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wouldntyou-liketoknow · 2 months ago

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IT'S FINALLY DONE. OH GOD THIS IS MY VERY FIRST CRACK-CROSSOVER I'M SCARED—

(Lol, don't worry, I'm kidding. . .well, actually half-kidding, let's say)

It's usually pretty damn hard for me to keep stuff short, but I suppose I gave it the ol' college try. . .I hope you enjoy this!

___

Terminal Case of the Ol' Switcheroo [Part 1]

(Disclaimer: only one of the EgoPats in this snippet belongs to me. For more information about Caliban, go here. And if you'd like to learn about the mob he works for, go here.)

(One more thing: I’ve actually written a full character analysis on the dynamic between Mad and Caliban. If you’re interested, please feel free to check it out here.)

(Trigger Warnings: blood/gore, knives/blades, implied kidnapping, implied violence, talk of murder/death, cannibalism, mentions of illegal business, eating/drinking, strong language. Please let me know if I missed anything.)

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Epilogue

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“W-wait, hold on—” All the screaming inside Ness’ head seemed to fold in on itself, ever-so-slightly muffled as he squinted up at his captor. “Have. . .have we met before?”

“Possibly in Michigan,” Mr. Sharp Teeth mused, chuckling at the new confusion on Ness’ face; clearly this guy was the type who enjoyed really obscure stuff. He then gave pause, his sly grin fading away as he tilted his head and squinted right back. A couple seconds passed by before his eyes widened, before something flickered on his face.

“Ah—no! No, we haven’t,” Mr. Sharp Teeth reiterated, clearing his throat and shaking his head in spite of the fact that it was obviously already too late for denial. “Definitely don’t remember you from anywhere. Nope, you’re not ringing any bells at all. Sorry about that.”

More alarm bells started ringing, but somehow they didn’t stop Ness from blurting, “Are you sure? I mean, I’ve been wrong before, but—you look familiar to me.”

The surprise on Mr. Sharp Teeth’s expression morphed into panic. But then, that panic didn’t last long before something much darker and more desperate chased it away.

“Alright, let me rephrase: I’d better not look familiar to you,” he explained, pursing his lips and narrowing his eyes. “Being recognizable isn’t always a good thing in my line of work. And if you can somehow recognize me more than I can afford to let you, then things just won’t go well for either of us.”

He leaned closer, knuckles turning white as he gripped Ness’ shoulder. “Get the picture?”

Ness’ instincts shrieked for him to back away. Actually, scratch that, his spine was trying its damnedest to break out of his skin and go somewhere less tense. But thanks to the bindings, all he could do was lower his head to show cautious, frightened respect.

“Yes, I-I’ve got it,” Ness stammered. “I understand, I swear!”

“Good.” Mr. Sharp Teeth’s eyes drilled into him for a few more long, harsh seconds before he let out a little sigh and nodded, pulling away to resume pacing the concrete floor.

A shiver raced up Ness’ spine with disrespectful speed. The cacophony in his mind hadn’t exactly tapered down at all, but it still seemed to partially give way to a sardonic little voice that chided him for playing all those horror games that revolved around retail workers having their night-shifts go from bad to worse. The fact that he’d perfectly fit the bill for one of those helpless protagonists even before this happened really didn’t do his mood any favors.

After a long, uncomfortable few minutes, he decided to pipe up again.

“. . .I’ve lived in a lot of rough places,” Ness coughed, his voice quiet and careful.

Mr. Sharp Teeth glanced at him. “So?”

“So, I–I know the score,” Ness reiterated. “I don’t know everything about your. . .your type of business, but I still know the basics. I know when and how to keep my mouth shut.”

“Sure you do,” Mr. Sharp Teeth hummed, though a teensy bit of stress seemed to vanish from his features. You’d have to squint, but Ness was pretty sure he’d caught it. He had to take that as a somewhat-decent sign.

Mr. Sharp Teeth sighed again, folding his arms across his chest and drumming his fingers on his bicep. Obviously still deep in thought, he started chewing his lip, allowing the allowing the very thing that caused Ness to come up with that nickname in his mind to catch the light.

That was the first thing Ness had seen when he’d come to a few minutes ago.

Or, more accurately, when the burlap sack that now lay empty on the floor had been taken off his head a few minutes ago, he’d come face-to-face with that same set of of pearly-white teeth.

. . .Well, except for one. The upper-left canine, to be exact. It had only taken a few seconds for Ness to see how that one technically wasn’t a tooth at all. It was just a silvery cap meant to look like a tooth. Apparently the real one was gone.

The silver tooth-cap shone in the light much more than its neighbors. It really wasn’t much of a stretch to compare it to a knife. In fact, the longer Ness looked at it, the more he thought it looked similar to a fang.

Something meant to rip and tear into a meal that was still conscious and struggling rather than simply grind up a piece of food that was either already dead and processed or had never been alive in the first place because you just needed to add some water and pop it in the microwave.

The fact that it, along with the rest, had been bared in a grin that looked too wide and too…well, sharp didn’t bode well. At all.

And it was because of that train of thought that Ness decided he really, really didn’t want to know how the original tooth had been lost. Natural curiosity be damned.

Even so, there was no doubting just how familiar it was to Ness, along with the jagged little scar set in the skin right above Mr. Sharp Teeth’s upper lip.

No, Ness knew he’d seen them before, seen their owner before. The more he thought, the more he could just barely remember making smalltalk with a man who had come in for dinner with a couple friends late one evening.

The only difference between then and now was that Mr. Sharp Teeth was wearing a black apron over a dark blue button-down rather than a red-leather-jacket-black-hoodie-combo.

. . .Plus, the fact that Ness was bound to a chair in the corner of a place he’d never seen before, rather than the kitchen at Sparky’s. That was a huge departure, too.

“I guess you really have been through some crap,” Mr. Sharp Teeth finally announced.

Ness offered a combination of nod and shrug, swallowing the lump in his throat. He really wasn’t sure if he was supposed to take that as a compliment. “How do you mean?”

Mr. Sharp Teeth shrugged back. “Well, you calmed down a lot faster than I expected.”

“Trust me, I haven’t. It’s just all on the inside right now,” Ness let out a mirthless, sopping-wet laugh.

“Ah.” Mr. Sharp Teeth nodded sagely. “That definitely makes more sense.”

Ness felt a paw brush against his cheek, courtesy of the long-eared ball of pale fur that was currently sniffing at his shirt. “I mean, having a bunny this close makes things seem an iota less terrifying. No offense.”

Mr. Sharp Teeth snorted. “Snare’s not a bunny. He’s a hare. I thought that’d be obvious.”

Ness squinted, examining the creature a little more closely. “. . .No, wait, I can see it now. I’ve just never really seen a white hare before.”

“Most people haven’t,” Mr. Sharp Teeth replied.

The ha–er, Snare seemed to puff up his little chest at the statement, his adorable Y-shaped nose twitching as if to say, Yeah, that’s right. I’m special.

Quiet smugness aside, Ness was kinda-sorta in the odd little creature’s debt.

After all, Snare had been the one to stop his owner from just going ahead with all the torture he’d apparently had planned for tonight.

Snare had been the proof Ness so desperately needed that this really was some insane misunderstanding.

When Ness had still been panicking, still trying to defend himself against Mr. Sharp Teeth’s claims that Ness already knew who he was and why he he’d been knocked out and subsequently dragged to wherever this was. . .Snare had taken the chance to hop up onto Ness’ lap, bracing his paws against the waiter’s chest to curiously inspect him.

That had been the thing to make Mr. Sharp Teeth give pause.

Because apparently, Snare couldn’t stand whoever Ness had been mistaken for.

It hadn’t helped a lot, since Ness was still bound to a chair and forced to watch Mr. Sharp Teeth fidget with the very same meat cleaver he’d taunted him with earlier, but something was better than nothing.

Thinking of which. . .

“Who was meant to be here?” Ness blurted. He didn’t know why, but if he had to be anywhere against his will, then damn it, he’d better get to ask at least a few questions. “Who are you after?”

“Like that’s any of your business,” Mr. Sharp Teeth snickered. He came a little closer. “The real question is. . .what to do with you.”

Ness felt his heart sink. His mouth opened and closed with no words coming out.

“On one hand, there wouldn’t be any point in killing you, since you’re not even a target,” Mr. Sharp Teeth mused. “On the other hand, you’ve definitely seen a bit too much for my liking, and I’m not sure I can really trust you to commit to keeping quiet, no matter how much you promise to.”

He aimed a quizzical glare in his captive's direction. Ness couldn’t help but shrink a little.

“On the right index finger,” Mr. Sharp Teeth continued, “if I keep you alive down here, there’s a chance we could find a way for you to be useful in the future. But on the left index finger, there’s also a chance that you might find a way to escape, even with all the precautions I’ve set up. And on the right middle finger, you’re guaranteed not to escape if I just kill you.”

“All valid points, all valid points,” Ness admitted, his vocal cords finally remembering how to work. “But on the left middle finger, I have friends who I know would try to track me down if I ever went missing; they’d just cause you more problems if they came looking for me.”

He paused for a brief second, thinking frantically.

“A-and on the right ring finger,” he added in a rush, “there’s still a chance I might know something about the guy you mistook me for. But if I’m dead, then you won’t be able to ask me any questions about him, right?”

Mr. Sharp Teeth raised his eyebrows at this. “. . .You know you just kind of copied one of the points I made.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ness gulped. “But. . .I think it still stands, don’t you?”

Mr. Sharp Teeth’s only reply was a vague hum. Even so, a small, strange smile graced his lips. Amusement seemed to flicker in his dark eyes, along with…something else. Ness couldn’t tell what it was—part of him got dangerously close to wondering if it was something similar to respect—but it didn’t seem bad. Not yet, at least.

That smile died a quick-yet-brutal death as low, organic growl broke the relative silence. Ness recognized it by instinct; he himself heard it whenever he hadn’t gotten enough to eat during his breaks.

Mr. Sharp Teeth shook his head a little, fishing a phone out of his pocket to glance at the clock on its screen. “Oh—oh, right, today’s the day—”

With that, he turned away, quickly walking over to the other side of the room.

While this place certainly didn’t look like Sparky’s kitchen (or even the kitchen in the apartment Ness had been sharing with Jack for the last few years), there was no denying how it'd been set up like one.

From where he sat, Ness could see a block-island in the center of everything. All manner of cooking equipment was positioned against the walls: a refrigerator, an oven, a utility sink, a chamber vacuum sealer not at all unlike the one he’d seen in the butchery department of his local grocery store. . .and a huge chest freezer that Mr. Sharp Teeth was now rummaging through. The appliance’s lid thudded shut as he fished out a rather large bundle of something wrapped up in layers of white paper.

Ness watched as his captor set the bundle down on the block island before going through its drawers. He produced a leather roll and a stainless steel case; Ness felt even more cold sweat materialize on his forehead as the former was revealed to be holding a collection of chef’s knives, while the latter turned out to be full to bursting with surgical tools.

After setting what looked like a cast iron skillet on the stove, Mr. Sharp Teeth began peeling back all the paper that shrouded whatever he’d taken from the freezer.

The entree that was unveiled. . .well, Ness couldn’t tell what it was at first. He couldn’t get a good vantage point, and really, that wasn’t his fault. For the first few seconds, all he could see was a dull, pale-pink lump among the discarded wrapping. Then again, he’d cooked enough to recognize cuts of raw meat when he saw them.

That particular thought took on a whole new, sinister meaning when Mr. Sharp Teeth turned it to the side in order to line up a knife against it: the way he moved it caused a set of five fingers to drape over the edge of the block-island.

Time seemed to slow down.

Ness felt a cluster of thorns manifest in his throat. He was forced to grit his teeth: if he let his jaw drop at the terrifying sight, then he risked something much more solid than panicked breath flowing out of his mouth.

The next few minutes felt like at least three hours apiece.

With swift, fluid movements and experienced hands, Mr. Sharp Teeth sliced a generous portion of flesh out of the arm, guiding his knife from the wrist all the way to the elbow.

Once he was satisfied, he gathered up the leaking morsel in his hands and carried it over to the stove, where it landed against the pan’s metal embrace with a sizzling splat.

“. . .You’re a cannibal!” Ness cried. That was all there was to it. There really wasn’t much else he could say at that moment.

Mr. Sharp Teeth glanced back at him. That same sharp, unhinged, hungry grin from earlier etched its way across his face.

“Sure I am! What’s your point?” He replied, lightly jabbing at the air with the bloody blade for emphasis. He then threw his head back, cackling in a way that made the sound seem to slither into Ness’ ears.

Under normal circumstances, Ness wouldn’t have been shy about calling people out for laughing at their own jokes. However, this was FAR PAST a normal circumstance, and cannibals were not people he could really afford to call out for the sake of his health.

Snare suddenly perked up, long ears twitching as he leaned away from Ness. Then, fast as a bullet, he hopped down from the captive’s lap and scurried over to stand on his hind legs and paw at his owner’s apron.

Mr. Sharp Teeth glanced down at his pet, raising an eyebrow. “Ohhhh, so now that I’ve brought out a treat, SUDDENLY you want to spend time with me again? Real convenient how that works, huh?”

Snare, of course, didn’t exactly reply, but he still made a sound argument via leaning against the cannibal’s leg, looking up at him with bright, warm, excited amber eyes.

“No, don’t give me that look—don’t give me that look, Snare!” Mr. Sharp Teeth argued, pointedly looking away. “You know what you did.”

Snare tilted his head, his fuzzy little face suddenly looking quite sad. His oval-shaped ears drooped almost like wilting flowers. With a now slightly-shaking paw, he reached up to scrub at his little muzzle.

Mr. Sharp Teeth gazed at the hare yet again, and his expression immediately softened. “. . .D’aww, fine! I can’t stay mad at you!”

He then reached down to scoop the pale hare up, cuddling him against his face. “Who’s my bad boy? Who’s my bad boy? Oh, you are! Yes, that’s you!”

Like a switch being flipped, Snare abandoned his dejected look and happily nuzzled his owner’s cheek, purring in a gravelly, odd-yet-cute way.

Afterwards, Mr. Sharp Teeth set the hare back down before returning his focus to the arm. He took a thick pair of scissors from the leather roll. . .as well as a pair of tweezers from the steel case. He cut the fingers away from the hand in less than a minute. He plucked the grayish-blue nails out of the skin in even less time than that.

He then took one of the digits and lightly tossed it over to Snare, who jumped at just the right moment to catch it. He sat back on his haunches, holding the finger between his paws, crimson stains quickly spreading on his pale fur as his buck-teeth sheared away at the flesh.

. . .Somehow, this display wasn’t the most horrific thing Ness had ever seen (remember, he worked at a roadside diner), but it was still pretty high-ranking.

“Th-the guy you mixed me up with,” Ness choked out, his filter having taken a well-deserved vacation. “You—you were going to eat him?!”

“Oh, c’mon, What do people always say about making assumptions?” Mr. Sharp Teeth chided with a sly, insane smirk. “If you really need to know, I was just gonna rough him up a little. We’ve had a whole catch-and-release thing for a while now; I like my meat medium-rare, not char-grilled. Besides, he’s the type of guy you can’t not mess with, y’know?”

“NO!” Ness argued, frantically shaking his head. “No, I really don’t!”

Mr. Sharp Teeth raised an unconvinced eyebrow. “Yeah, I’m not sure I believe that.”

He then waved a dismissive hand. “Look, I know what you’re thinking right now. But believe me: the guy who should’ve been in your place? He deserves all the stuff I specialize in.”

“‘Believe you?!’” Ness echoed. “I can’t! I’ve never met anyone who deserves to be tortured by some hungry sadistic bastard and his pet!”

Mr. Sharp Teeth offered a long, thoughtful hum in response. “Sure you have. You’re still working that waiter job, right?”

Ness’ intended retort died on his tongue. Hell, he even briefly stopped trembling for the first time since he’d regained consciousness.

Memories from both the past and the present came flooding back. He’d been working in the food industry ever since he’d grown tall enough to take cups or plates from a counter without standing on his tip-toes. And ever since then, it’d been impossible for a week to go by without at least two customers acting. . .less than ideal.

Ness usually wasn’t the type to hold grudges, but. . .every cruel word, every patronizing gesture, every occasional display of actual violence that he’d experienced. . .it’d all just stuck to his mind like a tumor.

And he knew deep down that it would never, never leave him alone.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Mr. Sharp Teeth’s voice was shockingly soft as he clearly read the emotions on his captive’s face like a book.

“My sister runs one of the best restaurants in this city; sometimes I’ll pop in to help her out. I’ve seen customers pull all sorts of petty BS with her staff for no goddamn reason. It’s infuriating, isn’t it?”

Against his instincts, Ness slowly nodded.

“It’s pathetic, isn’t it?”

Ness nodded again. Then, somehow, he found his voice.

“Still,” he replied in a shaky whisper, “even if people deserve bad karma, bad karma doesn’t just automatically mean death!”

“You’d be surprised by how quickly that snowball can roll.” Mr. Sharp Teeth clicked his tongue. As he tended to his meal, he continued: “In any case, what I do has rules. I can only afford to eat the targets my friends and I are hired to get rid of.”

“. . .Really?” Ness asked, trying not to let hope flood through his chest too quickly.

“Yeah, really,” Mr. Sharp Teeth huffed. He glanced at him over his shoulder, his eyes now completely unreadable. “There’s this new thing: it’s called Basic Self-Control. It’s not very popular among most people, but I’ve been able to manage with it so far.”

“I feel like a lot of self-control involves not chopping people up to snack on later,” Ness muttered.

“Maybe for you,” Mr. Sharp Teeth shot back.

A tense silence fell over the room.

The smell of blistering flesh was quick to seep into the air; it was all Ness could do to keep from gagging.

Sooner or later, dinner was apparently ready.

Mr. Sharp Teeth transferred the slice of human-person from the pan to a plate. And for all his talk about self-control, he certainly didn’t wait long to tuck into his meal. Little droplets of blood splattered around his mouth as he ate with a gusto Ness hadn’t seen before and hoped to never see ever again.

Ness’ stomach churned with horror. He lowered his head, trying to keep his gaze firmly planted on his shoes. Why the hell couldn’t he close his eyes. . ?!

Somehow, someway, thoughts were still able to reach him through the fog of fear.

Mr. Sharp Teeth had mentioned being paid to kill. That had to mean he was some kind of hitman, right? What kind of weird, unconventional laws existed in the underground business? (Ness actually had an idea, but he’d been wrong before.)

What’s more, it was unclear whether or not he’d been paid to go after the guy he’d mistaken Ness for. But either way, that obviously meant that he hadn’t been paid to go after Ness. . .

So, did that mean Ness still had a chance? Even just a small one?

A sharp, sibilant chime cut through the air like a hot knife through butter.

Ness’s heart stopped: he knew that sound. He knew that sound very damn well.

He looked up, eyes frantically scanning the room. He saw Mr. Sharp Teeth hovering over a plate that was now empty, unless you counted a few streaks of red against the white finish, drinking a can of Diet Coke he’d apparently brought out from somewhere in Hammer Space.

The ringtone went off again; this time, Ness could pinpoint it.

