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wouldntyou-liketoknow · 1 month ago

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Things Happen After Dark...

(Disclaimer: one of the characters in this story do not belong to me. Casey Clowes was created by my amazing friend, @insane4fandoms.)

(Now, as for the fanegos who do belong to me: for more information on Caliban, go here. For more information on Azalea, go here. Murdock belongs to the Markiplier Cinematic Universe, and if you’d like to see my personal headcanons on him, go here.)

HAPPY NEW YEAR! (Only twelve minutes late...oh well 😅 🍾)

(Trigger Warnings: murder/death, blood/gore, violence, descriptions of illegal business, poisoning, strangling/suffocation, cannibalism, broken bones, beating/blunt force trauma, knives/blades/weapons, eating/drinking, strong language. Please let me know if I missed anything.)

Sections of the old concrete floor were slick, shining against the dim, flickering lights up above.

An unmistakable metallic stench hung in the air like heavy fog.

Casey hated the fact that it lined up so well with how he could hear his own blood rushing through the veins in his ears.

The shivers were so violent, racing up and down throughout Casey’s ribcage. He ground his jaw; he couldn’t let his teeth start chattering.

He’d already shown more fear than he’d care to admit—now, he couldn’t afford to show too much more.

That would only make it easier for them…

To be clear, it wasn’t that Casey was unfamiliar with these sorts of places.

Old buildings that loomed on the sides of roads, basically out in the middle of nowhere, adorned by sun-bleached brick or faded paint and broken windows.

The peculiar spots that had been left to rot for whatever reason a long time ago, that anyone could pass on their way to something better.

It was a bit ironic, really; he’d been hired to gather evidence against stalkers so many times before. And yet, sneaking around certain places at odd hours was exactly how he went about earning his keep and paying his bills.

Sure, he wasn’t immune to cold sweat, or shivers up the spine, or having to duck and cover and just hold his breath until his lungs set themselves on fire and brace for some kind of horrific impact until he could finally, finally manage to peek out and move to safer ground…

But you just couldn’t be a private investigator if you couldn’t handle that kind of stuff.

It was just a fact of life: the more condemned a place was, the more likely people were to slip in through its cracks and do God-knows-what because they knew that pretty much everyone else wouldn’t venture inside.

He’d already snooped around two abandoned factories much like this one earlier in the year.

Hell, those cases had even started off in a somewhat similar way to tonight’s shenaniganry: with a stroll through the Cove Port Inlets, just to review the facts—there never seemed to be enough—and get the juices flowing.

Granted, those other cases hadn’t involved him getting pulled into an alleyway so a few scumbags could practice for a chiropractic degree.

Those other cases hadn’t involved him blacking out and eventually coming to with way more rope tightly coiled wrapped around his chest and arms than he remembered.

Those other cases hadn’t involved him being on the receiving end of an amateur stakeout.

Those other cases hadn’t involved near as much of a cacophony—screams that eventually bled into unintelligible whimpers and gurgles.

Bones snapping under pressure, flesh practically sighing as metal was dragged through it.

Red either oozing down in ribbons to create viscous puddles, or droplets soaring through the air to splatter against the walls or, or, or…

It was almost made worse by the fact that he recognized the figures who were now pacing around the room, just a few feet from the corner he’d been bound to.

Well, the recognizing was sort of technical.

This wasn’t the first close encounter he’d had with them (and his instincts demanded that he believe it wouldn’t be the last, either), but all the tricks, all the chases, all the near-misses just made things…strange.

“Oh my God,” Azalea Crawford announced, stepping away from the mess to kneel down beside him, her big chestnut eyes glinting. “Is—is that a half-respirator?”

She reached out to carefully turn the small gas mask that rested on Casey’s collar from a strap stretched across the back of his neck.

Casey took a subtle deep breath. The shivers cranked themselves up to eleven, so he had to try even harder than before to keep them trapped in his chest.

She may have been petite—truly, she was one of the shortest adults he’d seen in his life—especially compared to him, but he knew better than to underestimate her. He’d heard of her reputation.

He’d watched her smile so casually when one of his kidnappers fell to the floor as though all his bones had just melted, wailing in agony and clawing at the same dart that had been shot from a small gun she’d pulled from her carob-colored vest

“Hey, you left quite an impression that one time,” Casey finally answered, raising a sarcastic eyebrow.

