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The Last Testament: Chapter 1 (Bo Sinclair x Oc)

I figured I'd post this bad boy over here too, just in case. Don't mind me. i just want to make cute banners for each chapter. Sorry this first chapter doesn't have Bo, but we'll get there, like...so soon lol. Summary: It was just her luck to crawl willingly into a serial killer’s den and she becomes the one they don’t kill. Awful.

Her first hope in finding death was Vincent, but he'd do anything for his muse—except remember to feed her! That left the oldest brother: A scary man with a penchant for violence. If it was death she wanted, it was clear Bo was the only way she was going to get it...right?

Notes: A story in a series of vignettes. 4k words

TW Warnings: Eating disorders, starvation, Canon typical violence, paranormal gore, suicidal ideation

In the town somewhere along Route 10 in Louisiana, there was a cage in the House’s basement that was the only place to catch sight of the last living prisoner. The small figure sat perfectly in the center of her rough hewn cage. A woman, slight and pale, too pale to belong to the sun kissed Louisiana. Clearly, she was a stranger to those parts from the way she pronounced her G’s at the end of her words and took too long to think about what to say next. Matted auburn hair slept against her frail shoulders and back, sticky and stiff with grease from her scalp and sweat from her perspiring skin.

A pile of blankets and dirty, bloodstained clothes made up her sleeping nest in the corner of the cage and a leather strap on a rusted, cheap dog chain lay draped over the hand of a mannequin mounted to the packed dirt wall. If Lester didn’t know better, he would have said that she had walked in there of her own free will.

“Lester? Do you have a moment?” The girl waved her hand towards the smallest brother, beckoning the dirty man. Despite her frail looking condition, her voice was solid but soft, whispery like the wind through the bayous on a hot day. There, but nearly invisible.

The boy in question searched for the eye of the giant in the room, checking for permission before agreeing to anything. As the youngest brother, Lester was all too aware of what little power he held against his brothers. Both of them were mean and strong, twins with their own sick sense of understanding in the family hierarchy. Lester’s green eyes flickered over his brother, finding the artist hunched over his desk in the corner, studiously ignoring the girl.

A multitude of candles at his bidding lit the recessive dark around his personal workstation. Vincent worked his carving knife, scraping and working a thick chunk of yellowed paraffin wax into something. At the words of the girl, though, Vincent turned, meeting Lester’s waiting gaze with his own one blue eye. He dropped his carving knife, setting it neatly against the knife-scarred desk before he shoved back the dark hanks of hair perpetually in his way. He straightened up, rising to the occasion but nearly knocking everything over in his haste to stand. The flames sputtered from his candles.

Lester had seen his brother’s face plenty of times in his life, and had never been bothered by the scaring, but as per his mama’s rules, Vincent wore a max, molded from his twin brother’s face time and time again. The ghostly pallor of the wax over the rest of Vincent’s tanned skin was like something from a horror B movie Lester had seen on TV a while back. The long black hair, stringy and uncombed reaching mid back didn’t help things either, not when Vincent was six feet five inches and counting with his work boots. That boy was just big, bigger than Lester and almost too big for the basement. Too big to be normal, and too big to have such a mute disposition.

“It’s nothing bad. I would like to read your fortune.” The nameless woman tried again. In her hands a deck of cards shuffled almost restlessly. Shrrrrrp. She shuffled again, as if the sound of the 52 card deck would ease the at-attention men.

That did not draw either brother nearer to the cage, despite the definite perk in Lester’s face. He pursed his lips at his older brother. Can I? He mouthed the words almost pleadingly at Vincent. In reality, Lester wanted nothing more than to stop watching the wax melt in the massive cauldron. The fire in the corner was pulsing and hot, fed from an underground pit stoked from the gas canisters in the corner and vented overhead through the House. He was roasting there standing over the fire. There was no respite from the heat in the basement, and no respite from the heat outside.

Vincent rolled his one eye and gestured in a “go ahead” movement before he turned back to the shelves stuffed with art references and sketchbooks. Selecting a new one and pulling the carpenter’s pencil from behind his ear, Vincent dwarfed the standard pencil with his giant hands. He reclined against the creaking wood, pulling the black cardboard bound book open and flicking to a new page, starting in on a drawing with broad lines.

Lester grinned at the girl in the cage, and something like vague amusement flickered across her face before her expression returned to her usual pleasant but vacant look.

“I saw this in a magazine once. We’ll pull three cards and I’ll tell you about your past, present and future.” She explained, shifting her seat in the cell to face him. Lester was still standing against the cauldron. “I suppose if you want to do it from there, we can.” Her eyes slid away from Lester, back to her lap and she hunched into her cell a little more. Her cards ceaselessly shuffled. The pipes overhead groaned.

