momma feared no man, woman, or haint in these or any mountains.

Which is why, when the specter shows up on your front porch, screamin’ for blood an’ justice, all you do is give her a name and offer her a plate of cornbread she’d never actually be able to eat.

Stops the screaming though.

Trouble with small towns — especially small towns in mountains like yours — is that sometimes, people go missing. People take walks out in the woods, fall into some mineshaft the State forgot to tag or get got by some apex predator lookin’ to prove just how wild God’s own country really is. People get lost, people just plain die. Nine times outta ten, nobody finds the body but the beasts an’ eventually nobody looks, all chalkin’ the loss up to some mountain sacrifice.

Blood for blood, what you make, I will take.

You’re no stranger to death — Hell, Cocke County coroner, you might almost call it your life’s work — but some parts of the job you could do without.

Parts which occasionally — and currently — include a sobbing woman sittin’ translucent an’ bloody in your kitchen.

You call her Janey, on account of the Jane Doe #117 title stamped on the manila folder sittin’ in your office, the one with the photos of a body that probably once belonged to the unsettled soul you’d invited inside and offered a sacrifice of fresh-baked bread. It ain’t her real name, but that’s what the boys over at Park Services are still trynna find out.

Ain’t nothin’ I can do about your body, honey, you tell her, sitting across from the glum-faced woman and trying to decipher the words she means to say between the static that just can’t stop pouring from that hollowed-out mouth.

Your daddy tried teachin’ you the language of the other side, all deep snarls an’ buzzin’ shadows, but sometimes it’s the words that manage to spill out that tell the truth, those last vestiges of humanity bubbling bloody an’ baleful from a tongueless mouth before death takes its last due.

You know her secrets.

You know she wore heels more than hiking shoes. You know she’s not from these mountains, not anywhere near these small towns. You scraped the dirt from under her fingernails and know she fought to survive with everything she had and you know, gut-sinkin’ and stomach churning, that she was not the first body her killer left behind.

You know you could write her name out on your paperwork and give her family some peace, tell ‘em she didn’t run away, tell ‘em she loved ‘em more than anything in the world.

You know you could tell her boyfriend she wasn’t cheating on him, that the man who picked her up and left her here for the beasts to find was someone she thought she could trust. You could tell her momma she was comin’ home from a good job, that she stopped drinkin’ four months ago, that therapy was goin’ well and she was gettin’ better. You could give her daddy a body to bury long before its time, an’ if this were the Holler you grew up in, you know that would be that.

But it ain’t, so nothin’s ever over, and now you’ve gotta figure out how to prove this shit.

You pour yourself a fourth cup of coffee, watching your cornbread offering slowly begin to mold, decay following death as it must always do. You gotta give me something to go off of for the Feds, honey.

You get static in return.

Well. That and the shrill ring of your landline, that old rotary thing you bought from a thrift shop on the other side of the state, kept connected just in case the towers don’t reach you through the early morning mist.

There’s only one goddamn asshole who’d call you on it at six in the goddamn morning.

You ever sleep, Levinson?

Could ask you the same thing, Doc, how long you been up?

Clockwork. The same conversation you’ve had every morning since Ari Levinson transferred from some national park you didn’t give a damn about up north, his drawl about as much a part of your morning routine as coffee and keeping Goatrude out of your vegetable garden.

You want something, Levinson, or you just callin’ to ask about my sleepin’ habits?

What, can’t check in on you, Doc? You can almost hear the casual smugness in his voice, imagining the way he might speak around the cigarette he’s probably smoking at too-early-in-the-morning, I got an update on Jane Doe. You need to get out here.

The grind of gravel tells you just how much choice you have in the matter, your houseguest disappearing the moment she realizes you are not about to be alone for much longer, Jesus, Levinson, you gotta give a lady some warning, you slam down the receiver with a satisfying sound, grabbing the thoroughly-molded cornbread and throwing the plate wholesale into the bin and dumping the rest of your coffee pot into a thermos, listening for the sound of his engine roaring to a stop as you rush through the rest of your morning.

You grab your bag as you leave, stalking your way down the gravel walk and flashing Ari Levinson — parked halfway up the driveway and mercifully blocked further by Goatrude doin’ her best guard dog impression — a hard glare in response to his lazy grin, One day I’m gonna have you arrested for trespassin’, you threaten as you get into the too-fancy-for-a-city-slicker truck he drives.

