#the fish is already in rigor mortis | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bitchassbucky · 3 years

Text

.eps (explicit)

Word Count: 2k

Warning/s: dark!bucky x dark!reader, MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH, blood mention, gore and dismemberment/beheading, murder, toxic/abusive relationship dynamics, sedation/drugging/use of sedative, stockholm syndrome-ish, one very special character reveal

A/N: i told y'all there's more <3 the special character treat is for @sarge-barnes-sir mwah!

this is queued shdhhsh gonna fix the links in the mornin’

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS ABOVE, IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ THIS VERSION, GO AND CHECK OUT THE NON-EXPLICIT VERSION.

follow the CTRL series:

i - .exe

ii - .avi

iii - .raw

iv - .png

v - .zip

CTRL playlist CTRL moodboard

Safeness, comfortability, warmth are all but a false sense of reality.

When a prey takes down its walls, the predator moves in. Camouflaged in familiar colors, in words that you’re used to hearing, in praises, in lies. Most predators use the mask of the night to move in darkness—unyielding and calculated. Come morning, there will be only one left alive, tainted with victory and bloodshed.

You and Bucky have been engaging in a dance for two—a battle of who’s willing to take the leap of faith and unleash hell upon the other.

Stifled smiles and pursed lips.

The air is filled with unsaid irritants, little things that ticked away like bombs.

There was no time for pleading, no time for mercy, no rest for the wicked.

Did you still love each other?

How far are you willing to go to keep up with his… complacency?

Bucky’s mundane life already taking a toll on you. The endless nightmares of him feeling you. The swirling vision of Bucky being with you every waking—and sleeping—moment: it grates your soul to shreds.

“We’ll be together forever, right?”

“Yes, darling.”

“What about the day after forever?”

“That too, honey.”

Where was the man you loved so deeply? The man that broke his morals just to be with you?

Was he under this hull of a Yes Man? A poor little thing that says ‘yes’ to everything like a puppy.

The man you held so dearly now slipping away, chipping his humanity, shedding the once-human.

“Would you marry me tomorrow if I asked you?”

“Of course, baby, why wouldn’t I?”

“Would you kill for me?”

“I’m meant to do the same for you.”

It’s irritating how Bucky gave up too quickly. Too fast, moving too fast. The gazelle let the lion tear its neck as it lay there, unmoving, letting the blood seep into its hide.

When you first met Bucky, it was your own fairytale unfolding before your eyes. Kismet, reality, forgiveness from above. He was soft and shy, passionate, lively.

Far from what you expected from a man his age—you blame Steve for forcing you into his narrative before. That all men are out to get you. They will hurt you. They will use you and leave you for good. But Bucky? Bucky came in like a knight. He saved you from the carcass of your past. He saved you from the sins that you prayed and knelt for.

Bucky taught you how to love.

Bucky taught you how to live for yourself.

Bucky taught you that being alone doesn’t mean you have to be lonely.

“It was an unspoken little thing, wasn’t it?”

“What thing, baby?”

“Our love.”

“Yes, honey, it was.”

He worships you.

He worships you like a fucking God and you hate it.

Suffocating, too suffocating. You dove straight for the water and now you’re drowning.

Do you still love each other? The question hangs in the air, heavy with its weight, light as a feather.

It’s all your fault. It’s all your fault. It’s all your fault. It’s all your fault.

So you stand there with a syringe half-filled with a horse sedative. It’s a concern how easy it is to waltz into a pet store and pick up a general anesthetic. You make a mental note to look at it later.

Bucky’s body slumps forward, his forehead meeting the edge of the table with a dull thud. If the overdose doesn’t kill him, the weeping crack in his head will.

Holy fuck, humans bleed a lot. And fast. Good thing you already have that clear tarp taped down. Even with the hush money stuffed down your throat, it would take a good nick to regrout the kitchen.

“What is that for, honey?”

“I’m painting the cabinets.”

“Okay, darling.”

So you let him bleed, surprised that the liquid is redder than what you thought it would be. A soft gurgling noise came from Bucky, the last of air escaping his dead body. You stood there, syringe in hand, as you thought how to dispose of a six-foot-tall man without arousing suspicion.

Not that he’ll be missed anyway: the local news and the internet already branded him as a psycho and you as a victim. You were both victims in this fairytale. They reported his case as “skipped the town like the sicko he is.” So, no—no one’s going to look for him.

The sun was high up in the sky and there was a dead body in your kitchen.

A butcher and a surgeon walks into a bar for a drink. “What do you do for a living?” Said the butcher, “I save lives! What about you?” The doctor answers. “I save animals from dying slowly. We’re basically the same. You’re just very clean.” You see, the butcher comes into the bar covered in blood, reeking of death. The surgeon, on the other hand, wears his white coat with pride even though he’s surrounded by death every passing second.

Today was the day you learned that you have the tools of a butcher and the precision of a surgeon. Unlike before.

You carefully take Bucky’s fingers off of his left hand, leaving a skin flap on the edge of the last knuckle for you to stitch close later. Four promises. Four goddamn promises and he broke all of them.

It was his fault that he’s dead. He made you do this.

Starting with his left shoulder, you jab the knife between the bone and the soft flesh of his armpit, bringing the blade downwards. The sickening smell of blood swirled along with the image of muscle and fat being sliced made you gag.

Does the brain know that it’s seeing something it shouldn’t?

A rational part of you wanted to look away but the time is ticking, it’ll be much harder once rigor mortis sets in an hour.

You swing the knife down, cracking the bone once, and then again, and again, and again until the shoulder bone splinters and dislocates itself from the rest of Bucky’s torso. You had to switch knives and blades and a fucking bone saw to get through the rest of his limbs, leaving only his chest, head, and stomach untouched. After taping up and packing the arms and the legs, you work on putting the rest of Bucky into a nondescript suitcase.

The only problem being his head getting into the way of things.

Wanting to preserve even a shred of his dignity, you left his face untouched. Well, save from the crack in his skull.

You begrudgingly take a hefty chef’s knife and start cutting through the jugular vein, only stopping when the blade hits the spinal cord by his nape. The serrated blade of the bone saw sits on your blood-soaked gloves, scrape-scrape-scraping until it snaps into two.

The human head weighs around 10 pounds, kinda like a bowling ball.

An opaque black garbage bag containing Bucky’s head looks nothing suspicious as you put it inside a backpack—into a firepit you go.

His limbs—arms and legs alike—are going deep into the ocean, forgotten and to be used as fish food.

The limbless torso will be finding its home in a deep hole in the middle of a densely wooded area, far from the city.

But you’re not quite sure what to do with the mason jar of teeth though; the clinking noises of it remind you of the seashells you used to collect when you were a kid. Maybe you’ll stash it away with the torso.

Placing the bags into the trunk of a rental, you begin your journey to the end of your fairytale.

The drive to and from the places was tiring, to say the least. The internet connection of the diners was spotty at best. Locals were overly friendly with the city folks who came passing through their towns. The roads reek of roadkill and manure from the farm animals that were left to roam for fresh grass.

At least you get to come home in a spotless apartment, alone once again.

But not lonely.

Your space is yours again. No trace of anyone anywhere. Immaculately yours.

—

Humans are social creatures.

No one can truly be alone, especially in today’s world where we’re connected to everyone—whether we liked it or not.

Leaving your wretched job behind was an easy feat to do. No one can say no to the victim of such a vile crime. That’s all they saw you: a helpless little thing. So off you went; saying half-assed goodbyes and sending emails of courage and hope and fucking resilience.

Your resignation meant that the company’s free of any dirt from you, Bucky’s disappearance quickly becoming a joke and a rumor blending in one.

They let you leave: in your bank account a fat check ensuring that you’d shut up about the scandal for months until you can’t feed yourself no more. So you packed your bags and jet off without looking back. You never liked that apartment anyway.

Nevertheless, you found yourself looking into another dead-end job in one of the towns you stopped over before. It’s a charming place like time froze in their plaza while the rest of the world went on. You found a small studio apartment in a street tuckered away from the main avenue, you settled there as days became nights and nights turned into days.

You woke up one morning craving a healthy serving of coffee and pancakes, luckily the town’s local diner wasn’t far from your new home.

The coffee was too hot, the pancakes were amazing, fluffy, and just right. You’re sitting in a sunny booth, the warmth doing its wonders.

“Hi, can I get today’s paper, please?” Your voice is sweet as you call your server, giving her a quick smile.

A pair of Raybans adorn your face, unconsciously hiding behind its darkened glasses. The waitress gives you a thick stack of newspapers, refilling your cup with black coffee.

Upon opening the paper, you ignore the town’s headlines and went straight for the job postings. The door jingled open as patrons come in and go, waving to familiar faces.

Job Vacancy Announcements

Secretary to the Town Sheriff

You skimmed over the rest of the details, only noting the address of the office. The job looks quite lucrative for someone who would only take messages and organize files for the sheriff.

Looking over the job posting again, you read over the words walk-ins only. That shouldn’t be hard enough.

The diner looked deserted save from the man sitting behind your booth. Leaning over and tapping his shoulder, you put on a polite smile, “Hi, sorry, do you know how to get to the sheriff’s office from here?”

“Hello, darling.” The man croons in an accent, he looks over to you, “join me in my booth, will ‘ya?”

You’re in no position to reject his proposal, you’re the one who needed an answer.

Taking your coffee cup, you slide into his booth, “hi.”

“Just the face I wanted to see.” Clean-shaven, a hint of mint and smoke, and something woody; a worn leather jacket and white button-up shirt hugging his soft frame. “Some folks over on the apartment complex were talkin’ about a city girl wanting to rent a studio all by herself. That happen to be you?”

You look over to him, trying to understand how that small of news spread like a wildfire, “yeah. I moved in a week ago.”

He leans over, smiling sweetly as he unabashedly lets his eyes roam your features, “What’s a city girl like you doin’ in a place like this? I hope we ain’t too boring for you, gal.”

Chatty—he’s way too chatty.

“Just wanted a change of pace, really. Away from the bustle of the city.” You rustle the paper, clearing your throat to get back on the matter on hand, “so the sheriff’s office? Is it too far from here?”

“What business are ‘ya bringing into the office?”

“A job, actually. Says here that they’re looking for a secretary.” You might as well tell him everything, he seems too chatty to be dismissed over and over again.

“Well, darlin’, today’s your lucky day. No need to drive down the old road.” He reaches down to his seat, pulling up a brown hat, “Hi, I’m Sheriff Bodecker. Now, to whom do I owe the pleasure?”

You bite back a giggle, you’ve always wanted to be involved with the law.

#bitchassbucky writes #dark!bucky #dark!bucky x reader #dark!bucky x reader smut #dark!bucky barnes x fluff #dark!bucky x reader angst #dark!bucky barnes x reader #dark!bucky barnes x reader smut #dark!bucky barnes x reader angst

136 notes · View notes

myhauntedsalem · 4 years

Photo

30 Doctors, Nurses and Paramedics Describe their Most Disturbing Medical Stories

1. The Guessing Game

“I work as an ICU nurse. A mid-20s female came in with some serious cardiac abnormalities and then went into respiratory distress. Never had any medical history at all. We had to put her on the ventilator, but she was on just enough sedation to keep her lucid. She could nod/shake her head yes and no appropriately to questions.

One night, the patient in the room next to hers died, but the body was still in the room about to be taken to the morgue. The female patient’s door was closed with curtains drawn, so she couldn’t have seen what was going on next door. When I went in to check on her, she had a look of sheer panic on her face, trembling. I asked her a series of questions to see if she was cold/hot/in pain/etc. and she denied all. I asked her if she saw something—she started to aggressively nod her head YES. She wasn’t on any drugs that would make her hallucinate. I went on to get details on what this thing looked like. After playing 20 questions I got this: a man, pale white, left arm missing, heavy, bald, standing still, behind me. This was the man who had just died next door.

I spent the rest of the night consoling her.” – whites42

2. Life After Death

“When I was on an ER rotation during med school we got a call about a 23-year-old woman who was shot in the head, and who was already completely gone, but was reportedly five months pregnant so they were doing CPR until they got her to the hospital to see if the baby was viable. They got her to the ER and did an ultrasound and turned out the baby was full-term so they did a C-section in like under a minute and got the baby out.

