#I consider this a drabble but it is 26669 words long

[jokeringcutio]

"Ramblings" - The Grabber (Albert Shaw) x (ADHD) Reader

Fandom: The Black Phone Pairing: The Grabber/Albert Shaw x (Female, ADHD) Reader Rating: SafeForWork Warnings: Use of the word D*mn in Reader's thoughts, Reader is in Grabber's basement. To write this request, I have kept in mind specific adhd aspects from the requester, as well as having drawn from my real-life experiences. I am aware there are many shapes and forms of Adhd, ticks/stimming. The prompt:

For @emotionalmesshooman

You were perched on the cold concrete, eyes darting to the staircase where he had disappeared. Your heart hammered. Time stretched and compressed in this dungeon of shadows and whispers.

The dim bulb hanging from the ceiling flickered, casting an eerie dance across the room. Your breaths came short and fast. The floor was a chill against your skin.

Then, the door at the top of the staircase opened, somewhere high above your head, and footsteps could be heard again. There was the distant barking of a dog, but your captor told him to lie down.

So… he had returned.

His silhouette was framed by the doorway. His mask hid his face, but you knew it was him – Albert Shaw, the man who held your life in his hands. Wasn’t there this saying that it was always the butler who did it? That it was the kind and unexpected face? The man who dressed the most ordinary? Well, they were right. He was the janitor at your old high school. The memory of him grew vaguer the longer it was since you graduated from school. But still… No one would suspect a man like that, right? Always helping others, being kind to kids.

You had a problem? Ring him up. Albert comes and fixes it.

Of course, the infamous Denver Grabber was the kind man who lived just a few blocks away. You wondered when the police would think of checking this man’s basement. Probably never.

"Ah, there she is," he rumbled, voice a little too cheerful as he crossed the basement toward you. How dare he talk so casually to you, so light-hearted, as if he wasn’t your captor ready to torment you.

His presence loomed over you, oppressive and undeniable. He set down the tray with a clatter, disrupting the tense silence. A plastic plate with a few scraps of scrambled eggs wobbled precariously at the edge. Beside it, droplets of soda rolled down its can.

"Food," he grunted, nodding towards the tray. "Eat up."

Your fingers twitched involuntarily, reaching for a plastic spoon – round and not sharp enough to cut, and too weak to be used as a weapon for it would just break. It felt alien in your grasp. You jabbed at the eggs, their yellow pallor as washed out as the hope you clung to. Each bite was mechanical, the taste lost on a tongue numbed by fear.

"Good," he said, and there was something unsettlingly tender in his voice. Almost like twisted pride. But what was he proud of? "That's good."

He watched you eat, his gaze intense and unwavering, and you wished you knew what was going on in that mind of his. What were his intentions for you? It wasn’t that you were ignorant – you had heard of the Denver grabber. You knew the boys he took had never been seen again. And judging by the empty basement, which only harbored a dingy blotted mattress and little else, you knew they were no longer kept here – but they probably had been at some point. You swallowed another bite, the knot in your stomach threatening to reject the offering.

"See?" he murmured, a dark chuckle threading through his words. "Not so hard to take care of yourself, is it?"

But you couldn’t respond. Your throat suddenly squeezed tightly, not allowing another bite in. Your stomach coiled, your heart twisted, as you tried to force the nauseousness to ebb away.

He sunk down, mirroring your position. The space between you felt like an ocean of shadows. His mask, a grotesque sentinel staring silent and still.

"Why are you looking at me?" Your voice broke the air, a fragile intruder in the oppressive silence.

It always unnerved you when he looked at you like this – and he had been looking a lot. It was almost as if he took you home as some kind of curiosity, to be kept in a room for his own, to be observed and looked at. But not looked after. God only knew you needed someone to look after you.

Your hand twitched, you didn’t even notice. The movement was mechanical. Your dominant hand still held the plastic spoon, although all movement there had ceased, completely forgotten. But it was your other hand, the fingers more correctly of it, that were tapping against one another in sequence. Pinkie to thumb, ring finger to thumb, all the way to your index and back again in quick succession. It needed no thinking, it was a second nature.

"Isn't it allowed to just watch?" His tone, edged with something like offense, cut through the dim light. A predator's gaze fixed upon its prey, unwavering. Your fingers were still tapping. He sees. He knows.

Then you gave your fingers a slight break when you rubbed your palm on the coarse fabric of your pants. In this abyss, every movement betrayed your fear, each tick a Morse code of anxiety.

