Chapter Text
You were… friends? With the thing that called itself Micheal.
Or at least that was the best way you could think to describe whatever strange relationship you had going on with the stupidly beautiful entity that had somehow decided you were interesting enough to stalk.
Not that you particularly minded, it was… cute in a way. Like the stray kitten, you found after school that your parents wouldn’t let you keep. That same kitten you hid in your room anyway so that, eventually, they’d give up and let it stay. So, would that make your friends in the Archives your parents? Probably not, since no matter how much time you spent with Micheal they’d never let you keep him.
Not that you particularly wanted to keep it in the first place. You still remember the overwhelming feeling of nausea you felt when you first saw him from just outside, standing perfectly still in front of your office window, before walking off to your favourite coffee spot.
Then, the cold pit that sunk into your stomach when you saw it sitting in the back of the cafe on your walk home, its image warped and stretched in sickening, impossible ways behind the frosted panels of glass. The trickle of blood that dripped down your nose as you stepped inside and saw him looking normal.
If you could call it that.
You stared at his messy mane of endlessly coiling blonde locks, twisting and diminishing, almost blurring, at the ends while you stumbled over your order, a tissue now stuffed up your nose. His hair shifted from bright bombshell blonde to the charming colour of a sandy shoreline to a brassy shade of gold every time you blinked.
He looked demure, pretty enough, simple. A placid grin spread across its face, just a tinge off. Yet, there was a barrier between him and the rest of the world. People seemed to stray from him unconsciously as if he stunk of sickness, or as if he weren’t there at all. As it sat, the burgundy leather of the booth bench he was on blended into his clothes till you couldn’t tell where he began and the seat ended.
A fuzz of white noise surrounded him and filled your head with a sluggish throbbing when you finally approached it in the back corner of that cafe, his eyes spun hypnotically with the shifting colours of the rainbow. Like the cursor of an overworked Macbook. Confusing. Mesmerising.
You weren’t scared, concerned, yes, but not scared. You dealt with paranormal reports every day. Hell, a paranormal encounter was the reason you joined the Magnus Institute in the first place, so this was basically your jam.
He’d try to scare you, maybe try to kill or maim you, and then you’d start bunking with Martin in the institute till it left you alone.
That was basically protocol at this point.
So, it didn’t scare you when he asked you to meet in the solemn company of headstones at a cemetery.
And it didn’t scare you when he asked you out for a drink at an abandoned pub.
And it didn’t–quite–scare you when he showed you a man, nearly unrecognisable as such for the holes full of writhing, engorged, silvery maggots littering every inch of his body.
But, you must admit, you were scared when the man, and all his lovely little “friends,” lunged out of the nest of slick silk casing and onto you. The pinching bites of the worms as they tried to bury into your skin were just barely more vomit-inducing than painful.
And yes, you were scared when you saw him just standing by, smiling, giddy, even, while you snuffed the life out of the squirming pests with a healthy dousing of fire extinguisher. Scared when he snickered in amusement while the clang of the empty canister rang off the man’s head as he collapsed to the floor.
Not scared of dying. Scared that he might want you dead.
But instead, he’d helped you, gave you more information on what those fuckass worms were, and even ripped one out of your arm (given, only after standing by and watching you struggle for a while).
How could you possibly be scared after that?
And maybe that’s when you started doodling it. When his features began to creep into your absent-minded scribbles during the slow hours at work (which most of them were); large expressive eyes with multiple pupils, thick ringlets of blonde hair that sharpened at odd ends, unnaturally curved smiles with too many wrong teeth. You hadn’t even realised who it was at first, just little drawings on your notepad or any stray scrap of paper.
You’d always enjoyed drawing, but this intense fixation had never emerged in your art before. The pieces felt familiar, but it took a spur-of-the-moment organising of the abundant mess of post-its, loose pages, paper bits, index cards, and even napkins covered in freeform scribbles and sketches into one massive amalgam of a picture before you realised that it was his gorgeous face staring back at you.
Suddenly, there was the laughter; a cacophony of sounds layered over each other like one of those shitty 80s laugh tracks until each voice in the crowd branched off as its own piercing, swirling echo, then twisted itself back together with the rest and tapered into a curling sigh–which most definitely should not have left you as flustered as it did.