I don’t think it’s so incredibly uncommon but it was pretty surreal to see a baby delivered from a dead person with their brain exposed and she was pretty close to the same age I was at the time.” – bluegraypurple

3. The Last Goodbye

“When I was a student, I got called in on a stroke patient. She had coded and they were doing CPR. They worked for 45 minutes, but she died. They cleaned her up, and called on the family to say goodbye, but by that time the family left. She had been both brain dead and without a pulse for more than 45 minutes. Blood had filled her brain, and she was completely grey and started to smell. Suddenly, she sat up, and called for her family. The nurses rushed to get monitors and equipment back on her. They started working on her again, she stabilized, said goodbye to her family, and promptly died a second time.” – simplesimon6262

4. Miracle Man

“When I was in trauma surgery in upstate by, got a notification about a man who was shot 3 times in the head. He comes in, literally one eye hanging out of the socket, blood everywhere, and he’s slumped forward. Apparently, he was shot in the temple, exited out his right eye socket, in the nose exited from the roof of the mouth, and In the cheek one with exit from the side of the head.

At this point, I’m thinking they just brought him in so we can pronounce him in the ER because he looked dead. I go to examine him and tilt his head back, and he says ‘Yoooo be gentle!’ I jump back and scream like a little boy, as did everyone in the room. Literally, the bullets missed his brain in every single shot.” – Noimnotonacid

5. Bleeding

“One of the aides I work with said she was doing postmortem care on a patient who had been on many, many anticoagulants before death. She said when they turned her on her side she started bleeding out of every orifice—eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. She said her and the nurse went home and had nightmares for a week.” – sparklingbluelight

6. The Haunted Hospital

“My town has two really old hospitals. One no longer functions overnight, and the stories are unsettling. No one cleans the old ER alone because all the lights and call bells go off. On other floors, there’s a kid with his ball, a lady in a white dress, etc. A coworker was cleaning an entire floor utterly solo (the norm) and bounced between rooms because the cleaning solution stays wet for a few minutes. Upon returning to a freshly wiped bed, hand prints were clearly visible.” – Sapphire_Starr

7. Eyeless

“I used to do home care for an elderly lady with learning disabilities and no eyes (they were removed due to a congenital condition). She was lovely but prone to wandering around her flat at night in total silence, which led to several horrifying situations where I left my room at 2 am only to encounter her standing silently in the hallway, turning her eyeless face towards me.” – NovelistResearcher

8. Lonely

“One call that will always haunt me was on an unresponsive female at around three in the morning. We get there and do some pointless CPR along with the fire department… She had been dead for a while; no shock-able rhythm, and clear rigor mortis. The most disturbing part was that the original caller was her 11-year-old daughter, who had just spent three days with her mother’s corpse and called 9-1-1 because she was ‘lonely’. It also didn’t help that the victim was completely naked when we arrived.” – CupofJoe776

9. Clear Waters

“I have quite a few stories, most of them are hilarious and then there are those you never want to think about. What fucked me up the most was when I saw how eyes change at the moment of death. Imagine you are looking at clear water but that clear water changes to foggy in an instant. In my 8 years here I’ve only seen this once, and I’ve personally seen well over 250 dead or dying people.” – ImCuden

10. Night Lights

“I work nights in a long-term care facility as a nurse’s assistant. I have two men under my care and both of them are unable to use their call lights. They have severe dementia and debilitating Parkinson’s disease but still, their lights are looped around their bed rail. One night their light came on and I went to answer it already confused and creeped out. I turned it off and left the room. Before I could get two doors up the light came back on. I went in there and both lights were unplugged from the wall and thrown under their beds. I fished them out, plugged them back in and left.

I’ve seen shadows standing over the dying and felt a tap on my shoulder while doing chest compression’s so I knew that lady had passed.” – beeoakly

11. Holding Hands

“I’ve had a couple of weird calls. One was a major MVA-head on many, many years ago when we played M.E. as well. We had 2 DOA (husband and spouse) that were killed instantly in a head-on collision. They had a 12-year-old daughter that was in between them and they actually took the impact, saving her life.

While en route, we noticed the husband’s arm had come loose so I went back to re-strap it. As I was doing that, the wife’s arm suddenly fell out as well, and her hand fell into her husband’s. My boss was watching in the rearview mirror and helped clear the way as I ran back into the front. It spooked both of us. Apparently, the couple (mid 30’s), had just found out he was cancer free after his last treatment.” – Anonymous

12. Last Meal

“I had an old lady come in by ambulance, near death. She was a DNR (do-not-resuscitate), so we weren’t going to do much for her. She didn’t have any family that we could find. The hospital was full, so we had to keep her in the ER for the night.

Again, she was near death. When you’ve seen enough people die, there’s no mistaking it, and she was almost there. Barely responsive; pale, cool, breaths were really irregular, heart rate was up and down, too. We just turned the lights down and kept an eye on her monitor, basically waiting for her to die.

About an hour later, she’s standing at the door of her room. She’d gotten up and put on all her clothes. We were all like, ‘WTF?’ One of the nurses went to check on her, and she said she was hungry. Not knowing really what to make of things, we got her a chair, a bedside table, and went to the cafeteria and got her a tray of food.

She sat there, ate all her food, talked with the staff a little. After about an hour, she told her nurse that she was tired and wanted to lie back down. We helped her back into bed, and within 30 minutes she was dead.” – Anonymous

13. “Don’t Let me go Back there”

“When my mom worked as an E.R. nurse a guy came in from a car accident and was losing blood. In the midst of resuscitation, the man jolts awake and screams ‘Don’t let me go back there! Please, please, please don’t let me go back!’ A few seconds later they lost him.” – JeremyHowell

14. The Rusty Old Saw

“This woman was clearly struggling mentally. She went into her basement and started sawing at her wrists horizontally with a rusty hacksaw, bleeds a good amount, and then starts walking around the house. She wasn’t dying quick enough, so she sat down in a chair in the middle of the living room, and started going at her wrists again, this time with a pair of scissors.

I was the second person inside the house. It looked like a massacre. We searched the house top to bottom, fully expecting to find multiple dead bodies in there. I’ve never seen so much blood in my life. Every single room had a trail of blood in it.

The woman was found on a chair in the living room. Rigor mortis had contorted her body into a really strange, unnatural pose, and her face was haunting. Literally the stuff of nightmares. Her wrists had huge chunks of skin/veins/muscle missing from them. Saying she slit her wrists is inaccurate. She ripped them to pieces.” – anoncop1

15. Visitors

“I work a stroke/telemetry floor on the bought shift. Most of our patients are elderly. Apparently, there are two things that patients see before they pass away. Some will say that two men are walking in their rooms and telling them to get ready to leave. The patient will call and tell us that these men are big and abrasive in their demeanor. They are either terrified or annoyed when they see the two men. The other thing they will see is a little boy who will go into their rooms and try to wake them up. The boy is usually loud and runs around their rooms. The patients will call and ask who’s letting children just run around late night. Several nights or even that same shift we’re coding or cleaning the patient for the funeral home to pick up.” – pokfynder

16. The Handsome Man in Black

“I used to work in a skilled nursing facility, usually assigned to the Alzheimer’s ward. One night I’m in the linen room stocking my cart, and I heard someone shuffle up behind me, then I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around and there was no one else in the room. The door was still shut too.

Another lady started to complain that a man was coming into her room at night (again, Alzheimer’s so I didn’t think much of it) so to reassure her, I told her I’d check on her throughout the night. She complained of this man for every night for two more weeks when I asked her to describe him to me.

‘He’s real handsome, and wears a black suit. Oh. He’s right behind you now, honey.’

That freaked me the f*ck out. Of course, there was no one behind me. She died the next night in her sleep.” – Anonymous

17. The Blender

“We got a call for a male in his early 30s with ‘heavy groin trauma’ (exact words of the dispatcher). We roll up lights and sirens and the guy is waiting for us on the front step with a towel over his crotch. We barely come to a stop and the guy is already running towards the rig holding this towel. I asked him what was wrong and he moved the towel and this guy’s dick was just barely hanging on. Apparently, he had ‘lady problems’ so he decided to fornicate with the food mixer he had in his kitchen and accidentally turned it on.” – YayShinny

18. The Charred Skin

“Motorcycle driver, accident, third-degree burns, arrived DOA. Had to transfer him from ambulance gurney to ER bed. As we were moving him with a transfer sheet, the liquefied/cooked subcutaneous fat caused the charred skin on his back to separate and his body slipped onto the floor (despite several of us trying to ‘catch’ him).” – Doc-in-a-box

19. Dead Man Moaning

“Worked security through college at a local hospital. The only ‘creepy’ thing I remember is when a dead man moaned. One of my duties was to help wheel patients who had expired down to the in-house morgue. Once we were wheeling an older man from the ER down and halfway down the hallway he let out this low moan. I started to panic, thinking that he was coming back to life but the RN explained to me (newbie) that sometimes the air in the lungs doesn’t come out until sometime later or is delayed for a bit.” – ill_do_it-later

20. Otherworldly Screams

“I have had fellow coworkers swear that strange things have occurred in the ER. Two people that I work with were charting at the nurse’s station when they both heard a scream followed by incoherent words come from one of our open bays. There were three patients in the room and they denied screaming or hearing anything. I have also had fellow coworkers talk about hearing strange voices especially after really bad codes and one person states she felt someone grabbing her shoulder after the doc pronounced a trauma code. These are all respectable people and I do not think they would lie.” – Anonymous

21. Blank Stare

“We got a call to go out to a scene for an elderly woman with chest pains. I arrive at the house, front door is open. We knock, hear the old woman calling out from the back ‘I’m in the back room’ in a very monotone and calm voice. My partner and I go to the back of the house looking for this woman, and that’s when we smelled it. Nothing prepares you for the smell of rotting corpse. I’ve smelled it a dozen times, and it never gets any less disturbing. We radio for police and ALS backup as we move through the house.

We opened the door to the master bedroom, and there is our patient. She is approximately 80, and she is staring at the master bathroom with these cold, dead eyes. She never once looked at us as we approached her and began talking to her. I got to the bedside and got in front of her gaze, and she just looked right through me. I turned around to see what she could possibly be looking at, and there was the source of my smell.

A man, about the same age as my patient, is on the floor with very little left of his head still attached to his body. A shotgun lay on the floor next to him, and most of his head was strewn about the walls and bathroom counter. We loaded the woman up in the ambulance, and our police backup pulled up.

I don’t think that woman blinked once the entire time she was in our care.” – TheFilthiest

22. “Bill’s Here”

“I’m an RN and while I was a student I was caring for a lady who had an end-stage renal failure, had a DNAR (do not attempt resuscitation) and was shutting down. We were having a little chat when she stopped, looked over my shoulder and said ‘Bill’s here love, I’ve got to go,’ and swiftly stopped breathing. Read her old notes and Bill was her deceased husband.” – Jesspandapants

23. The Body on the Floor

“The call was for an older woman, lying in bed. When we get there, the smell is horrendous of a dead body. There are millions of flies everywhere and a little old lady in lying in the bed, alive. About five feet away, there is a body covered up by a sheet. The lady was a dementia patient, and her husband (the deceased) was the primary caregiver. Based on the number of flies and state of decomposition, the police estimated the guy had been dead for about three weeks. The woman must have been getting some food out of the refrigerator, but it was totally empty by the time we arrived.

The creepiest part happened on the way to the hospital with the woman, she said, ‘I hope that nice man on the floor is OK’.” – Tools4toys

24. The Fallen Cross

“I responded to a call where a janitor was dusting quite a large stone cross in the middle of a church. He had been up on a ladder cleaning, when he slipped off, and proceeded to try to hold onto the cross to keep from falling. Unfortunately, the weight of the 200-pound man was too much to support. The cross fell towards him, landing on his left arm, with a part of the horizontal stone of the cross, pushing his muscles and tendons out of his wrist like a squeezed toothpaste tube. Then the cross fell completely on him splattering his brain across the floor. Quite disturbing, and definitely the most horrific and gore filled call I had ever witnessed.” – UpboatOarKnotUpboat

25. The Headless Nurse

“I used to work in St Barts Hospital in London, which in parts is over 1,000 years old. One of the buildings had 2 floors (with massively high ceilings), and so the floors were taken out and rearranged to make into 5 floors. The nurses working night shift would often tell us of the ghost of a night nurse who wandered silently doing her ’rounds’ at night—but due to the new floors, only her head would be visible drifting down the ward.” – jenthejedi

26. Monsters

“I was still a nursing student at the time, but this was from when I had my psychiatric clinical placement in my 3rd year.