A cellphone–his cellphone–was lying vacant on top of the refrigerator, along with all the other things that had apparently been taking up space in Ness’ pockets before he was kidnapped.

Mr. Sharp Teeth put the soda can down, glancing at his captive before moving to grab the device.

“Who is it?” Ness asked, his voice weak.

Mr. Sharp Teeth stayed quiet for a few more seconds before finally replying, “Someone called ‘Mikey-Bear Jinglehiemer Schidmt.’”

Ness felt his face burn. How the hell had he forgotten to change that contact name?!

He blinked, and Mr. Sharp Teeth’s thumbs were suddenly gliding about the screen, eliciting a chorus of little blip-blip-blips as he typed.

“Hey!” Ness blurted. “What are you doing?!”

“It’d be rude to just leave him on Read, wouldn’t it?” Mr. Sharp Teeth grinned as he hit what was so obviously the Send button.

“No, wait!” Ness cried. “You can’t drag him into this! Just—just let me talk to him for a minute! I’ll make sure he doesn’t find out about you, please—!”

Just like that, he was writhing like an animal in a trap all over again. Mike may have not have been his favorite person at the moment, but he didn’t deserve whatever scheme Mr. Sharp Teeth could come up with!

Mr. Sharp Teeth could tell Mike anything if he played his cards right! He could convince him that Ness had fled the country, that Ness hated his guts, that Ness was running off with a new boyfriend!

He could use Ness as a prop to extort Mike, or lure him down here to be tortured, or. . !

“He asked what you were doing,” Mr. Sharp Teeth announced. “So I just had to tell him that you’re tied up at the moment.” He winked, slightly manic giggles leaking through his red-tinged teeth.

. . .Or he could just make puns. That was an option too, apparently.

Ness’ phone chimed yet again, and Mr. Sharp Teeth squinted as he read the reply aloud.

“‘Very funny, you’re literally in the next room over. Is everything okay?’”

Ness could practically feel the color drain from his face. “But. . .no. No, no, no! That isn’t possible! I was almost a mile away from him when you knocked me out!”

Mr. Sharp Teeth raised an eyebrow at him. “Then who is he with right now?”

Ness wracked his brain, only to freeze in place. Tears gathered in his eyes. “My stalker. It has to be; h-he mentioned Mike in the last letter he left at Sparky’s!”

“‘Stalker?’” Mr. Sharp Teeth echoed. He set Ness’ phone down and started pacing. A few long seconds passed before he sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth, eyes widening in time with a snarl.

“How close did this guy ever manage to get to you? Did you ever see him? If so. . .did he happen to be wearing a bear costume, by chance?”

Ness could hardly believe his ears. “Yes! I mean, he never approached me directly, but I still got a few glimpses of him! How did you—”

“That’s why I mixed you up!” Mr. Sharp Teeth shouted, seemingly to himself. “Of course you two were in the same place at the same time! Oh my God, that slippery sON OF A BITCH!” He pounded his fist against the block-island, prompting a dull thud! to ring through the room.

Ness gaped like a fish. He’d witnessed plenty of disturbing coincidences before, but having a stalker who apparently had some kind of petty rivalry with a cannibalistic hitman was in a weight-class of its own.

“I need to get back to Mike!” The tears were flowing freely now. Ness’ nerves felt like they’d been dipped in acid. “God knows what he’ll do to him—what if Abby is there when it happens?!”

Mr. Sharp Teeth went quiet again, turning his head to face Ness so violently that it looked like he was on the brink of a seizure. He furiously gestured for Ness to elaborate.

“Abby! Mike’s little sister!” Ness cried without thinking. “She—she’s already been through so much! She can’t be anywhere near that lunatic!”

Something new slithered onto Mr. Sharp Teeth’s features. It took some time for Ness to realize that it was. . .fear. Pure, genuine fear.

“You’re damn right she can’t,” Mr. Sharp Teeth agreed, his voice now hollow.

“What do you mean? How can you tell—” Ness tried to ask.

Mr. Sharp Teeth cut him off. “That idiot’s got a price on his head for a lot of things. One of them being that. . .well. . .” His tone was grim as he took his apron off, crossing the room to don that same jacket-hoodie-combo Ness had seen so long ago. “He isn’t exactly known for picking on people his own size.”

A terrified, strangled cry ripped its way through Ness’ throat.

“Well, looks like it's your lucky day,” Mr. Sharp Teeth announced. “I can get you back to them in one piece. You just have to hold still—”

He rummaged through a bag that hung from the same rack that his jacket had been placed on, pulling out the long, slender, unmistakable shape of a syringe. “I used a higher dose than I should’ve earlier, but there should still be enough to keep you asleep until everything’s clear.”

As his captor-turned-sort-of-ally(?) approached, Ness, furiously shook his head. “NO! You can’t just knock me out again!”

“I’m pretty sure I can,” Mr. Sharp Teeth snarked, spinning the syringe in his hand.

“I need to be awake for this!" Ness protested, "I need to be able to help!”

Mr. Sharp Teeth raised an eyebrow. “Look, just be glad I’m not trying to use chloroform, okay? It’ll be better for everyone if I can just take care of this myself.”

“And how exactly is that going to work?!” Ness snapped back. “Think about it: I wasn’t anywhere near mine or Mike’s place when you took me! You have no idea where Mike lives! It doesn’t matter what kind of resources you may or may not have; if you don’t let me help, you’ll still be taking shots in the dark!”

For the first time all night, Mr. Sharp Teeth seemed more uncertain than Ness. His brow furrowed as he weighed the options.

“I told you before: I know the score,” Ness tried. “I know how to keep my nose out of certain things. . .and that means I know how to keep other people away from those things, too! If this guy is as horrible as you’re implying, then I won’t have any problem with you hunting him down if it means keeping him away from the people I care about! But that can only happen as quick and efficient as you probably need it to if you have my help!”

Mr. Sharp Teeth stared at Ness for a long, uncomfortable moment.

Ness tried desperately to read his expression, to see what else he had to do to convince him. But for the life of him, he just couldn’t.

From its place on the block-island, Ness’ phone chimed once more.

Mr. Sharp Teeth shut his eyes tight for a few seconds, heaving a harsh sigh as he re-opened them.

“If you’re really insisting on this,” he finally proclaimed, “then you’re gonna follow my lead. You’re gonna do exactly as I say, and you’re gonna keep your damn mouth shut until I give you the all-clear. Understood?!”

Ness only hesitated for about a millisecond. Then he nodded, hoping his eyes were just as fierce as his former captor’s.

Mr. Sharp Teeth gave him another tense, searching look. He then stuffed the syringe into one of his jacket's pockets before moving to untie the bindings around his wrists.

“You’d better not make me regret this,” he growled.

Snare, who seemed very excited by all the new vibes in the room, didn’t waste any time in hopping onto his owner’s shoulders.

___

@sammys-magical-au @insane4fandoms @b-is-in-the-closet @im-a-weird0 @lexusinsannus @lampsforsocks

A comic I made that happened pre-handless Madpat.

A little spinoff where Mike Schmidt being the sleepy Himbo that he is, confused a certain killer with his beloved Ness, and now Madpat is confused whether or not he should kill this guy, or play along as he never had any affection from anyone before, so he’s intrigued. @crazy-obsessed-enby @wouldntyou-liketoknow @iswmperson @lexusinsannus

Meanwhile with Ness:

Ness: WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?!

Caliban: How rude, I might not eat you if you tell me where that dreadful Madpat it

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wouldntyou-liketoknow · 1 year ago

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My Goretober Ventures So Far. . .

These are the projects I try to churn out every October. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to write for all thirty-one days, but who knows?

For now, though, I plan to just write for a week each year. (Exceptions might be made if the edgelord stars happen to align. For example: the latest Friday The 13th in October.)

……….

A Week of Goretober 2024

Day 1: Infection (MadPat/AftonPat)

Day 2: Operation (Murdock, K.O.)

Day 3: Lyric Inspired (Phantom, Bones)

Day 4: Burst Vessels (Garret, The Newcomer)

Day 5: Submerged (Parker, Murdock)

Day 6: Malformed (Sol, LeviathanPat, ColosSeptic)

Day 7: Ritual [HALLOWEEN SPECIAL] (Cruz, EldritchPlier, Sol, LeviathanPat, Moses, ColosSeptic)

……….

The Thirteen Days of Goretober 2023

Day 1: Impalement (Lucas/Captain!Lix)

Day 2: Self-Mutilation (Phantom)

Day 3: Broken Bones (K.O., Murdock, Caliban, Azalea)

Day 4: Amputation (Caliban, Murdock, R.D.)

Day 5: Drain (Fenwyn, Celine)

Day 6: Decapitation (Janus Sanders, Remus Sanders, Logan Sanders, Roman Sanders, Patton Sanders)

Day 7: Needles (Azalea, Murdock, Caliban, K.O.)

Day 8: Sensory Deprivation (Bones, Phantom)

Day 9: Plants (CryptidXian)

Day 10: Dissection (Logan Sanders, Remus Sanders)

Day 11: Split (Wilford Warfstache)

Day 12: Putrefaction (Unus, Annus)

Day 13: Bloodbath (Convict!Mark)

HALLOWEEN 2023 SPECIAL: Bloody Tricks and Even Bloodier Treats (Sam Ryder, Azalea, Murdock, Caliban, K.O.)

……….

A Week of Goretober 2022

Day 1: Voodoo Doll (Phantom, Bones)

Day 2: Cannibalism (Caliban, Murdock, The Newcomer)

Day 3: Broken Glass (Damien, Celine, The District Attorney, Darkiplier)

Day 4: Suffocation (The Captain, Head Engineer Mark)

Day 5: Revenge (Natemare, FNAF’s Missing Children, Purple Guy/Afton/Springtrap)

Day 6: Specimen Preservation (Phantom, Anti-Matter)

Day 7: Lyric Inspired (The Reader, Scaredy/SCARED-E)

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wouldntyou-liketoknow · 18 days ago

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Oh, Mad for SURE. Since I've been writing about him lately, along with watching the latest FNAF Musical installments, he's just been on my mind.

...Plus, I've put him through an absolute THRASHING in mine and @insane4fandoms little collab, so to hear that he's still feeling some type of way in a different story-universe is hilarious

Which part are you most interested to read?

#polls #madpat #aftonpat #matpat #egopats #matthew patrick #fnaf the musical

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intered · 4 months ago

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theorussy...

i finally got around to watching the fun facts video for web of lies and these two facts are absolutely everything you need to know about matpat i think

#fnaf the musical #fnaf #random encounters #fnaftm #matpat #aftonpat

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lexusinsannus · 4 months ago

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cant wait to meet you- (aftonpat walks in)

i should do this in cosplay

day 1 of drawing fnaftm until shadows of agony is out

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wouldntyou-liketoknow · 1 month ago

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(OH GOD I’M SO SORRY ABOUT THE WAIT BUT HEY AT LEAST IT’S HERE NOW—)

Here we are, folks: it all comes down to this!

Mad finally, FINALLY hears some boss music, and Caliban gets to have a dramatic flipping-out-contest with him. Ness, meanwhile, actually gets a break from all the action...kind of...

___

Terminal Case of the Ol’ Switcheroo [Part 4]

(Disclaimer: only one of the EgoPats in this snippet belongs to me. For more information about Caliban, go here. And if you’d like to learn about the mob he works for, go here. Ness belongs to the FNAF movie. MadPat belongs to Random Encounters.)

(One more thing: I’ve actually written a full character analysis on the dynamic between Mad and Caliban. If you’re interested, please feel free to check it out here.)

(Trigger Warnings: blood/gore, knives/blades, violence, implied violence, talk of murder/death, mentions of cannibalism, mentions of illegal business, eating/drinking, implied stalking, strong language. Please let me know if I missed anything.)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Epilogue

___

“That’s Jack’s cab.” Ness’ mouth moved faster than his brain, as the words came tumbling out before he even heard himself.

Despite this, it seemed the statement was much quieter than he thought, as Caliban tossed a questioning glance his way. “What?”

“Jack works in a taxi business,” Ness murmured, his eyes still glued to the windshield. “That’s his cab—that’s him in there!”

Caliban had kept his car’s headlights out for so long that Ness’ eyes were slow to adjust to the taxi’s bright, artificial glow. It didn’t help that he was now unable to blink and would probably stay that way for the next hour (at least).

But the scene up ahead was all the same.

Mad was back, looming before him once again: the distance between the two of them was only somewhat larger than it had been back at Mike’s house. Even with the car acting as a protective barrier, he still felt paralyzed.

And now that psycho was scraping his knife along metal, staring at the same guy who had been living with Ness and putting up with Ness’ theoretical antics and being basically the only person in Ness’ corner before Mike and Abby came along.

Somehow, Ness’ eyes managed to wander away from Mad and focus on the taxi’s passenger windows.

It was then that he realized several things at once.

The first was that tonight wasn’t on Jack’s driving schedule—he treated his cab like a casual car for convenience, so he should’ve been alone in there.

The second was that Jack was most certainly not alone right now, because as Ness stared, he saw a silhouetted shape riding shotgun.

The third was that the silhouette in question was small; small enough that their head and shoulders were just barely past the window.

The fourth was that he recognized a bright blue backpack with candy-red straps that the passenger was clutching to their chest. He remembered joking about how that backpack nearly matched the cyan-tinted leather jacket he was wearing right now.

The fifth was that he also recognized short, dark brown curls that tickled the passenger’s shoulders…as well as a pair of big chestnut eyes that were so thoughtful and wise (both of which were now being clouded with fear) despite their obvious youth.

Ness’ mind all but caved in at that point, so there was no sixth item on his list.

“Abby,” Ness cried. Part of him felt like his voice could only be heard by dogs at that second. Another part, meanwhile, was shocked that the car’s windows hadn’t shattered all at once. He reached over to shake Caliban’s shoulder, pointing toward the windshield. “Abby’s there! HE can see her!”

Caliban had been in the middle of opening his mouth to ask more questions, but now his jaw went slack as the color drained from his face.

To his credit, he didn’t freeze. He shook his head, took a deep breath, and shifted in his seat to roll his window down. And for a split-second, Ness could’ve sworn that he saw the cannibal’s hand ever-so-slightly shaking.

Cool nighttime air came seeping into the car—for whatever reason, it felt akin to droplets of ice-water splashing against his skin.

Then, in a low, soft voice, Caliban pronounced, “Snare.”

Like a soldier called to attention, the pale hare leapt over the center console and onto his owner’s lap, dark amber eyes wide.

“Now’s your time to shine, buddy.” Caliban gathered Snare up in his arms, then maneuvered him to look at the taxi that was just ten-or-so feet away. “We can’t stop ‘em from following, but we can still keep some distance. You need to be fast, okay? Give that thing a handicap, and then you come right back to me. Understand?”

As he gazed through the windshield, Snare’s eyes suddenly narrowed. His long ears flattened, his little nostrils flared. He bared his buck-teeth and let out a small, gravelly hiss.

Then, he glanced back at Caliban, craning his neck to nudge at his cheek before squirming in his grasp.

Caliban nodded before releasing his hold. “Alright, go! Hurry, hurry!”

The hare didn’t need to be told twice; he became a blur of movement, hopping through the open window and scampering off into the shadows. It didn’t take very long for Ness to lose track of him. Very surprising for a creature with white fur.

Ness tore his eyes from everything up ahead in order to gape at Caliban.

“…What’s that supposed to do?!” He demanded, feeling his nails dig into leather, getting dangerously close to raising his voice.

“Slow ‘em down,” Caliban replied, not looking in the waiter’s direction as he drummed his fingers against the wheel. “Can’t afford to have the kid get any closer to this than she already is. We’re going to Plan C.”

“Plan C?” Ness echoed, shocked at just how incredulous he felt in spite of his panic. “But—but there’s no time for a Plan C—”

There was barely enough time for Ness to let go of the crimson sleeve before Caliban’s fist was in the air, meeting the center console with a heavy thump!

The cannibal almost lunged at his passenger. Almost, because he managed to stop himself halfway in favor of just looming closer.

Just like a few hours ago, back in the den where this entire disaster had started in the first place, all Ness could see were teeth.

Lips peeled back like a snarling dog, those pearly-whites glinted in the darkness with a viscous energy. The silver canine-cap looked even sharper than before; if Ness concentrated, he could see his terrified expression reflected against it.

And they all seemed to gnash at the air as Caliban snapped, “Do you wanna keep your friends safe or not?!”

Ness edged away, partially curling in on himself. Dull pain flared through his arm as his elbow and shoulder knocked against the passenger-side door. He held up his other hand to shield his face, bracing himself.

He expected Caliban to snatch a handful of his jacket and tug him closer so he could punch him, slap him, bite him.

But as the seconds dragged their way by, as the new quiet festered…none of those things happened.

And now that Ness’ eyes were finally wandering up to meet Caliban’s…

Well, he saw quite a variety of things that could be described as psychotic, but that wasn’t it. Something new was flickering within them. At first he thought it was fear, but he was wrong.

This was despair: more raw, more painful, more tinged with what Ness miraculously knew without knowing were…memories.

The kind of memories that weren’t meant to be shared with anyone.

Not unless they had just as many old wounds that would never, never heal.

Not unless the shadows around you were dark and deep enough that you could burrow into them to try and make aforementioned wounds JUST ROT ALREADY, because decay always found a way to move faster than recovery.

This wasn’t just about anger or bloodthrist or whatever petty, horrific history Caliban apparently had with Mad.

There was mutual interest here. (Or, something close to it, at least.)

The current elements worked to keep this from getting awkward, but they would only last so long.

Moving carefully, Ness lowered his hand, corrected his posture.

Caliban, in turn, backed off. While his expression didn’t relax whatsoever, his teeth still wound up hidden by his lips once more.

“Yes,” Ness answered, nodding, his tone hushed and taut…and, somehow, understanding. He wasn’t sure how or why, but he knew that it needed to be. “Yes, I do.”

A long couple seconds dragged by before Caliban nodded back. “Good.”

He made to rest his arm on the bottom windowpane, only to flinch back.

The sound of claws scratching against metal would’ve sent Ness into another panic…however, now that Snare’s fuzzy face was a somewhat familiar sight, he managed to keep himself together.

A smile etched its way across Caliban’s features so fast that it seemed to give him a bit of whiplash, but he still scooped his pet up all the same. “Yeah! Good job, buddy! You did great!”

The hare bounced in place, the tips of his ears twitching with excitement. He was suddenly in Ness’ lap again, pawing at his shirt, swaying to and fro not unlike a hyper kitten.

As Ness stared, he realized that Snare was holding something between his teeth—something tiny and dark. The object fell away soon enough due to all the hare’s movement. Ness palmed it, lifting it up for a better look.

His eyes managed to grow even wider than they already had been. If his environment had been a bit more lighthearted, he might have thought back to all the overexaggerated effects that were drawn whenever cartoon characters gasped or screamed.

It was a valve cap.

He glanced back up through the windshield. It took a few seconds of staring at the taxi’s back tires, but he still managed to catch movement on one of them.

There was no low popping or hissing, and the process was moving at a slow pace…but the rubber was, indeed, growing loose.