The Grabber's eyes traced the erratic twitch of your thumb, a hawk surveilling its quarry.

"Interesting," he murmured, almost to himself, as if dissecting the peculiarities of a specimen under glass. The word sent shivers down your spine.

"Doesn't that annoy you?" His question was deceptively casual, the mask making it impossible to read any true intent. An unnerving half-smile played on his lips, visible beneath the edge of the hideous mask.

You swallowed hard, mouth dry. "It's not by choice," you managed to stutter out, the admission costing you more than you wish to acknowledge.

His head tilted, studying the involuntary symphony of twitches and taps. "Control, my dear, is all about willpower," he said, his voice a low rumble that made the air around you vibrate.

"Go on, eat." He pushed the tray closer, the scrape against the concrete a jarring sound to your ears. "You need your strength."

The smell of scrambled eggs wafted to you, but your stomach churned in protest. You eyed the tray with a mixture of hunger and repulsion. The can of soda gleamed against the dim light. You were so, so hungry and thirsty. He was doing this on purpose, making you delirious with want.

You wanted to reach out, your fingers already rose into the air, but then you thought better of it and retracted them, your fingertips instantly picking at your dry lips. The relief you felt when a scrap of skin on your lower lip came loose was almost euphoric.

"Or are you too good for my food?" His tone shifted, laced with mockery, the cruelty of his words veiled behind feigned concern.

You hadn’t truly been paying attention to him just now. You were too focused on the feeling of the loose skin, dry and parched, underneath your fingernail. Tearing it off felt liberating. Others had told you this wasn’t a good habit, yet you still came back to it ever so often. You were not ashamed of it either. The skin was already dead anyway.

"You think I might poison you?" Now his words finally came through and you looked up at him, truly seeing him this time. Gone were the thoughts and distractions inside your head.

If only for a second.

"Of course not," you whispered, though bile was once again rising in your throat, thick and acidic. The truth was a bitter pill; you were starving, and you had to eat whatever he gave you. But whatever he brought wasn’t very nutritious. And it had made you feel even worse before, so you didn’t put it past him to indeed poison you. You were pretty certain he had drugged you at least once after you just got here.

"Your body betrays your words," he taunted, leaning back on his haunches. "Is it mistrust? Or perhaps something else?"

You pressed your lips together, silent. Every second stretched on, taut as a wire ready to snap. You silently observed the man as he sat on his hunches against the opposite wall – the devilish mask with its twisted grin and pointy horns. Why was it so pale? Had it not been finished yet?

“Are you going to paint that?” you asked.

And even though you couldn’t see his expression being that grotesque mask, you could swear you saw his eyebrows rise in surprise.

“Come again?” He asked, and you concentrated really hard as you looked at him.

“Aren’t you going to finish that? It’s not finished,” you said, pointing at his head.

It took the man a moment to realize what it was you were talking about – that it was about his mask. You were already distracted, your leg nervously bobbing as you repositioned yourself. If you were moving from left to right, well, that was because the floor was uncomfortably hard and cold. Also, it was customary for you to keep changing the way you sat. It was a bloody miracle that you sat at all. Must be the lack of nutrition, you pondered. Or you’d be pacing the room.

Your fingers were tapping again.

"Why do you do that?" His voice was low, curious – the edge blunted.

Your eyes darted up to meet his through the holes of his mask. "Do what?"

Blue eyes, you thought. Blue or grey. Memories of objects that you’d seen once that had the same color surfaced in your mind and your gaze skittered away.

“That." He nodded toward your hands, and you followed his gaze and frowned. Your fingers were still doing that rhythm, but when he looked you tried to clasp your hands tightly in your lap, knuckles turning pale. It didn’t fully hide the impulse, though. The muscles of your hands still twitched, the movement restrained but ever so slightly visible.

"Can't help it," you admitted, the weight of his gaze pressing down on you, demanding the truth.

"Interesting." The word was left hanging between the two of you and you wondered if he truly found it interesting or just annoying. ‘Stop twitching’, ‘Stop that’, ‘Keep your hands still’, ‘Don’t be so nervous’, and many more of these phrases came to mind.

Why hadn’t he said any of them yet?

"I did like that fish," you stated out of nowhere, and after another bout of silence, you could hear a heavy groan from ahead of you.

The Grabber shifted, then let his curiosity win out. “Oh?”

Right, he had no clue what you were on about.

