#we’re almost done with the | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

s0fter-sin · 2 months

Text

it’s the sound that tips him off.

it’s late, half-past hell by his last count, and mactavish knows there shouldn’t be a single soul in the showers this time of night. though he’s sure if he asked, he’d be told a soul isn’t in there.

just a ghost.

he almost chokes on the thick steam filling the locker room; humid and hazy and the perfect cover. or it would be, if the man collapsed in the far stall cared about hiding.

mactavish hates himself a little for the low sigh that falls from his lips. he wishes he wasn't so disappointed; that the promises he's heard over and over and watched be broken as many times hadn't wedged their way into his heart and convinced him that maybe, maybe this could be the time it sticks.

he doesn't know what's worse; the disappointment or the lack of surprise.

he holds his breath through the steam and leans over the limp body; stinging hot water hitting his back, instantly soaking through his clothes and already starting to burn. he flicks the tap enough to take the bulk of the heat out and straightens; a groan startling out of the man beneath him at the sudden lash of tepid water.

mactavish crouches, knees clicking and hooks a hand under his bicep to pull him up straight against the wall. if there was any vomit on his skin, it's been washed away by the pelting stream and he supposes he can count himself lucky for that. he tilts his limp head back and slips his fingers into his mouth; holding down his tongue and ignores the way it lazily jolts under his fingers to check his airway.

clear.

another small victory.

mactavish pulls his fingers out and cups his chin, keeping him tilted up and moves in the way of the water again so he can pull at his eyelid.

the eye he's met with is cloudy, so dilated there's hardly a ring of blue left.

he sighs again; hand falling away and letting his eye fall shut. "god damnit, riley."

riley moans, all his weight resting on the hand holding his jaw.

"aye, 'm talking ‘bout you," he grunts tiredly.

he lets riley's head fall forward to grab his arm, pulling him away from the wall to sit behind him; propping his body up against his chest. he leans his head back over his shoulder, keeping his face out of the water and his airway open just in case he hasn't actually finished throwing up.

he takes the rag riley'd half-managed to soap up and mechanically runs it over him; cataloguing new bruises and cuts and checking if the old ones are healing. sickly yellow fingerprints ring his hips, red splotches paint his ribs; too new to have settled into the deep purple he knows they’ll become.

riley slowly makes more noise as he rubs life into his body; still lying limp against his front but his head's starting to roll restlessly on his shoulder. he swipes between his legs and carefully doesn't think a single thing about what he finds.

"sean?" he rasps and mactavish's hand stills; eyes falling shut. he bites his check, hand clenching around the rag tight enough to shake and breathes hard out his nose.

he doesn't say a word, just forces himself to go back to cleaning.

he's not sure what would come out of his mouth if he did.

riley isn't conscious enough to hear him anyway.

he runs his fingers over his inner elbows for tracks and manages to muster some relief when he doesn't find any. seems to be a pill and booze night; far from the worst condition he's found him in.

he rinses him off, running a curtesy hand over his shaved head only for it to fall back to his jaw; his thumb stroking over the thick scar carved into his cheek.

"you gotta stop doin' this," he whispers.

he isn’t sure if he’s talking to riley or himself.

mactavish gathers up riley's too-light body into his arms and turns off the shower. his head lolls into his throat and he throws a towel over his dripping body and another over his shoulder. it doesn't stop him from tracking water all the way to his quarters but he'd like to see someone try to put in a complaint about it.

he lays out the other towel on the bed and sets riley down; moving his body into the recovery position in an all-too familiar routine. he dries him enough that he won't soak the covers as he pulls them up to his chest and kicks the waste bin within grabbing distance of the bed.

he goes to pull off his sodden clothes when a different noise makes him freeze.

a low sniffle.

mactavish slowly turns back to the bed to find riley's eyes squinting open; glazed with tears as he kneads at the covers.

he stares at him for a moment as he looks around the room and those hazy eyes lock on him for the first time. "cap'n?"

he swallows. "aye; s'just me, riley."

his hand pokes out from under the covers and for all the promises he's made himself - all the “never again”s and “this is the last time”s - at the end of the day, he's weak.

he sits on the side of the bed and takes riley's hand in his; already so cold after nearly boiling himself alive.

"y' mad a' me?" he sniffs.

mactavish runs his tongue over his lip and slowly shakes his head. "no, i'm not mad at you."

"prom'se?" he pushes.

he reaches out and caresses his temple with his thumb. his hand almost covers his head and it cuts like a knife to remember just how small riley is. "aye," he says, hushed. "i promise."

riley's eyes fall shut, voicelessly murmuring 'promise’ to himself over and over.