“That’s nice of you to say,” Azalea replied, fidgeting with the cherry-red headband that decorated her gently-curling locks. The venom-laced sugar in her voice made it clear that she remembered just as well as he did.

“Ooh,” another voice called out from a bit further away, set in a Midwestern accent, a bit jagged around the edges yet somehow still managing to be silvery. “Trauma-incuded mementos are a classic!”

Caliban Crawford wandered closer, his mouth—well, pretty much everything below his eyes, to be honest—still dripping with gore. As he bared his red-drenched teeth in a shiny grin, his silver canine-cap almost seemed to be letting off sparks thanks to the flickering lights.

“Guess that means I’ve gotta up my own ante, huh?” He asked as he stood beside his sister, appraising toward her and sinister toward the captive audience.

Casey grimaced, quickly shaking his head. “Please don’t.”

“I just feel like I’ve been challenged!” Caliban held up his hands, his shoulders popping up in a snide shrug. “Y’know, to see if I can make you get another protective trinket.”

“The human body’s already horrifying enough on its own!” Casey protested. He would’ve made a furious weeping gesture toward the fresh carnage across the room, but his hands were literally tied, so the most he could do was nod at it. “Look at that! How did you even do that?!”

Caliban paused, glancing over his shoulder to fix the viscera another hungry look.

“I mean, you were kinda watching all of us when it happened,” Azalea mentioned.

“Yeah, well I was TRYING not to!” Casey retorted.

“A dollop of fairy dust,” Caliban finally proclaimed, folding his arms across his chest as his focus returned to the investigator.

Casey blinked, and if it weren’t for his restrained position, he would’ve felt his jaw hitting the floor. “...That’s nOT FUNNY!”

“Yeah? Then why was I laughing so much?” Caliban’s eyes grew wider, his grin even sharper than before.

“BECAUSE YOU’RE SICK!”

“Oh, c’mon. He’s just having some fun with his job,” Azalea reached up to pat her brother on the shoulder. “What’s wrong with that?”

Casey was about to go on a whole tirade about how a-frickin-LOT of things were wrong with being so damn happy about a career in contract-killing and the Black Market, but he didn’t get the chance.

“Hey, listen,” yet another voice piped up from just around the corner, steeped in velvetine oil. “I deserve some credit for all this too.”

Murdock Mallory came strolling into the room, a few tiny red spots still clinging to his black-tinted lenses. Really, it was a miracle how no blood seemed to have gotten in the raven hair that just about tickled his shoulders.

“I ripped the tag off a mattress this morning,” he continued, idly twisting the thin chain around his neck between his forefinger and thumb, causing its brass pendant to spin. “Pretty sure that set off some kind of Butterfly Effect.”

Casey wanted to shout, to sputter, to do something more to showcase how angry he was because that just felt like the only thing he had left right now…but he couldn’t.

Instead, he just heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Oh, wow. And here I thought anatomy was the only science you guys were interested in.”

“Uh, excuse you. I’m all about chaos theory,” Caliban huffed before turning away and beginning to scrape up the horrific remains that he was insane enough to deem as leftovers into what looking like a body bag.

“You don’t need to have such an attitude about this,” Murdock chided, taking a few steps closer and tilting his head to the side. “Think: some sleazeball competitors of ours took you hostage to try and bait us. We could’ve just let them get rid of you, but no! We got rid of them instead! So, when you think about it, we’ve actually done you a pretty nice favor here.”

“Yeah,” Azalea agreed. Her voice was suddenly much closer, and Casey realized too late that he couldn’t see her anymore. “We could just leave you here for the cleanup crew to deal with, but we’re not doing that, either! Just think about that when you wake up, huh?”

The question was punctuated by the distinct pinching sensation of a needle sinking into the small of Casey’s neck…

___

Of course, Casey wasn’t in the rightest mind to think about some things immediately after that.

When he woke up on a park bench just as the sun began climbing its way into the sky, however, he had to admit: he had plenty to think about.

…Mainly the fact that he had to have some begrudging gratitude about no chloroform being used. That stuff was way nastier than the movies ever let on.

@sammys-magical-au @the-matpat-ever @lampsforsocks @b-is-in-the-closet

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