You flushed, probably, quickly rambling to explain why you said that. “The round fish. I’ve no idea what his name was. Well,” you corrected yourself, running a hand through your hair and playing with the strands.

“I knew his name. His name was Peter, although Peter actually became Priscilla later on because he was apparently a girl. Although I told him to give him a name that could be used for both. Did you know Kim can be used for both? I didn’t know that. Or Lesley.”

When you looked over at the Grabber, you could see you’d lost him. Growing even more nervous now, you squeezed your own hand.

“Ah, right,” you quickly said. “Anyway, I meant, he could easily have given him a unisex name, you know. Like,” looking at him once again, you realized he was still at a loss.

Right. You swallowed harshly, throat dry and lips even drier. Get it together. What were you trying to explain to him again?

“The fish,” you brought yourself back on track. “That’s right. How did I get to the fish, you’re wondering?” You let out a nervous little laugh, gazing back at the Grabber shortly. You had to remind yourself to look at him when you talked to him, you sometimes forgot that.

And still, he didn’t move or interrupt. Well, that was good. Probably.

“The fish. It’s because of the bowl. Right? I mean,” you gestured helplessly at the empty wall to your right.

“It was so damn quiet and it made me so nervous, I tried to think of something else and then there was this stench. Like, did you know you have a toilet down here? I mean, I noticed because it hasn’t been cleaned in ages, and the smell came to me just now as we sat quietly and hit me like, full-on. And I was thinking, when I got down here I had a look around and there’s like, absolutely nothing here. But there’s this toilet. But it looks like it hasn’t been used in ages. Dirty too. And there’s a crack in the bowl. Anyway, the bowl is a nice round shape, just about as large as the bowl of a fish in one of my friend’s houses. Clara, her name was. Nice girl. Anyway, her fish was a deep black, which is kind of pretty. But not the prettiest fish I’d ever seen and…”

Realizing you were rambling and that you’re talking for so long, you quickly apologized and decided to get to the point. “Sorry, sir. Sorry,” you squeezed your hands in front of you again.

“It just reminded me of the prettiest fish I’d ever seen. My favorite fish. It was a very round puffer kind of fish. I don’t know what the type of fish is called. But I do know he was Griffin’s fish. You know, the boy that went missing three years ago?”

You hesitated, suspecting that Griffin must have fallen into the Grabber’s hands at one point. “I knew him,” you then said with a sad sigh. “I used to babysit him when he was little, you know.”

Your words dwindled into nothing, a whisper carried away on a ghost of a breath.

Silence followed in which you nervously tried to see what the Grabber’s reaction to your ramblings would be. But he remained eerily quiet. He sat frozen, his expression shielded by the mask.

Had you screwed up?  

"Well," the Grabber finally stirred. “And you had all those thoughts in just the flash of a second?”

“Yes, sir,” you said, looking anywhere but at him.

He unfolded his hands, you could tell by the sound of his movements. "What makes you so nervous?"

"Isn't it obvious?" The retort slipped out before you could cage it, raw and bitter.

"Perhaps." He tilted his head, studying you, intrigued despite himself. "Or perhaps not."

Your fingers tapped an erratic rhythm against your thigh, as the room fell quiet again. The air grew dense. The Grabber shifted.

"Interesting." The word was softer now, almost thoughtful.

You swallowed hard, the lump in your throat stubborn. He nodded at the plate. "You should eat. Wouldn't want your food to get cold."

Your dominant hand twitched and suddenly you were reminded of the plastic spoon. Where did you leave it? While you looked around you on the grimy basement floor, the Grabber pushed himself to his feet. He wasn’t very nimble, and you listened to the faint groan that accompanied the movement. By the time you found your spoon and looked up again, he was checking his watch. Funny. You’d never seen him wear one before.

At first, you thought he always wore one. You had assumed the thing you saw around his wrist was a watch like most men wear. But then one day you observed him closer and discovered he was always wearing this weird kind of silvery bracelet. He wore a lot of jewelry, you concluded. There were the rings as well.

But today was different. Today, he wore a real watch on his left arm. He must have some important business or something.

“I have some things to take care of upstairs. You'll be all right down here for a while, won't you?"

It was clearly not a real question and you barely registered that you’d reacted with a nod.

"Good girl."

With that, he turned and climbed the stairs. The door shut behind him with an ominous thud.

You were left with the plate, the sound of your ragged breaths, and a knot of confusion in your gut. What had just happened?