He doesn’t say a word as you get in, just turns the key in the ignition and with a wink and backs away from Goatrude threatening to headbutt his front bumper.

It takes about fifteen minutes to get to the scene, where your crew and work truck are already waiting, jumpsuit and booties prepared for you to pull on before you’re allowed past that yellow tape and allowed to face the scene before you.

And just what the Hell m’I supposed to do here?

Well, Doc, I’m pretty sure you’d say the next step’s the autopsy, Agent Ari Levinson, Park Services Investigation Division — or whatever the hell that formal title is that he handed off to the poor rookie trying to keep curious hikers away from the yellow tape — saunters up behind you, his cigarette put out so as not to contaminate the crime scene, taking it in with you.

Helluva scene too, with its most pertinent part — for you, right now — currently including a body layin’ pretty as a picture on a flat slab of rock, eyes closed and lips blue, naked as the day it was born.

Which all would’ve been fine, save for the lungs, kidneys, liver and contents of a final meal neatly poured from a stomach into a tupperware container and placed around the meatsack-that-had-once-been-a-human-being like an offering to some great and terrible mortician God.

If you got all the answers, Agent Obvious, you wanna explain to me just how the hell I’m supposed to autopsy a body that’s already been done?

Oh, we got a whole lot better than that. You contemplate turning him into a crime scene with your own gloved hands as he turns, gesturing towards the far side of the slab, just past the edge of a cluster of trees, where two of your staff stand with two large black dogs seated patiently in wait.

Surrounding a lump hidden by a big white sheet.

You can guess what’s underneath that sheet even before they remove it, like every shitty horror film you’ve seen. A chunk of meat vaguely shaped like a human, wearing none of its features, nothing identifiable ‘cept raw. meat.

We’ve been callin’ it Jekyll and Hyde all morning, Ari Levinson tells you, Deputy coroner’s fifty yards back dry heaving, so we—

Y’all brought in the big guns. Don’t tell me — that’s the same body.

Got it in one.

You close your eyes for a moment and take several breaths before looking at the scene once again, trying not to curse yourself or your momma for the way your day’s turned.

You got any more bad news for me, or am I allowed to start gettin’ in there and doing my job?

You try to ignore the way Ari Levinson’s gaze holds yours… and the way Jane Doe #117 shows up from over his shoulder, her hollow-mouthed scream silenced the moment the Agent starts to speak again, We got an ID on last week’s vic.

The thing about names is how much power they hold. Your daddy took his name, stole it off the corpse of a man too broken with hunger to protest. Your momma abandoned hers, becoming more of a title than a name, markin’ herself as matriarch an’ Queen of the verdant kingdom she clawed out from the hands of the ungrateful and the undeserving. Both of ‘em agonized over yours, planting seeds of bloom and prosperity in every theoretical letter before they finally settled on somethin’ proper.

Only for you to change it the moment you were old enough to move outta the family home, disappear to the big city an’ make a name for yourself, choosin’ to hide any connection you had to that Holler you called home, not outta shame but outta knowing.

And now it’s back. Starin’ at you from the ID card of a once-unidentified murder victim who’d spent your morning destroying a plate of your favorite cornbread recipe while her physical form remained in stasis in your morgue.

Rogers.

Bein’ the daughter of the town pastor and the town witch came easy for you, just like it did all your sisters. But outside the boundaries of the Holler where everybody knew to respect Ma an’ Pastor Rogers, you knew your family’s ghosts would be all too happy to eat you right up.

Ari Levinson brings you a cup of coffee as you step outside the cold storage of your morgue, looking a bit like you’d seen a ghost and like you’d suddenly regressed to being afraid of them. Alright, Doc?

Stupid questions ought to deserve stupid answers, but you have the good sense to nod your head and busy your mouth with scalding itself on fresh-brewed water somebody whispered about coffee to. Somebody contact her next of kin? You haven’t gotten used to saying her real name, your real name, so instead you just gesture vaguely at the morgue behind you, hoping the agent will have enough sense to use context clues and get to the point.

Thankfully, he does. Family’s coming down tomorrow. Folks live in North Dakota — got no idea how their girl ended up down here. Dad kept askin’.

You tell ‘em we got no idea?