Bit-by-bit.

“Get ready to take the wheel,” Caliban instructed.

A cold spark manifested in the hollows of Ness’ eyelids. It moved to rattle through his skull, shot along his ribs, and dripped down his spine before it finally plummeted into his stomach and started churning there.

“I-I’m sorry, what?” Ness stammered, hating how small his voice was as he stared at the cannibal, who was now rolling his shoulders, eyes drifting shut.

“I said—” Caliban turned his head from side-to-side, eliciting a low, sickening crack from the joints in his neck. “—Get. Ready. To take. THE WHEEL.”

The smile seemed to warp on his skin. It was much wider, more sick than any expression he’d made earlier; combined with the dim light, he truly appeared to have a mouthful of razors.

His eyes popped back open, and this time, there was no trace of any pain or aches or dread.

Now, there was only energy.

A chaotic type of energy that made him think of potent acid kept inside an unnecessarily large vial: eager to flood out, to spread, to devour everything in its path.

And, as Caliban ever-so-slightly lowered his head to peer out the windshield through his brows, Ness had to take a millisecond to feel grateful that Mad was the main thing in his path.

Snare pawed at Ness’ chest, clicking his buck teeth together. As excited as he seemed it be, he’d clearly had some kind of premonition earlier, as he was quick to squirm under Ness’ seatbelt, shoulders tense.

The nape of his neck collided with the headrest before he even registered that Caliban had stomped on the gas pedal, that the tires were now screeching against asphalt, that the car was rocketing forward.

The world outside was suddenly a blur; he barely had enough air in his lungs to scream. He couldn’t even close his eyes as he braced for the crash, for the cacophony of grinding metal and shattering glass.

The universe truly worked in mysterious ways, because it was actually a good thing that he couldn’t blind himself to the impending chaos.

If he had, then he wouldn’t have seen how there was about a perfect half-inch of space between Caliban’s car and Jack’s cab.

He wouldn’t have seen how Caliban let out a war-cry and lunged from his seat, partially looming through the open window.

He wouldn’t have seen how Caliban snatched up Mad, executing what was undoubtedly the ballsiest clothesline maneuver possible.

Somehow, the childish side of Ness’ brain decided to perk up right then, murmuring that if he had the ability to pause time, he would’ve just to see the looks on Jack and Abby’s faces because they were in full-on Stuff That Should Only Happen In Movies territory.

Thankfully, his vision started racing back and forth between the windshield and the currently unattended steering wheel. That last set of instructions rattled through his eardrums.

The air was almost knocked right back out of him as his chest slammed against the center console, but he still wrapped his hands around the leather grips, running on pure desperation to keep it steady.

Soon, he couldn’t hear the keening sound of air rushing past the car, thanks to the shrieks of an unfamiliar-yet-unmistakable voice.

“H-HEY, HEY! STOP, LET ME GO—!”

In his peripheral vision, Ness saw Mad just past Caliban, right outside the window. He watched him throw out his arms, kick his legs, thrashing like a rapid opossum. But no matter what he tried, he just couldn’t seem to get out of Caliban's grip around his neck and shoulders.

At this point, Ness had seen plenty of things that made him question his life and every decision he'd made in it.

But honestly…if someone had predicted that all of this would happen, and then told Ness about their prophecy a few months ago?

The part that would’ve surprised him the most would be the idea that Mad could show fear.

The way Mad had stared at him on the fateful night…his rictus of a grin…how he slowly shook his head and murmured under his breath when he thought no-one could see…

Mad really just seemed like the type of person to not have certain emotions. All those damn packages he’d left for Ness to find certainly hadn’t helped his case.

But right here, right now, Mad’s face was twisted into a mess of shock and panic. Eyes the size of dinner plates, verbal vomit flooding out of his mouth as he struggled…

Then again, that seemed to partially fall away when Mad finally craned his neck to look at his captor. Strands of disgust and fury wove their way into his expression at the way the cannibal cackled.

“REALLY LETTING IT ALL HANG OUT THERE, HUH, MAD?!” Caliban shouted, his grin so wide that it legitimately seemed to split his face in half.

“YOU..!” Mad roared, now throwing punches at the car rather than the air around him. “YOU RUINED IT! YOU RUIN EVERYTHING!”

Keeping the other psycho his clutch meant that Caliban had to respond to all that erratic movement in kind. That, in turn, meant thrashing back-and-forth, both through the window as well as in his seat.

Considering a past night-walk of his had somehow ended in him having to contain a stray cat that acted like it’d gotten a whiff of the odd pinch of cocaine-crumbs (or two) in the alleyways around town, Ness was inclined to feel a bit of empathy for Caliban right now.

Only a little bit, though, since having someone’s elbow crash against your jaw a few times in a row was far from the best thing when you were trying to drive.

Ness was more than a little surprised when he managed to swerve the car away from a public mailbox in the nick of time.

In all this new chaos, Ness almost forgot about the close-call Jack and Abby had found themselves in.

…Almost. But that lapse was rectified rather quick.

Jack was an all-around decent guy (so long as you didn’t interrupt his power-naps), but there were only so many friends in his circle. Seeing as Ness was included in that group, he didn’t judge.

Jack kept one particular friend very close a lot of the time; in a special compartment just under his driver’s seat, to be specific. This friend went by the name Remington—Remi for short, though Jack sometimes just defaulted to Buckshot when he was feeling some type of way.

Ness had never really gotten to know Remi himself, but he still knew that Remi was nothing if not a loud, fast, and expressive speaker. Almost immediately after that act of curbside-service-except-without-a-curbside, Ness heard Remi’s signature voice pipe up and make two far-reaching statements.

Against literally all his better judgement—scratch that, all survival instinct—Ness glanced over his shoulder. Jack’s cab was already a tiny blur in the distance, and the darkness didn’t hesitate to start swallowing it up, but he just really wanted to be sure that his roommate was only just weighing the options of just how philosophical the discussion really needed to be.

Hell, those comments were eloquent enough to make Caliban and Mad stop screaming at each other and simply glance back for about ten whole seconds.

Of course, it didn’t stop them from just picking back up where they left off, but the impact was undeniable.

“THIS WON’T CHANGE ANYTHING! YOU CAN’T STOP ME!” Mad declared, swinging at Caliban’s face. A metallic blur gleamed in his grasp, helping Ness to realize a bit too late that his knife wasn’t still stuck in the hood of Jack’s cab. “YOU CAN SLICE AND DICE YOUR DAMN HEART OUT, BUT I’LL STILL GET BACK TO WHERE I STARTED!”

Caliban yelped, jerking back and unintentionally giving Ness a look at the thin, fresh cut that was suddenly opening up on his cheek. To his credit, he was snapping right back in no time.

Literally—as one of Mad’s sleeves slid away from his black glove, Caliban craned his neck, opened wide, and lunged. His teeth sank into the exposed skin of Mad’s forearm, eyes nearly feral as they rolled around in his head.

All the while, Ness suffered the very worst cringe he ever had when he couldn’t keep the car’s right tires from plowing through one of the decorative bushes that had been planted around the perimeter of the local library.

Mad’s shrieking cranked up to eleven (to the point that Ness was sure that if any dogs happened to be nearby, they might’ve heard a fraction of it). He made several rapid-fire attempts to tug his arm back, but Caliban was having none of it. His chompers remained latched-on as he shook his head like a wolf thrashing its prey.

Time seemed to slow down; Ness even managed to glimpse the way that section of Mad’s skin stretched and split and tore as Caliban pulled back. Little red droplets flew between them to meet their end on either the asphalt or the car’s paint-job.

When Caliban finally released Mad’s arm, his face contorted into a grimace so dark and rotten that it could’ve been infested with maggots.

“YOU REALLY THINK I’D PUT YOUR CUTS ON MY TABLE?! DON’T FLATTER YOURSELF!” He spat out a wad of blood that so obviously wasn’t his own. The horrific smile came flooding back onto his face, just in time for another sick, frenzied cackle to rush up from his lungs.

One of Caliban’s hands was a blur as it abandoned Mad’s shoulder to snatch a handful of his messy brown hair. After that, he leaned even further out, pushing his torso against the windowpane.

Once he had a little more leeway, he yanked Mad’s head back…only to slam the other killer’s face against the car door with a resounding WHUMP.

Then, somehow convincing mania and incredulousness to mix very well together, Caliban decided to have a little fun with punctuation as he continued. “I’M JUST GONNA CHEW YOU UP—”

WHUMP

“AND SPIT!”

WHUMP

“YOU!”

WHUMP

“OUT!”

WHUMP-WHUMP-WHUMP

With that, weight manifested on Ness’ shoulder. He felt his hands go slack, felt the wheel slip out of his grasp, and found himself trebucheting off to the side until there was no room for Jesus between his face and the passenger window.

Everything came screeching to an extremely abrupt halt.

Ness was frozen in place, listening to the shuffling sounds of Caliban readjusting himself behind the wheel.

If Ness moved, his heart would explode in his chest with such ferocity that little bits of it would shoot out of his ears. Simple as that.

It was quite miraculous that he didn’t pass out right then and there.

The car started moving again, back to an even rhythm.

It was steered along a round angle, circling around a crumpled heap that now lay in the middle of the road.

That heap was wracked with violent shudders, sides heaving in an agonizing manner as Mad braced his palms against the ground, slowly lifting his head and chest up.

Mad’s skin was patchy with several fresh scrapes (asphalt plus speed equaled human eraser, after all), but his face had gone so pale now.

And yet, as the car crept crawling on by, he turned his head at just the right moment to stare through Ness’ window.

To stare at the same guy he’d been stalking and threatening for the past few months.

One of Mad’s eyes twitched. His hands curled themselves into fists.

Ness edged away from the window, but that didn’t really help.

More weight was suddenly on his chest, pushing his back against the seat. Caliban leaned over the center console, glaring daggers through the window, a unique cocktail of anger and entertainment swirling in his eyes.

“Stay the course, idiot!” Caliban called, his voice still full of energy despite being broken up by gasps for air. “Stop beating around the damn bush! You want him?! Come and get him!”

Ness blinked, and the world was suddenly speeding past again. His eyes warily wandered over to the rearview mirror.

Even with all the fast-growing distance, he could still see the rage in Mad’s eyes.

He could see Mad dragging himself to his feet.

He could see Mad forcing himself into a limping jog; there was no way he’d catch up anytime soon, but the promise of his focus was much, much less than welcome.

He startled badly when raucous, jagged laughter erupted from beside him.

“God, what a rush!” Caliban crowed. “That’s what I call living! 'Doc and Aza would’ve loved that!”

Snare was a bit quicker on the uptake than Ness (but then, Snare had cleary experienced all sorts of stuff that Ness was better off not experiencing, so, the comparison was a little unfair). He sprung off of the waiter’s lap, opting to perch near the driver-seat’s headrest and excitedly nudge at his owner’s neck. Caliban chortled, carefully reaching backward to give the hare’s ears a scratch.

“I…I thought your plan was all about stealth,” Ness coughed. Part of his brain instantly started screaming at him for sassing a cannibalistic hitman, especially after what in the fresh hell he’d just seen him do.

However, the other part of his brain—the one with the filter—was just out of commission at the moment. He wasn’t sure when it’d be up and running again. He could only help that the answer was soon, because he really needed it to be.

“Stealth, and then moving as fast as you possibly can,” Caliban replied with a triumphant smile that might’ve looked uplifting without the dark red tinge smeared over his teeth and around his lips. “In my line of work, things just tend to go like that most of the time.”

By now, Mad was very much out of sight.

In spite of that, even as Caliban turned a corner to continue on a route that was so damn familiar, Ness could still feel that monster’s eyes burrowing into his skin, leaving invisible, half-melted gashes that bubbled near the back of his head.

___

It was so odd: Ness had been working at Sparky’s for years, and only now did he really see just how different the diner looked without the light of the pendant lamps that hung over each table. Yeah, he could still see through the windows, but any nearby businesses were just as shadowy. No artificial glow anywhere.

He’d lost count of all the times he’d been responsible for closing up shop after late-shifts. He’d long-since adjusted to the eerie feeling of being pretty much all alone, having to turn everything off and then drive all the way home in the dark.

…At least, he thought he’d adjusted.

Will I be afraid of the dark after all this? Ness wondered, wringing his hands as he paced behind the coffee-bar. How much will tonight set me back? I can only afford to take so much time off—

“You’ve got good taste in roommates,” Caliban mentioned as he slithered into the main area, leaving the kitchen door to swing to and fro in his wake.

A cluster of icy thorns started spinning like a top in the pit of Ness’ stomach. “Ah…sorry, how do you mean?”

Under normal circumstances, he would’ve taken the compliment with a smile; he and Jack didn’t exactly go way back, so it’d been an amazing stroke of luck for them to have clicked the way they did.

Right now, however, all he could think about was the way he’d seen Caliban speak. The way Caliban intentionally twisted his own words to feed his macabre sense of humor.

Ness never thought he’d have to try and dissect such a mild statement and dread that it was code for something along the lines of Your roommate would taste good.

(Then again, he’d also never thought he’d wind up on the receiving end of an amateur parody of “The Stalker’s Tango,” but here he was.)

“I just mean that you picked a fine one,” Caliban explained. Though he shrugged, the glint in his eyes—as well as how one side of his mouth was curling into a smirk—made it clear that he’d pretty much read the waiter’s mind. “I respect a guy who doesn’t fool around. It takes guts and brains to react so quickly, y’know?”

He paused, drumming his fingers on his bicep in thought. “...Even if they have to rely on guns.”

While a wave of relief spilled through Ness’ lungs (since, logically speaking, it wouldn’t make sense to eat someone you respected, even if you didn’t even really know that person), he still couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.

Caliban raised an eyebrow right back. “Hey, c’mon, I get to be biased. All weapons have their merits, but when it comes to knives, you always, always get a chance to swing them around and give yourself some dramatic flair.”

As if to prove his point, he ever-so-slightly pulled back one side of his jacket and reached for an interior pocket a little ways below the collar.

Seconds later, he lashed his hand back out; a glossy wooden handle was now spinning about his fingers, topped by something that gave off a cold, metallic, hungry glint.

Once he decided to hold it steady, the source of said glint turned out to be a meat cleaver, crafted from damascus steel and almost seeming a little too big to fit so perfectly in that pocket.

“Guns, on the other hand, just go ‘bang-bang’ and commit death.” Caliban traced a finger along his deadly toy’s blade before placing a hand on his hip. “That’s it. Makes things end a little too fast for my taste.”

Ness swallowed a lump in his throat, remembering a nature documentary he’d seen just last year that focused on comparing the hunting styles of wild dogs to those of big cats.

Typically, animals like lions or tigers took down prey via a crushing bite to the neck, which meant an instant (although not very painless) death.

Creatures like hyenas or wolves, on the other hand…if you were unfortunate enough to be on their hunting radar, and if they brought you to the ground…well, your life wouldn’t have to end for their meal to begin. The pack pretty much never failed to go for their target’s belly first, biting and clawing until everything inside spilled out.

Paranoid nausea aside, Ness titled his head at this. “Sure, sure. It’s just—I mean, y’know that saying about bringing knives to gun fights…”

(Welp. Even if his filter had woken up earlier, apparently it was only half-functional right now.)

Thankfully, Caliban just rolled his eyes at this. “No—you just need to avoid bringing morons to gun fights.”

Ness’ gaze wandered over to that cut on Caliban’s face. It’d stopped bleeding a while ago, and it definitely wasn’t deep enough to leave a scar like the one above his lip. That didn’t change the fact that it was so bright red and angry-looking. He could only guess how much it stung.

Caliban’s eyes narrowed; either he had legit telepathic power, or Ness really just sucked at being subtle sometimes. “Yeah, yeah. HE doesn’t count, because A. he’s in the Moron Camp, B. he doesn’t even take good care of his tools, and C. he’s in the Moron Camp.”

Ness took a step back, holding his hands up in a defensive gesture.

Caliban clicked his tongue, then crept around the bar’s corner, eyes scanning the little restaurant as he fidgeted with his cleaver.

While Ness was certain Caliban didn’t mind the dark (if anything, he probably thrived in it), he still had to wonder if the cannibal saw it differently as well, since it’d been full of light that evening he’d come in with his friends.

Outside, the air itself decided to pick up the slack in their conversion with a deep, loud chorus that rumbled from above.

A long moment passed before he glanced back at Ness. “…He’ll be here any minute now.”

Ness chewed his lip, nodding slowly. “I know.”

Caliban paused, setting his cleaver down in order to crack his knuckles before snatching it right back up. “The lure’s only gonna work if he thinks he can see you.”

“I—I know,” Ness repeated, shakily rubbing at his arms. He’d taken his cyan jacket off at least five minutes ago, and Sparky’s maintained a pretty warm temperature, even without sunbeams filtering in through the windows.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten such a bad case of goosebumps from something besides a draft.

As if on cue, the rumbling upped the ante in less than a second, transitioning into a booming CRA-A-ACK that got close to shaking the diner’s walls.

Oddly-comedic timing was the only set thing in the universe. Seriously, the way Caliban and Ness both jumped at least a foot in the air almost looked like it’d happened on a choreographer’s orders.

Caliban’s brow furrowed, but concern was quick to wash over his features. With a little more speed in his step than before, he moved over to the right side of the diner, peering through the nearly floor-to-ceiling window that had been installed on the wall. After a moment or two of searching, he let out a little sigh, leaning away from the glass.

“He’ll be fine—he has plenty of shelter, and he’s a tough little guy either way. He’ll be fine…” Caliban eventually muttered under his breath as resumed his pacing.

Though he could tell that the cannibal’s words were directed to himself, Ness still had to empathize a bit.

Apparently, Snare was now keeping watch, hiding somewhere by the outer side of the building. At first, he’d been worried about the hare’s pale pelt giving him away…but then again, Dine and Dash had their fair share of silvery fur, and he’d been a victim of many real-life jumpscares on their parts whenever he took out the trash.

Ness still had no idea what all Snare had been trained to do, but his trivia-obsessed brain helpfully reminded him that hares were much craftier than domestic rabbits.

It gave him a little reassurance, since he’d overheard Caliban instructing his pet about, “If anyone aside from Mr. This-Onsie-Is-My-Second-Skin gets too close, just distract them and lead them away as best you can—and no biting this time, okay? Too risky.”

Sooner or later, Caliban took his position: just across from the booths, hidden in plain sight. There was just enough dim light to see his outline.

“So, what am I supposed to do?” Ness asked, keeping his voice down as his wary focus returned to the front windows.

“Eh, for the most part, just sit there and look pretty.” Mischief and mayhem flickered in Caliban’s eyes, though some seriousness was still behind them. “I’d put money on him calling out to you. When he does, don’t respond. The more we egg him on, the less aware he’ll be of his surroundings.”

Ness winced, thinking back to all those awful letters. “And…what about when you—”

“Shhh!” Caliban jolted, then stiffened a second later. Even in the dark, Ness could see the cannibal’s knuckles turn white around the cleaver’s handle.

Several long, painful heartbeats dragged by as the two of them sat in silence.