And after the fanfare, it made its grand appearance, pulling itself out from under your desk, crawling all jaunty and disjointed like the girl from The Ring . Its impossibly long claws splayed out and slowly pulled back, etching screeching, splintering gashes through the wood of your desk as you scrambled back in your rolly chair, the wheels squeaking and clattering against the floor.
As he untwisted himself and rose to full height you could see each knot of his spine snap into its place and make a stomach-churning crunching, squelching? with each jolt upwards. His wild hair radiated out like a sunburst and dissolved into the swirling wood grain of your desk as his stretched neck stooped down unnaturally so as not to hit the ceiling. Its jagged locks cut tiny rivulets into the drywall where they touched.
“ You’ve been thinking of me, haven't you, poppet? ” His voice was like a breath brushing along the curve of your ear, deafeningly soft as one of his clawed fingers traced the curve of your jaw, lifting your head to meet his gaze.
Your neck ached from looking up so high.
Still, you didn’t meet his eyes, your gaze flicking over to his ringlets of hair and following along every strand trying to see where one ended and the next began. You liked his hair, liked looking at it, liked thinking that it would be softer than duck fluff, even if the ceiling would disagree with you.
Or maybe you were just trying to avoid answering him.
What were you even supposed to say? Sorry, Mike, I was just distracted by literally everything about you and was hoping you’d sit pretty so I could make a portrait. Or maybe even, I know all my coworkers fucking hate you but I was really hoping you’d show up again because you’re the most beautiful man–thing?–I’ve ever seen.
Instead, you mumbled an awkward, “Yeah…” your throat straining to make the words at such an uncomfortable angle.
They laughed again, throwing their head back as its neck stretched, skin pulled taut over delicate tendons and musculature, revealing thin blue veins that intertwined and twisted like spiralling fractals. They pressed against his skin as though if it stretched any thinner, they might be able to get out.
“ How sweet ,” he cooed, sending a bolt of static down your spine, his sharp slender finger leaving your jaw to twirl a stray lock of your hair, “ Whatever would your coworkers think? ” his sly tone hints at the scandal that would surely arise.
When you don’t answer right away he stops twirling it and pulls , eliciting a small squeal as you try to jerk away. His other hand comes down on your armrest, his body twisted around you, looming above you, with no room for you to escape. You hear the chair’s plastic pop as their grip tightens, he’s waiting for an answer.
“Who knows?” You spit back in irritation, if he wants to show up at your work, pull on your hair, and talk circles–or spirals, around you then he wouldn’t get a straight answer either. He can have a taste of his own medicine.
You expect him to laugh again–that swirling, intoxicating sound that left your head spinning–, but no, instead he stares at you with his too-large, too-blue, too-human eyes that pressed themselves to the very edges of his skin like the sockets were just a bit too small for them.
His irises ripple out from his pupil, cascading into the dark pit as it dilates endlessly.
You gulp, refusing to break eye contact as he stares down with the intensity of the sun. The corners of your eyes would have you believe that the room is unravelling around you both. You get the feeling he’s about to pounce, and there is the slow sound of tearing as his claw slices through that same lock of your hair.
“What the fuck is going on?”
The dizzying tension is interrupted by the heavy thud of the door slamming open, causing you to whip your head in its direction as Tim steps into the workspace. Micheal jolts back, clutching something in his hand protectively, and before you can look back at him he’s gone.
Leaving you and Tim alone.
“Shit, you alright?” He asks, rushing over to your chair and swivelling you towards him. His brows are furrowed–slightly raised, his lips curve down, and his eyes rapidly search your face for any sign of injury. You feel your flesh prickle from where its claw graced your jaw, but you were fine otherwise, and you shrug him off as you tell him that.
“I’m fine, don’t worry about it.” He gives you a look of disbelief but doesn’t press it. Instead turning his attention back to the strange mural of Micheal left sprawled on your desk. If it hardly represented a face before, then it was unintelligible now; the various pieces of paper and ink blending together in a mixture of goopy swirls like wax left in the sun and you can’t help yourself from feeling a bit sad at all that ruined work.
“So that was him, Micheal, right?”
“The one and only.” You chuckled, though you really hoped he was the only one. You don’t know what you’d do with yourself if you had to deal with more of those things.