You really think my bedside manner’s that bad, Doc?

Stupid questions ought to deserve stupid answers.

You continue to have the good sense to not respond, leaving Ari Levinson looking slightly more than insulted as you pretend to have heard your office phone ringing and walk right back into the icebox.

That night, the spirit formerly known as Jane Doe #117 comes with a friend. John Doe #43 is… less pleasant lookin’ than the girl whose ID he had hidden inside his flayed jaw, eyeless face staring at you from your kitchen window and tapping on the glass to be let in.

You don’t. Victims of violence like that come with haints attached to ‘em and you’re not about to invite that into your home. The offering of cornbread is left on your back porch instead, with a light left on so he wouldn’t get lost on his way to a meal that didn’t consist of Cliff bars and spinach tortellini. It doesn’t stop his knocking though, insistin’ that your presence alone is enough reason to get in here. That the door is only a few steps away.

As if you’ll risk getting hurt by this ghost who probably won’t even remember attacking you.

Maybe he’s the one that attacked her, maybe he never even saw her, maybe he just wants the same comfort she must’ve craved during her final minutes on this Earth, or maybe he’s just a figment of your imagination as you ruminate on why the idea of a dead girl sharin’ your old last name — not an uncommon last name either, owned by more than a hundred thousand people in the country alone — bothers you so goddamn much.

Whatever the case, you won’t open the door for him, not now. Not ever. You just keep your charms on you when you step outside and feed the goat before lockin’ up the house and going upstairs to go to bed, biddin’ them both goodnight and, We’ll do our best.

The knock on your front door comes not long after midnight, loud enough it echoes all the way to your bedroom, persistent and steady as a drum.

And when you don’t respond at first, it keeps right on banging on the damn thing until you’re convinced you’ll soon see a fist makin’ a dent through that thin wood as the sound becomes a steady pounding.

Doc! Doc, it’s Ari, you gotta let me in.

You’ve heard of haints makin’ mimics of voices, memories, an’ hell, even whole faces of both the living and the dead, so you know better than to fling that door wide open and let him in to see you in your nightclothes before he’s ever even bought you a damn dinner, but that tone of voice he bears chills you to the bone somehow.

Doc, I know you’re in there, you gotta—

Prove it’s you.

What?

You heard me. Tell me somethin’ only Ari Levinson would know I know about him.

Oh c’mon, Doc. I don’t fuckin’ know. Do you even know my birthday?

Okay, so he’s got a point. You don’t admit that.

Fine, fine. What’s the hurry, couldn’t this have waited ‘til tomorrow?

Ari Levinson looks half-wild as you let him in, glancing outside briefly to see the flayed figure of your most recent unwanted visitor still seated mutely on the porch, cornbread rotted to dust and Goatrude holding him at bay. The Agent either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, eyes fixed on you instead, You got a gun?

Got a gu— the hell sorta shit are you up to, Levinson?!

His lips curl back from his teeth in a sort of grimace before he turns, glancing out your front windows and then back at you, You know you have a skinless corpse on your porch?

Oh, so he noticed.

I’ve been trynna ignore it. That’s besides the point, the fuck are you doing out here and why do I need a gun?!

Personal protection, why else? There’s two dead bodies less than ten miles out from your property, Doc, or did you not notice?

The point. You need him to get to the point, and you might actually kill him if he doesn’t, arms crossed over your chest and trying not to let your scowl get too deep. Please don’t tell me you came all the way over to my house just to tell me to use protection.

No, it’s cuz I figured out how to measure distances, he retorts, before… drawing himself up to his full height and letting his jaw set properly, Fine. You gotta promise not to say I’m crazy first though.

Not crazy, says the crazy motherfucker bangin’ on my front door at one in the goddamn morning. You take in the seriousness of his glare for a moment, processing how many times you’ve actually seen him be serious before, Fine. Fine, I got a skinless guy on my porch anyway. Nothin’s gonna beat that.

Famous last words, you know, as you head to your kitchen to start up coffee. There’s no sleep to be had for you tonight.

So you’re tellin’ me you’re the one who found this morning’s corpse?

You watch him, stirring about three tablespoons worth of honey into your coffee in a vain attempt to use the added sugar in your caffeine to stay awake, watch the way his eyes glance askance like he could hide the gears turning in his head, coming up with an excuse for his confession that doesn’t sound as insane as he feels.