For a moment, everything seemed far too quiet, even with the sharp, incessant little tap-tap-taps on the roof as the still-rumbling clouds made good on their promise.

But then…

Scrrrpp-scccrrrp

From somewhere outside, a low, shuffling rhythm interjected.

Scccrrrp-sccrrrrp, scrrrrp-sccrrp

The sound of gravel grinding against itself under the weight of a person’s shoes.

Scrrrrrrp-sccrrrpp-sccccrrrrp

Slowly but surely, a familiar silhouette appeared in the parking lot, growing more and more visible with each second.

Ness practically felt the color drain from his face.

Perhaps that could count as him doing Caliban a favor; the cannibal didn’t even need to turn and look for himself. His eyes darted over to meet Ness’ before he simply tilted his head in a small nod.

“Get. Down.” Caliban squared his shoulders, his voice now an octave below a whisper and seeping out through gritted teeth. “Watch the door.”

Ness didn’t need to be told twice. He retreated to the far side of the coffer-bar before dropping onto his knees just before the edge. This gave a decent amount of space between him and the front entrance.

Not even a moment too soon: he peered one eye around the corner and felt his stomach twist.

Mad was now looming just an inch away from the door, visibly panting like a dog and twitching all over.

Though he wasn’t soaked just yet, the rain had dampened him from head-to-toe. He leaned forward, prompting translucent smears to appear on the glass as he pressed his forehead against it.

Thanks to the raindrops, the red stains on his bear-suit almost seemed to be melting; the longer Ness stared, the more his fear-addled imagination took the fabric’s tan coloring and made him think of flesh with chunks dripping and sloughing off with the water.

Bloodshot eyes rolled around in Mad’s head, glancing every which way. By some miracle, they never landed on Ness’ hiding spot.

Ness watched as Mad stepped back and gripped the door’s handle, giving it a harsh tug…only to stop short, his mouth dropping to the ground as the threshold opened right up.

For a few long seconds, Mad stared, looking just as shocked as Ness felt for having unlocked that very door earlier.

(He hadn’t wanted to, of course, but Caliban had insisted. “This’ll throw him off a bit. Delusional as he is, he still knows you don’t want anything to do with him. He knows you’re scared of him, so a gesture like this can make him to lower his guard.”)

Mad shook his head and ground his jaw before trudging inside like he owned the place, leaving the door to hang open behind him. The storm took his invitation to not just do its bawling outside: cold, wet wind swept into the diner in less than a heartbeat.

And, just as Caliban predicted, Mad didn’t keep his silence.

“I knew you’d come back here, Ness.”

Ness winced; the psycho had spat out his name like it was a piece of rancid meat.

Even so, as Mad loomed by the welcome stand, he still didn't look in Ness’ direction.

In fact, the opposite end of the coffee-bar seemed to take up all his focus.

“You think you’re better than me?” Mad demanded, his voice shooting through several octaves. “Have you been enjoying all the crap that’s happened tonight? Do you think it’s funny to make me run and jump like a trained monkey?!”

A violent shiver wracked Ness’ body. He had to clamp a hand over his mouth to keep any sobs trapped in his chest.

Mad went silent, and the next couple minutes each felt like a Lord of The Rings: Extended Edition.

“You think Crawford is actually trying to help you?” Mad finally continued. He let out a bitter, mirthless laugh. “That’s hilarious. Cute, even!”

There was a brief spark of confusion in the back of Ness’ head at the surname, but clarification came soon enough.

“Don’t you know anything about cannibalism; how that stuff really works?” Mad wondered aloud. “When you squint at it, human flesh is barely any different from drugs. If you manage to eat some and get away with it, it’ll give you a type of high. You know you’re not meant to do it. But since you did…you’ll get hooked. You’ll crave it. You’ll always want MORE.”

Ness rushed to swallow the bile that was rising in his throat. He did know all those Not-So-Fun-Facts, actually. Of course he did—all the horror movies he’d watched ever since his teenage years…to this day, that sort of stuff just made him curious. So, he tended to do his own research, to see how accurate some scenes really were, even if the effects were already believable.

(There was no way he hadn’t ended up on a watchlist by now. Then again, he was just a few feet away from two people who ABSOLUTELY belonged on watchlists, and those people clearly hadn’t been caught just yet…)

“So, in that case, Crawford’s the poster-child for addiction.” Mad paused, chewing at his lip in thought.

“And it’s not just that: he’s about business, too. Him and that mob he runs around with. You have any idea how many people he’s killed—how many people he’s eaten? You really think he’s just gonna let you go after all this? After everything you’ve seen from him? No. No, he’ll just drag you back to that den of his and butcher you. As if you’re nothing but a lamb!”

Mad began pacing in small, tight circles. “He’ll harvest your guts, and you can bet that he’ll make sure you’re still awake while he does it. And whatever he doesn’t eat, he’ll just sell on the Black Market! There’ll be nothing left of you, Ness! NOTHING. LEFT.”

His breathing turned ragged, his jaw clenched. He raised a hand to his face, first to furiously claw at his temple, and then to snarl his gloved fingers in his hair.

“I’m not much better, but at least I’d make it somewhat quick!” Mad tried. “Sure, I’d still cut you open one way or another, but at least I’d just watch how your blood makes a nice, pretty pool on the floor! At least I’d try to give you a semi-proper burial! Doesn’t that sound better than getting crammed into an oven or put on a stove?!”

Mad’s other hand lashed out to his side, letting the tip of his knife sink into the leather cushion of one booth-seat. He dragged the blade along, leaving a jagged trail in the material, letting some of its stuffing leak out and onto the floor.

“…Fine, fine, I’d probably keep a little piece of you as a trophy—but that’s the thing! I’d keep that piece! I’d hide it away in a safe stash! I’d try to keep it clean! I’d actually appreciate all the memories attached to it!”

Something sharp and rotten started searing its way through Ness’ intestines. It was all he could do to not start rocking back and forth. If he did that, then he’d be more likely to get up. To run into the kitchen for cover. To scream.

Mad froze in place again, his mouth opening and closing with no more words coming out. The semi-blissful silence was short-lived, but sometimes you just had to take what you could get.

“…Talk to me,” Mad piped back up, his voice suddenly a whisper. “C’mon—talk…”

He finally took a step forward.

Not toward Ness’ spot, but him moving at all was less than ideal.

“Alright, then,” Mad called, returning to his original volume. “I’ll just have to make you talk!”

He took another step. And another, and another, and another. All drawing him closer and closer to the figure near the end of the coffee-bar.

Once he was in touching range, he lashed out a hand to grab at aforementioned figure’s arm. “I SAID TALK TO ME, DAMN IT, OR ELSE I’M GONNA—!”

Mad cut himself off, words devolving into a guttural yelp as he was shoved back. He staggered against one of the booths, just barely managing to keep his balance as he clutched at the small, bright red nick that was now blooming across his temple.

He sputtered as that figure got up from the coffee-bar, obviously remembering a little too late that Ness never had a scar on the left side of his upper lip.

Cyan was most definitely not Caliban’s color. But right here, right now, it truly seemed to have worked like a charm.

“You’re gonna what, Mad?” Caliban jeered, shifting his cleaver’s handle about his fingers, glancing down at the fresh blood smeared on its blade. “C’mon, now—since you still can’t seem to smell a trap, even with all that so-called experience, the least you can do is finish your sentences!”

Mad’s expression was like a stormcloud.

Finally, finally, Ness moved.

Granted, a swarm of voices in his head were shrieking against the very idea of moving, but he had to, or else the skin of his palms would melt and permanently anchor him to the floor. He shifted in place, slow and careful as he got to his feet.

He didn’t stand to his full height, of course, but he managed to peek over the coffee-bar, getting a prime view as Caliban stalked closer to the stammering, floundering Mad.

Caliban seemed to catch this out of the corner of his eye, because he paused to shoot a sly grin Ness’ way.

“Alright, Ness!” He called, his voice laced with a new burst of horrific excitement. “Go ahead and wait in the kitchen. Mad and I need to have a little chat.”

Still shuddering, Ness made to follow those instructions. You’d better fucking believe he was about to sprint into the kitchen and huddle in one of the corners and wonder where everything went wrong until the sun finally climbed its way into the sky again.

But he didn’t.

He couldn’t.

He was suddenly too busy staring at yet another silhouette charging through the rain. Charging toward the diner.

Who in their right mind would come here at a time like this, in a storm like this?!

How had none of them heard the new set of rapid footsteps?!

Why was this maniac wearing the forest-green fleece coat that Mike pretty much…always…

…Mike?

Ness recognized the man who all but burst through the open door, unintentionally slamming it shut. How couldn’t he, considering all the harmless jokes he’d made about basically towering over him?

MIKE.

Right then, a bolt of lightning streaked across the clouds. The flash of light was gone as fast as it’d arrived, but it still lit up a very familiar face adorned by stubble and dark rings just under the eyes, now contorted with panic and self-loathing.

M I K E !

“Ness?!” He shouted, fear sounding so, so wrong compared to the low, bedraggled tone he typically spoke with. He rushed to the coffee-bar, reaching out. “Where have you been?! What’s—?!”

“OH, NO YOU DON’T!” Mad howled as he rocketed off the booth. He tackled Mike to the floor, one hand outstretched to grab at his neck. “I AM DONE WITH YOU, YOU HEAR ME?! DONE!”

And just like that, the world was speeding under Ness’ shoes.

An odd ringing sound manifested in Ness’ ears, growing louder and louder and louder until it managed to drown out his thundering pulse.

He felt a cold mass materialize in his hands—he didn’t even register how he’d ripped the diner’s fire extinguisher out of its mounting bracket on the wall until he slammed it into Mad’s side, eliciting a cry of pain.

By now, Ness finally realized that the ringing in his ears was only being caused by his own voice as he screamed his lungs raw.

Ness hauled back and hit Mad again, in the exact same spot. This time, Mad was knocked off his balance.

Away from Mike.

“COME ON!” With that, Ness tossed the extinguisher away, taking Mike’s wrist in a vice-like grip. “RUN, RUN!”

To his credit, Mike didn’t make Ness drag him along. He was on his boyfriend’s heels in an instant, keeping more than enough pace as the two of them erupted into the kitchen.

Ness didn’t stop, zeroing in on the old supply closet that waited patiently in the corner. Adrenaline-induced aches already flaring in his jaw, he sprinted over, practically tossing Mike inside before ducking past the threshold himself.

It was pure dumb luck that Mad didn’t rip the kitchen door right off its hinges; he entered just in time to see the closet slamming shut.

With another unintelligible, infuriated shout, Mad began to lunge across the kitchen…only to nearly lose his footing as a hand wrapped around the collar of his bear-suit. He was yanked to the side, left to ricochet against a stainless steel countertop that ran the length of the walls.

Caliban raced ahead of him, skidding to a halt before the closet.

A loud, hollow click rang throughout the kitchen as he turned the lock on its doorknob.

“Y’know, even if I’m not all that hungry right now…” Caliban mentioned, his grin growing wider and wider, showcasing the way his silver tooth glinted like a scythe. “…I still need a pound of flesh.”

He outstretched an arm, aiming the blade of his cleaver at Mad.

Mad sneered, tightening his grip around his own weapon. “Come and get it, then.”

___

The supply closet was even darker than the dining area. Much more cramped and stuffy, too.

Even so, it was far, FAR better than staying out there for another second.

(Especially considering the muffled shouts and crashing that sounded from somewhere on the other side…)

Ness’ grip finally went slack, and the air seemed to cave in on itself as he felt Mike tear his wrist away.

“Ness—” Despite how ragged and breathless Mike’s voice had become, despite the whirlwind in his bulging eyes, the declaration was still piercing.

Ness couldn’t help but flinch, instinctively shuffling into one corner of the closet and subsequently knocking his elbow against one of the metal shelves, which triggered a small avalanche of cleaning products to scatter all over the floor.

(Then again, as thankful as part of him was to see Mike again, being locked in a small space with a panicked and confused boyfriend wasn’t exactly a peach, either.)

Mike ignored all the containers rolling around his shoes in favor of planting himself right in front of the waiter. “Ness, you have to tell me what the hell is going on right now, or I swear to God—!”

“I hardly know myself!” Ness snapped, his voice getting dangerously close to just breaking on the spot.

“I’m just as lost as you are—actually, no! I’m WAY MORE lost than you are! My LIFE has depended on just making things up as I go for the past few hours! You might have gotten turned around at the average IKEA, but I’M spinning around in the center of The Bermuda Triangle!”

The next ten-or-so seconds took their sweet damn time to pass the couple by.

Mike stared at Ness. Had the lighting been better, he would’ve been a near-perfect mimic of the Surprised Piakchu Meme.

Still, that stubborn, determined, bordering-on-idiocy nature that Ness had fallen for once upon a time came back for Round 2. “…I’m gonna need a little mORE TO WORK WITH THAN THAT!”

“OH, OF COURSE YOU WOULD!” Ness fired back.

___

Strong as the metallic aroma of blood was, Caliban didn’t have time to appreciate it right now.

Pain seared through his tendons as Mad's knife bit into his arm, but it wasn’t like he was a stranger to getting stabbed.

Before Mad could pull back to try and slash again, Caliban grabbed his wrist, twisting it viciously as he forced his opponent’s arm to stretch at a bad angle.

Mad roared and backed away, trying to tug his arm out of the cannibal’s grasp. His wish ended up being granted: Caliban indeed released him…right as he delivered a swift, brutal kick to one of his kneecaps, that is.

Mad collided with the edge of the coffee-bar. Though he faltered, he sure as hell didn’t slow down.

Just as Caliban pounced, Mad met him halfway.

Or, more accurately, his free hand curled into a fist and met one of Caliban’s eyes halfway.

Having half of his vision go blurry for a few seconds was no picnic, but it still gave Caliban even more motivation to return the favor.

Though you could technically say that his aim was a bit off, there was no doubt just how satisfying it was to hear a wet, pulpy CRUNCH when his knuckles connected to Mad’s nose…

___

“We weren’t alone in the woods earlier,” Ness finally choked out, his eyes feeling like they were slowly filling up with acid. “Someone else was there with us. And a little while after the argument—after I stormed off, they…they just found me. And…took me.”

Although fear had a stronghold on Mike’s features, anger soon made a decent contender.

“…Who?!” He demanded, his voice going low. “Did you see their face? Do you know where they are now?” He spun around and wrapped his hands around the doorknob, tugging it to and fro. When it refused to budge any more than a few centimeters, he tried slamming his shoulder against the door itself.

“Mike—Mike, STOP!” Ness grabbed hold of Mike’s hood and pulled him back, squeezing around to plant himself between his boyfriend and his boyfriend’s new, inanimate nemesis. “I—I can’t tell you, alright?! And if I can’t do that, then I can’t let you see what’s going on, either!”

“What the hell do you mean?!” Mike contended, spreading his arms in a furious lame-gesture. “We can’t just stay here! We need to run! We need to go to the cops—”

“NO.” Ness’ eyes truly felt like they might pop right out of his head. “Cops are the last people we need getting involved!”

Mike gaped at him again for a long, agonizing moment.

“Let me get this straight…” He growled (and if not for the situation at hand, Ness would’ve reminded him that anything straight was an impossibility for both of them). “Some maniac came along and kidnapped you a few hours ago, and you think you just don’t have to tell me about it?!”

Mike took a few steps closer, and, due to the closet’s size, closed the gap between them almost immediately. “You’re always talking about being in this together! So how can you possibly think that keeping something so goddamn horrible from me is just gonna work out?!”

One hand reached out to grab Ness’ shoulder.

“How the hell do you think that makes me feel right now, Ness?! I trust you! I care about you! Doesn’t that mea—”

“Right, right,” Ness interjected, shrugging Mike’s hand away with a little more force than strictly necessary. “You care about me so damn much. Enough that you confused some random child-murderer for me!”

He gasped for air, his throat feeling like it was lined with sandpaper. “How do you think that makes me feel?!”

Silence.

A veritable tidal wave of emotion swept across Mike’s face: more fear, shock, dread, pain…and much, much more…

“Y-Yeah, that’s—that’s what I thought.” Ness bit back his tears and folded his arms across his chest, turning his head to fix the darkened corner with a sopping-wet glare.

“I…I know you have lots of sleep-issues, and me looking so similar to that monster doesn’t help…” Ness heaved a guttural sigh, raising a hand to knead at his temple. “But…God’s sake, Mike! I run off wearing what I’ve got on now, and when you think you find me, I’m just SUDDENLY IN A BEAR-SUIT? HUH?!”

Mike ever-so-slightly shrunk at that.

More quiet dragged its feet along before he eventually muttered, “…I mean, there was that one time you and Abby just had to have those onesies we saw at Walmart—”

“I thought I told you to NEVER bring up The January Onesie Incident EVER AGAIN,” Ness seethed.

___

“You really think that little silver-piece is so impressive?!” Mad snarled, pressing a hand to his bicep, over the patch of torn fabric and his now-exposed skin. Little beads of blood leaked out between his fingers.

“If things go my way, I’m gonna rip out all the rest of your teeth! EVERY! SINGLE! GODDAMN ONE! I’m gonna make Orin Scrivello look like a fish out of water!”

Caliban paused, thinking back through all the movies he’d seen in the past.

“. . .Oh, yeah. Orin Scrivello,” he hissed. His tongue darted out to lick at the red stain on the corner of his lips before skating over the teeth in question. “Remind me EXACTLY what happened to him, again?!”

Instead of doing that, Mad lunged at Caliban again, stomping on his foot to try and hold him in place as he shoved him onto one of the tables

Caliban screamed with rage, leveling his knee into the other killer’s chest, as well as hauling back and decking him in the throat. Just for good measure.

In fact, Caliban decided that he could go for even better measure via raising a leg and sending the sole of his shoe right into Mad’s stomach.

Mad crumpled onto the floor, coughing and retching. Too bad the sudden wave of nausea wasn’t enough to stop him from grabbing Caliban’ ankle as he tried to rush past.

Thrown off-balance, the cannibal went sprawling down. Dull pain thrummed through his skull as his chin met the hard tiles; it really almost felt like he’d been stabbed there.

Get up! A voice in his head commanded. Get up, get up, GET UP! Keep moving!

He braced his palms against the floor, lifting his chest up and—

He jolted in place.

His palms…

They were both empty when they rEALLY FUCKING SHOULDN’T HAVE BEEN…

HIS CLEAVER! WAS GONE!

Clenching his jaw, Caliban swiveled his head at breakneck speed—THERE!

That blood-spattered, wonderful, damascus steel trophy he’d earned so long ago had landed just a few feet away!

Still on his knees, Caliban scrambled closer, one hand reaching out to take it back. Almost there, almo—!

A filthy boot came down on his hand, brutally pinning it to the floor, Mad’s weight piled on top of it.

Pop went something in Caliban’s wrist; somehow, it seemed louder than the agonized howl that rushed out of his lungs.

Everything lifted away soon enough, but the pain remained, determined to set fire to each and every nerve that was wrapped around his phalanges, one by one.

Mad’s laughter seeped into the air like clouds of smoke, somehow even more grating than before. “You really thought you could keep hurting me with this butter knife?”