"I’ll ge’ bett'r," he slurs and between one breath and the next, he's out.

mactavish sighs, running his hand in a final pass over his head and stares at a face that looks so much younger in sleep; bruised and sallow skin hidden in the shadows. "i know you will."

he presses a slow kiss to his forehead, shutting his eyes against the grief that wells in his heart and gets up to pull a chair over to the bed; settling in for another long night's vigil of watching his broken lieutenant sleep, ready to tilt him over if he throws up, eyes locked on the slow rise and fall of his chest fearing tonight may finally be the time it stops.

#drug use #tw drugs #guess whos back on her 09 shit #its me bb!!!#anyway 09 ghost who’s just completely messy #if he’s not on an op then he’s at clubs drinking & taking anything he can get his hands on #mactavish knows what he gets up to and hates it #hates watching him destroy himself stumbling back to base with no memory of what - or who - he’s done #hates seeing him prod at bruises knowing he has no idea where they came from #mactavish is more pissed that whoever riley was with just left him like that and that riley is totally fine with it happening #more than once he's found him almost od'ing half passed out in his room or the showers #and every time riley will slur out apologies and promises mactavish knows better to believe #riley knows how much it hurts mactavish to see him like this but its just so painful to live in his head #he can’t help but try and get out of it the only way he knows how #this is pre relationship btw just to make it all hurt a little more #ghost never remembers how he ends up back in his own bed after a bender #the whole point of them is to forget #he’ll end up missing days at a time and never question what happened to him in the meantime #if he thinks hard enough sometimes he can pick up flashes of a familiar voice rasping in his ear and big hands moving his body #but it’s hard for him to believe they’re anymore than drug induced hallucinations of what he really wants #coming out of my cage and ive been doing just fine.txt #talk to me ghost #we’re a team. ghost team #09 soapghost #09 ghoap #soapghost #john soap mactavish #soap cod #simon ghost riley #ghost cod

64 notes · View notes

bucketsofmonsters · 1 year

Text

The Shapeshifting Detective - Part 7

cw: parental death, grief, referenced murder, allusions to sex work, slow burn, more tags will be added as the story continues

male shapeshifter x fem character

word count: 4k

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

Kate had been awake for what she was certain must have been hours, just lying there. Too afraid to break this sliver of peace she’d stumbled upon.

The steady rise and fall of her chest naturally mimicked that of Vincent's as she felt it against her side.

The quiet couldn’t last forever. He shifted away from her with a groan. She couldn’t help but wonder if he’d just awoken or if he’d been basking in the moment like she’d been.

“C’mon,” he said, his voice soft. “We gotta go, just follow me.”

She let him pull her to her feet without protest, following quietly behind, the lingering peace of sleep still blanketing her in a calm that she desperately needed.

As she followed behind him, one hand clasped Vincent’s while the other still carried Anne’s dress, cradling it close to her chest as he led her through the streets.

“Where are we going,” she finally asked, feeling disoriented by his route. She was used to main streets and grand entrances, not the back alleys that she was being pulled through now.

“Somewhere safe,” he said plainly, and as her drowsiness began to fade, the evasiveness of his answer struck her.

She was on alert once again and although the streets weren’t ones she was used to, it didn’t take long before some of them became eerily familiar.

As soon as she realized she stopped in her tracks, staying firmly planted in place as Vincent attempted to tug her onwards. “What do you mean somewhere safe? You said she was dangerous.”

“She won’t hurt you, don’t worry,” he tried to reassure her, but the fact that he’d attempted to hide it overrode the sincerity in his tone.

“I don’t even know what she is!”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry, but I need to find somewhere safe to bring you and Evelyn is one of my only options.”

A few days ago that wouldn’t have been nearly enough to convince her but a few days ago she had a lot more freedom. “Fine, but you have to tell me what she is. No more vagueness and secrets, I want to know.”

“Do you promise you won’t freak out?”

Kate nodded solemnly.

“Alright, well the closest thing you have in human lore is a vampire.”

Kate gasped, her eyes widening as her hands flew to cover her mouth. “She’s a vampire? Hold on, vampires are real?”

“You promised not to freak out, this looks like freaking out.”

Her mind was already darting through the implications. “Wait, so how many of the creatures in folklore are real?”

“I don’t know, most of them. Can we talk about this later?” he asked as he glanced around.

“That’s wild, that’s… you know, in hindsight, I think I should have seen that coming, she fits it perfectly. She isn’t doing much to hide it, is she?”

“No, she most certainly is not. Can we please go now?”

The new information hadn’t done much to soothe Kate but she let Vincent pull her along once more. She’d already decided to trust him, if he said she’d be safe here she knew that it was true.

Or at least that he believed it.

It was much easier to enter Evelyn’s home through a doorway. Not that she would have had the option. She noticed with a twinge of misplaced pride that all the windows that had previously been left open to air out the rooms were now firmly closed and locked.

Vincent walked in ahead of her and she let him take the lead. As eager as she’d been to run into situations head first, this seemed like one where it was wise to stay back.