I was assigned to a young male patient with schizophrenia. He had been a voluntary admission because he heard voices telling him to hurt people around him, and he admitted himself because he was afraid of actually going through with it.

Anyway, I went into the room alone, as usual, and did the usual introduction and asking how he was doing. He was at a desk drawing creepy, hideous monsters—each monster had its own page, and there had to be at least half a dozen of these pages scattered around him. I asked him what they were. He answered that those were the monsters he saw. They were the monsters that whispered to him and told him to hurt people and do awful things. Guarded, I asked him, ‘Are they telling you to hurt me?’

He answered, ‘Yes.’

I didn’t stay very long in that room.” – duckface08

27. The Man in Black

“People turn batshit crazy and creepy as hell when they get really sick. There’s even a term called ICU psychosis…and trust me, it’s real. Anyway, the creepiest that takes the cake for me is this (am an ICU nurse, btw): Had a patient who was admitted for overdose. Very long history of mental health problems. She was thrashing around in bed, very combative, kicking people’s asses for days, totally incoherent.

Well, the night I had her, she started making decent sense, but still not oriented at all. She was extremely paranoid and kept talking about the man in black in the corner. I’d hear her talking to him and screaming, all night long. So I’d go in there and try to calm her down, but you could see the fear in her eyes. she was talking other nonsense about how she was in space and shit, and with certain patients, you try to redirect their ‘reality,’ but what I did didn’t help. She said ‘that man in black! Don’t you see him!’ and pointed to the corner. I said ‘there’s nobody here.’ I stepped in the corner she was pointing to and waved my hands around. While I’m waving my hands around in the air, she had the most horrifically terrified look on her face that actually scared the shit out of me, like I had just assaulted the man in black. I said ‘see, there’s nobody here’ and she said in a matter-of-factly that’s what you think.’ I promptly got the fu*k out of there.” – HeatherTakasaki

28. Eyes Wide Open

“I work in palliative. Most deaths I’ve seen have been more or less peaceful, though the ones that are not, stick with you. One guy was silently screaming through his last few hours of life. Another guy (who up until this point had been unresponsive) reached up and grabbed me when we attempted to lower his bed to turn him.

One time while doing post-mortem care I walked into the room and thought ‘that’s weird, how come nobody has closed his eyes yet?’ He had that movie-perfect dead look, with pale blue staring eyes and slack jaw and greyish, waxy skin. I closed his eyes and started the care, and when I looked again those eyes, still staring at me, were slowly opening, one slightly slower than the other. He groaned when we turned him to wash his back and his hand managed to clamp onto the bed rail and we had to pry it off. When we finally got him onto his back again, there was a foul-smelling, oily black, viscous liquid on the pillowcase. I cleaned his mouth again thinking it must have come from there, but his mouth and nose were clean. The best I could figure the stuff had come from his eye. I couldn’t wait to get that bag zipped up.” – draakons_pryde

29. Crawling up the Hallway

“I used to work as an STNA in a nursing home. Worked third shift throughout university. During the night we turned half the lights off so it was darker for the evening and didn’t get a lot of light in the residents’ rooms. We had one resident who was younger (70s) and was mostly in for mental reasons. She had long, dark hair and was very thin.

I was sitting at the nurse’s station at the top of the hall and heard a call light go off. I stood up, looked down the dark hall, and on all fours—straight out of The Ring—this resident was crawling up the hall toward me. The other STNA had forgotten to put the bed rail up and the resident was VERY good at climbing out of bed.

Needless to say, I needed some new britches and my heart was racing a mile a minute.” – blameitonthewookie

30. Heaven

“Had a young woman in full liver failure. She was orange in color and she was still conscious. She asked me what I thought it would be like to die. I told her I didn’t know but I hoped it wouldn’t be painful. She then asked me if I thought I would go to heaven. I told her that I believed I would. She asked me if I thought she would go to heaven, and I told her I wasn’t able to answer that question.

She then told me ‘I am going to heaven and I know it,’ and I asked her how she knew that and she told me something that I will never ever forget. She told me ‘I know I am because that man over there told me so.’ I asked what man and she said the man sitting on the end of the bench. I asked her what he looked like and she said ‘he looks just like the Jesus on the windows of my church.’

Well, to tell you I was pretty well affected by that statement. She then went on to say ‘And he says that you are going to go to heaven too.’

We then prayed and I will never forget that interaction between the two of us. About a week later she passed away. I hope she made it to heaven.” – Anonymous

#30 Doctors Nurses and Paramedics Describe their Most Disturbing Medical Stories #shared stories #paranormal #ghost and hauntings #ghost and spirits

46 notes · View notes

weeniewrites · 4 years

Text

Lost Connections

Zombie Kenma x g/n reader part 3

Part 1 Part 2

3k Words

tw: zombies, descriptions of blood and gore, insects, fear, there’s some touching (not sexual) that kenma can’t verbally consent to

___________________________________

As hard as it is to get a good night's rest in the apocalypse, this morning’s a particularly ungraceful one for you. All cuddly and warm, the ends of your blanket hugged to your chest, you sit up, yet to even lazily open your eyes. Your initial yawn peters out as you’re tugged back.

“Huh?”

Your blanket bed may not be great but the crick in your neck and your back and the base of your spine before your butt isn’t worth being upright so why did you sleep here. A hiss of air comes from right beside you and you tense up, remembering why. Kenma removes his hand from its place on your shirt and you watch the movement with suddenly alert eyes, trailing back up to find his dried out face. You can’t help shivering, seeing him from this close is never easy and it’s almost harder first thing in the morning with no preparation. In a voice wet from sleep you murmur “I think I believe you now.”

His head tilts cutely

“That you won’t... that you won’t hurt me, I mean.”

He nods.

Is he reacting more today?

“Good Morning to you too I guess.”

You go to stand and he lets you this time, staying in his spot on the floor. You can’t stop yourself from keeping him in your peripheral out of habit but you doubt he minds. He does the same thing after all. His eyes trail up your spine as you stretch out the tension, squinting when your spine cracks. You patter around, deciding what to have for breakfast, a little woozy from your lack of a meal last night. If anything Kenma’s more responsive than you... hmmm

“Hey Kenma?” You call, listening to the way he shifts, leaning towards you.

“Do you feel better today?”

He blinks but doesn’t give any kind of response.

“Wait lemme, let me define better or.. I’ll rephrase actually. Do you have more energy today than yesterday?”

A pause, and then a nod

Your smile comes through in your voice “I’m glad”

As you sort through your snacks, deciding what to have for an easy breakfast, Kenma’s intensely focused on a bug slowly scooting around the floor. Taking a break from your indecisive searching, you start to nudge the bug closer to him, tensing but not flinching away when he crushes it between his fingers as expected. And eats it.

As you munch your breakfast bar of choice, you giggle and scoot beetles and spiders in his direction. His lips part slightly at the happy noise from you but other than that he’s far far too focused on catching each bug. Some pop and ooze between his fingers as he kills them. Most fail to skitter away from your combined efforts but it’s hard to mind when this is the most active participation you’ve had with each other.

By the end of it all, you’re much more awake and in the best mood you can remember being in, but Kenma once again, is a dirty little boy and turns out goop from crushed insects is not a look on him. It’s pretty gross, to be honest.

“Okay Kenma I, really, really don’t want to use all of our wipes on you if this is going to become a habit. Can you stand up?”

He doesn’t budge

“It’s not that much effort to move. C’mon, pretty please?”

He shakes his head

“Are you pouting?”

Oh NOW he decides to lift his head, little attitude filled fuck.

“Just stand up for me? Here.”

You wrap your hand around his gently, not tugging just kneeling in front of him and basically letting your hand rest around the wrapped parts of his palm. “Please? It’ll be like a little game, just hold onto my hand and follow me and you win?”

...

He’s slow to respond but you keep his hand in yours. As you return to standing and tug lightly, eventually he does get up. His eye level being closer to yours is intimidating in a way, reminding you of your situation. Standing right next to and touching a zombie. A zombie that’s completely capable of hurting you. Wouldn’t have to bend that far to bite into your neck. Against your will you begin to sweat but remain calm as best you can. He’s a zombie but he’s also an old friend that isn’t reacting beyond staring at where your hand is touching his, fingers adjusting and readjusting in your hold.

“Let’s get washed up okay?”

He follows, hand still in yours as you move to the door. Realizing it’ll be hard to unlatch and open it with one hand you move to let go and he tenses, suddenly grabbing your wrist. Breath picking up you look back at him and his wide unblinking stare.

“K-Kenma I just need to open this. Just for one moment okay? Please-”

He tugs your arm towards him

“P-Please let go. It’s like, like a pause menu. We’re not-not playing the game. We’re paused. Pause.”

He stops tugging, staring at your arm as it unlatches everything. With the door opened up, your hands find each other, actually hand in hand this time not just touching the outside. He follows in his usual silence but this time it’s comfortable. There’s something happy about it. If he wasn't tense from rigor mortis you’d almost think his shoulders had relaxed.

The walk to the river is uneventful besides Kenma tensing anytime he sees an animal, as do you, but nothing like the other night's event happens thankfully. Well, up until you reach the bank that is. At the first sight of a fish he tears away and stabs his nails straight into it. Before you can even react, blood from his kill and filth from his pants are already staining the river.

“You know Kenma you’re the first, the first uh...” Why does it feel so weird to call him a zombie? “First I’ve seen to eat animals like that?” You say, voice cracking at the end.

He’s too mesmerized by the water to react, more so the fish flying past occasionally. Oh, he’s for sure gonna go for another one.

“I’m just gonna, sit over here until you’re done. Please don’t wander off okay?” He looks back for a moment before returning to his task.

There’s plenty of trees to find shade under and you brush away leaves and twigs to make a more comfortable seat. Unease fills you at the sound of each crunch of bone and his occasional near frantic splashing at the water, but eventually, you manage to peak over as he quiets, his hunt over. The blood washes away as his arm rests at his side, trailing lazily as he stumbles around for a bit, eventually resting in a shallow area.

You call out to him, hoping to get his attention now that he’s stopped.

“Hey Kenma? Do you, you know, get hungry?”

He turns to face you, staring blankly.

“Okay I mean, I thought you’d always be hungry but, I, uh”

“Is it, easier? After you’ve eaten?”

A nod. His eyes twitch as a mist kicked up by the current hits his face.

Huh. That question wasn’t even straightforward.

“It’s a little convenient that you’re already in there you know. I did suggest washing up after all but uh-”

Wait, how are you even going to do that. Can he wash himself? If he can’t, is it okay to do it for him? Should you even do that? Wouldn’t you have to take his clothes off? Are you okay with doing that? You’d see a lot more of his injuries and-

He’s stood up, water dripping off him as he makes his way to the bank, pausing, before continuing to the tree you’re seated under, squinting down at you.. It’s kinda sweet that he’s following you around like this.

“You look like you don’t know what to do with yourself.”

But you don’t know what to do either. He plops down in front of you, startling a squeak out which in turn startles the birds out of the trees near you, though soon enough they settle back down right where they were. Kenma’s still staring at you and this close you can see just the ends of his hair are wet, the pieces peeking out of the knots clinging to his neck and shoulders.

“Hey Kenma, is it okay if I touch your hair?”

No response

Drat. Can’t rely on him to respond all the time you suppose.

“Can you come a little closer?”

He leans on his arm, scooting a foot or so nearer, well within reach of you now.