After that meeting, he started showing up a lot more:
Stuffed between the library shelves, the wood warping and discolouring where it met his form when you needed to check out whatever obscure document it was this time for work.
Or sitting at one of the booths in a deli you frequent, the sandwich glitching through the table like a badly rendered game asset.
You’d even find him leering at you, perched on the shelves of your flat, littered with the dead or dying plants that you kept forgetting to water. The leaves turning technicolor in a psychedelic array of hues and bleeding together like a watercolour painting.
(You’d actually started watering them once he finally left, they were much prettier now aside from the fact that they gave you migraines if you stared for too long.)
He’d never speak to you, only watched, waiting for you to approach. And one day, finally, you did. You were at the park after work, needing some way to destress after the frankly awful day you’d had.
You spilled tea on one of your reports and were forced to transcribe the entire thing over, not to mention you were given a stern talking-to by both Jon and Elias, the former one being unbearably boring and how the latter even had a clue about the situation was anyone’s guess. But if it was Jon who tattled then he was even more of an asshole than you’d originally thought.
So, as soon as you clocked out, you immediately made a beeline for the nearest park, knowing the moment you were alone you’d probably break down. Looking at ducks was basically free therapy, right?
Maybe not, but it did manage to calm you down slightly; it was adorable seeing them swimming jubilantly over the pond’s surface, leaving little ripples in the water where they kicked their feet and waggled their tails–circles in circles in circles radiating out from under their plush little bodies…
You always wanted a pet duck, you’d seen those videos of ducklings who’d imprinted on people and followed them around like a parade of little lion’s mane daisies. Maybe getting a pet would be a good idea, it’d definitely help your flat feel less lonely.
And just as your mind got on the topic of clingy pets, you finally noticed Micheal. He was sitting on a park bench with his legs crossed politely and his hands(claws?) rested in his lap.
He looked more human than he did any time you saw him prior, it was almost possible to think that’s exactly what he was. But its shadow still stretched long, pulling uncomfortably in places it shouldn’t and bending at others. And people were still avoiding him like they had that first day, even the ducks seemed a little more frantic, and that upset you more than you’d like to admit.
Your one piece of solace in this shithole of a day was being interrupted by a stupid, sexy, monster man, who really had no right to be bothering you as much as he was. So, you did the only rational thing and stormed up to them, stopping just short of where they sat.
“You’re following me,” you stated blandly, crossing your arms over your chest. He blinked slowly, his rubbery lips pulling into a too-wide grin.
“ Perhaps,” he stretched the word, drawing it out like a piece of taffy over his teeth, “ But I am not the only watching presence you should be concerned about, little assistant.”
Yep. Ok. Definitely not vaguely ominous or threatening at all. Nope.
You’d had too much of a shit day to just stand here and take scary death omens from handsome monsters with lashes too long and too sharp fluttering over their hyperreal eyes. Any other day you might have entertained it for a little bit, hell you might have even been slightly cautious, but not today.
“Yeah, well, you’re the only watching presence who’s scaring the ducks, so leave.” You tapped your foot impatiently as Micheal’s grin stretched impossibly wider, amusement twinkling in his indiscernible amount of eyes. You shrink back slightly as he stands to full height, even when he wasn’t a huge monster man, he was still around 2 metres high, which was entirely too tall. Monster or no.
He takes a step towards you and you tense up, your arms wrapping around your body tighter and your teeth clenching. Yet you refuse to move, instead glaring up at him still defiantly. His hand brushed against your face, anyone passing by could mistake it for a lover’s caress.
But the feeling roving over your skin, lumps of coal stuffed into a burlap stack that was already bursting at the seams, was just unnerving. Unnerving, yeah, that’s why your face felt so warm.
You were very scared and most definitely not enjoying this at all. Not at all.
“ Only the ducks?” he purred slowly, and then you were falling, his hand constricting around your neck and digging large gashes into your skin as you tripped into an infinite hallway, the grimy yellow walls were peeling back to reveal chipping concrete, mildew accumulated in black streaks down upper corners, “ Are you not afraid of me, little assistant? ”
You finally hit solid ground, or at least solid enough to stop your motion while not submerging you completely. You tried to scramble back but the garish carpet flooring turned liquid at each attempt to move away from him, sucking you deeper down into its swirling patterns. You were forced to stay put, right there, in the embrace of his razor-edged talons.
