#I really want charles to be a broken man underneath his warm exterior

[chibitorra]

I usually never share my writing, but I really wanted to write a story based on the bizarre situation I’ve found myself in irl with someone I love that seems to have a lot of similarities to Charles’ past.

For context, irl I have the same name and similar appearance to his ex-wife, who he found out cheated on him. So, I’m doing the same with my farmer insert and Charles. Obviously, my name isn’t Taylor, but I wanted to give my farmer insert a gender mutual name, since it seems they’re trying to keep Charles’ ex gender neutral. 

It would be really cool if they wrote Charles a bit more scared when things start getting romantic... actually focus on the trust issues and trauma he probably has from having his trust betrayed by someone he loved. And his fear that it’ll happen again. He starts to get there when he talks about how lonely he is in the winter, but I guess we’ll see when the new heart events get released. 

Anyways, here’s a snippet of a story I’m calling Kintsugi Hearts. If you don’t know what Kintsugi is, look it up, it’s really cool. 

Taylor peered in the glass doors of the doctor’s office, and her heart sank when she saw the front desk was empty. Sure, sometimes Charles left the office to get some fresh air, or even get his hair worked on next door, but the fact that he wouldn’t talk to her last night… well, it made her worry to say the least. Taking a deep breath, she pushed in the door as the familiar chime of the bell sounded.

“Just a second, I’ll be right with you!” she heard Yuri call out from the back, but no Charles. She approached the counter and glanced at his computer, which didn’t even appear to be on. Her heart sank further.

Finally, Yuri popped her head around the corner to see who was visiting their humble office, and her face brightened when she gazed upon Taylor. There was something off about her smile though, she noted, like she was feigning her warm exterior.

“Taylor, hello! Here for some more vitamins?”

Taylor rubbed her arm nervously. If she didn’t know about her crush on Charles, she was about to figure it out. “N-no… I actually came here to see Charles. Is he in?” she asked her.

Yuri’s face fell for half a second, something Taylor would have missed if she had blinked, before lighting up again in that false smile.

“Sorry, Charles is out today, he wasn’t feeling well… Pollen n’ all, y’know?”

Taylor sighed. Of course. “It’s always something,” she muttered half under her breath. If it wasn’t his stomach, it was his damn pollen allergy, or his bad back, or… something. It was always something. He was avoiding her, and she wished she knew why.

“Why don’t you come back tomorrow? I’m sure he’ll be back in by then,” Yuri offered. Taylor shrugged, knowing her disappointment was showing on her face. “Okay.”

She turned to leave, when something peculiar caught her attention, making her pause. The small desk calendar Charles kept next to his computer was still in April. That’s odd, she thought, with it already being the 10th of May. Charles was usually really good about keeping up with the calendar. Yuri took notice of her pause, and tilted her head.

“Is something the matter?”

“Oh—Sorry, it just looks like Charles forgot to change the calendar, that’s all. I can fix it.”

Yuri was eerily quiet, and this time she didn’t even try to hide the gloom on her face. Taylor reached over and flipped the page over to May, and suddenly a lot of things made sense. She realized with a jolt why he never responded last night, why he always seems so wishy-washy as of late… why he hated springtime.

It wasn’t about the pollen. It never was, she realized as she gazed upon the hastily scribbled words over the current date… words which had also been scribbled out in red ink.

“May 10th. Anniversary.”

[enochianribs]

p r o j e c t l a z a r u s (outlast au) pt 1.

Dean, a supernatural investigative reporter, receives an anonymous tip that something terrible has happened at what is supposed to be the long abandoned Novak Institute. As things quickly go south, Dean finds himself trapped within the rotting halls, pushed further and further in even as he tries to escape. What he discovers underneath the mountain may very well be the death of him.

read on ao3 here | or under the cut.

 The tip was anonymous but he’d followed it in good faith. If the lead was anything he’d hoped for, he’d have the story of his lifetime.       If    it was good. A huge if, but he was getting about that desperate for a big break, especially since he was still competing with Henriksen and Ash. Half of the time he couldn’t figure out where the fuck they were getting such gold mine stories. The bastards.

 He parked the Impala outside the gate, a tick of paranoia etching itself in his spine that someone would see him and yank the story out from under him. He debated covering Baby with branches and then realized that there was literally      no one     around. Outside of the sound of dry leaves blowing across the cracking blacktop and the breeze rustling the dying aspens, there was not a sound.

 Feeling stupid, he grabbed his small duffel bag and double checked its contents: his video camera (getting a little outdated with all the new tech but he’d bet his life on its durability), his flip phone (yeah, yeah, he knows), the first aid kit (he always brought it with when he went into abandoned buildings after stepping on that rusty nail that one time), a flashlight, the EMF detector (made it himself), and the switchblade (stolen from his father).

 The tools of the trade, if your trade was being insane and stupid and reporting on old urban legends and ghosts and demonic possessions and shit. Y’know, normal stuff. The kinda job you could tell someone about on the first date.

 With the contents all accounted for, Dean locked Baby up, shoved his keys into the bag and took a deep breath.

     Show time.  