You got no idea, you almost tell him, but it’s almost funnier to watch him sweat.

I was investigating a hunch on… the girl, he’s as used to calling her Jane Doe as you are, the name slipping from his mind.

You don’t tell him you appreciate it it.

A hunch. What, you got an informant I don’t know about?

He looks sheepish, which is new for a man you didn’t know had any concept of shame, I told you not to call me crazy, Doc.

So you did. Fine. Just go over this again for me — you went out lookin’ for clues on the Jane Doe cuz you just… thought you missed somethin’, four miles away from where they found her body?

I said I went to the crime scene, Doc. And then I walked for four miles… on a hunch.

You’re going to need more coffee.

Well. Gotta hand it to you, Levinson, you weren’t wrong on that one.

See? Told you. Found the body, but knew I wasn’t gonna be able to justify why the fuck I was out at the ass-crack of dawn, four miles away from the scene and following a hunch so…

So you just got lucky with the hikers comin’ up the way?

He nods, dragging his tongue along the inside of his cheek while he chews over what to say next, looking both thoughtful and displeased, Figured I’d be investigating the scene anyway, any bootprints I had could be explained later.

You have to hand it to him, he did think it out. You sit back, listening to him continue, go on about calling you to the scene — helps to call your partner out, you suppose — and then going back to both scenes to figure out the connection between the dead girl and the skinless meatsack.

Figured that if it worked once, it’d work for Flayed Doe over there, so I just… walked. Followed the hunch, and ended up here—

The Flayed fucker’s been here since sundown — it happens.

You eye him, watching the way he doesn’t react to your casual explanation of why there’s a skinless corpse on your front porch, measuring his words, letting coffee scald your tongue and pretending it doesn’t bother you none as you consider how much you should believe him.

Or how much of his own grave you should let him dig.

You’re pretty calm about the dead guy, Ari’s voice is halfway to an accusation, watching you right back as he processes, measures you up, weighs the way you glance past his shoulder to the thing still knocking at your window and the girl still hiding from the agent in your kitchen.

You don’t answer, not right away, grabbing the biscuit jar and half-slamming it down on the table between the two of you instead, figuring you’ll both need something to fill your bellies on top of the coffee while you so something close to talkin’ about… this place, an’ whatever  the hell it’s doin’.

You’re not the only one telling lies, Levinson.

[dandelionjack]

well um!

innit

[the-2nd-random-kid]

William Afton can use a Green Lantern ring.

[direwombat]

what’s your ocs’ literary archetype?

phwew ok, tagged by @adelaidedrubman​, @socially-awkward-skeleton​, @purplehairsecretlair​​, @fourlittleseedlings​​, @detectivelokis​ and @sstewyhosseini​ and @aceghosts​ to do this uquiz!

not tagging anyone because this seems to be doing the rounds, but if you haven’t been tagged (yes you!) and you want to do this, consider yourself tagged! just going with the girlies i have banners for bc i’m lazy

the caregiver. you've spent so long taking care of others, you don't know what to do with yourself if you aren't. you probably suck at taking care of yourself though, maybe you feel like you aren't worthy or deserving. but deep down, i know you wish to be cared for too. you want someone to show you that you are worth even just half the effort you put into caring for other people. dont neglect yourself.

the mentor. you're a natural leader, you've got a specific aura about you that draws people to you. you're smart, not just academically, but worldly smart. people tend to go to you for help and advice, and you're more than happy to help. of course, that also means that you feel like you're a therapist rather than a friend, family, or lover. it can make you feel isolated from everyone else, and i hope that people realize you are human before a teacher.

the siren. this archetype is one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented in my opinion, which i assume fits with you nicely. people see you as some cold and awful person, seducing others only to discard them when you get bored. in reality, you probably didn’t have a lot of control over your life before, did you? this is the same case as the ruler, both lacking in power and autonomy. the difference between you and the ruler, however, is that you only care about reclaiming that power for yourself. you also seek the feeling of being wanted, truly and wholly, and this quest seems never ending. try your best to avoid putting yourself into horrible situations just for a brief moment of respite from the loneliness.

[plasma-studios]

my worst fear is that in exchange for recognition, my identity will be erased. because then it will all be for nothing