Lester moved closer unwittingly. The air around the cage was charged with the girl’s strange energy, and it wasn’t the first time he’d noticed the way his skin stood on end, warning him away from her like if he got too close she’d know more about him than his own brothers did. The girl in the cage had been there a little over two weeks and every time Lester had come down to the basement she had greeted him with a smile and a few words always sure to say his name. She remembered him and she made damn sure he remembered her too. The cards… They were nothing. A gift from Lester. His own way of saying that he remembered her, even if there was nothing he could do to help her out.

She’d sat in the cage day after day, legs crossed and eyes closed. Hands folded primly in her lap, her face light and thoughtful even as bodies of the dead and dying moaned for her help day after day. Death didn’t cling to her like it should have. In fact, it seemed to slip off her shoulders like water on oiled feathers. Lester thought that was the entire reason why Vincent kept her around.

In the town with a population of three brothers and a whole lot of corpses, she’d need that careless observance more than she needed her wits. No one walked in alive and left the same way. That was the oldest rule. Kept them safe. Kept them free. Kept the cops from sniffing around.

As it was, she shouldn’t have been left alive. That cage wasn’t a permanent solution. It wasn’t even a solution at all. The bars were too far apart to hold her inside. Her skinny frame could slip between them with ease, yet there was no interest in her face or body to leave its confines. So the leash came off one day and never came back, and still she sat in the cage, growing thinner with each meal Lester forgot, and each scrap that Vincent fed her.

“Your past is the three of spades.” She waved the card in the air, lifting her hand overhead so the little faded picture could be seen on the plastic square by both Lester and Vincent. Lester was at her side in a moment too curious to hold back. This was like one of them carnival folk. He’d seen stuff like that when he was a kid.

“What does that mean?”

She blinked owlishly at Lester for a long minute. Long red eyelashes fluttered in his direction. Then she was handing the card to him through the bars. Her feather-light fingers brushed Lester’s filthy black ones. How had she remained so clean? He didn’t know.

“It’s not a good one. Depicts a break in a relationship by the addition of a third.” She shrugged. Her eyes were lingering on his face, taking in the filthy smear of rotten blood across his cheekbones, and the Eau de Man BO that he constantly seemed to be sporting. Self consciously, Lester scratched the back of his neck, hating the steady gaze on him.

“Hey that’s perty good!” He joked. He could see the irony of the card; him being the forgotten third brother, the one no one seemed to talk about or remember. After all, it wasn’t his birth that got announced with such pleasure across the state.

“Because you’re the third boy after a set of twins? I agree.” She nodded sagely before she shuffled the cards again and then again before her deft fingers cut the deck and held the card up for him to see. A three of hearts. The look on her face narrowed, and he could see her glance around her little room, almost like she was trying to recall something. She mouthed “three of hearts” before a light clicked on in her eyes and she was back to watching him lean against the bars of her cage.

“This one’s indicative of indecisive love. Are you struggling with a girl right now, Les?” Her head cocked to the side and she handed him the card, once again letting her cold fingers alight against his. Cold? In the basement? Lester was marinating in his own sweat.

He didn’t know what to say. “This card is ‘posed to mean that?” He flipped it over, looking for the writing on the back. Nada. Only the red paisley print that all the cards shared. Strugglin’ with a girl? He didn’t even know any girls. ‘Cept her.

“Mhm.” Her voice was warm but disinterested. Across the room he could see that Vincent was definitely not sketching. But rather his head was canted to the side, a listening ear tilted to their conversation. Lester stifled a laugh.

“Oh,” she blinked, realizing who he might be struggling over, “Sorry Les, I didn’t realize.”

He wrinkled his brow, not following, until at last a flush crept up his neck and ears. Her.

“What’s the third?” He stalled the conversation, embarrassed because his brother was in the room and listening in. Would Vince tell Bo?

She shuffled the deck again and pulled a card. “Seven of clubs.” She slipped it between the bars, allowing him to take a moment to look and absorb. Lester held the third card in his hands cautiously. His future.

“Business success. It’s about a promotion or change in job.” She said simply. Lester stared at her for a long moment, unbelieving. She must have seen the distrust in his eyes. “Really strange, isn’t it? I suppose if you don’t believe me, you can look it up.” She reached between the bars and plucked the cards from his dirty fingers and shuffled the cards back in.

Lester scraped roadkill off the county roads for a living. What sort of job change could he move to? Would he start taking part in the killing? Guilt roiled in his chest, upsetting the lunch he’d snagged on his way down here. That wasn’t a job change he wanted. Wasn’t a promotion he wanted. He hoped she was making it up. Well, he flat out refused to believe otherwise.