“I’m going to touch your hair now, and if you... If you don’t like it or you want me to stop you can grab my arm or something again okay? Just...” You trail off, losing the courage to keep speaking, instead using what remains to rest your hand on his greasy hair, testing the boundaries. He’s almost cross-eyed as he watches the movement. The top of his head’s been warmed by the sun and you aren’t directly touching his skin so it’s not too unpleasant. You circle your fingers and he still doesn’t give any reaction besides his yellow eyes following the movement of your arm. Time to go in for the kill. Carefully, oh so carefully, you bring your hand to the ends of his hair and run it through just once, stopping once you hit a knot and gauging his reaction. He looks between your arm and your face, settling down once you start moving again, your other hand coming in to help with slowly working out the mats. Some hair falls out as you go. When you finally finish a section you pause, noticing his lids are shut. For how long you don’t know, but stopping the soothing motion is enough to make them pop open again, pupils latching onto your face as your fingers still.

“Kenma I’m just gonna stand up for a sec.” You move to sit behind him and he watches you because of course he does. It takes a little effort to get him to stop staring long enough to actually reach the back of his head, but once you continue your gentle combing his eyes flutter shut once more. His hairs messy after, less straight than you remember with weird kinks left from the knots, but it’s done.

“You did great. Thank you.”

His eyes open lazily to peer up at you from his slouched posture.

Now onto the part you’ve been dreading for the entire trip, despite it being the reason you two actually left your hidey hole, cleaning him. “Kenma, can I take your jacket off?” He doesn’t stop you from touching his sleeve, and slowly, just in case you could set him off, giving him plenty of chances to stop you, you work the sleeve off his arm. It slides halfway off his torso before it sticks. Pausing, you notice dried blood is keeping it firmly attached to his skin, scabs and indents peeking through where the fabric is torn. Some pebbles are stuck inside the deeper spots. Right, his bad side.

“Is this uncomfortable Kenma? I don’t want to hurt you.”

No response.

“Okay just, seriously if you ever want me to stop, however you want to tell me, however you can tell me. Please do.”

You continue pulling his wet jacket off. The whole process is easier than expected. The time in the river must’ve helped loosen things up. As you get closer and closer to the worst damage, his face scrunches up, making you stop.

“Can you feel this Kenma? Does it hurt?”

A pause, and then the smallest little nod you’ve seen so far.

“Can you bear with it for me? We’re almost there.”

You wait for a response and when none comes, you continue slowly and a minute or so later, his arm shoots out, catching your wrist. His face is tense, eyes shut slightly in discomfort.

“Shit I-I’m so sorry. That hurt didn’t it?”

He’s not looking at you, focused on keeping your wrist in place, not harshly, just firm. With your arm pushed away, nothing’s stopping gravity from continuing your work. With so much of the jacket already unstuck from his skin, falling further and further until its nearly popped off. Only the remains of his right sleeve stick to the stump on his shoulder.

Kenma gurgles, body tensing, fingers uncomfortably tight around your arm.

Unsure of what to do, you sit in silence as he curls into himself from the pain of each reopened scab. A zombie, in pain. You shake your head. This is your friend in pain! Not a zombie, pull yourself together and calm him. His hold is shaky. His whole arm is noticeably shaky.

‘I won’t touch you anymore I promise. I’m sorry. It’s okay.” He stops you from pulling your arm away, head still dipped too much for you to see his face. If you could move enough to kick yourself by god you would. How could you have missed this? Of course removing fabric from a wound would hurt! But since his grip is so tight (though just the pads of his fingers are touching you, not his long cracked nails) there’s no choice but to watch and wait as he starts to calm down, refusing to let go.

“I’m not going to touch you again, and if you want me to I’m... I won’t go anywhere.”

A beat of silence

“I scared you pretty badly didn’t I.”

His head tilts to glare up at you

“No I did. Pain is scary. Even for you.”

His gaze travels back to the ground

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to lecture you, I just. I’m not sure what to do. It feels like... It feels like I need to clean you off, like maybe if we just. Get all this” You start to gesture at the built up grime his time in the river couldn’t take off but stop as his grip tenses on you once again.

“Kenma I’m not going to touch you. I promise.”

You keep whispering promises until his fingers aren’t quite so tight, continuing your explanation.

“I thought maybe you’d, feel better, more like yourself if you... If you”

If he what? If he wasn’t covered with clues to how he died. Pockmarked with injuries filled with dried blood from either himself or the animals he’s killed or, you don’t want to think about what else he could’ve done. Even if he’s never hurt you, who’s to say he’d be the same to other people. He’s such an anomaly you can’t make assumptions.

“I don’t know what I’m doing Kenma. It just felt like the right thing to do.” You sigh. “You can’t even understand what I’m saying can you. I’m sorry for putting you through this.”

For a while it’s silent besides the rush of wind through the trees as you try to process your guilt over your actions. You hurt him. You’ve done more to hurt him than he’s ever done to you, physically at least. Now’s not the time to remember high school. How does this even benefit him? Reducing the smell of rot and not having to look at his injuries only helps you doesn’t it? Festering in your emotions, you barely catch a huff before he removes his hand from yours. You have to resist following it, almost mirroring his own actions whenever you’ve tried to pull away but you stop yourself. One last huff from him and then

A rip

He’s torn the last of his jacket off, mouth tense as he throws it to the ground. Wide and alert eyes look at you expectantly.

“Kenma??”

Off color blood oozes out of the reopened wounds on the remaining stump of his arm. Bits of bone peek out at the collar and the remains of his shoulder are... it’s gruesome. Bits of dried muscle of varying lengths dangle off and you know, you know without having to see that with that much exposed muscle and blood there’s bugs in there, feeding on him and his long dead flesh. You jerk your head away before you can take in any more.

Covering your mouth in an attempt not to hurl fails, the scent of his hair on your palms forcing it out. You squeeze your eyes shut tight to avoid the sight, the injuries, the thing you should’ve been prepared for, or at least tried to be ready to see rather than ignoring it and swallow. Through it all, Kenma continues staring expectantly at you, head tilting at your reaction. You can hear him shuffling closer and instincts and experience tell you to react, to do something, react! React! Instead, you whimper as he sits, the scent of blood reaching you despite your simultaneous efforts to process things, calm down, or ignore it all. He just sits next to you and stares.

Deja vu hits, making you remember your dark basement and the last time you avoided looking at Kenma. The way he grabbed you when you wouldn’t. Opening your teary eyes, you look at him and keep looking as his head tilts to take you in. This time it’s his turn to sit by your side and wait for you to calm down.

“I think that’s, more than enough for today don’t you? Let’s, Let’s..... Do you want to go back? B-Back home.”

A nod and you’re up, standing on shaky legs, much more aware of the distance between the two of you as you make your way back, leaving his Nekoma jacket behind. _____________________________________________

taglist! @beanst0ck @toungextied

#haikyuu x reader #haikyuu #hq #kenma x reader #hq x reader #tw zombies

17 notes · View notes

slash-em-up · 4 years

Text

Morning Ritual: A Keone Fic

Just in case you were unaware, Keke belongs to the Uber-talented undisputed king of brain-melting art @schmeesky. GO. RUN. THE MEALS ARE FIVE-STAR!!!

—————————————————————

The sun just barely glinted over the edge of the water as Keone made his way slowly down the beach.

The sand was cool underfoot, which he appreciated - knowing that once the sun hit its zenith the pale granules would heat to near-molten temperatures. That’s when Keke preferred to stick to the tree line - letting the verdant green of the towering blue mahoe and palm trees shield him from the worst of the mid-day heat.

A pair of herons stepped daintily through the water at the entrance to the small inlet where Keone kept his boat tied. They raised their long heads to watch as the man stepped closer; so used to this morning routine that once they assessed the figure calmly striding towards them, they simply moved to the side and continued their hunt for the tiny minnows flitting like silver across the bottom of the water.

Keone smirked at the juvenile of the pair as it succeeded in catching one of the small fish, tilting its head high and pausing as if confused what it’s next step should be. The second, larger bird raised its head and gave out a short bark of encouragement as the younger swallowed the minnow down.

Reaching the boat he used for tasks such as this, Keone made short work of tossing the heavy bags from off his shoulder and into the bottom of the vessel. Pushing the boat out into the surf was hard work; but something Keone had done hundreds of times - practice had made him extremely proficient.

When he was searching for fish or diving down into the blue, blue water Keke tended to keep towards the shoreline - going out just far enough to circle a formation of craggy rocks or anchor near a field of slowly drifting seaweed - but today he was going to see someone else, and he needed to sail out just a bit further.

It was easy to see where the safe, clear water of the islands beach dropped off into the ocean - there was an abrupt change in the color of the waves the further out you went; choppy surf changing from a pale blue-green into a deep navy. If the tide wasn’t just right the undertow would pull you beneath the waves - and if you didn’t drown, you better hope you got back to shore before Bella found you.

Dropping his small anchor off the side of the boat, Keke halted his passage just feet before the ocean cliff.

Moving languidly, Keone began his morning ritual.

He removed a large covered bucket from the bottom of the boat, hoisting its contents over the edge and staining the water with a dark crimson.

From his side he pulled a worn thermos, carefully unscrewing the cap and pouring a steaming liquid into the cup. He leaned back on his arm as he blew on the tea, waiting, watching, for movement in the water.

He didn’t have to wait long.

Before he’d even finished his first cup, a couple of slick, grey fins rose from the dark depths, circling the boat and investigating the bloody waves.

Keone grinned, quickly setting his thermos aside in favor of watching the shark glide through the water.

The bag he’d carried with him was pulled closer and opened, letting its gory contents peek with dead-eyes into the orange-dawn sky.

This man had been almost too easy to catch. Some fat tourist lured in by the promise of an unspoiled island paradise, only to very quickly discover that yes - the island was a paradise; but it was already very much inhabited, and its sole resident had no interest in sharing.

He’d done little more that whimper and cry pathetically as Keone had sliced his stomach open with a machete. Hadn’t even made it past the tree-line before he was being gutted and sliced for the sharks the next morning.

A large wave rocked the boat, off tempo from the steady rolling of the waves, and Keone let out a whistling tune as he tossed a clawed hand, just barely movable as rigor mortis abated, into the blue.

He peered over the side just in time to see the last dip of a huge fin slide silently under the waves.

His lady was here.

“Bonjour, Bella.”

The smaller sharks had departed at Bella’s arrival - knowing that they were just as likely to become food for the gigantic Great White as Keke’s morsels.

That suited Keone just fine.

Bella was a tidy lady; she didn’t leave a mess for him to clean.

He began to sing quietly under his breath as he tossed limbs and organs over the side, pausing occasionally to reach down and run a hand across Bella’s smooth hide when she came close enough to the surface. She wasn’t interested in him - she had half a torso to gulp down.

Although a single person was barely an appetizer for a shark over twice the length of his boat.

Once the tourist was fully disposed of, Keone pulled the anchor up and began the trek back to shore; tossing a ‘farewell’ into the water as Bella slipped back down into the depths. She was too large to have any desire to follow him closer to shore.

The sun had chased the orange glow almost completely out of the sky - trailing purples and pinks fading into what would become a clear blue sky in just a short while.

Keke watched as the sand on the shore began to glint in the sun, still singing a quiet song to himself as the shoreline and the small cove grew closer and closer.

Just another day in paradise.