A while before all this happened, Caliban was sure that Mad’s face couldn’t get any more punchable. But now, as he lifted his head to watch a coy smirk spread across the other killer’s features, to watch that other killer’s DISGUSTING MITTS fiddle around with HIS CLEAVER…

Well, Caliban was a big enough man to admit when he’d been wrong (not always out loud, though). Something in his ribcage came to a rolling boil. He felt everything begin to shake.

Glancing to the side, he noticed that a wooden broom had been left propped up against one of the booths.

He reached out, ignoring the last dregs of pain as he wrapped his hand around the base to steady himself.

Mad was watching him, but he didn’t seem to care. He was still too wrapped up in gloating over his small victory. He clinked his own knife against the cleaver in a very cheap imitation of sharpening it.

“Oh, look at me! I’m Caliban Crawford! I think I’m so goddamn clever and tough, even though I let myself care about STUPID, WORTHLESS THINGS—”

The attempt at IRL Vicious Mockery was cut short as Caliban raised the broom up and snapped it over his knee. He threw the broom’s head over his shoulder, pointing the jagged, splintery end at Mad before charging like a rabid bull.

“O-oh shit, oh sHIT, OH FUAAAAAAAUUUGH!” Mad shrieked like the average victim of a cassowary-attack as the broken broom plunged into that tender spot just below his shoulder.

Caliban, not to be outdone, let out a horrific scream of his own. Using the broom’s handle for leverage, he forcibly swung his opponent around, subconsciously releasing his hold to throw him across the room.

Still wailing, Mad hit one of the side-windows with a deafening THUMP.

Though the glass somehow didn’t shatter, the psycho’s back still caused a rather large spiderweb-crack to etch its way out from the corner.

This time, Mad finally stayed down. He certainly didn’t look happy about that, but the fact that the broken broom was still lodged in his shoulder was kinda-sorta hard to ignore.

His breathing heavy and jagged, Caliban moved quickly, scanning the floor, desperation reignited. Soon enough, he found where his cleaver had landed—fittingly enough, it was also on top of Mad’s knife, which Caliban swiftly kicked out of sight as he plucked his weapon back up.

He examined it carefully, worried about just how much damage it’d taken. Luckily for him, there only seemed to be a couple new nicks in the blade; nothing the tools he had back at home couldn’t fix.

Hell, even with all the fresh blood that was dripping from it, he could still see his reflection in all those pretty, wavy streaks set in the metal.

Caliban smiled to himself, using one section of his black hoodie to wipe his weapon clean before returning it to its place in his pocket. He already knew he wouldn’t have to use it again (not right this second, at least). Mad was still sputtering, still shaking, still unable to pick himself up.

Speaking of which…

“I’m gonna recap,” Caliban announced, turning on his heel.

“Not only do you just fuck around for free…” He stalked back over to the other killer, soon looming above him. “…but you decide to try and encroach on my family's turf. And then, sometime after we throw you back to wherever you came from—”

Caliban gripped the end of the broom handle. “You have the GALL to crawl back and try to whine about needing us to clean up the messes you keep making. And THEN, after we hand your sorry ass to you for the second time…”

The sadism in his heart glowed as he pushed the broom, forcing it to sink even deeper into Mad’s flesh. Slowly. Agonizingly.

Mad cried out in despair. He had no more energy left to fight, so all he could do was shudder.

“…You decide to just start taking your little bitch-fits out on KIDS,” Caliban concluded, almost able to feel the fluids in his eyes churning as he glared at the other killer.

However, as much as Caliban wanted to see even more blood come rushing out, to form a small lake around Mad as he got all pale and stiff, he couldn’t kill him. That would’ve just been too good for him.

Instead, he shook his head dismissively. “You’ll never have a true career, Mad. You’ll never deserve any kind of reputation. You’re just too sloppy.”

Caliban readjusted his grip…

“Too entitled.”

…and…

“Too pathetic.”

…PULLED.

More screams.

More refreshing, delicious (even oddly musical) screams.

___

“Why can’t you tell me?” Mike tried for what legitimately had to be the thousandth time in the span of minutes.

“I just can’t,” Ness answered helplessly. His energy seemed to be draining bit by bit as time went on.

Was he crying? He couldn't feel any tears, but his eyes were so damn sore that he had to force himself not to keep scrubbing at them. After everything he’d gone through to get to this point, an infection or a stye might've really been the straw to break the camel’s back, and Ness did not want to test that theory.

Mike seemed to have grown a little wearier, too. His voice had tapered down some, and his attempts at Door Violence had transitioned into simply kneading at his temples. Ness would’ve liked to think that he’d contributed to the relative calm, but one part of his brain just chattered on about the first stages of Stockholm Syndrome.

Still, he knew Mike was too stubborn to stop prodding. If Mike kept prodding, then he risked finding out the secrets Ness had sworn to help keep. And if that happened…

“Fine. You really want an explanation?”

Icy claws dripping down his spine, Ness clenched his jaw and gazed directly into Mike’s eyes. “I’ll tell you everything that’s been going on tonight…but only if you tell me why you get so cagey whenever I bring up Freddy Fazbear’s.”

Mike’s face fell even more than it already had as he froze in place. It truly looked as though he might never move again.

“What—what the hell has that got to do with anything?” He stammered.

“You tell me,” Ness demanded, folding his arms across his chest. “Abby seems to love talking about those old animatronics, but it always seems like something inside you dies whenever she does.”

He paused, glancing away. “And…and whenever I bring up my theories on the place, you instantly shut me down and lecture me about how it’s ‘just not worth it’ without ever really clarifying what you mean by that.”

Mike went quiet again; hell, he even seemed to be holding his breath. Sooner or later, his eyes simply dropped to the floor as his shook his head, slow and solemn.

“Exactly.” Ness tilted his head to the side. “You obviously know way more about that than you ever let on. But you never even consider telling me about it. Because you think that’ll keep me out of danger.”

Mike’s eyes remained fixated on the ground.

Though Ness felt some of his muscles relax, the tightness in his chest was far more determined. It felt awful, having to use something that was so clearly NOT ‘just fine, don’t worry about it’ against his boyfriend like this.

But he just had to. For both their sakes.

Without thinking, Ness he reached out and pulled Mike against his chest.

“If you get to keep secrets to try and keep me safe…” He let out a small sigh as he rested his chin on Mike’s shoulder. “…then it’s only fair that I get to do the same. We really need to just leave it at that. Trust me.”

Mike still didn’t answer. But, sooner or later, Ness felt his arms snake around his waist in return.

That was good, since Ness’ arms wouldn’t free him, and right now, Ness’ heart just wasn’t in the mood to even try.

…At least, not until the lock announced itself with another loud click before the door swung open. Mike jolted in place, but just before he could even turn his head, a pair of hands was suddenly grasping at his neck and shoulders.

Then, Mike’s eyes began to flutter as he swayed to and fro for an awkward few seconds before plummeting onto the floor like a slow avalanche.

Caliban stood behind him, watching and casually spinning that same syringe (from what felt like months ago ) between his fingers.

For the record, Ness only stood frozen and gaping for about half a minute. “…WHY?!”

“I said it before, and I’ll say it again: no-one you know can see me. Not while I’m working, at least,” Caliban replied with a shrug. He then rolled his eyes and flicked the base of the syringe.

“Relax. There’s just a few different painkillers mixed together in here. Y’know, stuff to help you sleep. Aza showed me how it works during a past job. I only gave him a tiny dose, so he should wake up in about half an hour.”

Ha. Sleeping stuff, murmured a sardonic little voice in the back of Ness’ head. How appropriate, right?

Still, it seemed Caliban was telling the truth: Mike wasn’t writhing, wasn’t bleeding, wasn’t disloving into a puddle of gore.

He was just asleep, pretty much the same way he’d been a little while ago.

Before Ness knew it, Caliban’s hand was around his wrist again, pulling him ago. This time, however, the grip wasn’t so tight. Fingernails weren’t digging into his skin. The cannibal wasn’t sprinting or furiously murmuring to himself.

In fact, Caliban even seemed to have a new spring in his step.

Quite the unconventional spring, too: as Ness kept staring, he saw how Caliban was now sporting a dark bruise around one eye, as well as several fresh, angry lacerations littered about his arms. His formerly well-kempt hair was now so disheveled, almost like that of a doll that clumsy children couldn’t stop fighting over.

How could he be so happy like this?

“Come look what I’ve caught,” Caliban said, chuckling as he led Ness through the kitchen door.

The two of them passed the edge of the coffee-bar to find a heap of Mad lying near the cracked window.

Still breathing…still squirming…but now in obvious, incredible pain.

For all the thrashing Caliban had received for his troubles, Mad seemed to have gotten twice as much, with a little interest sprinkled on top. His formerly fair complexion was a mess, both of his eyes slowly swelling, blood trickling from his nose as well as one corner of his mouth.

The very worst by far was his shoulder: a gaping wound marred the flesh where it met the beginning of his underarm. Dark red was still oozing out like a wine stain—not fast enough to kill him, but slow enough to maybe make him wish that it already had.

As the duo came to a halt before him, Ness realized that he couldn’t see Mad’s bear-suit anymore. Instead, the psycho had been wrapped almost up to his neck in some kind of black, stretching material.

A body-bag, his mind whispered. Somehow, another part of his brain still compared the sight to that of a swaddled baby.

“G-Get away from me,” Mad spat through clenched teeth, watery eyes glowering up at Ness. “This doesn’t prove anything! You’re not better! You won’t STAY better! You STILL don’t DESERVE what you’ve—!”

Just like that, Ness was suddenly on his knees. His hand flew back, only to come crashing against Mad’s bruised, bloody face with an almost whip-esque cRAck!

He then grabbed at Mad’s neck, throttling and punching for all he was worth. Caliban, meanwhile, propped an elbow against the coffee-bar, snickering as he watched.

Eventually, when Ness finally decided he’d had enough and got back to his feet, he realized that he wasn’t shaking anymore.

That he’d finally stopped shaking for the first time all damn night.

“There!” Ness seethed. “Now at least one of us has gotten what he fucking deserves!”

Mad hacked and choked, more bloody, frothy phlegm dribbling past his lips. Tears leaked from his eyes, clearly not out of emotion, but it was still nice to see him cry for a change.

“...Blood loss?” Mad sputtered, curling in on himself. Despite all his agony, his face still twisted into a sick, demented smile. “No, I know exactly where it is.”

Caliban suddenly threw his head back and barked a laugh, which lengthened into a fit of unhinged giggles as he waltzed around to loom over Mad’s other side. “Ah, what the hell—fine, I’ll let you go. That was a good one!”

Ness’ face fell with the same speed and vibes as the way Mad’s eyes brightened: complete and utter bamboozlement.

“Wait, really?!” Mad cried.

“Nope!” Caliban answered, still chuckling as he unceremoniously jabbed the syringe’s needle into a specific spot on Mad’s neck, pushing the plunger down so hard that it could’ve caved in on itself with just a few more seconds.

Once the syringe was empty, he stuffed it into one of his interior pockets before fishing yet another thing out.

A bundle of burlap fabric decorated with strips of duct-tape.

That very same mask Ness had been forced to wear hours ago.

Mad still tried to glare at Ness, still tried to send hate and venom burrowing into him even as his eyelids drooped and his body went still.

But as Caliban pulled that sack-mask over the psycho’s head, Ness didn’t feel any fear.

(Not that he felt particularly happy, but it was still a welcome change, since he’d had quite enough fear for tonight. If anything, he was just tired as all hell by now.)

Caliban aimed a toothy grin Ness' way, reaching out to give him a solid pat on the shoulder. Then, he grabbed the outline of Mad’s ankles and dragged the Bag o’ Psycho through the diner, into the kitchen, and finally, out the back door.

Ness numbly followed along, watching as the cannibal popped his car’s trunk. Even with all the force he used to toss Mad inside, the other killer didn’t so much as stir. He really was out like a damn light.

Ness wondered just how long Mad would be unconscious, although part of him obviously hoped it would be for the rest of the next day and then some.

He was no expert on sleeping drugs, but that dose had been much, much higher than the one Mike had been given…

Mike, his heart whimpered.

Caliban slammed the trunk shut and locked it, then turned around and whistled. After a second or two, Snare came bounding up, leaping at just the right time and distance for his owner to catch him and cuddle him to his face.

“So…” Ness coughed. “Are—are we done here? Is that it?”

“Yep,” Caliban replied, popping his lips on the p, nodding with a smile. “That’s it.”

He then reached out and gave Ness a friendly dig in the arm. “Hey, c’mon. Get some of the catharsis. It’s good for you!”

Caliban strolled back into the Sparky’s, soon finding himself back at the main dining area. He’d already been enough of a gem to clean up the mess he and Mad had made the best he could—the bloody, broken broomstick now had real estate in his trunk, along with Mad.

After doing one last sweep of the place, making sure there was no biological evidence left behind, he let out a triumphant sigh and headed back into the kitchen…only to stop short upon seeing Ness wander back into that supply closet.

Curious, Caliban took a step closer, watching how his former-target-turned-unlikely-ally was now sitting down beside the man who’d tried to jump into the action earlier. Moving slowly, Ness wrapped his arms around the man’s waist, being gentle as he pulled him closer until he lay against his chest.

From there, Ness leaned against the closet’s inner wall and closed his eyes. Not to sleep, clearly. Just as an attempt to start processing the night now that he could finally afford to hold still.

Good luck with that to ya, said something in Caliban’s head. Even with his sarcasm, he still found himself tilting his head, a different kind of smile growing on his face. It was smaller than his typical grins, and somehow even more unreadable. But that was just fine.

Glancing back, Caliban saw Ness’ cyan leather jacket, still in a crumpled heap where he’d left it just before the fight. Chewing his lip, he walked over, picked it up, then carried it to the closet, where he laid it over both Ness and the unconscious stranger beside him. Ness didn’t open his eyes.

Snare suddenly squirmed in his hold, hopping down and scurrying into the closet. There, he rose up ont his hind legs, braced his paws against Ness’ shoulder, and pushed his little Y-shaped nose against Ness’ cheek.

Ness’ eyes remained closed, but a little more stress seemed to up and vanish from his features.

Once Snare returned to his arms, Caliban rolled his shoulders and turned away, tugging the back door shut behind him. He made his way over to the car, letting Snare climb over to curl up on the passenger seat before he got in and put his key in the ignition.

Back inside the diner, Ness barely even heard the sound of an engine rumbling to life, of tires peeling out into the shadows much too fast.

He didn’t even notice how the rain was finally letting up after all this time, all the incessant tapping on the roof fading away.

For God knows how long, the only thing he heard was his own pulse, as well as Mike’s deep, steady breathing.

…At least, until the little bell suspended above the front door broke the silence.

But then, that wasn’t the thing to really catch his attention, even if part of his schedule-adjusted brain insisted on that.

No, that honor went to two sets of familiar voices calling out.

The first seemed to be the same age as he was, masculine, dripping with adrenaline and concern: “Hello?! Is anyone here?”

And the second…very young, feminine, and sweet (even if the last bit was hidden by clear anxiety): “Ness? Mike? Where are you?!”

___

(The ball's in your court, @insane4fandoms ! Help me make the upcoming epilogue a happy one! ❤️)

___

@sammys-magical-au @lexusinsannus @b-is-in-the-closet @im-a-weird0 @yourannoyinglittlesistersteph @lampsforsocks @yourlocalsonia2

HEY HEY HEY IM HERE IM HERR WITH THE NEXT PART @wouldntyou-liketoknow I GOT IT

Jack is a good roommate and babysitter, I say as he takes Abby to shoot a killer in the head (like I said, good babysitter lmao). Abby feels regret for being threatened and not being able to help her brother, but like Jack said, she’s only ten. Finally, Mike connected the dots and out he goes to save his family. @crazy-obsessed-enby @iswmperson @lexusinsannus

(Don’t worry, I’m not going to expose Caliban, that’s why his headlights are off) Meanwhile, Madpat got exposed (by a taxi)

Madpat proceeded to lose it even more and ran away again, there’s a hole in Jack’s car, Mike is filled with adrenaline and big brother instincts, and Ness and Caliban are silently driving in the darkness.

Shit will go down and I will await for your snippet, hope this doesn’t change what you had in mind 😭

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wouldntyou-liketoknow · 2 months ago

Text

How the plot thickens, and so the shenaniganry ensues. . .

Both Caliban and Ness have some ‘splaining to do: the former has a quick chat with a very special guest character about his new plans, and the latter reveals what it’s like to be stalked by a certain wacko in a bear-suit.

(It’s honestly kinda funny how this snippet took about the same amount of time to write as the first one. Lol, I just keep on surprising myself.)

As always, I hope you enjoy!

___

Terminal Case of the Ol’ Switcheroo [Part 2]

(Disclaimer: only two of the characters in this snippet belong to me. For more information about my EgoPat Caliban, go here. And if you’d like to learn about my StephEgo R.D., go here.)

(One more thing: I’ve actually written a full character analysis on the dynamic between Mad and Caliban. If you’re interested, please feel free to check it out here.)

(Trigger Warnings: blood/gore, knives/blades, implied kidnapping, implied violence, talk of murder/death, mentions of cannibalism, mentions of illegal business, implied stalking/threatening, mentions of snakes, mentions of spiders, strong language. Please let me know if I missed anything.)

Part 1 Part 3 Part 4 Epilogue

___

The bindings slipped away, barely making a sound as they hit the concrete floor.

Despite his newfound energy, the captive’s legs—scratch that, the captive’s everything was very shaky as he stood up from the chair.

That shakiness only worsened when Caliban stooped down and grabbed that same burlap sack he’d used hours ago. Parts of it shone in the light, courtesy of the strips of duct-tape that formed a frowny-face with Xs for eyes.

“Hey, HEY!” Mr. Waiter—uh, Ness, if memory from that one after-hit-job-rest-stop from months ago served—yelped as the bag was tugged over his head, once again shrouding his environment in darkness. “This isn’t—!”

Caliban interjected, wrapping a firm hand around the other man’s wrist.

“What the hell did I just say?!” Caliban hissed, his voice dark and searing. “If you want this to work, then you’re following. My. LEAD.”

Ness dipped his head, probably to both nod and ever-so-slightly curl in on himself. “O-okay, okay! I’m sorry, I get it!”

Caliban clicked his tongue. “I’m gonna have to pull all kinds of strings now. So yeah, you’d damn-well BETTER get it.”

“I do!” Ness insisted.

“That thing stays on until I decide we’re far enough away from here,” Caliban continued.

He kept his grip on Ness’ arm, pulling him along as he crossed his den. He couldn’t go through the abandoned tunnels.

He couldn’t use any of his peer’s subway-office-turned-underground-hidey-holes right now.

He had to get on the road, and fast. And if that was going to happen, then it meant he’d have to bring his former (technically?) captive into his house.

Caliban grit his teeth as he ascended the old concrete staircase, Snare right on his heels and Ness somehow only tripping twice.

It won’t take very long, a voice in Caliban’s head assured. You just need to get some supplies together, get in the car, and then you’re off to the next phase! Easy-peasy lemon-fucking-squeezy!