Micheal was crouching over you now, his body completely engulfing yours as his large hand trailed down your neck, drawing out a thin line of blood. His human facade was completely lifted, revealing how his flesh was pulled unevenly over his body, his messy wild curls falling over your face and slicing razor-thin marks into your skin.
You gasp, musky air fills your lungs as you try to stabilise yourself only to dip further into the floor, “I’m not.” You gasped, static spreading throughout your blood as you grasped for him desperately.
His mouth stretched wide enough to swallow you whole as he cackled. That same breathy, gasping laugh like an unoiled door handle echoed around your skull.
“ No?”
His claw hitches around the collar of your shirt, tearing slightly through the fabric as it scrapes across the skin of your chest.
“ Yet your heart beats so deliciously when I am near.”
He drags his claw over your heart, digging into the tender flesh and drawing out a small hiss of pain from your trembling lips.
“ Oh how it longs to break. Out. Of. Your. Chest.” Each word is punctuated by the digging of claws, burrowing past the skin and fat, and plucking along the strings of muscle in your chest. It was agony, the way his claw caressed the space between your ribs, gliding through meat and sinew, melting around the obstacles of bone and lung until it hovered right over your pounding heart. Your lips bloomed with the taste of iron.
Yet you still weren’t scared. In pain, obviously, but not scared. How could you be when he was watching you so curiously? His eyes were wide with an animal-like anticipation, his grin pulling itself past the confines of his face. He forced his claw deeper into your heart, bit by bit, at the pace of a snail. Giving himself all the time to savour your pain and for you to tell him he was right. For you to admit that you were scared.
You couldn’t stop the hysterical laugh that forced its way out of your throat. You were going to die here. You were going to die because you were stupid enough to antagonize a fucking monster that was holding back against you to the point where it changed its mind end decided it wanted you dead, and still you’d be lying if you told it what it wanted to hear. Somehow, you still couldn’t manage to be scared.
So, you decided that your last moments would be best spent wiping that smug grin from his face. You’d admit how you felt, you couldn’t die letting him think he had you all figured out.
“That's ‘cause you’re… pretty.” You gurgled out, speckles of red spewing across his cheek as you coughed. Choking out on your own blood. You hadn’t thought you’d die this way, but it wasn’t the worst way to go. Especially since that puzzled expression spreading across Micheal’s not-face as you danced in and out of consciousness was so worth it.
…
Bright…
It was too damn bright.
It was only once your eyes clamped shut that you realised you’d even opened them in the first place. So you tried again, that slow heavy dragging of your eyelids as they forced your retinas to confront blinding fluorescence.
It wasn’t heaven, unfortunately. But it wasn’t hell either, so that was nice. Instead, it appeared to be a hospital room…
A hospital room? You scrambled up in your cot, but a pang of dull pain deep in your chest and the pull of cords and tubes strapped to you in various places sent you straight back down into the measly pillow and mattress, the cot’s metal legs creaking alongside the sound of the impact.
A steady beeping from your bedside becomes noticeable as its pace picks up—the mellow noises of a heart monitor.
Your chest throbbed and your head spun. Then you remembered Micheal, that fucker had tried to kill you. You should have expected it, you really should have, but it still made your blood boil. You do him the favour of finally obliging his persistent stalking and confessing to him that you more than enjoy his presence and he thanks you with a stab to the heart. How poetic.
Still, you were certain that was the end; yet here you were, miraculously un-murdered and filled with the horrible recollection of what had happened. You called him pretty. You called him pretty and apparently that was enough for him to let you go with your life. Damn, narcissistic much?
A sudden buzz pulled your head out of that particular rabbit hole and over to the bedside table, your phone screen face up and displaying a wall of notifications. You reached over and grabbed it, a closer look revealing a barrage of messages from Tim, Martin, Sasha, and surprisingly even Jon. From as far as you could tell you’d been out for days.
You had so much fucking work to catch up on.
You scrolled through your phone, reliving the stress of missing countless hours of world news and assuring whoever reached out that you were–probably–fine. Still, Martin, Sasha, and Tim insisted on coming to check up on you after work. Hopefully they’d bring you a fruit basket or something, like in the movies. God knows you could use a kind gesture right about now.