#keone the ghost #keone #keke is bby #slasher oc #jessica writes #slasher fiction #keke and bella 5ever #just a boy and his 25 foot long shark

32 notes · View notes

notbecauseofvictories · 4 years

Text

Common Things

The most common thing in the world is a statue with its arms broken off. The brokenness a flatness exposing the texture of the marble or clay. The second most common thing are the arms. The right to bear them. Which is something even those who do not want the right have. Having something or someone to pray for doesn’t mean you have to pray. Who gave you something or someone to pray for, think of that. In the third most common thing, grass still wet from rain overnight, which you did not participate in by watching. You were asleep in the fourth most common thing. You wake now and walk on the fifth most common thing. The smooth surface of it. Without meaning to be reductive. You say the name of a country to refer to its ongoing conflict. The word conflict a rag that wipes the blade clean. A clean blade above a fireplace is the sixth most common thing. Which means you have a neighbor, either to the east or west, who is currently displaying a weapon. Even if you do not own a weapon, you could. And because of this you are complicit. But you cannot do anything about most things. You cannot put the arms back onto a statue is another way of saying you can’t put a bullet back into a gun. The body subsumes bullets as though it is in love. It inculcates bullets in the ways of the flesh. Which is torn by the time the bullet is convinced. You aren’t convinced of anything you don’t already believe in. In this way you are always standing your ground. The ground under someone standing it is the seventh most common thing. The eighth is the air in which you openly carry. You like the feel, the weight, the heft of it in your hand. But mostly you like the ability to take another’s life should you need to. It was your grandfather’s ability, your father’s. Before you know it, it will be your child’s. Whose body in the fetal position resembles a finger curling over a trigger. Whose whole life is still in the magazine. Until it isn’t and the sound is like that of a sternal saw cutting through the breastbone of the world. Finally buckling under the tink, tink, tink of the hammer against the saw. And you thought you had hid the key to the drawer where you keep the gun. But a key whose location is known is the ninth most common thing. The tenth most common thing is a thoracic cavity opened with a few cranks of the rib-spreader. And the esophagus and lungs are fished around by the hands of a surgeon who begins to massage the heart. To clamp the aorta. So that more blood is directed into the brain. Instead of into the bowels, which have emptied by now. While what is being filled are the gun racks of those. Whose child is not on the table. Is not statuesque in the beauty sense of the word. But in the way rigor mortis sets in.

Christopher Kondrich

#the opening and closing of a door: poetry month 2020 #how does one word #tw gun violence #tw medical #tw surgery #tw violence #from the queue

44 notes · View notes

hellfirenacht · 5 years

Text

The Convention Fic Chapter 4

Beetlejuice x Reader (Gender Neutral)

First Chapter

Friday (Evening)

It didn’t take long for you to get ready to head to the aquarium. You dug through your suitcase and pulled out the outfit that you had brought specifically for partying in. Though you knew that this was a date and wanted to look nice, the aquarium would allow everyone to wonder around for a few hours before letting those who paid for the After Party into one of the Ballrooms, which Beej was quick to inform you was a 21+ event.

You were practically bouncing with excitement as you changed and freshened up. The hyena that Beej had given you was sitting on the bed, protecting your phone as it charged. Beej was kicked back on the second bed, watching you with an amused grin.

“You know, you look great no matter what you’re wearing.” he commented, scanning you up and down. “But I gotta admit, if I wasn’t already dead you’d be killing me right now.”

You gave him a smirk. “Is that rigor mortis, or are you just happy to see me?”

He laughed, “And here I was worried that you’d be too tired for this.”

“Normal tired is gone, I’m only left with that kind of 4 AM tired where everything is funny and I’m invincible. But don’t worry- I completely intend to pass out as soon as we’re done.” you affirmed.

“That’s why you’re my best mod- you’re always ready to party and work.” he replied with a grin. “You ready to go yet, Babes?”

“Yup! Just gotta put my shoes on and I’m good to go!”

You grabbed your beat up tennis shoes, not wanting to risk blisters for the rest of the weekend. As much as you wanted to look good, you also had a job to do for the rest of the con. You swapped out your backpack for a small pouch that rested on your hip and around your waist and shoved your phone, camera battery, key, badge, and money in.

“Ready!”

Beetlejuice just snickered at you as he pulled himself off the bed and looked you over. “I gotta say Babes, you look stunning for our first date. The fanny pack is really doing it for me.”

You pouted slightly. “Watch it, Bug Boy.” you warned in a playful tone. “Besides have you ever washed that hoodie?”

“Nope!” he said with such pride for a second you were inclined to believe him.

The playful teasing continued as you made your way out of the building and towards the Aquarium a few blocks over. The sun was just now showing signs of going down, though late in the evening. Beej’s green-tipped hair was an interesting contrast to the warm yellows, reds, and hints of lavender of the setting sun. The air around you was comfortably warm as you crossed the busy street with other nerds who were also on their way to the nights event. The two of you cut through the large park where you had held the meet up the other evening, and Beetlejuice slipped his hand into yours again.

It was comfortable. Though the two of you had only met in person just the other night, not even 24 hours before, it didn’t feel awkward or strange. Maybe you were closer to him than you had originally thought. All those late nights in the chat, playing games, talking on cam, they suddenly meant so much more now that he was there with you. He was real, and the two of you were close, and now here you were, on a date. A real actual date. A warmth spread over you at the thought.

The air around the Aquarium was cooler than the air at the park. Perhaps it was the shadow the building cast in the late evening sun, or the slight smell of sea water that tinted the air. The two of you easily slid through security and presented your tickets before entering the building.

The aquarium was large and tall, split up into five different sections ranging from river fish to freshwater fish, to ocean fish. Together you decided to start at the river fish, and you pulled out the video camera. Though this was a date, both of you agreed that even if you didn’t post the footage, it was still something the two of you wanted to remember together. You couldn’t help but be okay with that, plus seeing him through the lense of the camera as well as in person felt right to you.

Together the two of you toured through the different sections, looking at fish, getting B-Roll footage of cosplayers and at one point Beej even interviewed a fan that came up and introduced themselves. With each new section brought new fish and creatures for the two of you to point and look at. Beetlejuice was fascinated by all the creatures, which surprised you.

“I’ve never been able to see fish before.” he stated, which seemed like a strange answer. “I’ve never been to a fish zoo or even the beach before so this is all new to me. You know, I never understood the whole thing with humans being obsessed with other animals but I think I get- oh my god they glow!!”

Beej grabbed you by the arm and pointed excitedly at the Jellyfish that were glowing against the blacklight of the tank that they were chilling in. Beej’s smile was so wide and his pupils were so large that you his eyes almost looked black. It was clear that this man was going to lose his shit at any fish that had bioluminescence. He was practically shaking with excitement as he pressed his face up against the glass like a little kid.

You did manage to scoot him out of the way to allow yourself room to get some footage of the tangled mass of jellyfish. You agreed- it was really cool seeing the different fish glowing under blacklight. As you pointed the camera a Beej again, you swore that he was glowing under the light as well- the same green that you saw back in the arcade just the night before. You made a mental note to ask him what kind of hair dye he used but for now, your breath was caught in your throat with how... weirdly beautiful he looked.

He was still the same Beej that you had seen a million times before on a screen, but there were some things about him that a camera just couldn’t do justice towards. His laugh was louder in person, and right now it felt more honest. Not that you were surprised, you always understood that internet personalities were just that- personalities. You saw what they wanted you to see but with Beej it felt different. Yes, in this time and place it was a more intimate experience being next to him and seeing him in person, but you were starting to realize how genuine and honest he was with his audience. You could feel your heart swell at the thought, not only could he be himself on camera, he could also be himself with you.

“Oh man I’d stay here all night if I could!” he said, leading you out with a big smile on his face. “Next year we’re staying an extra day and we’re gonna sneak in here at night and scooba dive with the jellyfish.”

“That’s a terrible idea.” you laughed. “I’m in.”

He smiled at you, his eyes still shining with excitement. “And that’s why I asked you to be here with me!”

“Someone’s gotta bail you out of jail when your roommates aren’t around.” you countered.

The tour ended with the last area- the Ocean fish. It took you a little bit longer to make your way in there, as the two of you stood in front of the exhibit, pointing your camera at the mascot of the aquarium; a large orange fish named Deepo.

The two of you stood there, laughing hard. Beej has his phone out and was going live as the two of you laughed at the ridiculous looking fish.

“Disney... Disney please sue something!” Beej begged, zooming in on the wide lifeless eyes of the statue that smiled across time and space. “DEEPO. His name.. Oh God-Satan his name is DEEPO!”

There were tears streaming down your face as you both pointed and laughed. Around you, some other con goers were also taking pictures, while some were looking at the two of you like you were high or drunk. It didn’t matter, the point is Deepo would either save your soul or destroy it. After cities collapsed, oceans dried up, and humans were eradicated- Deepo would live on as the uncaring God of the New World.

You really needed to get some real sleep tonight.

After finally pulling yourselves together, the two of you straightened up and finally the two of you stepped into the large tunnel, finding yourselves surrounded by fish and soft blue lighting. You couldn’t help but let out a small gasp as you looked up, seeing a fish swim over your head. All around you was ocean life- the tunnel was right under a large tank, allowing you to see fish from every angle.

“Oh wow...” you whispered, looking up. Beej took the camera from your hands and started filming as you took in the view. Fish of all colors, shapes, and sizes were swimming around the two of you, feeling so close even though the glass protecting the tunnel was at least two feet thick.

“I gotta admit, this is pretty impressive.” you heard Beej from across the tunnel, filming a small school of yellow fish. “I’m glad we- oh holy shit!” his head shot upwards and you followed his line of site and gasps.

Above the two of you, a whale passed over head, followed by a shark.

“That’s a shark!” Beej gawked, following the creature with the camera. “Holy crap, that’s a shark! Babes, I want that. I want that shark. I love that shark. I need that shark to live.”

“Well it’s a good thing you’re dead because it’s staying here.” you replied, eyes still glued to the top of the tunnel, watching the larger fish swim around you. It was absolutely breath-taking. You moved to the side of the tunnel until your legs hit a ledge for you to sit on, keeping an eye on everything around you. You were suddenly okay with the suggestion of just staying here forever with these fish. You had no clue that fish could make you feel this safe or content.

After a few minutes, you glanced over at Beetlejuice who had the camera pointed at you. How long had he been filming you staring at the fish? You felt a little embarrassed now.

“Hey, I thought this was your show.” you said, trying not to be embarrassed.

“It is, and I like to show off things that make me happy.” he said with a wink. “Plus you’re stunning in this light. I can’t be the only one that looks good here.”

The compliment felt warm in your chest compared to the cool air of the aquarium. You wanted to brush it off, or tell him no, or even fire something back at him but instead you said something that surprised yourself.

“Thank you.”

You accepted the compliment with grace and a smile. It felt true- between the amazing lighting, the outfit you had chosen, and the feeling of being with Beetlejuice... you felt stunning. Moe than that, with Beej around you felt seen. You felt like all your hard work went both noticed and appreciated. Everything you did for him he thanked you, praised you, told you how much it meant to him. He saw something in you that you hadn’t seen for yourself in a long time. For this moment, you could see yourself the way he saw you- an amazingly capable person, a fun person, a giant fucking nerd, a friend, a crush.

That was the confidence boost you needed, and you felt secure. You felt safe. You felt like you could do anything you wanted because knowing that someone you looked up to and respected so much could see it in you. You stood up and walked over to him, keeping eye contact the entire time. You reached out and lowered the arm that held his camera knowing that this next moment was for just the two of you.

Beej got the hint and allowed you to stay in control of the situation, knowing exactly what was going to happen next. You reached out and touched his cheek, feeling the scratchy beard against the palm of your hand. Briefly you wondered how much maintenance it took for him to keep it tinted green like his hair before leaning in and pressing your lips against his.

His mouth shifted into a smile against yours as his free hand rested on your lower back. The cool skin of his lips combined with the cool air around you caused goosebumps to appear on your arms and the back of your neck. The kiss was short, only a few seconds long, but it was enough. When you pulled back, Beej was grinning hard and you could almost swear that he had hearts in his eyes. The two of you stared at each other like the dopey love-struck idiots that you were for a moment before you took his hand.

“Come on, Love Bug.” you said. “Let’s keep going.”

The two of you finally made your way out of the tunnel after getting a few more shots of different fish before making your way into the next room. Again, you were almost rendered speechless as the two of you found yourselves in front of a large tank that stretched from the floor to a very high ceiling. The large tank gave you a perfect view of how large the whales and sharks were compared to the smaller fish. There were whales and stingrays and large bloated looking fish you had never seen before.

Maybe you would take up Beej on the offer of breaking in to spend the night.

The two of you found a spot to sit in front of the large glass wall as you stared out into the water. In this moment, no words needed to be said. For once Beetlejuice was enjoying a comfortable silence as the two of you put away the camera and just let yourselves be. His hand found yours, and your head found his shoulder. Together for the next half hour, you rested and just took in the view of the amazing sea creatures swimming around.

Around you, cosplayers took amazing pictures next to the tank, nerds took selfies with the fish, and the two of you couldn’t help but laugh a bit at one pink-haired cosplayer crying happy drunk tears over one of the large bloated looking fish. (“It’s so ugly!” she cried and laughed. “I love grouper fish! I love him so much he’s so ugly he’s beautiful!”).