 Beyond the crumbling brick wall towered the Institute in all of its fading glory, its architecture dated and magnificent even as the clay tile roofing broke and shattered at its base, creating a minefield of broken pieces sharp enough to dig through the tread of his boot if he wasn't careful. The hedges were overgrown and misshapen, and most of the exterior windows were broken. Dean could only assume from local teenagers trashing the place. It must have been beautiful back in the day, a hidden gem among the peaks. Fuckin’ kids.

 According to an old newspaper article, the Novak Institute was closed down in 1982 for financial reasons and had been avoided by every sensible local like it was cursed ever since. It was founded in the early 1880s by a man named Charles Shurley with a simple goal: fund and research miracle cures. The stuff of angels, as the word of mouth story went. After his death in 1930, his wealthy in-laws took over and kept his goal in mind as they expanded into even more experimental treatments for all kinds of medical and psychological ailments.

 Folks from around the world came to be healed, and the Novaks—   Shurley’s in-laws—  were damn      good    at it. They sought to push the boundaries between modern, traditional, and experimental medicine and frequently did so successfully.

 In 1970, a woman by the name of Naomi Novak took over the Institute, and (though it had always been a private facility for the wealthy to turn about their health for the better) she privatized the institution completely. Within a year it became a family owned research facility. Rumor was that members of the Novak family suffered from a mysterious condition, one that they kept behind closed doors and drawn curtains and that she was hellbent on finding the fix for it.

 From there Dean took every tale he'd scrounged up from the small mountain town down the road with a grain of salt. Urban legends all started somewhere, but along the way they lost the truth, and that was usually where the scary stuff kicked in.

 Still, the story went that it had been the wrong direction for the family to take, and they immediately stumbled into financial struggles that eventually dragged the entire thing down around them. In '82 they closed their doors, for good.

 Except, two days ago Dean received an encrypted email. Sent out in mass, he suspected. The contents of the email was straight up bizzare— since he'd received it, he'd kept a printed copy tucked into his back pocket, folded up and folded up again until the creases wore thin and threatened to tear.

It was in the mountain. They told me not to look. I did anyway. She told me not to look. By the time I send this, it will be too late. The Novak Institute needs to be burned to the ground. Don’t look. Just light the match and let it go.     

Dean’s issue was always the same.      Of course     he was gonna look. That was kinda his whole job—  stick his nose where it shouldn’t go and see what bit it. In fact, he      wanted     something to bite. That would be his big break. He just had to haul ass the other direction the second something chomped down and pray that he caught it on camera.

So here he was, sticking his nose where it shouldn’t be.

To the left of the main doors sat an armoured convoy. Its doors were closed, and it looked surprisingly free from rust, if it has been sitting there for a couple of decades.

 The model of the car was somewhat new, Dean realized.

 "Huh," He stopped in front of it, swiping a finger along its hood. Inspecting the pad for dust, it came away blank. His finger barely left a trail. The vehicle was spotless. It couldn't have been sitting there longer than a day with the way the wind swept dust across the open courtyard. "Weird."

 The convoy should have been his first red flag, so scarlet it must have been dyed fresh with blood. It wasn't.

 Dean pulled one of the ornate handles on the front door, but it didn't give an inch. They were made of a solid piece of wood, heavy duty. There was something vaguely fortified about the place. Hospitals had welcoming doors, encouraging people to come and get better. These, Dean could tell by the massive iron hinges they hung from, were bolted shut from the inside.

 Dean tried the other handle just in case. Nothing. He sighed, and tugged out his phone. 4:10 PM. One bar of signal that kept flashing in and out of existence. In October, the sun would be going down soon…and he was only supposed to be checking it out today. His plan was to come back at sunrise for a full day of sunlight and investigation.

 Down the expanse of shattered windows, a piece of glass skittered out across the cobblestone. His head jerked up and instinctually, he called out a inquisitive "Hello?"

 No one answered, but he heard, with straining ears, what sounded like footsteps shuffling further into the building.

 What if someone had beat him here? He hadn't been the only person the email was sent to. There was a chance that coming back tomorrow meant he lost the story to someone else. Henriksen would never let him hear the end of that. Dean had boasted that he had something      big,    had left in the middle of the night to get here before anyone else. No, he was not going to let Henriksen win another bet against Ash.

 Almost drowned out by the sound of the continued breeze, Dean heard a door slam shut inside the Institute. A stone sank past the bottom of his stomach down to the floor. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and the insidious feeling that someone was watching him crept around his psyche until he had no choice but to look back over his shoulder. The courtyard remained the same: desolate, abandoned.

 "Fuck it."

 He should've pulled his switchblade out, just in case, but he settled on the flashlight, fingers wrapping around it tightly. The light was really starting to die beyond the snowy backdrop, warm sunlight fading into a sickly orange glow that bathed everything in sight.

 "Just one room." Dean muttered to himself, and shouldered the bag, brandishing the flashlight with a grimace.

 This was a stupid idea.

 Like a statuette too close to the end of a table, Dean hoisted himself carefully over the edge of broken glass and hopped into the room blind. Darkness greeted him, enveloped him in an unknown that would consume him and spit a cracked reflection back out. All it would take was a little push in the wrong direction to send him toppling to the floor.

 The halls of Novak Institute were filled with hands just itching for something to break.