You finally sort through the mess left in your absence, reaching to your side again to lie your phone back down on the bed stand, but you’re brought to a pause. Off at the end of the table stands a vase of flowers which you’d neglected to notice before.
Bright yellow jonquils in a plain white cylindrical vessel… Their radiant colour the same as Micheal’s hair.
Why you were still thinking fondly of the asshole who’d tried to kill you was anyone’s guess, but the absurdity of the association didn’t stop you from reaching out to pluck a flower from the vase.
You thumbed the delicate petals, tracing the slight ridges across their thin, silky surfaces, so caught up in the sensation you didn’t even realise the nurse had walked in.
“Oh, wow, look who’s awake! That’s good, how are you feeling, love?” She asked as she scribbled something onto her clipboard.
“Fine…” Your voice came out hoarse, a dryness was plastered against your palate and over your teeth. Your tongue felt heavy in your mouth, and like sandpaper against your rough, chapped lips, “Who–how’d I get here? What happened?”
She sighed, “We were hoping you could answer that. Someone found you outside the hospital comatose, covered in multiple lacerations and with a severe puncture wound to your chest. If we hadn’t found you when we did you would have died.” Her brow furrowed in concern as you exhaled a long sigh.
So first he tries to kill me and then he brings me to a hospital–what sort of mind game is he playing now? You knew from Helen’s statement that once you entered its corridors, there was no getting out. Yet he’d freed you. You needed to talk to Jon.
It’s only after a few seconds of silence that you realise the nurse is still waiting for an answer.
“Yeah, I was uh– stabbed…” You mutter out lamely, it was close enough to the truth, not like she’d believe you anyway. What were you supposed to say? A supernatural entity that’s been stalking me for weeks took me to his backrooms and sliced through my chest with his hand claws?
“Mugging…” You add on after a few more seconds of silence. Again the woman sighs but she doesn’t press it, instead just sliding a few forms into your hands.
“Alright, well, the injury required a few invasive procedures–they should all be listed in those forms–, so you’ll need to avoid any kind of strenuous activity and drink plenty of liquids.”
Your eyes scan the paper, a ton of medical jargon; blood transfusion, IVs, median sternotomy, cardiopulmonary bypass, autotransfusion. A bunch of shit you don’t understand, but will surely make you wince when you look it up later.
“You were in pretty severe shock, so you were still out a few days after the operation was finished. You’ve been under relatively stable condition, but just as precaution we’ll have to keep you here and monitor you for a few more hours to see if anything changes now that you’re awake. I’ll give you a packet with information on how to care for your postoperative wounds and we’ll talk about scheduling follow-up appointments on your way out.”
“I’ll have to do follow-ups?” You get a headache just thinking about having to keep track of one more drab thing on an already depressing schedule.
“Unfortunately, yes. While you did get lucky–you miraculously managed not to sustain injuries to any surrounding vital organs–we still need to monitor the wound’s healing. The main complication with these kinds of injuries is the lining around your heart filling with excess fluid…” You wince at the thought.
“...So, yes, a follow-up is necessary. Ehm– Now, would you like to rest for a little bit longer or should I let your boyfriend into the room?”
It takes a moment between the excess of information and the headrush of embarrassment for you to really grasp her words. But when you do, your mind snags on the word boyfriend.
“What?”
She smiles sweetly and you get the horrible feeling that the flowers weren’t just a part of the hospital decor, “Tall, blonde, Micheal, I believe his name was?”
You nod slowly, trying to keep your composure, but even so, the beeps of the heart monitor shoot up in speed.
That asshole. First, he attacks you, then he takes you to the hospital, then he… visits you every day? As if things could make any less sense–
“You can tell him to leave, I don’t want company right now.”
She nods before turning to leave the room, “Alright, though you will need to have someone with you when you check out. You’re still in no state to get home on your own, pain medication and all.”
She starts to walk out before she stops abruptly, sending her trainers squeaking against the floor.
“I’d almost forgotten, here’s our catering menu. It’s breakfast time and I’m sure you’ve worked up an appetite after all you went through.”
She sets a laminated sheet onto your lap, the glare getting right in your eyes as she shuffles out of the room.The last thing you want to do is eat. In fact, the twisting in your gut makes you certain that you’d hurl even if you did. But still, you’re left alone in a hospital bed, so you skim the food options and wait for your colleagues to show up.