You almost dozed off once or twice as you rested against Beetlejuice. It felt so relaxing being next to him, that you wished that you could just spend the rest of the weekend here. But after a while, he nudged you.

“You still good to go to the after party?” he asked. “It’s gonna start soon, but if you’re tired I understa-”

“I’m gonna party!” you yawned and stood up. “Give me a sec to wake up and I’ll be good to go.”

You took a moment to stretch and get your body to wake up. Turns out at the fish for however long you two were there had left you feeling pretty well rested and happy. Your brain was still a little fried from spending the past few days on little sleep but you could make the the next few hours.

By the time the two of you made it into the ballroom where the party was being held, the DJ was already blasting music and people were lining up at the two bars set up on each end of the large room. There were two glass walls on different sides of the rooms, much smaller than what you had just been looking at but still large enough to peer in and see it was large enough to fit in a few whales. The tanks were dark at the moment, you assumed to give the animals some rest after a long day of being gawked at, but a few congoers were still camped out by the viewing areas, relaxing with their drink and peering into the darkened tanks.

The two of you bought some drinks and found an empty standing table to stay at for the moment. There was a large dance floor in the upper right corner of the room, the DJ booth next to it. On the wall they were projecting clips from various animes and also Steven Universe for some reason. That was the only non-anime being shown on the screen, and you wondered who had put the looping montage together.

Beej chugged down his two drink quickly, itching to get to the dancefloor. “I gotta show these breathers how to really party!” he said.

You had to admit, you wanted to get on the dance floor as well. The DJ was playing an amazing mix of anime, cartoon openings, group dances, old emo music and songs that would make any nerd get up and dance.

The music woke you up better than the drink in your hand. Beej politely waited for you to finish it before dragging you to the dance floor. Beej was a beast once he was in the crowd, jumping from group to group and dancing with anyone who would let him close. You couldn’t even be jealous when he found himself in the middle of a group of girls as he began flossing like there was no tomorrow.

You could have sworn he said he hated flossing before. You wondered if that changed one he actually learned how to do it.

The crowd started to form into a circle around Beej. People jumped in and out, showing off their moves and having small dance-offs. Everywhere people were cheering and having fun. The DJ changed songs, and a spark ignited inside you- this was a song that you knew very well. A specific song from A Goofy Movie that made every inch of your body suddenly go feral. Beej had his moment in the spotlight but now it was your turn.

You were about to teach these nerds what it really meant to do the Perfect Cast.

You waited for the right moment to jump in, your confidence fueled by the slight buzz of alcohol in your system combined with your amazing date with Beej. This was the moment you had been waiting for your entire life, and nothing could fucking stop you.

The chorus kicked in and you found yourself rushing to the center, looking around at the crowd and starting on the dance that you had learned so long ago. Everyone lost their shit.

“THEY’RE ACTUALLY DOING IT!”

“WOOO!”

“IT’S THE PERFECT CAST!!!”

“TEACH ME PLEASE!”

“Oh snap, looks like we got someone who knows their Disney!” a voice said over the speaker and you realized that the DJ was talking about you over the mic. You snapped back into reality with a huge smile and looked over at Beej who couldn’t have been more proud of you. As you jumped back to the side of the circle and let someone else take over you got a few highfives and compliments.

“Damn Babes, why didn’t you tell me you could dance?” Beej asked, still smiling wide.

“I forgot!” you laughed. “Oh wow, I haven’t done that in forever. I... I forgot I knew it until I did it!”

The two of you danced together on and off for the rest of the night, taking breaks to occasionally have another drink or rest. Beej had much more stamina than you, seemingly never needing to rest or take breaks. When you needed a second to catch your breath he’d hover between making sure you were okay and running back to the dance floor. You honestly didn’t mind, you loved seeing him out there, making friends and being the center of attention.

By the end of the evening, as the party was starting to draw to a close, you found yourself sitting against the viewing glass, tipsy and happily gazing out into dark tank where a few whales swam in circles. The pink-haired girl who you’d seen earlier crying over fish was next to you, seemingly in the same boat. There was an unspoken agreement that this spot was the Quiet Spot. Even though behind you a party raged on, filled with nerds, and lights, and alcohol, this spot was for being drunk and watching fish. This was a pastime you could get used to.

“There you are!” came a voice from behind you, causing the two of you to jump slightly. You looked up at beej and held your finger to your lips.

“Shhhh....” you whispered loudly. “You’ll throw off the whales.” okay, maybe you were closer to the side of drunk than tipsy.

The DJ started playing Don’t Stop Believing and there was a roar of excitement from the crowd behind you as drunk nerds scrambled to the dance floor. A chorus of voices of all kinds filled the air as everyone in the room seemed to sing along to the music that was pulsating through the air.

“I think I’m having a religious experience.” the pink haired girl said, as she stared continued staring at the whales.

“Me too.” you said, to Beej’s amusement. “Same time next year?”

The girl nodded in agreement. “May the whales don’t stop believing.” she said solemnly.

You stood up, wobbling a bit, but Beej held you steady. “You usually this much of a light weight?” he asked.

“Strong drinks.” you mumbled with a smile, leaning into him.

“Alright, I think you’re partied out.” Beej said. “Your fragile human body needs sleep. And probably other things too.”

“Water... food.” you replied and the two of you made your way out of the building, headed back towards your hotel. The night air felt good against your warmed skin, you didn’t realize how warm the room had gotten with so many people dancing. You were comfortably drunk with a dopey grin on your face as you clung to Beetlejuice.

“Hey... Beej.... are you my... booooooyfriend?” you asked, looking up at him.

“I’ll be whatever you want me to be, Babes.” he replied. “Think you can handle dating a demon?”

“Pffff... you aren’t scaaaary.” you slurred, and laughed at the offended look on Beej’s face.

“Excuse you, I am the ghost with the most!” he said. “I’m the scariest demon you’ll ever meet!”

“If you say so, neeeeeeeeerd!” you giggled.

Beetlejuice managed to drag your drunk ass back up to your room, and helped you use your key card. This time you did not immediately drop your pants (much to Beej’s dismay) but instead went straight to the bathroom to pee, wash your face, and get a glass of water.

“Beej... Beej I got a secret.” you said as you exited the bathroom.

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“I’m a little bit drunk.” you giggled and took a few long gulps of water.

“No shit?” he smiled at you.

“Not even a little turd.” he laughed at that.

“I’m gonna... I’m gonna drink this water so I’m functional tomorrow.” you set the glass down. “OH! Oh! I did... I did something smart!” you were bouncing on your feet.

“You’re the one that holds all the braincells here, but what did you do specifically?” Beej watched you with an amused grin as you stumbled slightly to the mini-fridge and pulled out a to-go box. “Got more food at Waffle House when we went. Because I’m SMART!”

The two of you turned on the tv to watch a movie with too many commercials as you ate your cold waffle and drank your glass of water. You soon found yourself resting against his shoulder again.

“Hey Beej?” you asked. “Where are you staying this weekend anyway?”

He stiffened slightly at the question. He wasn’t ready to tell you that he was just teleporting between the con and his home hundreds of miles away.

“I uh, don’t exactly have a room.” he replied, hoping that your drunk brain would let it go. It didn’t.

“What?” you looked up at him. “Wh-where are you sleeping?” your eyes looked like they were tearing up, oh shit, oh fuck, he did NOT want to make you cry. “Are you sleeping in your car??”

“Yes!” he blurted out. “I am... sleeping in my car!”

“No!” you pouted. “No! Bad Beetlejuice!” you stood up with a look that would be angry if it wasn’t coming from a half-drunk breather. “Stupid Beej, dumbass...” you mumbed to yourself and walekd over to the tv, grabbing a small envelope and pulling something out. “Can’t do anything without me, I swear.” you threw a piece of plastic at him and he looked it over. It was an extra key-card. “You’re staying HERE for the rest of the weekend you stupid, dumb... stupid face!”

When his mom had yelled at him when she was drunk, it was horrifying. He’d retreat into himself and tell himself he was as worthless as she said he was. With you, it was different. Your words sounded angry, but your eyes were full of hurt and concern. You didn’t really think he was stupid, or maybe you did, but either way it wasn’t a feeling of malice towards him. Someone was concerned for him, someone cared, someone wanted him around.

Who was he to say no to that?

“Alright, alright, if it would make you happy.” he replied with a grin. “But where am I gonna sleep, there’s only one bed!”

You looked at him in confusion, glancing between the two beds in the room. You were drunk but you weren’t stupid. At least, you didn’t think so.

“Beej there’s another bed right there...?” you questioned yourself. Was there one bed or two?

Beej stood up and grabbed a hold of your suitcase that was laying on the floor in the corner of the room. He walked over to the second bed and sloppily dumped out the contents onto the spare bed.

“I dunno what you’re talking about, all I see is this large pile of clothes!” he smirked. “I don’t know about you but in my experience humans don’t usually sleep on piles of laundry.”

You smiled and let out a small chuckle. “Oh, silly me. I suppose you’re right. There’s only one bed. One large bed that we could both fit in.”

“I insist that you take the bed and I will sleep on the floor.” he smiled.

“No no no, you’re the guest, you take the bed.” you said, grabbing his arm and pulling him onto the bed. He pulled back the covered and crawled in.

“Nah, I think you should take the bed.” he pulled you close against him, allowing you to take in his scent.

“...Your hoodie smells awful, take it off.” you grumbled, helping him remove the offending piece of clothing. You wondered if he had been correct about not washing it ever.

You didn’t hear anything after that as sleep overtook you quickly. Beej’s cool body under the warm blankets created the perfect temperature for falling asleep. Beej held you against his chest and turned on the tv low. He didn’t need to sleep, but he would stay until you woke up. Your warmth and weight on him allowing him a feeling that he’d only ever felt in one other place.

To Beetlejuice, you felt like home.

--------

NOTE: Want to make a cameo in the next chapter? Click here!

#nacht fic #beetlejuice x reader #gamer beej #the convention fic

82 notes · View notes

tiramochi · 4 years

Text

The katana Kaikokusaku pulls her like she's the counterpoint to its melody, a sleek, elegant construct of black and gold, and the space in which it exists is tenuous, bizarre, a pocket of still water amid the currents. It hangs suspended in the murk like a sacred relic, the shintai of a shrine. More mundane objects litter the riverbed underneath, silt and sprawling weed and a conch shell, patterns too familiar; she looks, looks again.

“Oh,” Kingyo says, sinking to her knees.

Its surface is already dulled and rough to the touch, fragile without the pulse of vitality within. The only remains of the conch spirit who’d followed her through the battlefield, and then disappeared shortly after, Kingyo now realizes, to give her life to the blade. To sustain the lifeforce inside it with her own.

She thinks, I never knew your name. And then at the katana, with gold slivers spiraling about its blade, with the entirety of his soul bound within its confines. I never knew yours, either.

Lord Arakawa is a title, and not a name.

But Kingyo takes the katana in hand and he is there, he is there, a sudden startling presence like being steeped in warmth, wrapped in summer winds. Tangible, yet insubstantial. If she fell back she would be able to touch him, to come up against his chest – there is only water.

She makes up her mind; Kaikokusaku dislodges easily from its stasis, falls into her arms. It’s selfish, but Kingyo has always been selfish, and besides, the Arakawa River would be nothing without its people. Better that it can be with them, and with her.

If she cries at all, the tears are whisked away by the currents, out to the open sea to mingle with the salt.

Maybe this is what it feels like, to drown.

* *

Her bones still ache. The sea roars through her.

She stands on her toes, and feels something give. Sometimes, when she’s caught unawares, she takes a step and teeters, unsteady on her new legs. Losing a dancer’s poise, perfectly balanced, for the fumbling of a newborn, like a fish that has forgotten how to swim.

So Kingyo rediscovers her body by force. She does the steps as she’d seen him do, feet thump-thump-thump on the rock, following the shade of her past self, too, a small child practicing with a stick. Extend and swing. Shake off the brittleness in her limbs, the feeling of fracture with every movement.

His hands cover her own. She twists and sees him looming and suddenly she’s small again, craning her neck to glare into his eyes.