Regretting the word choice of that last thought, Caliban all but ripped open the wallpaper-camouflaged door in the corner of his closet, elbowing it shut and locking it with the special key that lived permanently rent-free in his breast pocket.

“Oh my God!” A very familiar voice suddenly gasped from the center of his bedroom, only to offer a breathless laugh a few seconds later. “Cal, you startled me!”

Caliban froze in the closet’s hollow doorframe, staring at a beautiful woman who had way, waaaaaay more than enough brains and strength to make a name for herself in the world of underground experimentation.

The same amazing genius who, by some miracle, had decided to be with him, of all people.

“R.D.!” Caliban replied, shifting in place as he pushed Ness into the corner of the closet and out of sight, keeping a hold on his wrist. “You. . .you’re home early!”

Under normal circumstances, this would’ve made Caliban very happy. (Mind you, he was still happy right now—it was just impossible for him to not be happy when R.D. was around.)

Unfortunately, the fact that he was currently trying to drag a stranger out of his den and through their home…

Damn it.

Damn the UNIVERSE and its STUPID TIMING!

She was dressed in a lovely dark green blouse adorned by flowing streaks of black that almost resembled a pour-painting canvas. Still, Caliban knew her well enough to know that she’d just barely changed out of all the protective gear she typically wore at the hidden-in-plain-sight-laboratory of a warehouse on the other side of the city.

R.D. shrugged. “Yeah, I wasn’t expecting to come back until much later. But it turns out some of the chemical samples we planned to use are contaminated. So, the team and I need to get a new batch, and you know how long that can take.”

“Don’t I ever,” Caliban replied with a small laugh that definitely sounded shakier than he would’ve liked.

Ness did keep relatively quiet, but he was still trying to squirm in the corner, obviously confused and scared; survival instinct was so convenient like that.

The smile faded from R.D.’s features as she tilted her head at her husband. “. . .Hey, is everything alright?”

“Y-yeah! Yeah, everything’s fine!” Caliban insisted. “Why, don’t I look fine?”

R.D. raised an eyebrow. “You look like someone just shot you with a paintball gun and forced a ghost pepper down your throat at the same time.”

Caliban pursed his lips. “Well, that seems a bit harsh.”

“What are you hiding, Cal?” R.D. asked.

“Nothing!” Caliban answered. “I’m not hiding anything!”

“Oh, really?” R.D. folded her arms across her chest and took a single step closer. “Come on out here, then.”

“Ah–no thanks,” Caliban coughed. “I’m good where I am.”

“Why?” R.D. pressed.

Caliban, for the life of him, couldn’t come up with anything for that.

And before he knew it, R.D. was walking up to him and squeezing through the gap of space between him and the closet doorway and looking at the trembling stranger in the corner and...and...and...

Yeah, he really should’ve known better.

R.D. slowly turned her head to lock eyes with him. Then she was a blur of movement, making sure the window’s blinds were all closed and the bedroom door was shut. After that, she marched right up to him again.

The words rushed out of his mouth like a river: “...OkaylookIcanexplain!”

“I sure damn hope you can!” R.D. announced in a low, hurried voice. “Caliban. What the hell are you doing?!”

Caliban’s mouth opened and closed a few times with no words coming out. His eyes darted around the room. After a few seconds, he held up a hand, turning to the shaking man beside him.

He released Ness’ wrist, then put a firm hand on his head and pushed him down. “Just—just sit, alright?”

Ness (bless his heart) moved quickly, his back sliding against the wall until he was hugging his knees on the floor. Snare took this as the green light to scamper over and flop against him.

Caliban nodded, then turned back to address his wife. “Listen—”

“You can’t just bring your targets up here!” R.D. proclaimed. “You’ve never done that before, so what made you decide to start today?!”

“He isn’t a target!” Caliban argued. “I was after someone else, but I ended up getting him by accident!”

R.D. froze for a few seconds before shaking her head. “. . .That doesn’t make things any better! If he’s not a target, then he’ll just have even more reason to report you now! He’s already seen what you have down there! What if he gets out the door and down the street before you can re-catch him?!”

“That’s not gonna happen!” Caliban insisted.

“How do you know that?!” R.D. demanded.

“We made a deal! He and I had a discussion, okay?! We have an understanding now!”

Caliban paused, then glanced at Ness, who hadn’t budged an inch from his spot on the floor.

“Don’t we?” He called, intentionally making it sound more like a statement than a question.

Ness nodded, holding up his hands in a defensive gesture. "Y-yes! Yes, we do! I swear!”

Though she'd visibly calmed down, R.D. still only looked semi-convinced. “That still doesn’t explain what you’re doing right now!”

“It’s. . .it’s just a change of plans,” Caliban insisted, gesturing in Ness’ direction. “He has some kind of connection to the idiot I mistook him for! So now he’s gonna lead me to him before things go even more downhill than they already have!”

R.D. blinked at this, her eyes slowly but surely transitioning from stressed to contemplative.

She pursed her lips and began pacing in a small circle. To and fro, to and fro, either massaging her temples or fidgeting with the dutch side-braid she often tied her long, silky brown hair into. After a moment, she halted in place and looked at Caliban again.

“. . .Where exactly are you going?” She asked.

“At least a few towns over,” Caliban responded after a few seconds of hesitation.

A voice in his head reminded him that she knew what his work was like. This certainly wasn’t the first time he’d had to leave home to get a job done, whether heading to a different state or even a different country. Hell, she had to travel just as often as he did—if not more so—whether to snatch a test subject or gather supplies for her experiments.

R.D. nodded. “And how long do you think this’ll take?”

“I’m. . .not sure,” Caliban admitted. Most jobs could just be handled in a day or two, tops. But some could end up taking weeks, or even months, depending on how the cards were dealt. “But I promise I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

R.D. shifted were she stood, glancing back and forth between her husband and the closet, where she knew some stranger was probably questioning his life choices right about now.

“Rhea. . .” Caliban walked closer to her. He chewed his lip for a long few seconds.

His voice tapered down to a whisper as he continued, “. . .there’s a kid involved with this.”

A tidal wave of emotion rippled across R.D.’s features. Much like him, her career involved plenty of things that wouldn’t guarantee anyone a spot in heaven.

And yet, she could still be compassionate when she needed to. It was one of many things that he loved her for.

Horror crept into her warm chestnut eyes as she echoed, “A kid. . ?”

Caliban felt his heart drop as he nodded. “I’m sorry I had to just spring all this on you; that wasn’t fair.”

He then gently took one of her hands in his. “I’ll try to explain it more thoroughly later, but I need to get moving right now.”

R.D. stared at him for another long, tense second before sighing leaning against him, wrapping an arm around his torso. He did the same. The two of them stayed like that for a bit; just in case it was the last hug they’d have for the next few days.

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” R.D. said as she pulled away, nodding first to the closet, and then to the bedroom door. “You go get your stuff together.”

Caliban’s eyes brightened in time with the smile that spread over his face. “I don’t deserve you.”

R.D. huffed a laugh. “No, you don’t.”

And with that, the cannibal raced through the door, heading down the hall to gather up whatever he might need for an impromptu roadtrip. Food, water, a first aid kit, a few spare body bags, way more knives than strictly necessary. . .

The next few minutes were extremely awkward; even with the explanation she’d been given, R.D. still didn’t know who the masked stranger huddled in the corner of her and Caliban’s closet was.

Even so, it didn’t take long for her to see that he wouldn’t cause too much trouble.

Snare seemed to like him, which was a good sign. . .usually.

“Thank you.” Ness broke the silence in a small, wavering voice. “For understanding.”

R.D. shrugged (though she wasn't really sure why, since it wasn’t like he could see her through the burlap-sack-mask). “It’s nothing.”

“N-no, it’s really not,” Ness argued. “If I wasn’t on the verge of an anxiety-attack right now, I’d probably try to hug you.”

A small smile graced R.D.’s lips. “That’s sweet of you to say.”

Caliban’s voice echoed from elsewhere in the house. “Hey, R.D.?”

“What?” R.D. called back, stepping closer to the bedroom door.

“Where’s my electric bone-saw?”

R.D. blinked, pursing her lips. “. . .What?”

“Where. Is my. ELECTRIC BONE-SAW?” Caliban repeated, raising his voice a bit.

“I, uh. . .put it away.”

“Where?!”

“Why do you need to know?”

“I need it!”

“No, you don’t!” R.D. insisted, rolling her eyes. “You already have more than enough weapons; I know how many you have in that duffel bag!”

“I need to be as prepared as possible!” Caliban protested.

“You’re always prepared! Your favorite cleaver is always in your pocket—you take it everywhere you go!”

“You tell me where my electric bone-saw is! We’re talking about a SPECIAL job!”

“‘SPECIAL?’” R.D. echoed, unable to help but put her hands on her hips. “I am your WIFE! I am the most special thing you’re EVER gonna get!”

There was no response to that last comment. R.D. smirked at the thought of Caliban’s expression. Shuffling from the closet caught her attention once again. She chewed her lip, then quietly walked over, leaning against the doorframe.

“It’s not a stretch for me to guess that he already scared the hell out of you,” she said.

Ness nodded, shuddering.

“Yeah. Well, I can tell what you’re thinking,” R.D. hummed. “It might be hard to believe, especially right now, but if he’s really serious about this. . .then you can trust him. His work can get chaotic depending on whatever happens in the moment, but he’s still professional.”

Ness shifted in place, subconsciously petting Snare. “A-alright, then. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Good,” R.D. replied. She turned away, only to glance at him over her shoulder. “I just hope you can think on your feet.”

Ness flinched at that. “I’ll try.”

“That’s the spirit.”

Footsteps rumbled through the walls, and Caliban burst into the room yet again. “Alright! The car’s packed—let’s get going!”

He raced over to the closet, causing Ness to yelp as he was yanked from the floor and onto his feet. Snare hopped away at just the right second, scurrying out of the room to excitedly wait by the garage door.

Caliban, ever the dutiful partner, made sure to give R.D. a kiss on the cheek before tugging Ness out of the room. “Love you!”

“Love you too,” R.D. called after him. “Be careful!”

A dark laugh resounded on Caliban’s part. “Let him be careful.”

R.D. grinned to herself, knowing that Ness wasn’t who Caliban meant by that.

___

Ness wasn’t sure how long Mr. Sharp Te—er, Caliban, according to the woman he’d talked to a while ago—had been driving.

He didn’t know how much time had passed since he’d heard the unmistakable sound of a key being turned in the ignition, of an engine roaring to life. It wasn’t like he could look outside the windows, after all; not until Caliban decided to let him.

No, he’d just had to listen to the rumbling of tires for what felt like hours now.

A chill seeped around his neck when the car eventually came to a halt.

The burlap sack was, once again, pulled off of his head.

He blinked—mostly out of instinct, since the world outside was still just as dark as when he’d been on that walk with Mike.

The stars were still glinting like diamonds painstakingly sewn onto a black velvet tapestry. By that same logic, the moon would’ve been a pearl, casting long, winding shadows with its cold, pale glow.

Snare was in his lap again, titling his head, nose twitching with an eerie thoughtfulness.

“. . .Where are we?” Ness asked, voice dripping with hesitation.

“Nowhere important,” Caliban answered with a shrug. And it seemed he was right: there was nothing but distant trees and vacant fields for miles upon miles.

“Let’s make something clear,” Caliban started, tossing the burlap-sack-mask into the back while he shifted in his seat.

“Most of the people who end up in my den and see my face? Yeah, they don’t get to leave. There’s only so many exceptions to that, and I guess you’re one of them now. I’ve already cut things close by letting you see me. So, when we get to wherever we need to be, I can’t be seen by anyone you know. Not your boytoy, not his sister, no-one else. Get it?”

Ness nodded quickly. “Got it.”

Caliban squinted at him, then heaved a sigh. “Okay. Here’s the first part of this: I can remember the route I drove to get to the place where I took you. I won’t have any problem finding my way there again, but once we do get there, I’ll need you to navigate.”

“Oh,” Ness blurted. It was a pretty solid plan. He wasn’t quite sure what he’d been expecting, but high-adrenaline scenarios like this didn’t tend to lead to smart choices. (Then again, this was all happening in the first place because he’d agreed to a late-night stroll in the woods. . .) “Um, yes, sure! I can do that when the time comes. That sounds perfect, actually.”

“I know it does,” Caliban grinned, rolling his shoulders.

With that, he restarted the engine and they were off. The headlights didn’t come on (that was probably intentional), but it didn’t really matter. Right now, the moon was bright enough to let both driver and passenger see in the darkness.

Caliban suddenly reached over to Ness’ side. Ness flinched back, expecting a knife in his grasp. But just before he could start pleading again, something light and dull dropped beside him. He palmed it, realizing by touch alone that it was his cellphone.

“Text him,” Caliban instructed. “If this is gonna work, then it’ll be best if the kid is as far away as possible. So, tell him that the two of you need some alone time to figure things out. Convince him to drop his sister off to stay with someone else for a little while.”

Ness blinked. “Wait–shouldn’t I just tell him to go with her? That both of them need to get away?”

“No,” Caliban replied tersely. “If you do that, then the bear-onesie-idiot will get suspicious. We have no idea what he’ll do, so the longer we keep him in the dark, the better.”

“But Mike will still be near him!” Ness protested. “He’ll still be in danger!”

“Mike is about the same age as us, right?”

“. . .Yeah. Yeah, he is—”

“Then Mike can probably defend himself just fine,” Caliban concluded. In a low, heavy voice, he added, “If anyone’s at risk here, it’s his sister. Don’t you think?”

Ness shut his mouth with a little porcelain snap, nodding frantically.

“Alright. Now, send him that message and then pass the phone back to me.”

Ness did as he was told, thanking God for the fact that a Creative Writing course had been on the side of his Drama class in high school. It might've been a while since he wrote anything, but he still remembered how to make things sound nice and realistic and convincing.

Still, it felt so horrible to lie to Mike. Especially at times like this.

After a few moments, once he was satisfied, he sent the text and carefully pushed the phone back over the center console. Caliban’s hand was a blur as he snatched it up and stuffed it into one of the interior pockets of his jacket.

It was, for the most part, pretty damn quiet. Ness usually didn’t like heavy silences—the jukebox back at Sparky’s had always been a decent source of comfort when he was working—but right now he was just fine.

After all, it wasn’t every day you got kidnapped by a cannibalistic hitman only to wind up riding shotgun with him so he could track down a person who was equally horrifying in different ways.

One did not simply come up with casual conversation in this scenario.

“Don’t call Mike a boytoy,” Ness murmured, the words leaving his mouth before his brain could register them.

“. . .What?” Caliban asked, not looking at his passenger.

Though part of his mind screamed at him not to, Ness still reiterated: “Don’t call Mike that. He’s not a perfect angel–he might not know what he’s doing sometimes, but he’s not just a boytoy.”

Caliban stayed quiet for a few long seconds, then let out a sarcastic chuckle. “He sure texts like one.”

Ness sputtered. “Yeah, well, it’s really difficult to translate some things without body language, but—” He cut himself off, eyes widening to the size of dinner plates. “. . .Wait, you read my text messages with him?!”

“Yeah,” Caliban said, rather nonchalantly. “I had your phone, didn’t I?”

“You—you—!” Ness’ vocal cords seemed to be malfunctioning yet again. . .only, for the first time all night, it wasn’t out of fear. “It doesn’t matter if you had my phone! You can’t just do that!”

Caliban snickered. “Sure I can. If you’d been in a position to keep it from me, then you might have an argument there. But you weren’t, so...”

Ness spread his hands in a highly-aggravated lame gesture. He made to keep on ranting, but Caliban interjected.

“Y’know, I guess I could’ve focused on something other than that phone. Like, oh, I don’t know…taking a few bites out of you, maybe?”

He only glanced away from the windshield for a millisecond, but that was still enough time for his eyes to drill into the waiter seated beside him. “But I chose not to. So just think about that, huh?”

Ness’ face went pale again; fear swiftly handed frustration’s ass to it. He merely nodded again, edging against the passenger-window.

“F-fair enough.”

Caliban hummed in agreement.

More silence.

The minutes seemed to go by at a speed similar to a tortoise getting drunk off molasses.

Snare, for all the energy he’d shown earlier, suddenly seemed tired. He let out a silent little yawn, his buck-teeth making the gesture way funnier than it probably should’ve been. After that, he curled up, resting his head against Ness’ stomach.

Caliban piped up again: “How did it happen?”

Ness glanced at him, unable to avoid raising an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, c’mon. Don’t start forgetting things now,” Caliban chided. “By the grace of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the guy I mixed you up with is apparently the same guy who’s been stalking you.”

He paused, then shot another glance at Ness, this one much more curious than sinister. “So, how did it happen? When did it start?”

“Um. . .” Ness didn’t particularly want to talk about this specific part of his recent life—hell, he’d never even talked to Mike about it.

Lot of good that did you, a voice in his head nagged.

Then again, he knew he had to if he wanted things to run at least somewhat smoothly.

Ness sighed. “I can’t remember the exact date, but it’s been going on for. . .I think about three months. Up until you took me, at least.”

“Do you know him at all?” Caliban asked. “Like, did you ever meet him before he decided to watch you from the bushes with a pair of binoculars?”

“No,” Ness shook his head forcefully. “I’ve never really even talked to him. The closest we ever got was late one night when he came into the diner for some coffee.” He paused, memories rushing back. “Way, way too much coffee, really. Enough to give someone legit heart palpitations.”

Caliban snorted. “Did he wear his bear costume that night?”

Ness thought back. “. . .No, actually. But think I did see part of it sticking out of a backpack he’d brought along.”

“Huh. Wouldn’t have expected that much tact from him.” Caliban shrugged, then waved a hand at his passenger to continue.

“I. . .I don’t really know what I did to trigger him,” Ness explained. “I could tell something was off the first time I saw him, but even then, I still just tried to be polite, and he’d hardly said a word to me.”

He took a deep breath. “About a week after that first night, he came back. . .but he never actually came into the diner. He just stood at the edge of the parking lot, staring in through the windows.”

Ness paused, glancing out at the fields they were passing. He could’ve sworn he’d caught the silhouette of a deer just out of the corner or his eye.

“And after that. . ?” Caliban prompted.

“After that. . .” Ness echoed, thinking. “After that, he started leaving things at the diner. Boxes that came in all sorts of shapes and sizes, all marked with my name. They all smelled like smoke; sometimes the edges seemed burned. None of my coworkers or I ever really saw him drop the packages off, but I still knew it had to be him.”

Caliban hummed again, nodding. “What was in those packages?”

Ness threw a hand up in empty air. “That’s the thing: the packages never even made sense. One of them was full of broken glass shards, another had what looked like a ripped-up rubber mask. . .But sooner or later, they got worse. So, so much worse.”

He shuddered, heartbeat suddenly pounding in his ears. “One had a live rattlesnake in it!”

“Wait, really?” Caliban wondered aloud. “What a coincidence; a friend of mine did that exact thing to scare a sleazy prick out of our territory.”

Ness gawked at this.

