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Language:
English
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Published:
2023-05-10
Words:
1,000
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
14
Kudos:
86
Bookmarks:
8
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625

Struggle All You Like

Summary:

Teddy doesn't manage to get away during that first fateful meeting between himself and Renfield. Renfield knows better than to leave any witnesses at the scene.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

“Oh shit.”

The severed head hit his window with dull, wet thud. It seemed, for just a moment, to stick in place before sliding down the glass like some kind of horrific snail and falling to the pavement with a splat.

Teddy jolted back in his seat, pupils blown wide as the coke he’d just done met the adrenaline suddenly flooding his system. “Shit.”

A figure appeared in the doorway, a man clutching something in his arms. Something that Teddy realized with a lurch of nausea to be the man’s own intestines. He held them in place, preventing their escape from the gaping wound in his belly as he staggered forward.

Towards Teddy.

“What the fuck?!”

The man’s steps sped up, carrying him close enough for Teddy to see the slick wet shine of the moon reflecting off the gore the man was covered head to toe in. He limped heavily, but his injuries didn’t seem to be doing much to slow him down.

“What the fuck?!” Teddy’s hands fumbled, trying to jam his keys in the ignition without taking his eyes off the man who had just beheaded his best guy. Sure, the guy’s name was racist and he was scary as shit, but did anyone deserve to have their fucking head punted across the street like a football?

Tears welled up, blurring Teddy’s vision and falling down his cheeks in a hot, humiliating stream. “Fuck, shit. Fuck.” He couldn’t see well enough to start the car. His hands shook, and his keys fell to the floorboard. Out of reach.

The man reached Teddy’s car.

Teddy jammed the lock down on the driver’s side door, scrambling back into the passenger seat with a shriek. He slapped ineffectively, trying and failing to find the handle to escape from what he was sure to become his tomb instead of his beloved car.

The man didn’t even try the door. One hand still clutching at his belly, he punched through the blood-smeared window, sending ruby shards of glass cascading over Teddy and his beloved Italian leather upholstery.

“That was custom you asshole!” Teddy yelped, kicking out at the man, hoping to land a lucky hit to his – stupidly pretty, Teddy couldn’t help but notice – face.

A hand closed around his ankle, catching it midair with an ease that sent a chill up Teddy’s spine. He may as well have been a child for all that his struggling seemed to phase his assailant.

Teddy screamed bloody murder as he was dragged out of the car by his ankle. He tried to brace himself against the roof with his free leg, to grab onto the edge of the seat, anything to slow down the arrival of his impending painful and humiliating death – but still he slid, jagged glass tearing his clothing to shreds and leaving deep crimson gouges in his soft skin.

His leg was wrenched painfully in its socket as Teddy was finally jerked free from the vehicle. His cry of pain cut short in a stunted gasp of shock as his back hit the bloodied pavement and knocked the wind from him.

He gasped like a fish out of water for a second, brain momentarily shorting its circuits as it tried to process what was happening.

The man loomed over Teddy’s prone form, looking down at him with an animal expression of blank, predator-like focus.

One final detail threatened to break Teddy’s terrified, inebriated mind as he looked up into his killer’s eyes.

They glowed yellow, as if lit from within. A sickly, brilliant yellow devoid of humanity or reason.

“Fuck.” Teddy rasped, scrabbling futilely at the ground in a last-ditch effort to put some distance between them. “Fuck, please don’t. I’ll do anything, man. Please don’t kill me.” Tears mixed with snot and the blood from a scratch he’d somehow gotten across his temple in the struggle.

The unknown man – was he a man? He definitely didn’t look human – cocked his head as if surprised at the sound of Teddy’s quavering voice. He dropped Teddy’s ankle and the unnatural yellow glow faded, leaving Teddy to question if it had actually been there at all. Was he going crazy? Oh fuck, he was going crazy, wasn’t he?

“Apologies.” The man, who was apparently British, of all things, seemed genuinely remorseful. “This got a bit messier than I’d have liked.” He patted his pockets with his free hand as if searching for something, altogether alarmingly unaffected by the slow ooze of thick blood from between his fingers where he still held his own organs in place.

It dripped in sluggish, heavy drops that seemed black in the dim light. Spattering across Teddy’s own stomach as the man stood over his prone body. Teddy gagged in disgust, turning his head away from the sight.

He tried and failed to push himself up off the ground, to crawl away, anything. Teddy managed to roll onto his stomach and drag himself all of two feet before something heavy slammed down on the back of his ankle with a crunch and a pop.

This time, Teddy’s screaming sounded more like that of wounded prey than of a person. Pain unlike anything he’d ever felt made bile rise in his throat and his vision turn dark and hazy. Some detached and distant part of his mind wondered if there was anyone nearby to hear him. They were in the heart of the city and yet Teddy’s entire world seemed to consist solely of himself and this terrifying creature disguised as a man.

A weight settled on his back. Teddy’s head was wrenched back up off the ground by his hair. A string of pink, bloodied saliva hung from his lips, momentarily connecting him to the asphalt before it broke. The man didn’t say anything, just placed a faintly sweet-smelling, stained cloth over Teddy’s mouth and nose.

There was no time left to struggle before unconsciousness overcame Teddy like an ocean wave.

All at once, the world went black.   

Notes:

I'm not normal about this movie