Shorty, he seems to say. Don’t overdo it. You’ll never get taller like that, if you break your body before it has a chance to grow. He taps her head with two fingers.

Is that how you treat a lady? Her voice builds to a squeak despite her best efforts. So undignified!

What lady? I don’t see any lady here.

Kingyo knows he’s laughing at her, but nothing shows in his face. Perhaps his eyes are warmer. Perhaps the lines around his mouth are less tight.

“It wouldn’t kill you to smile,” Kingyo grumbles, then realizes her mistake. Bites back her next words, furtive, because there’s no one to hear except the wind and the sword, thrumming quietly in her hands.

* *

Kingyo rules a fractured kingdom. Not quite the world, but acceptable, for now.

Later on, she realizes just how lonely it is.

The water youkai are strangely pitiful, displaced and shrunken; they look to her for guidance. We want to go home.

It’s too dangerous to return, Kingyo tells them, and the miasma hasn’t yet gone from the waters. There could be enemies left, so I have to get stronger, first.

And he is dead, he cannot protect us. They weep. Lord Arakawa is an ideal to them; shining, flawless, faceless.

He said that I had spirit, Kingyo says. He gave me candy and told me stories through the night.

* *

At the river’s estuary she finds clusters of white chrysanthemums sheltered by an outcrop of rock, windblown petals edged by salt. Kingyo comes back the following day, having nabbed a flask of sake from Seimei’s stores – she doesn’t think he’ll mind. She finds a peach too, a whole one ripe and yielding under her fingertips, and takes a bite out of it just to check. Fruit is a valuable commodity, anyway.

Together it makes a pile in the flowers, sake and half-eaten peach and Kaikokusaku settled center stage. A makeshift funeral. Kingyo is no priest, but she can do this much. The sky yawns overhead, painfully blue, warms her too-long hair, her dirt-smudged cheeks turned up to the sun. She feels him too, in the blade, but quiescent.

“To the biggest dummy in the universe,” she begins. “The dummy that threw his life away.”

She doesn’t know what to do with the sake; there are no cups, as her foresight hadn’t extended that far. Her grubby fingers slip on the smooth lacquered surface of the flask, because she knows it isn’t for her, not really. Guilt makes her movements clumsy.

The first taste is – dry, it parches her mouth. Another gulp and the flavour filters through, the subtle bloom of apples but warped, somehow, metallic in a way that makes her face scrunch up and her eyes water.

Kingyo thinks, adults enjoy this. She thinks that he would have as well, so she drinks it in place of him. It leaves a warmth in her belly that does nothing to allay the space cradled by her ribcage. She huddles inwards, compresses herself infinitesimally small.

“Big meanie,” she mumbles. “Bully. You always hit me with your stupid fan, and right on the head, too, and called me ‘shorty’.” Sluggish indignation colours her tone. “Probably the reason I never ever grew up…”

“But you saved everyone.”

She remembers the aching tenderness of his final look. This is the last battle, he’d said, and then stood with his back to her, awfully breakable. Suppressing the tidal wave of monsters, over and over with no recourse, then holding against their leader with the shark’s smile and a sword lined with teeth, and even Kingyo with her dreams of grandeur could admit that it was futile. She watched him flag, falter, watched the cursed blade grip and tear into his shoulder with its fangs, watched as he, as he –

“You’re the hero,” she whispers, curled up on her side. “Heroes never die. They can’t.”

And with that she falls asleep.

* *

Once, there was a girl, and her love for the Emperor caused her to drown herself, in a pond rimmed with irises and horsetail, weeping willows trailing their branches into the water. The Emperor, stone heart moved by her death, brought his courtiers to its banks and wrote poems for her passing.

There was a speck of truth to it. Lord Arakawa knew these things, as he knew everything about the water, each stream and burble, tells them to Kingyo when she demands a tale.

“At Kasuga,” he says, and hums. Even Kingyo tires out from anger, sometimes, and he settles next to her, at a respectful distance and his fan safely out of reach.

“I grieve to see, her hair tangled as in sleep, floating there now like jewelled waterweed, on Sarusawa Pond.”

They never found her body. But he says, contemplative; perhaps her spirit was consumed with grief, and lingered there. Perhaps she became one of ours.

“She’s a dummy,” says Kingyo, with all the surety of the very young. Sacrifice for nothing.

Once, there was a girl, older now, and wiser. She changes the words.

* *

It waits for her. And who would Kingyo be, if she didn’t try?

“You’ll give me what I want.”

She cuts with no ceremony, opening herself up, a neat gouge bisecting the length of her forearm, wetting the edge of the blade. Kaikokusaku drinks in the blood like it’s starving for it, then chases the tail end to come across Kingyo’s youki underneath, heavy and rich with salt.

As soon as it reaches in – Kingyo pulls.

Kingyo is not a princess, but a queen. Not just a queen, but a lord, a conqueror, and she demands that it obey. Kaikokusaku’s hilt judders in her grip, unmaking itself in its desire to appease her; frozen metal liquefies and scorches her palms, clenched as the rigor mortis of the dead. She might be dying, but if she’d thought harder about it then the fear would have locked her in place. There is no space for fear.

No space for fear.

There is only the taste of the sea, the power that she claimed, that took her in turn and made her strong when she proved herself unshakeable, eternal as the fact of the tides. A building pressure in her ears, pungent brine whipping her hair into her mouth, her eyes, blinding – but she pours in her anger, her memories, too, and calls.

The water stills.

It resolves into a figure. He is solid, and so very real; the same tenderness is in his face, like sunlight seen from the ocean floor, soft as the flicker of fireflies.

He opens his mouth, and says –

#onmyoji #kingyo hime #kingyo #lord arakawa #letters #wow this fic backlog #arakawa pls come back

13 notes · View notes

aceverae · 4 years

Text

At death do we part

I thought it was going to be a regular day, a good day, even a productive day. It was most of these things at first. Wake up late, join the Zoom in-service conference for work, take care of the exotics and let out the cockatiels for their day-time play.

Head to work a few hours after waking up to catch the tail end of the in-person in-service conference from the Zoom. Take care of some training for distance learning and come home to clean the hell out of the kitchen and bathroom.

It was a good day, but it presently became very bad after I returned home from my evening workout.

I entered the animal room. I saw my female cockatiel, Dynamo, perched on the edge of her cage, but I do not see my male cockatiel. Dynamo was oddly silent. He must be close, because she screams when he isn’t. I think, Oh, he must be hiding behind one of the cages, as he does at times. “Rocket! Rocket, where are you?” I peeked around all the cages.

And I found him.

I found Rocket.

But Rocket was... not alive anymore.

I have been revamping a fish tank recently and there was about four inches of water in the bottom, and somehow... someway... he had fallen in and drowned. I found his floating body, stiff, eyes wide, mouth open, in the tank. My first reaction was to try to resuscitate him... but when I picked him up... rigor mortis had already set in. He was gone.

Really gone.

I lost my beloved, my favored bird, the mate who I thought would grow old with his female, Dynamo, have children, and be happy into their final elderly days.

Dynamo lost her mate tonight and she is experiencing some trauma from the event. I cannot imagine her pain. I cannot imagine losing someone like my husband. I cannot imagine watching him die and being able to do nothing about it, as she watched Rocket drown and probably screamed because she knew something was very wrong.

My good day became tragic. My productivity plummeted. But Dynamo lost her husband, her mate. I dug Rocket his grave, covered it in stone, and said a pray. I tried my best to comfort Dynamo in her time of sudden separation, as she shivers on her perch in shock.

Peace to you, Rocket. I promise to protect her for you. I promise to never make the same mistake again. I love you. You’re the best asshole I ever knew.

#cockatiel #animal death #sad #tragedy #soulmate

1 note · View note

jordan102791 · 4 years

Text

Velvet Lace part 9

The stillness seeped into her bones. The occasional page turn chirping from the quiet that seemed eternal until broken. Screaming so loud it made ears ring. An old smell pleasantly raining in the air. Diana leaped into the leather throne she had claimed the second day in the shop.

Quinn had pulled her from her backpack carrier within seconds of Josh stepping through the portal from the real world to this one of fantasy and mystery, romance and horror. She would argue that the people in these tomes were more real than often given credit. To escape the dull gray of this world and enter another that was closer than it seemed. Close enough to just be a finger tip's distance away. The older man had brought down a towel from the store room, preparing for her arrival. Bunching it up into the chair and tucking her in. Her own dais from which to watch the strangers pass by. Some reaching out to brush the fur on her side before continuing on.

The tinkling sounds from above the door announce the newest entrant, but not a new customer. The woman in her peach dress that the wind bites starvingly at has been in most days at least once that Diana had noticed. But this wasn't all the shadow had noted in her black book about the woman. No, she watched the way the woman's gaze lingered on Josh when she swayed passed, skirts dancing in time to her hips. The woman wasn't shy, but certainly not the type to usually make the 1st move, no matter how much the idea scrolled across her face. She would just quietly flirt and behold the man who had yet to notice her attention. Men, the cat thought. Anyone could see that her insignificant search requests were only the ruse her heart wished would communicate to his own. Anyone except Josh Wells apparently.

She would need to be going on her way soon she supposed. But perhaps, she mused, she could leave his life a bit happier than she'd found it. Maybe someone to comfort him in his time of need when she would make her escape in the night, venturing into the world of one of the adventures penned in a book she surrounds herself with each day. Yes, he has been kind to her. Kinder than any other has been to a stray on the streets. She would try to do him this favor.

The creeping black smoke rolled across the floor to where her temporary master kneeled to pull a jacketless book from a box. The ripened peach tucked around the corner, being summoned like a beacon. The predator laying in wait for her chance to strike. The woman's fair skin, glowing from the sun raining through the windows steps around the end cap bringing her knee to face with Josh. Startled, he stands. Fishing for the words to ask if she needs help. The quiet chatter awkward as they both stumble through sentences that would make a sinner's ears bleed with how polite they are.

Now. This is the chance, Diana hoped she would be strong enough, but only her actions would tell. Strolling up, she rubs her cheeks to the man's pant leg. Lulling into a false sense of safety. The black cat lunges, throwing all her weight to the backs of his legs. He fumbles the book gripped in his hand as he tries to right himself. His hands going to the woman's arms, pushing his body close to hers. Steadying himself, he makes a quick retreat. The interaction reddening both parties' cheeks, murmuring apologies. A gentle, not wholly disappointed, smile pings her lips, while her eyes cast down to the floor. "Ummm... If you're all right, I'm gonna head to the back to grab more books," Josh practically whispers before racing off.

How can he not see the heady flush that took over the woman's face at the contact? A cherry blossom blooming into spring. The cat shakes her head before heading back to the warm leather arm chair, scheming ways to get him closer to the pleasant fruit he might enjoy a bite from if he just plucked it from the tree.

*****

A screeching shatters the reverie, a peaceful one for once, jolting Diana awake. The warm blankets and solid length beside her skittering across the bed away. Her golden eyes opening, scanning for dangers she cannot perceive.

"What? Why are you screaming?" She asks in a stranger's voice that hasn't been her own in many moons.

"Stranger in my bed. Stranger in my bed," his tone edging on hysteria. "Naked stranger in my bed. Pretty, naked stranger in my bed."

"Shit," she says full of emotion.

"Shit? That's all you can say? Shit? Who the fuck are you? And why are you in my bed? And where are your clothes?"

At his final question, she finally peers down, confirming his words. Her lush body, a distant memory now firmly cemented in her face. "Shit," she says emphatically, scrambling to tug the sheet from the bed around her body. Twinning snakes coiled tightly, holding butterfly wings around her.

"Yes! You said that already, but who the fuck are you? And how'd you get in my house?"

"Shit, this is awkward. I haven't done this since I was a wee kitten," shame steeping her voice in dread. "I'm Diana. Your cat."

"Ok, so you're a very pretty, insane, naked girl in my bed. Fantastic. I'm gonna go ahead and call the police now."

"No, no, no! Josh, stop! Don't do that!"

"How do you know my name?"

"I told you. I'm Diana. Your cat," her tone hinting the answer should be obvious. Listen, if I wasn't Diana how would I have gotten in? Or know you work at the book store? Or know that the cat's name, my name, is Diana?"