“Hey, don’t give me that look.” Caliban rolled his eyes. “The guy was a loan-shark. Have you ever met a loan-shark? They’re like landlords, but a thousand times worse.”

. . .Okay, that actually did calm Ness’ nerves just a teensy bit. The average landlord was typically just a few million leeches in a trench coat, so if loan-sharks were even more unbearable than that…

Ness awkwardly coughed. “Another box had tarantulas in it! A couple real damn tarantulas! I’m pretty sure he got them from the pet store or something!”

Caliban’s face contorted at the statement, a visible shudder running through his arms.

“I was so afraid he’d start sending me dead things,” Ness went on. “I really thought it’d get to the point where he’d just scrape up roadkill and put it in a box, or. . .” He trailed off, thinking about the squirrels or rabbits or birds he’d see around the parking lot.

He thought about a duo of raccoons that frequented the dumpster out back; the ones he’d affectionately named Dine and Dash. Sometimes he’d try to leave out fresher scraps for them. Since his and Jack’s apartment didn’t allow pets just yet, he almost saw them as makeshift ones.

He wasn’t sure what would’ve happened if one of them had been left for him to find…

“Thankfully, he never did. But what he did do was just as bad,” Ness sighed. “Eventually, he started leaving letters. Sometimes they’d be full of vague threats, sometimes they’d just be rambling nonsense. No two were the same; it got so hard to keep track, to figure out what exactly I had to look out for. And. . .and the last letter he left for me, before all this happened—”

Ness’ voice started to quaver. Something cold, clammy, and awful began to fester in the pit of his stomach.

He coughed. “It mentioned Mike. I don’t know how he ever found out I was connected to him, but…but…”

Caliban’s features became unreadable.

That was it.

Ness just couldn’t get any more words out.

Instead, he choked. Fat, hot tears streamed down his face as the horrible memory played over and over and over again in his mind.

Snare stirred on his lap, lifting his head and blinking groggily. At first, he seemed quite annoyed at his nap being interrupted. But then, he did something Ness would’ve never expected: he sat up, bracing his paws against the waiter’s chest, pushed his fuzzy little face right up to his…and started licking the tears away.

Ness froze in place. It didn’t feel bad—if anything, it felt like eskimo kisses.

It just seemed so. . .wholesome. Especially for the same creature he’d witnessed chow down on a severed human finger not too long ago.

After a moment’s contemplation, Ness decided to just give in and hugged the pale hare.

Sometimes you just needed to take whatever emotional support you could get.

No matter how strange and slightly terrifying it was.

___

@sammys-magical-au @insane4fandoms @im-a-weird0 @lexusinsannus @b-is-in-the-closet @forestcouncil @yourlocalsonia2 @sunny011387 @lampsforsocks

I decided to add in a little extra comic based of the after events of my friendo @wouldntyou-liketoknow’s snippet of my previous post. @iswmperson @crazy-obsessed-enby @lexusinsannus

Abby is concern that “Ness” is not doing so well after he and Mike got lost in the woods, but Mike being the sleepy man he is, reassures that he and “Ness” will work things out.

All the while his kinda-boyfriend is trying to plead for his life to save Mike’s.

32 notes · View notes

wouldntyou-liketoknow · 2 months ago

Text

Sorry this snippet is later than the others! (Even though it's the first one I've managed to complete before sunset so far, but y'know.)

Hope you enjoy!

___

Terminal Case of the Ol’ Switcheroo [Part 3]

(Disclaimer: only one of the EgoPats in this snippet belongs to me. For more information about Caliban, go here. And if you’d like to learn about the mob he works for, go here.)

(One more thing: I’ve actually written a full character analysis on the dynamic between Mad and Caliban. If you’re interested, please feel free to check it out here.)

(Trigger Warnings: violence, blood/gore, knives/blades, implied kidnapping, talk of murder/death, mentions of cannibalism, mentions of illegal business, eating/drinking, implied stalking, strong language. Please let me know if I missed anything.)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 4 Epilogue

___

Ness wasn’t quite sure how long the newest fog of silence had hung in the air (his eyes still felt sore and swollen, but it’d been a while since his sobs had tapered down to hiccups, and then his hiccups down to steady breathing).

However, the way both he and Caliban flinched at the doorbell-esque text notification gave him an idea.

Without taking his eyes off the road, Caliban fished Ness’ phone from his pocket, passing it over.

Ness gingerly took it, unlocking the screen; a small spark of relief managed to worm its way through his brain.

“It’s from Mike,” he announced. “He says Jack just picked up Abby.”

Seeing Caliban raise a questioning eyebrow, he clarified, “My roommate, I mean. He’s a good guy—and with the distance between, he should just barely be back at the apartment by the time we get to Mike’s place.”

“Let’s hope. We’re just about back to the woods. Still have a ways to go,” Caliban replied with a nod before holding out an expectant hand.

Ness suppressed a sigh as he passed it back, anxiously pursing his lips as he watched the cannibal hide it away once more.

“. . .When exactly are you gonna let me hold onto it again?” He blurted.

“When I’m able to hold onto my original target,” Caliban answered, using a chipper tone that just dripped with sarcasm. “Because then we’ll both get to go back to our lives: I get to enjoy some carnage to keep my reputation, and you get to pretend that none of this ever happened.”

Ness fidgeted in his seat, absentmindedly playing with Snare’s ears. The hare only encouraged this, craning his neck in order to keep his head touching the waiter’s palms.

“I just—I feel like I’ve proven that I care more about helping you track that bear-onesie-psycho down rather than potentially ratting you out.”

Caliban snickered, a gleam of appreciation flickering in his eyes at the insult. “Yeah, well, that might be true, but I haven’t survived and climbed the underground ranks this long by being gullible.”

“But you’re holding pretty much all the cards here,” Ness pointed out. “Your target looks similar enough to me to get a pass; as far as my immediate circle knows, I’m with Mike. Nobody saw you take me. Even if I were to try and call for help, odds are you’d find out, get rid of me, and cover your tracks before anything really came of it.”

“There’s more to it than that.” Caliban clicked his tongue.

Ness’ eyes wandered to focus on the glove compartment. He didn’t try to keep pressing (because that came with the risk of getting on Caliban’s nerves, and good things never happened to anyone who got on a contract-killer’s nerves. Especially a cannibalistic one).

But as he thought, he realized that he. . .sort of understood.

By keeping him alive and giving him a chance to help, Caliban had already lowered his shields; from the sound of things, a bit more than he could usually afford to do.

Pictures from the past flashed in Ness’ mind—memories of all the various places he’d lived before getting hired at Sparky’s, before moving into that apartment with Jack, before meeting Mike…

Various places with varying levels of safety or danger.

Some had been surprisingly calm, while others had vibes that were on-par with, say, a malfunctioning garbage disposal.

He hadn’t just been rambling to stall for time back in Caliban’s den: he’d seen a thing or two in his life. He’d caught glimpses of illegal business, of the secretive world that existed just below the surface of normal society, right under the authorities’ noses.

But as dark and sinister as that world was, it still had rules.

Sometimes it was hard to distinguish the rules made for them, and the rules made for outsiders like Ness. But one thing was always, always clear: so long as you were quiet and kept from sticking your nose where it didn’t belong, you’d be fine…for the most part.

A little voice in Ness’ head chastised him for that thought.

Oh, yes. The same guy who made a legit red-string-corkboard on all the rumors about that old animatronic-pizza-jamboree-creepshow knows when to just let sleeping dogs lie. Why, you’re the last bastion of looking the other way!

Another little voice popped up in Ness’ defense.

Freddy’s has been dead for years. It’s just another thing for the true crime books. Not like it harms anyone to try and study the place’s history—BuzzFeed Unsolved does that all the time, and Shane and Ryan are doing great! Just because the stories are so tragic…and the fact that one nightguard went missing on his first shift…and the way Mike always goes pale and won’t make eye-contact at mere mention of the place…that doesn’t mean…

Damn, he really just couldn’t win tonight, could he?

Thankfully(?), that particular train of thought met with spontaneous combustion when Caliban spoke up again.

“Hey, can you grab something from the backseat for me, please?”

“Uh…sure, sure.” Ness, caught off-guard as he was, obliged, pretzeling himself around the side of his seat.

“The white pack,” Caliban clarified. “Right next to the duffel bag.”

It took no time at all for Ness to find the object in question—it looked like one of those lunch totes he always saw at the stores. He grabbed the handle that had been sewn to the top, lifting it up and setting it down on the center console.

It was only then that he saw the words on the container’s side, set in a bold, dark red font:

HUMAN ORGAN FOR TRANSPLANT

Ness’ heart dropped. His stomach began to churn with fear and revulsion.

Oh God, he thought. OhGodohGodohGodohGod, not again. . !

He shuffled to the far-side of his seat, practically leaning against the passenger door, shakily clearing his throat. “O-okay, there it is.”

“I can’t open it without swerving the car, can I?” An eye-roll was evident in Caliban's tone.

Something cold and clammy coiled its way about Ness’ ribcage. Swallowing the bile that had manifested in his throat, he slowly reached over to the white pack’s zipper.

What could possibly be inside this thing? Tongues? Appendices? Stray chunks of skin carved from arms or legs or torsos? More finger-treats for Snare?

Against his better judgement, Ness thought back to the Anat. & Phys. course he’d taken in college. The pack wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t tiny, either—and excepting the lungs and intestines, most human organs were somewhat smaller than one might think. The average liver was comparable a football. Kidneys typically grew to the length of your palm. Hell, a person’s heart could only be about the size of both their fists combined!

Ness knew he couldn’t just let himself get sick.

He knew that if he wanted to protect Mike and Abby, then he needed to cooperate until he could change places with that monster.

He also knew that the safest cannibal (which was the oxymoron to end all oxymorons) to be around was one that had already been fed.

Still…it’d been years since he’d done anything even remotely like this. And the questionable comfort only got colder because that one instance had been dissecting a fetal pig in that very same college class.

Could Ness try to find something to cover his hands? He doubted there’d be any latex gloves in the glovebox, but then again, considering both Caliban’s habits and his affinity for puns—

“Sometime before New Years, please,” Caliban mentioned, drumming his fingernails against the steering wheel.

Ness’ trembling hands rested on the white pack. He grit his teeth, turning his head away, preparing to wrench his eyes shut. He braced for that infamous metallic stench to seep into the air, for the faint-yet-unmistakable sound of slick tissues quivering against one another.

(Although…how exactly would the organs be kept in this scenario? It was clear that they would decidedly not be used for a transplant anytime soon, unless winding up between someone’s teeth and in their stomach was a somehow its own type of technical transplant. There was no way Caliban hadn’t already cooked them; would that make their texture more dry, or..?)

Ness shook his head, fighting the nausea and silently cursing himself out for asking questions that he already knew he didn’t want the answers to.

The soft growl of the pack’s zipper seemed so much more deafening and slow-moving than it had any right to be, but Ness still guided it on its track around the top with such speed and force that it was a wonder he didn’t rip it right out of the fabric.

The pack’s lid popped open with a light crinkling sound, and he tore his hands away as though he’d been trying to defuse a bomb.

“Thanks,” Caliban said, his tone a little brighter than before.

In his peripheral vision, Ness saw the cannibal reach into the pack.

Before he could stop himself, he was watching him fish out something very small, covered in bright red skin that glistened in the dim moonlight that was still filtering in through the car windows.

Before he could clamp a hand over his mouth to try and suppress the upcoming gag, however, he noticed a tiny patch of green pinched between Caliban’s fingers…as well as how the morsel was covered in little yellow seeds…

Ness almost physically felt the presence of a buffering wheel manifest right above his head like an angel’s halo.

Caliban raised the snack to his mouth, his teeth sinking into it with a uniquely soft crunch.

That crunch, the pinkisk-white pulp inside, the tiny drops of red juice…

Those all contributed to how it took at least ten whole seconds of shocked blinking to convince parts of Ness’ brain that it really was just a strawberry and that his fear-addled senses hadn’t cooked up any hallucinations (yet).

As he chewed, Caliban glanced at Ness out of the corner of his eye. Seeing the look on his passenger’s face, he just barely swallowed that first bite in time to avoid choking as he began to cackle.

“I got you, didn’t I?” Caliban crowed as he deposited the strawberry’s top into a small garbage bag that hung just below the steering wheel. “It’s usually better when I can play tricks with the fun stuff, but damn!”

He reached back into the pack for another strawberry. Ness’ eyes followed along with the movement, and he saw…a collection of completely normal food. Fruits and vegetables. Lunchmeat that was actually legal since it’d clearly come from a turkey or chicken or cow.

Ness’ brow furrowed a bit. It was so strange to feel blindsided by something that was so casual.

“Just needed a little sugar,” Caliban continued once the quote-unquote hilarity of the situation wore off. “Oh, and there should be spinach in the bottom—give some to Snare. He’s been needing a little extra iron lately.”

Ness numbly nodded, searching through the pack until he found a ziplock baggie of dark green leaves.

Snare perked up, quickly taking the leaf he was offered and munching on it in a very adorable way.

“I feel like you gave him plenty of iron a while ago,” Ness murmured, thinking back to Caliban’s den, to that severed arm, to the fingers…

“Sure, but you can’t just get all your nutrients from one source alone. You’ve gotta keep everything balanced and varied,” Caliban explained. He then raised an incredulous eyebrow in Ness’ direction. “What, did you really think I eat nothing but people?”

“...Maybe just a little bit?” Ness replied, the words leaving his mouth before his brain could authorize them. He rushed to add, “If you really want to be fair here, I can’t be blamed for that! Once you see someone eating an arm, everything else just kinda goes out the damn window!”

Caliban shrugged, waving a hand dismissively. “All I’m hearing is that you’re the type to judge a book by its human-skin cover.”

“Yes, I am! I try not to most of the time, but I think I get a pass for when someone feels the need to add human-skin to that metaphor!” Ness contended.

“Hey, just be grateful it’s about a book,” Caliban replied. “Books are small. Imagine if that saying was about a house’s wallpaper.”

Ness’ shoulders slumped. He leaned back in his seat, engaging in a staring contest with the car ceiling.

Caliban snickered. “Yeah, let that roll around in your head for a little while.”

And so Ness did. The terrifying idea still lingered even as they finally reached the woods that looked so foreign despite the fact that he’d only gotten lost in them a couple hours ago. Even as he explained the directions to Mike’s place.

It only seemed to let up when Caliban was maneuvering the car onto a somewhat more familiar road.

“...Look, weird stuff has just been on my mind, okay?” Ness eventually muttered. “The trends certainly haven’t helped.”

“‘Trends?’” Caliban echoed.

Ness hesitated before answering, “Yeah. Y’know, the carnivore diet and all that stuff the online gurus are preaching.”

Caliban squinted at nothing in particular for the next few seconds, mulling this over before recognition and disappointment flared in his eyes.

“Ah, right. All those guys being dumbasses and giving themselves legit scurvy because they’re convinced that eating anything without a face will make them all sOfT aNd SqUiShY aNd gAy!” He shook his head, heaving a guttural sigh. “Just makes actual butchers like me look bad.”

Due to fact that most butchers (hopefully) didn’t practice the same way Caliban did, Ness was extremely surprised to hear a light laugh bubble up from his throat. But it did, along with a tiny memory that he never would’ve expected to flash in his mind at a time like this.

“Ironic. Reminds me of some teacher back in highschool,” Ness blurted, “who tried his hardest to tell me that I was attracted to other guys because I just wasn’t eating enough vegetables.”

Caliban gave pause, his mouth hanging open in disbelief. It truly seemed to be the first time all night that he’d been left briefly speechless. “. . .No. Nuh-uh, no way! You can’t be serious!”

“I am,” Ness insisted. “It was a small school in a small town. He really thought being queer was some chemical imbalance caused by lack of certain vitamins.”

Caliban blinked, then sputtered a laugh that was nothing like the mirth he’d shown before. It was clearly a cope-laugh, more flabbergasted than unhinged.

“. . .Oh my God, why are people so stupid?” He wondered aloud, his face twisting into a cringe-smile.

“Search me,” Ness replied with a small lame gesture.

Fear still had a stronghold over his heart and lungs, but this made it seem to loosen its grip just a teeny-tiny, eensy-weensy bit. He wasn’t sure why, but he certainly wasn’t about to complain.

Caliban continued driving, making sure to avoid the warm, flickering glow of the streetlights here and there. Ness began to recognize more and more of his hometown: the park, the animal shelter, restaurants that were bigger than Sparky’s and yet somehow had less personality.

Another silence settled over them. This one wasn’t quite as tense as the last, but Ness was certain that would change.

In fact, his filter decided to malfunction and make it change, because he found himself timidly asking, “What does it taste like?”

Caliban titled his head to the side, a mischievous grin creeping over his features. “What does what taste like?”

Ness immediately wanted to take those words back, but he couldn’t. He wanted to just keep his mouth shut and abandon these new vibes altogether, but the odds weren’t in his favor. “...You know.”

Caliban pursed his lips with a sarcastic hum. “I don’t know, actually. Context is key; go ahead and clarify.”

Ness folded his arms across his chest, trying to send all the regret and discomfort he’d brought on himself into his reflection. Because if his reflection was conscious, it’d probably be very smug at his plight while it was lucky enough to not have to deal with things like this.

“Fine, fine. Don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of it—morbid curiosity’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Caliban chuckled.

Considering morbid curiosity was probably at least somewhat to blame for Caliban’s eating habits, Ness couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.

“It tastes amazing. Delicious, prime-grade, top-tier gourmet stuff,” he began. “You can’t exactly place it, but it feels like…like eating a strand of liquid electricity, or molten gems. Your heart races, your mind spins. Your teeth feel sharper and stronger. No two cases are the same: one body might have a sweet aftertaste. Another might be saltier than you’d expect. The experience always manages to be unique. I do like some other types of meat, but that’s what really makes human so much better than anything else.”

Caliban sighed happily, eyes glinting like those of a ravenous hyena prowling in the dancing shadows of a bonfire. “And don’t even get me started on the texture. Sometimes it can be a gamble, but as long as you know what you’re doing, you can make it so. Damn. Tender.”

Ignoring how that technically only answered a quarter of his question, Ness shakily nodded.

“...Does it really taste like pork?” He inquired. He tried not to be too obvious with how he squirmed in his seat, because WHY, why in the fresh hell did his impulse to learn have to act up now, of all times?!

“If by that you mean a thousand times better than pork, then yes.” Caliban proclaimed. “I guess there is some similarity with the flavors, but once you’ve had enough experience…” He trailed off, a jagged-yet-silvery chuckle leaking through his jaws.

“I–I guess I can see that,” Ness tried. He seriously, honestly couldn’t—and he was glad he couldn’t, thank you very much. But part of his brain reminded him of the different culinary practices in other countries.

Hell, the States seemed to be the only place on Earth where insects weren’t considered delicacies, or even just casual street-food. If you ate anything for a long enough time, you’d get adjusted to it. That was just how things like taste worked.

(Except for the part about how they shouldn’t sometimes, but he wasn’t going to bring that up right now.)

“I mean—I’ve just heard some historical professors say that people way back when called it long pig.”

Caliban hummed affirmative.