And when they do, Martin has indeed brought you a fruit basket.
Their presence eases you up just a bit, so at least you can munch on a few strawberries as you try to avoid their barrage of questions about what happened. How were you supposed to tell them you’d decided to antagonise a monster? Tim was already protective enough after the first incident, so he would most definitely be pissed when he learned you’d just been letting the entity hang around.
So you tell them you might make a statement with Jon… Maybe .
Tim is nice enough to drive you home and he thankfully doesn’t scrutinise you too much for fussing about whether or not to take those damned flowers home. Ultimately, it was a no. And to add to your blessings, Jon gives you the next day off of work to recover which is, uncharacteristically, nice.
Guess when you get almost-fatally stabbed, people treat you with a certain amount of decency they wouldn’t otherwise. How unprecedented.
As it turns out, you needed that day off more than you realised since when you wake up the next you feel absolutely dreadful. To add on to a poor night’s sleep, a drooping sluggishness has spread throughout your body and you can hardly bring yourself to even get out of bed. Not to mention your bandages are. So. Excruciatingly. Itchy.
Your day consists of replacing your wound dressing, and going right back to bed. The nurse did say to avoid strenuous activity.
The next morning comes in a bit of a blur and you think you must still be dreaming when you try to leave your flat for work only to realise your door is gone. Not snapped off the hinges or anything just gone… Like it never existed at all. No door frame, no nothing, just a smooth blank wall.
You press your palm flat against the cool surface, wallpaper dry and smooth beneath your skin. You even try giving it a little push to no avail. Yep, definitely real. Shit.
How were you going to get to work? More importantly, how were you going to explain this to the landlord? Technically you could climb out the window and head down the fire escape but your body groaned at the thought of any exertion. That sluggishness from yesterday still hadn’t left you.
Then, you hear it, that soft chittering laughter from the couch behind you. And when you turn yourself towards it with the enthusiasm of a concrete block, you aren’t the slightest bit surprised to see Micheal sitting there; splayed out across your couch like he owned the damn thing.
“Micheal.” You greet him curtly.
He grins, it isn’t as wide as usual. His form is almost human, it still twists along the edges and fades into the couch like a watercolour painting, but he doesn’t hurt to look at. Reluctantly, you have to admit to yourself, It’s actually kinda nice.
“ Pet.” He pops the P like a piece of gum, “ You are… cross with me ?” He sounds far too amused with himself, phrasing it like a question when it so clearly wasn’t. You just stare at him as he continues, “ Did you not like my gift?”
This bitch.
“I’m cross because you tried to fucking kill me.” Any semblance of calm has left you now as you storm towards him, jabbing your finger into his gaunt chest, “Flowers don't make up for that shit.”
Coming at him with no diplomacy probably isn’t the smartest idea considering what happened last time, but you could give less of a shit. If he wanted to kill you he would have done so already, this was all some sick game to him and you weren’t just going to let him have his way with you.
His chest emits a low rumbling sound that almost reminds you of a purr. Vibrating gently against the pad of your finger, you quickly withdraw your hand as he stands.
Before you know it he’s scooping you into his arms, pulling you into his scrawny body as his face nuzzles into the crook of your shoulder. His claws cage you against his chest and you feel that vibrating buzz spread throughout his whole being.
“ Such an interesting creature. ” You hear him murmur mostly to himself, rubbing against your cheek as he sighs deeply, the sound bouncing around the room.
“ But you’ll forgive me, won’t you, poppet? Because I’m… Pretty. ” The mocking lilt in his tone leaves you flushing with embarrassment as you struggle against him. Why the fuck had you even admitted that? In hindsight it was probably the stupidest way you could’ve gotten the last laugh. Even if it was probably true, it didn't mean it was a good idea to tell him that.
“Pretty privilege only goes so far Mike.” You spit his name out like venom, trying to knock your head back into his chin as you continue to struggle for escape, your chest bounding with warm pain like it’s one massive bruise. He simply laughs again, as if he’s dealing with an unruly child.
“ Tsk tsk , what did the nurse say about strenuous activity?” He smiled, holding you even tighter as his heavy palms pressed into your chest, just exacerbating the bolts of agony tearing through it.