"Bc obviously you're stalking me." His fingers ppised to dial the emergency number.

"Josh I'm not stalking you. Just stop for a second. Let me explain!" She takes a step towards him, tripping in the sheet. His retreat hasty to keep the space between them. "Josh please," she pleads. "5 minutes. Just give me 5 minutes to explain and convince you. And if after that you still don't believe me than call the police and have me hauled away."

"Oh, so I need your permission to call the police?"

"No of course not, but please, I'm begging you. Just 5 minutes." The sincerity in her golden eyes that he shakes the familiarity off at the sight of, warms him only mildly. But it's still just enough the thaw his fingers from their rigor mortis around the phone.

"5 minutes. That's it. Starting now. Go!"

"I really am your cat," she says holding up a hand, waving off his denials. "I'm a shapeshifter. This is what I really look like, but I can become a cat too. In fact, I've been a cat for a very long time now. And last night was the 1st time I've lost control of a shift since I was a kid. I'm sorry, you were never meant to find out, especially not like this. I was just supposed to slip out one night and you never see me again."

A confused stricken look envelopes his features. "Say I believe you, you were just going to leave?"

The embarrassed shame she already felt being drowned and twisted into the shame that now ate anyway at her belly. Eating her, consuming her from the inside out. Chasing heat up into a face that felt it might burst from the blood packing in. She doesn't answer him. Her bright eyes avoiding a meeting in the middle with his own.

"Right." He sucks his teeth and nods. "So you're a cat, huh? Fine. Show me."

Her eyes snap up to his finally. "Show you?"

"Yes. Show me. Turn back into my cat. Prove that you are what you claim to be. Seeing is believing and frankly I'm not sure I'll believe it until then."

Running throught the scenarios in her head, she nods to the carpet. "All right. I'll show you." She looks to him, searching his face. Preparing heraelf to run when things go badly. She knew she needed to leave soon, she just didn't expect it to be like this. Taking a step back to the middle of the room, she drops the sheet. His gaze too startled by the bones crunching and reforming to think on her brazen behavior.

And the shouting began again. He hadn't thought she really could change, the midnight fur running from her curly hair across the curves and planes of her body. A tail creeping from her skin, swishing and slashing the air. Compacting down to the feline he had shared his bed with for almost a week. The only thing remaining of the gorgeous woman in the equally remarkable cat were those amber eyes that glowed in any light. The blood slamming down into his feet making him sway and catch himself on the dresser.

His furry companion shifting her weight on her feet before growing and becoming again. "You really are a cat," his eyes wide, showing whites like a horse reading to bolt.

"I am," her voice barely a whisper, but he still hears it in the gelatinous silence filling the room. Her nakedness not seeming to concern her, he bends to snatch up the sheet handing it back to her. She nods her thanks before cacooning herself back in it.

2 notes · View notes

damnprussia · 6 years

Text

@attrociteas

Gilbert knew that calling Arthur at 2am was a bad idea. But he stood naked at 2 o’clock in the morning, only a white sheet draped around him that he struggled to hold up, standing at the feet of a fainted night mortician. He supposed it wasn’t every day that her only company at night would wake up, remove themselves from their cell in the wall, and stand up.

“Hey Arthur,” he said in the Mortician’s office, squinting at their business card. He still trembled uncontrollably and holding things was hard - it would be a few hours before function was fully restored. Rigor mortis had already set in when his consciousness popped up, so everything had to wake up again, down to every last muscle fibre. “I’m, uh....I’m at a morgue in Camden...could you come pick me up? I would call an Uber, but, um, I don’t have any clothes. I can give you the address.”

As he spoke, he fished through some of the paperwork before coming to what appeared to be the half-finished work for him. He squinted - vision was still blurry - and saw what was written. ‘Time of Death: 20:08′

“yeah, I think I died ...an hour ago,” he mumbled. Couldn’t let Arthur know it was now taking six hours to revive himself. “I can’t remember how. Anyways can I crash at your place?”

#attrociteas

1 note · View note

nimwallace · 6 years

Text

Never Numbed

TW: DESCRIPTION OF A CHILD’S CORPSE

The case had been a sad one from the start. A little boy had gone missing shortly after the mysterious death of his mother. The boy's grandmother had then inquired, suspecting that the boy's father had some hand in this. Holmes had already formed several theories, and all of them ended in tragedy. He was almost certain now that it was not the father, but indeed the very bitter brother of the man (brother-in-law to the women and uncle to the child), who wished to cause his brother pain for childhood bullying. Right now, the father (Paul Rens) was being interrogated, probably with no clue who had actually killed his family. The carriage they were in (Holmes and Watson, that is) was to take them to a country side cabin where the boy and his father often went fishing. Holmes knew, as he watched the hills and fields go by under the ashen grey sky, that he would discover the body of six-year old Bobby Rens decomposing inside that cabin, likely in the attic. He glanced at his Watson, who watched the scenery, oblivious to the horror that awaited them upon their arrival. I shall send him on some idle errand, Holmes thought. Then I will look. So when the carriage stopped and they got out, Holmes did not let Watson get within ten feet of the rickety fishing shack, fearing the smell would give it away. “I need something of you, my dear man,” he said, swallowing the bile in his throat to look at John. “Oh, what is that?” “The field over yonder, can you go look over there for traces of the boy? Broken twigs, small fires, things of that nature.” Watson's eyebrows furrowed, because he saw the look on Holmes's face, and he heard the exhaustion in his voice. But he asked no questions, and did what Holmes said. Holmes waited until Watson was out of his sight before diving into the cabin. It was, unfortunately, as he expected. He found young Bobby in the garret, and it was evident he had been there for several days. Rigor mortis had set in, and his skin had gone that shade of ashen grey and blue Holmes had seen too many times. His eyes were open and the last of his pasty skin clung to his bones. Holmes had told the Yard to stay nearby, and called them quickly upon making the discovering, turning his back and fleeing the cabin as soon as he could. Several of the Yarders had to excuse themselves to relieve them of their breakfasts. Holmes stood away from the shed, nauseated. The beads of sweat on his arms seemed to make all of his skin itch and crawl, and he felt for a moment he might suffocate. Shortly after the coroner had taken the body away beneath a sheet, Watson came jogging back. “I couldn't find anything, Holmes,” he panted. “What—“ He saw the Yard detectives' and Holmes's expressions. “Oh dear,” he said softly. “Oh dear god, no.” Holmes nodded, taking his arm. “We are free to go,” he said quietly. “It is in Lestrade's hands now. I will break the news to dear Mrs Rens tomorrow—I think she shall need a good night's sleep first.” With that, they left the scene. The ride back to London was a long, quiet one, and for majority of it, they both sat in suppressed silence. They both felt too ill to smoke, but Watson did sit next to Holmes and take his hand, squeezing it every so often. Holmes knew that Watson must be having a harder time with this than he was—after all, the lifeless bodies of children were not something Holmes had never seen before. But he was never numbed to it—it always shook him something awful, and he found it difficult to think of anything except the glossy green eyes and the blood caked lips. When hey returned to Baker Street, Watson politely asked Mrs. Hudson not to disturb them the rest of the night—they would not be needing dinner, thank you—and followed Holmes quietly up the stairs. He shut the door quietly behind him and looked at Holmes. “You knew, didn't you?” he said gently. “That's why you sent me away.” Holmes met his eyes with something of a struggle. “I wanted to spare you,” he said softly. “There was no need for you to see that.” Watson sighed, taking Holmes's hand in his own. “You are sweet,” he said, placing a kiss upon his knuckles, “too sweet, I'd say. I should have been by your side.” Holmes shook his head, looking away, and Watson caught him immediately—damn how well he knew him—taking his chin and turning his face back towards him. “You needn't hide from me, you know,” he said gently. “I want to help, however I can. I felt sick at just the notion, I cannot imagine the sight.” But Sherlock could—and did, every time he closed his eyes. “It is ridiculous,” he said, frustrated. “I am a grown man in a dangerous line of work, I should expect—“ “Stop that, now,” John said sternly. But Holmes's voice had already begun to crack. “You are a grown man in a dangerous line of work, and you are also a human being with feelings. It is nothing to be ashamed of. I demand you do not blame yourself.” Sherlock nodded reluctantly, not meeting his eyes. “Now,” John said, a bit softer. “What can I do to help you? Do you want to talk about it? Or should a distraction of some sort be better?” “A-a distraction,” Sherlock stammered. “If—would you—“ “Anything.” “Would you read to me? That book of poetry you have.” “Of course.” It was a long month, that January—but it was shortly after another case—(that of Darlene Peterson) came to light with a very joyous ending which cheered them both. Watson never wrote up the Rens case, and it remains buried in a file somewhere in Holmes's desk.

#ficlet #oneshot #sherlock holmes #johnlock #john watson #victorian!lock #acd #granada holmes #ansgt #heavy angst #death #trauma #protective!sherlock

7 notes · View notes

myhauntedsalem · 5 years

Photo

30 Doctors, Nurses and Paramedics Describe their Most Disturbing Medical Stories

1. The Guessing Game

I spent the rest of the night consoling her.” – whites42

2. Life After Death

3. The Last Goodbye

4. Miracle Man

5. Bleeding

6. The Haunted Hospital

7. Eyeless

8. Lonely

“One call that will always haunt me was on an unresponsive female at around three in the morning. We get there and do some pointless CPR along with the fire department… She had been dead for a while; no shockable rhythm, and clear rigor mortis. The most disturbing part was that the original caller was her 11-year-old daughter, who had just spent three days with her mother’s corpse and called 9-1-1 because she was ‘lonely’. It also didn’t help that the victim was completely naked when we arrived.” – CupofJoe776

9. Clear Waters

10. Night Lights

I’ve seen shadows standing over the dying and felt a tap on my shoulder while doing chest compressions so I knew that lady had passed.” – beeoakly

11. Holding Hands

12. Last Meal

13. “Don’t Let me go Back there”

14. The Rusty Old Saw

15. Visitors

16. The Handsome Man in Black

‘He’s real handsome, and wears a black suit. Oh. He’s right behind you now, honey.’

That freaked me the f*ck out. Of course, there was no one behind me. She died the next night in her sleep.” – Anonymous

17. The Blender

18. The Charred Skin

19. Dead Man Moaning

20. Otherworldly Screams

21. Blank Stare

I don’t think that woman blinked once the entire time she was in our care.” – TheFilthiest

22. “Bill’s Here”

23. The Body on the Floor

The creepiest part happened on the way to the hospital with the woman, she said, ‘I hope that nice man on the floor is OK’.” – Tools4toys

24. The Fallen Cross

25. The Headless Nurse

26. Monsters

“I was still a nursing student at the time, but this was from when I had my psychiatric clinical placement in my 3rd year.

He answered, ‘Yes.’

I didn’t stay very long in that room.” – duckface08

27. The Man in Black

Well, the night I had her, she started making decent sense, but still not oriented at all. She was extremely paranoid and kept talking about the man in black in the corner. I’d hear her talking to him and screaming, all night long. So I’d go in there and try to calm her down, but you could see the fear in her eyes. she was talking other nonsense about how she was in space and shit, and with certain patients, you try to redirect their ‘reality,’ but what I did didn’t help. She said ‘that man in black! Don’t you see him!’ and pointed to the corner. I said ‘there’s nobody here.’ I stepped in the corner she was pointing to and waved my hands around. While I’m waving my hands around in the air, she had the most horrifically terrified look on her face that actually scared the shit out of me, like I had just assaulted the man in black. I said ‘see, there’s nobody here’ and she said in a matter-of-factly‘that’s what you think.’ I promptly got the fu*k out of there.” – HeatherTakasaki

28. Eyes Wide Open

29. Crawling up the Hallway

Needless to say, I needed some new britches and my heart was racing a mile a minute.” – blameitonthewookie

30. Heaven

Well, to tell you I was pretty well affected by that statement. She then went on to say ‘And he says that you are going to go to heaven too.’

We then prayed and I will never forget that interaction between the two of us. About a week later she passed away. I hope she made it to heaven.” – Anonymous

#30 Doctors Nurses and Paramedics Describe their Most Disturbing Medical Stories #paranormal #ghost and hauntings

19 notes · View notes