The basement was silent save for the groaning of the pipes. The noise was tremendous and frightening in the dark, but in the light of the candles, it was easier to bear. The fire that burned constantly kept the room warm but it didn’t do anything for the company. Didn’t do anything for the ghosts that lingered either. Only the pipes rushing with hot wax could cover the moaning, but sometimes she couldn’t discern which was which. Was it the pipes dripping wax into little stalagmites that was telling her to leave, or was it the whispers of the long dead spirit of a college girl doing that?

“I’ll read one for Vince.” The girl slowly turned her body away from Lester. She was done with him, her point made. His three card draw– being what it was– had goosebumps running down her spine. Realistically, she knew both of them would probably think she pulled it out of her ass, and really, was a half memorized Cosmo magazine article any different? Mostly she was curious to see if she was correct. Lester loved her? Maybe. Struggled over her? Definitely. The future was the only thing she couldn’t see immediately. Maybe she’d be here to see.

She quelled the discomfort from that. She wished with every fiber of her being that she pulled a heart card for Vincent that said he was irrevocably in love with her. So much so that he planned to spill her blood and drink her down because she was bored of this little cell.

“Let’s see,” she hummed, "the past first, because that’s where we look for guidance.” She tried to make her words believable even as she had no clue what the cards would say. It sounded pretty good, like something a carnival worker would say, right?

“Four of clubs.” She set Vincent’s past in front of her. That one had the connotation of blind acceptance. More specifically, if she pulled this card in the present position, she would caution Vincent about being wary of the people he blindly trusted. In the past? His blind trust had come to fruition, and he was deep in the midst of what that trust had cost him.

“Vince wants to know what it means.” Lester said quietly. Her gaze slid up from the card and found the hulking behemoth leaning against her bars too, staring down at the little card.

Should she lie? Would talking about this so-called blind trust put her in a tighter spot? Yeesh. She didn’t know. All she knew was that the ghosts in the room talked too much about the wrong things. So she shuffled the deck instead, avoiding the flat glare of the four of spades and focused on pulling his present, curious to see how they would intertwine, more for her own sake.

“Huh, the six of diamonds.” Not a heart card. Heart cards had the connotation of talking about relationships, especially personal ones. A diamond card? Change.

Her face leeched of color, or at least it would have if her face had any left. When had she last eaten? Her blood felt so slow like it barely crawled up into her brain anymore. Maybe that was why she was down here reading fortunes for serial killers waiting for one to bestow her a grain of love big enough to end the misery of waiting for starvation or dehydration to take her.

Hush. She stuffed the whining of her body somewhere back into the depths of her internal gardens, burying it under the weeds where it wouldn’t bother her anymore. She returned to her pavilion in the “Here and Now” and resumed paging through the half remembered Cosmos’ magazine, struggling against the veil of time to read what was printed there.

The six of diamonds was indicative of separation, and arguments. A relationship failing. Mixed with the card of his past, she had to wonder. The same relationship from his past? She had no clue what kind of social life her captors had, but all she’d seen so far of any sort of lasting relationship was the one between brothers, since there was no one left in this hell hole but them. Vincent rarely left the basement, and when he did, it was to bring down another body and ghost. When he left, it was to ruin relationships, not create them.

Or was it talking about her? Her finger brushed over the diamond card, touching each diamond with her pinky, grounding herself in the moment to stay away from the worries waiting for her in the weeds.

What should she say?

Vincent’s fingers snapped in front of her face and she was pulled from her mind. The giant man touched her chin gently, directing her eyes to the pale wax mask covering his features. The one blue gray eye caught her interest and she was sucked inside to the infinitely dark and deep ocean of the man she knew would be her end. The one she hoped for anyways.

Death. Yes, deep in his ocean was a sunken ship, crammed full of bodies and decay, a diorama for his vicious imaginings to hide. She was only wading in the top waters, the eerily calm glassy surface where no gales of wind disrupted his efficient demeanor.

He tapped the underside of her chin, clacking her teeth together painfully, pulling her back into the present once again.

“Yes?” She murmured. What had she been doing?

He held the two cards up. Ah. The fortune thing. She was so tired.

The girl pulled a card from her stack and held it up, tucking the last card into its spot in his future. Two of diamonds. Another? What was with this man and pulling only change cards? Where was the heart card that told her he'd kill her soon? All she got was the two of diamonds telling her he had a change in relationship on the horizon.

The same relationship? The one from his past? She didn’t know.

“You’ve been trapped by trust.” She tapped his past card, avoiding the searching gaze of the giant man, “and a relationship is falling apart now,” her finger set against his present, “and you’ve got a change in a relationship coming.” Her finger lingered over the future card. At this she turned to him, raising her eyebrows as if to ask. Is this it? Was this the golden ticket? His gentle fingers held her chin in his giant palm for a moment more, reaching through the bars of her cage to touch her. The cards fluttered into her lap and he lost interest in her completely.