“But…well, it still really can’t be compared to anything in grocery stores,” Ness continued. The awkwardness was agonizing at this point, but there was no stopping that anyway. Not on a night like tonight.

“You’re damn right it can’t,” Caliban replied, his eyes growing wide and contemplative. “Have you ever taken a good, close look at those slabs of ham in the deli?”

Ness had no idea how to respond to that, but Caliban interjected before he could even try to think of a way.

“They have no bones, fat, or connective tissue. They’re amalgamations of the meat of several pigs—emulsified, strained, and inexorably joined into unholy meat obelisks.”

Caliban snarled, clicking his teeth together. “Whatever higher being rules over the universe, I guarantee that it has no hands in the creation of abhorence like that. The very fact that those ham monoliths exist is proof that any god out there is either dead, too afraid to alter their own elements, or just ignorant to the horrors of this world.”

He reached up to knead at his temple, as though his brain was about to bash its way out of his skull. “Those prisms of pork in the stores aren’t just deli meat. They’re physical declarations of mankind’s contempt for the natural order. They’re hubris manifest.”

Snare, like a good, emotionally-tuned boy, moved from Ness’ lap to stand on the center console. There, he carefully leaned against his owner’s arm, almost in the semblance of a side-hug.

Part of Ness felt the urge to ask if Caliban had rehearsed all of that sometime before the events of this evening. Ness pushed it aside, because frankly he'd had just about enough of all the existentialism.

And yet…

“So, do the low sodium varieties make that situation any better, or..?” He wondered.

All the deep, unnerving rage that had laced Caliban’s voice like some kind of horrific drug-cocktail up and vanished. To that last question, he merely shrugged with a non-commital, “Meh.”

Ness chewed his lip and sighed. He turned away, propping his elbow against the passenger door and resting his cheek on his hand.

But any slight relaxation never really had a chance to kick in.

(That would be cheating, wouldn’t it?)

Because as Ness looked for all the world through the window, he realized the car was now slithering through an area that was even more familiar to him than the others.

A small neighborhood that, while pretty calm and tidy for the most part, could somehow still be described by the term scruffy-looking. A precious few houses were two-story, but most of them were smaller, having been built on slab foundations with ranch-style architecture.

Especially one that the car was growing closer and closer to.

One whose exterior walls had a white brick trim, having been painted a calm shade of grayish blue that fit well with the green door on its small front porch.

Mike and Abby’s house.

“Is this the place?” Caliban asked, his voice low and careful.

“...Yes,” Ness replied, straightening his back like a solider called to attention.

Home, a voice whispered from somewhere in Ness’ chest. Home, home, home…

Did it really count as his home? He’d stayed over there quite a few times, but he and Mike had agreed that they weren’t ready for such a big step as moving in together.

Not yet, at least.

I hope to God we can still have that chance after this. The thought seemed to ache, like the first pangs of a head-cold. I hope to God.

He blinked, and the car was suddenly at the street corner. Not too far from the house, but not too close, either. A chill raced down Ness’ spine as soon as the engine stopped rumbling.

Caliban picked Snare up and gently set him down in the backseat. “You stay here, buddy. Maybe you can get in on the action later, but right now, you stay. Got it?”

The pale hare titled his head and sneezed, which was probably a close enough answer.

Caliban took another moment to dig through his duffel bag, fishing out an assortment of sharp things that glinted in the shadows and sliding them into the interior pockets of his leather jacket. After that, he returned his attention to Ness.

Adrenaline was obvious in his dark eyes, but something else was flickering in there as well. Ness wasn’t sure he could read it.

“...Ness,” Caliban announced.

Ness flinched; something prickly seemed to manifest in his guts. This was the very first time the cannibal had actually said his name.

“Look, before we go in, you need—”

“I won’t let Mike see you,” Ness interjected. “No matter what happens, I’ll keep him in the dark. I–I promise!” Ness hoped his honesty was clear. It didn’t matter if they weren’t on the best terms right now. He was not going to let Mike get hurt. Not when he was so close to returning to him.

“It’s not just that.” Caliban shook his head solemnly. “We can hope for the best right now, but we also need to prepare for the worst.” He licked his lips thoughtfully. “I can’t afford to let you go until I have that dirtbag where I want him. And I really need you to understand that.”

Ness’ heart ever-so-slightly sank. Fear festered in his veins.

What could go wrong? How quickly would things move?

What if they were already…

A stinging, burning sensation almost took root in his eyes, but Ness squashed it down. He ground his jaw, feeling his knuckles turn white.

If he wanted to go back to his normal life, then he needed to go along with this.

“Fine,” he said with a nod. “Whatever it takes.”

Caliban nodded back. With that, he hauled the driver-side door open and stepped out.

Ness followed suite. The cool nighttime air felt so fresh.

The two of them strolled down the sidewalk at a quick, quiet pace.

“Any entry-points besides the front door?” Caliban murmured.

Ness nodded. “There’s a side-door in the kitchen. I think it used to be some kind of closet? No idea why it was modeled that way, but it’s there.”

Caliban sucked his teeth. “Not as discreet as I’d like, but it’ll have to do.”

Time seemed to slow down as they approached the house. The lawn muffled their footsteps as they crept around to the side. True to Ness’ word, a door stood waiting just before the backyard fence.

Ness realized too late that he didn’t have a key, but that turned out to not really be a problem. Caliban reached into his jacket and produced two tools that honestly resembled a combination of scalpel and crochet hook. With expert hands, he pushed their edges into the keyhole, turning his wrists here and there to maneuver them until a soft click rang through the air.

With the lock now thoroughly picked, he grasped the doorknob and turned it slowly. Miraculously, the door didn’t wail with a high-pitched creeeeaaaak when he pushed it open. It made Ness wonder if Mike had finally gotten around to oiling the hinges.

Caliban slipped inside, Ness right on his heels, leaving the door open just a crack with very clear intention.

The space they’d entered was a cramped little compartment right in the corner of the kitchen. From where he stood, Ness could see some of Abby’s crayons still littered about her side of the table across the room. Something sharp and rough scraped against his lungs.

She’s not here, he reminded himself. She’s with Jack. She’s safe; she won’t have to mixed up in any of this.

Caliban kept moving; hell, he almost seemed to glide along the floor with all that terrifyingly quiet speed. Ness tried to keep pace—only to nearly collide with the cannibal when he suddenly halted just before the dining room’s threshold. He held up a hand, silently commanding Ness to stop moving as well. He glanced at the waiter over his shoulder, then nodded toward the next room.

Ness took a deep breath before glancing around the other man.

It took everything he had not to scream, not to sprint all the way back across the kitchen.

The living room, as usual, as in a state of function chaos. One of Abby’s famous blanket forts took up space in one corner, just beside the television setup. A few of her well-loved stuffed animals lingered around the coffee table, which sat directly in front of the sofa.

Through the darkness of the house, he could just make out the silhouette of Michael Schmidt draped along said sofa, unconsciously stirring under the weighted blanket Ness had given to him last Christmas, his chest rising and falling as he dreamed.

And hovering beside the couch’s armrest, looming over him…

Ness’ stalker.

The same man he’d seen in the parking lot back at Sparky’s.

The same man who’d left all those horrifying packages for him to open.

The same man who’d signed each of the gruesome, nonsensical letters he'd sent with the name Mad.

Even with his back to him, Ness recognized him automatically.

It didn’t even take long for him to see the bloodstains marring the fabric of that godforesaken bearsuit.

He was rocking back and forth on his heels, shoulders shaking.

If Ness concentrated, he could almost hear…something. The maniac’s voice was too low, too soft to for him to make any sense of his words. Was he talking to himself? Did he think Mike could hear him?

All questions sank through the floor as Ness’ gaze wandered down, giving him ample time to see something clutched in Mad's gloved hands.

His instincts already knew without a single shadow of a doubt what it was. He didn’t even need to wait to see it caught the light with a metallic gleam.

A knife.

THIS MONSTER WAS STARING AT HIS SLEEPING BOYFRIEND AND FIDGETING WITH A GODDAMN KNIFE.

Heart painfully writhing in his throat, Ness looked back at Caliban.

Caliban simply gestured over to the corner of the nearest wall.

The message was clear: Don’t let him see you.

Ness cradled his arms together, only realizing just how badly he was shaking when he dug his nails into his own skin. He nodded, backing away until he was, for the most part, out of sight.

He still had a vantage point into the living room; even if he didn’t, he wouldn’t have been able to keep himself from watching.

He watched as Caliban stalked over to the other killer, each step cautious and deliberate, his heartbeat ringing in his ears so much that he felt compelled to count each tick of the rhythm. He didn’t even bother questioning how his mind could keep up with the speed of that organic drum.

It almost reminded him a scene from a nature documentary he’d watched a couple months ago: it’d revolved around a snake hunting a wild rat.

Thirty heartbeats

He remembered how the rodent had clearly seen the snake approaching, only to be pitifully frozen in place.

Forty heartbeats

It was as though the snake’s piercing eyes had truly drilled holes into its prey’s brain as it crawled closer and closer, moving with such patient, sadistic slowness until the very last second…

Fifty heartbeats

…And then it finally rushed forward, wrapping its jaws around the rat’s neck and thrashed, pinning it to the ground as it wound its coils around it.

He watched as Caliban came to stand directly behind Mad.

He held his breath as Caliban slowly outstretched his hands, his fingers almost resembling a clutch of claws in the dark.

Sixty heartbe—

In a swift, fluid blur of movement, Caliban used one hand to clamp Mad’s mouth shut and force his head up. The other hand, meanwhile, wrenched around Mad’s side, pinning his arms to his torso, not allowing him any true reach with that knife.

Mad immediately started struggling. He swayed back and forth, kicking his legs, frantically shaking his head to and fro to try and escape Caliban’s grip. But it was obvious that Caliban was no stranger to snatching people up.

Somehow still managing to be relatively quiet, the cannibal dragged the stalker away from Mike, away from the couch, out of the living room and into the kitchen.

As soon as the two of them passed by, Ness’ muscles screamed for him to move. He just barely caught a glimpse of Mad’s eyes—they were bloodshot, rolling about in his head, wild and furious. Caliban’s eyes held an energy that was pretty much the same.

All at once, Ness’ stealth got the hell out of Dodge.

He raced into the living room, nearly tripping over his own feet as he skidded to a stop by the sofa.

Not a second too soon, one of those infamous full-body twitches paid Mike a visit. His features twisted into a light grimace as his deep brown eyes fluttered open. His mouth gaped open in a yawn; his expression grew less and less bleary as he blinked in Ness’ direction.

“...Ness?” Mike asked, propping himself up on his elbows, his voice still rough with sleep. “Is everythi—”

He’d been mid-stretch when Ness cut him off, leaning forward and wrapping his arms around him and burying his face in the crook of his neck.

A few long seconds jeered at the couple before Mike reciprocated.

“Ness?” He repeated, gently tapping the other man’s back. “What’s up?”

Ness couldn’t answer right away. He wanted to, but when he opened his mouth, a tiny sob was all that came out. Another followed…and another…and another…

Mike didn’t seem to hear them at first, but he definitely picked up on it as his boyfriend’s shoulders started shaking in the way that could only be connected to one particular emotion.

“Hey–wait, why are you crying?” Mike shuffled in Ness’ hold, craning his neck to make eye-contact. Confusion turned to worry at breakneck speed. “Are you still upset about what happened earlier? Oh God, I should’ve known—I’m so sorry—”

“No!” Ness finally found his voice again. It took so much effort to keep his pitch down. “No, that’s not—I’m over it, okay? I-it’s water under the bridge, trust me. I’m—” He hiccuped, thinking back to the sunset-stroll that had put everything into motion.

What had he and Mike even been arguing over? It felt like weeks had passed since then.

It didn’t matter.

It didn’t matter what had started it or who had raised his voice first or who was in the wrong.

All that mattered was that Ness kept holding onto Mike at least until Abby was ready for highschool.

“I’m just so happy to see you,” Ness murmured, tears quickly meeting their end against Mike’s shoulder. “I’m so happy that—that you’re safe.”

Mike stayed quiet for another few seconds. Then, in spite of his obvious disorientation, a small smile etched its way across his features. His hand found one of Ness’, and he linked their fingers together. “Of course I’m safe. And you are, too.”

Ness nodded with a little more force than he probably should have. He scrubbed the tears away and tried to smile back.

This was it: he was back home. His found-family was safe. Everything would go back to norm—

TSHSSHSK

The sound of shattering glass stabbed through the air.

Both of them froze in place at the exact same time.

Two mouths dropping open.

Two pairs of eyes bulging from their sockets.

And then Mike was on his feet, rushing past Ness, who tried to get in front of him before he reached the dining room…but it was too late.

Mike and Ness however in the kitchen doorway.

The room appeared quite empty at first. But the mess of glass shards glinting devilishly on the counter, in the sink, on the floor seemed to be mocking them. The jagged hole in the kitchen’s main window didn’t help matters at all.

“...Holy shit,” Mike breathed, reaching up to tangle his hands in his hair. “Holy shit, someone tried to break in!”

He raced over to the sink, narrowly avoiding stepping on the broken glass, trying to look through the window and into the weed-infested alleyway outside.

Ness, meanwhile, moved to stand between Mike and the side-door alcove. He got the feeling that his boyfriend wouldn’t react to well to a stranger hiding over there. Especially considering how said stranger had managed to climb up the former closet space’s walls and was now straining to hold himself up right against the ceiling.

A flood of different emotions could be seen in Caliban’s eyes: rage, anxiety, desperation for his wrists and ankles to not give out for at least another minute or two.

Ness held up his hands in a defensive gesture, trying to show that he’d keep his word.

Thank God Mike was too preoccupied to notice.

“We need to get someone over here!” Mike shouted. “We need to call—!”

“NO,” Ness interrupted him once again. “No, we can’t!”

He saw Caliban’s eyes grow even wider than before. He desperately gestured for him not to panic (though he already knew it was too late for that).

He couldn’t afford any cops getting involved right now.

That would only make things much, much worse.

“Why the hell not?!” Mike replied, his voice shooting up several octaves. “Aren’t you seeing any of this? Imagine if Abby had been here when it happened!”

“But she’s not!” Ness insisted. “She’s somewhere safe, and we can defend ourselves just fine!”

“That doesn’t make things any better!” Mike argued. “Aren’t you the one who's always saying that we need to watch our backs around here?!”

Ness stammered, trying to lead Mike out of the kitchen, away from Caliban. “No, we—we can’t—I need—!”

Concern washed over Mike’s face. He slowly began shaking his head, suddenly stepping in front of Ness and back into the living room.

“Something isn’t right,” he declared.

YEAH, NO KIDDING! a voice in Ness’ mind hollered.

Mike heaved a shaky sigh. “Look, panicking won’t get us anywhere.” He turned away, walking down the hall at a quick pace, gesturing for Ness to follow. “Let’s—let’s just go to my room, okay? We can barricade ourselves in there, and once we’re both calmed down enough—”

His voice was quickly muffled by the distance, but the sound of shoes roughly touching down against the kitchen’s linoleum floor was a strong replacement.

Ness saw a flash of dark red leather before one of his wrists was locked into a vice-like grip. And then he was being tugged along just like he had been a few hours ago.

Through the kitchen, out the side-door, down the concrete path outside. The world was a blur around him until he was tossed back into a car that was still so foreign.

A rapid string of colorful words burrowed into his ears as Caliban took his seat behind the wheel, twisting the key in the ignition. By the time Ness finally registered what just happened, they were already speeding out of the neighborhood.

“...What THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!” Ness shouted, twisting his neck to look through the back window as though Mike’s house hadn’t already vanished in the distance.

“I waRNED YOU EARLIER,” Caliban snapped back, glaring at him for a split-second before looking back at the road ahead. “We had to prepare for the worst, and the worst just happened! That son of a bitch GOT AWAY!”

Ness’ heart plummeted. “What if he’s going back to Mike’s?! What if he—”

Caliban cut him off again, furiously shaking his head. “I saw him running off down that alley; I know where he’s headed, and it’s not back there!”

In the midst of this new chaos, a flash of white shuffled around in the backseat. Snare hopped up onto the center console, nose twitching a mile a minute. His long ears were pinned back, his dark amber eyes wide—there was no doubting that even he knew something had gone wrong.

A couple more deep, ragged gasps for air leaked through Caliban’s clenched teeth. He kept a fist curled around the steering wheel for another few seconds, then lifted it away to absentmindedly stroke Snare’s back.

Ness stared, unable to get any words out, still terrified beyond almost anything.

Eventually, Caliban rolled his shoulders and clicked his tongue. He didn’t look any calmer than before, but he still seemed a bit less on the verge of literally biting someone’s head off.

“I know where Mad’s headed,” he repeated. “But he has to get there on foot—we’ll beat him to it, no problem. We’re going to Plan B.”

“. . .What do you mean?” Ness finally asked, his voice giving the impression that he’d swallowed a whole sheet of sandpaper. “How do you know?”

“They say the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime. One way or another.” A sharp, bitter chuckle gnashed at the air on Caliban’s part. “Been there, done that. Mad has no attachment to anywhere else in this town. Going by what you told me earlier, there’s only one place here that’s significant to him.”

He glanced at Ness again. A shiny, dangerous grin was spreading on his face like a pool of blood. Mayhem sparked in his eyes. “You still have a key to Sparky’s, right? He's doing all this crap because he's mainly focused on you. And that diner is the place he's seen you most often. He's already made up some weird plot involving you; in his head, it just makes sense that you'd be over there. Even in the middle of the night.”

Understanding came crashing down.

Ness nodded, his eyebrows on a collision-course for Mars as he subconsciously reached down to his pocket, feeling the familiar shape tucked away inside.

“Perfect!” Caliban barked a laugh, nodding as the wheel spun in his grasp. “I’ll get him this time. That’s a damn promise.”

Ness lowered his head, trying to keep his breathing even as he scrubbed at his eyes.

This time. The words echoed between Ness' ears, quickly becoming a little mantra. This time. This time for sure.

His focus went back to the windshield, to everything that was still shrouded in darkness all around them.

We’re almost there…I’m almost home…Just need a little more time…

His hands curled into fists so tight that it was a wonder his nails didn’t leave a set of bloody crescent moons lining the skin of his palms.

Mike, he thought, his internal voice sounding so damn exhausted. Please…please be smart. Please keep trusting me.

Please.

___

@sammys-magical-au @insane4fandoms @lexusinsannus @b-is-in-the-closet @im-a-weird0 @lampsforsocks @forestcouncil

Sorry if this was late than the last post, but it was a good reason (there isn’t Lmao). But here we are with the comic portion of my and @wouldntyou-liketoknow’s little collab of writing and drawing. @crazy-obsessed-enby @iswmperson @lexusinsannus

Abby is truly a smart kid, and picks up dangerous situations quickly when, especially when it comes to her brother. Unfortunately, that caused more problems to not only the Schmidts, but “Ness” as well, who isn’t really handling things well. Good things she’s able to make friends everywhere, so she isn’t alone of saving Mike and “Ness”.

Mike, take the hint and find out soon that he isn’t him, and save your family. (Also SURPRISE Jack is here too)

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