“Whose fault was that?”
After some more struggling, a pang of heart pain finally scares you into surrendering. It’s one thing to show up with such a bizarre injury and nothing to explain it, it’s another to have to go back no more than two days after discharge for yet another unexplainable reason. So now, you’re left dangling in his arms like a pet. Guess the nickname finally works.
“Yours of course.” He giggles out as if it were the most obvious thing in the world as he sinks back onto your couch, hugging you close and cooing like this was some sort of fucked up cuddling session.
“Mine? You’re the one who attacked me.” You hiss out angrily, twisting your neck to glare up at him. His eyes are literally glowing with delight in the dim light of your flat. You’d only thought these monsters fed off your fear but apparently annoyance worked just as well because he seemed perfectly content with your reaction.
“ You wanted my attention, little assistant, I simply obliged.” You let out a long defeated sigh that most definitely stained something in your chest as you sunk into him. Accepting defeat as he raked his claws through your hair with far more gentleness than you were expecting. It felt… really good. Far too domestic for a creature like him, but nice nevertheless. Though if it’s meant to placate you he’s going to have to try harder than that. You needed to get to work.
“Yeah well if you don’t give my door back, I’m not the only one who’ll be giving you attention.” You huff out. If there’s one thing you’ve realised about ol’ Mike is that he doesn’t want to be defined, and defining the supernatural was basically your whole job, so if he was gonna pull shit like this you might as well try and use the situation to your advantage.
He cocks his head in confusion. It should not be as cute as it is.
“I’ll make a statement.” You clarify blankly and something flashes across his gaze. You’re worried for a second that he might attack again but then his lips quirk into a light giggle.
“ Are you threatening me?” He sounds positively delighted as he presses the pad of his finger into your chest slightly. A warning.
“Is it working?” You wheeze out weakly, all too aware of how badly this could end for you if he just pressed a little further. Still, you stare up at him, even as you tremble slightly you refuse to cower in front of him. He still didn’t scare you.
The seconds dragged on like the draw of a rubber band being pulled tight, till finally, it snapped. Metaphorically as well as literally as an oddly comical popping sound emitted from where your door used to be leaving a new one in its place.
He squeezes you tighter for just a second before letting you go slowly. His claws drag across your body as he releases you from his grasp. With that, you’re free. You pause for a second, checking to see if you really could leave before finally standing and walking over to the newly created door.
You say newly created because this most definitely wasn’t your door. It looked like it could be but it was fresh in a way. It had none of the little nicks and scratches of your previous one and the original’s brass knob had been replaced with a sleek, gold lever.
“This isn’t my door.”
You turn back to him, hands propped up on your hips as you glare at him. If he was trying to take you back to those damn hallways then he had another thing coming. You’d rather climb down the fire escape than go back there again.
He’s still lounging back on your couch and you’re surprised he hasn’t disappeared yet. “ Whatever do you mean? ”
“It’s not my fucking—” you feel a vein throb in your forehead, “Where the hell will this take me?” You jab your finger back at the door and his grin grows even wider. Asshole.
“ Only one way to find out.” These are his final words and he disappears before you can get another complaint out. Leaving you alone with your mystery door. Great. The next time you saw him you were going to wring his stupid misshapen neck. But for now, you had to figure out how the hell you were even going to leave your flat.
Your fingers trace carefully along the handle. There was nothing inherently wrong with it, it just seemed like a normal door. But upon closer inspection, to your annoyance, it lacked yet another detail of your old door; the spy-hole. That given, there was only one way to check what was on the other side, and climbing out the window seemed like such a hassle. Surely a little peek wouldn’t trap you as long as you didn’t walk all the way in, right?
You texted Tim: if I’m not at work in the next 30 minutes tell Jon that Micheal got me , sucked in a deep breath, and peeked through the door.
It was not, in fact, an infinite hallway coated in peeling yellow wallpaper and your own reflection staring back at you through aisles of warped mirrors. No, it was, instead, the archives. Familiar smell of damp and old files blowing through into your nose as relief let you resume your normal breathing. You could already see Tim checking his phone and even spot Martin in the break room window making tea for everyone.
You step past the threshold trying not to smile to yourself like an idiot.
You definitely wouldn’t be making a statement.