Had she said the wrong thing? Apparently so. The ghosts had gone silent, waiting for her imminent death, but when she remained among the living, a business man with a flopping toupee over his bald head scolded her.

You should be ashamed of yourself, flirting with those killers. They’re monsters.

There were no eyes in the ghost’s head to make contact with; they’d been burned out of the skull, but apparently it had happened before he died, because otherwise, how would the gaping gut wound show up as well? The shimmering ghostly man clutched at his intestines, forever in a state of stuffing them back inside. It wasn’t the worst ghost she’d seen, and certainly wasn’t the best, by a long shot. Regardless, she sent a hard glare in his general direction. A silent hush, that curbed the rest of the voices, the order ricocheting around the after-life.

What would it take to get some peace and quiet, her own death?

The cards slid back into the pile and she tucked them away, tired with all the noise and the grumblings of her own body. Her gaze rested briefly on Lester who was wearing a grimace tinged with heartache. He was watching her back, waiting for the moment their eyes met before he deepened the grimace, trying to communicate through facial expression alone. You’re a lucky one. She thought he might be saying.

Yeah? The rotting shirt stiff with blood at the bottom of my nest would say otherwise. She thought wryly, narrowly avoiding the urge to roll her eyes at the man.

Lester didn’t look anything like Vincent. Where Vincent was giant and dark haired, broad in the chest and shoulders like a bodybuilder or a farm boy, Lester was lean and thin. Dirty blond hair shoved under his ratty green cap stuck out the back in uneven hanks, testament to his own hair cutting skills. He was filthy, too.

At least in her mind, Vincent had an excuse to be stinky, but even then he only smelled of paraffin wax. The scent from Lester's pants was absolutely atrocious. Putrid. If she had anything to vomit, she’d have hurled what little she had.

Something that looked suspiciously like blood was smeared up and down his dark denim jeans, soaking up to his knees and turning the fabric black. The once-white-now-black ribbed tank top he wore next to his skin was dark with grease and filth. Under the unbuttoned flannel that was rolled up over his skinny forearms, she could see the hint of a tattoo, but what it was, she didn’t know.

He wasn’t ugly by any means. She figured that if he ever showered, he’d be a right looker. But her eyes never made it past the smell that permeated the room.

Vincent went back to his carving. His sketchbook was left discarded on the surgical table that took up most of the room. Over the table, She couldn’t see anything except that the lines of his shoulders were tight. Had she hurt him? Maybe she should stop reading fortunes from a Cosmo magazine.

“Lester? Could I have some water?” Her throat was dry and scratchy. Maybe that would explain why her head felt stuffed with cotton. When he left, trotting down the tunnel with a whistle between his teeth, the smell left with him. She could finally breathe.

“Vincent, are you alright?” She hesitantly called. For her plan to work, she needed him to remember her.

The giant looked over his shoulder, briefly, then reached over to his radio, flicking the power button. Opera burst from the ancient speakers mid soprano solo. The blatant dismissal hurt, but after a moment, the feeling slicked away and drained into the groundwaters, disappearing from her immediate attention.

The ghosts grew restless with the intrusion of his music. The dozen or so spirits crammed into the basement, drifting in and out of each other, layering on top until all her eyes could pick out was a whitish mass circled around the strange needle chair in the corner.

She’d never seen it used before, but it must have a purpose since all of the pipes in the room led to it. Some avant garde piece with wax?

Lester returned to the basement with a steel cup, the kind from an outdoor camping set. It was dented and bent at the bottom and clearly well loved with the rusted bolts holding the handle in place. Warm water hit her throat, easing the ache. It tasted faintly of rust, but she was too grateful to complain. She was careful to never ask for much. It would hurt too much to be denied.

By her second cup she felt at least slightly clearer, clear enough to thank Lester for his kindness before the call of her blanket nest was too much to resist. Fatigue and anxiety pulled at her bones, wrapping her up in moss and swamping her like she were Rip Van Winkle on the brink of his famous hundred year nap.

“What’s your name?” She heard Lester ask. What a strange question. Her name? What did it matter? She’d receive no grave here. No marker besides her lifeless body used in a sculpture in the House above. There wasn’t even a guarantee she’d keep her red hair. Vincent did not care for her name. She doubted he’d hear her if she offered one either.

“Eve.” She lied. There was no Eve, never had been in her memories. There wasn’t anything biblical about the House or the forgotten town in backwater bayou Louisiana. There was no Garden of Eden to be found. But if Lester wanted a name to call her, maybe a little God in that place would see him through to the end. Boy sure looked like he needed it.

“Perty.” He said, blushing. She looked at him over her shoulder for a long, long moment before she curled up again and fell dead asleep.

#THEE house of wax fic of all time on tumblr!#y’all have to read the last testament genuinely one of my favorite fics ever #bo sinclair x oc #house of wax #slasher x oc #battie recs

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