She heard the clicking of heels and a familiar voice said, “I swear to god if you’re bringing me another unconscious human I am going to…”

Evelyn stopped in her tracks the second she laid eyes on Kate, her expression shifting from that of vague amusement to a distressed sort of fury.

Vincent gave her an apologetic smile. “Well, she’s not unconscious.”

Her eyes flitted back and forth between you, the moment of angry panic fading back to her practiced lazy confidence. “Vincent, I swear to god, you cannot keep doing this.”

“She needed help!”

“Odd, feels like you can’t seem to stop running into people who need help. I don’t know how I seem to keep missing them. Actually, maybe I prefer it this way. You’re getting too trigger-happy lately. At least this one seems like she’s been invited here, although why you’d do such a thing is beyond me.”

“For the record, I am not trigger-happy. The Daniel thing wasn’t even my idea! She’s the one who knocked him out!” he said, gesturing vaguely in Kate’s direction.

That seemed to pique Evelyn’s interest, her gaze shifting for the first real time, to Kate. No longer was she regarding her like a stray dog Vincent had brought, now she was looking as if she was a real person standing before her.

“Did you?” she prompted, looking Kate up and down, making her squirm a little under the unrelenting inspection.

“I needed to. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

That earned a wry chuckle from her. “Well, at least this one’s more interesting than the last one. She’s got more bite to her. Maybe we will get along.”

Kate winced at the word bite. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

Kate hadn’t thought that Evelyn could get any more irritated with Vincent but in that moment she was genuinely concerned for his wellbeing.

“Now why would she think that’s a joke,” Evelyn asked through gritted teeth.

It was his turn to squirm as she glared at him. “We may have discussed some of your… proclivities.”

Her jaw tightened as she stared Vincent down. “And what else might have you discussed?”

“On the bright side, you don’t need to worry about calling them humans when she walked in. There’s no more game to give away, use all the weird language you’d like.”

Evelyn did not seem to view this as the positive Vincent was attempting to spin it as.

“I am counting the days until you either figure this shit out or give up and frame someone. I can’t even get gray hairs but I swear every time we talk I get closer.”

That perked him up. “About the figuring it out situation…”

Kate cut him off. It was her decision now anyways, he didn’t need to flounder in an attempt to explain. “It’s done, my mother confessed. She hasn’t been arrested yet but it’s only a matter of time.”

“You solved it?” Evelyn asked, giving Kate a once over as she did.

She nodded. “Should’ve done it sooner. It’s my fault it even took as long as it did. But this case will be closed soon, I will make certain of it, do whatever it takes.”

Evelyn raised an eyebrow at her statement. “Whatever it takes, huh?”

Kate nodded, her absolute determination refusing to waver.

Vincent cut in, adding, “Also, everyone might currently think Kate did it so that’s a minor roadblock we need to handle. In related news, I’m just gonna leave her here for a couple hours. Just like… 12 hours. Maybe 14.”

Her attention snapped back towards him, losing whatever interest she’d had in Kate. “Vincent! I have appointments tonight, what am I supposed to do?”

“Postpone them?”

If looks could kill, he would be long gone. “You aren’t doing this. I know you aren’t. What has gotten into you? You said you figured it out! That’s it. It’s done, case closed, just go arrest her. We can all celebrate no longer being murder suspects and you can take Kate along as you clear her name.”

“I have to figure some stuff out first.”

She rubbed her temples. “Vincent, I went along with your stupid little plan to unravel all of this instead of just pinning it on someone, please don’t make me regret it.”

“I won’t. Just give me a few hours, that’s it.”

“14 hours is not a few hours.”

“You’re the best, thanks!” he called back, already heading towards the door as Evelyn continued to scowl at him.

She spent what felt like an eternity just glaring at the door that was slowly swinging closed with a squeak that seemed deafening in the otherwise quiet room.

Finally, with a huff, she turned her attention back to Kate, saying, “I know this isn’t your fault but I think I might blame you anyways.”

Kate managed a weak smile. “Shame, I thought we could both blame Vincent.”

“I might take you up on that when he gets back. He’d rather listen to his human of the week than me anyways.”

Kate wanted to press that statement and learn more about Vincent but it seemed wise to leave that particular topic alone, at least until Evelyn calmed down.

“Who were you going to pin it on?” she asked instead. It took massive amounts of restraint to not tack a ‘was it me?’ onto the end of her question.

“I couldn’t have cared less. You were at the top of the list until Vincent started fawning over you. Your little fiance was a close second.”

“He’s not my fiance. And the motive isn’t there, it wouldn’t have made sense.”

She rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t matter if it makes sense, just matters that it’s not me.”

“Speaking of my non-fiance, where are they? Him and that detective?” Kate asked as she glanced around, looking for any signs of a makeshift prison.

“Blindfolded and handcuffed to a pipe in a closet. They’re very annoying to take care of, I wanted nothing to do with the matter but the alternative was Vincent taking care of them and I wasn’t about to let that happen.”

“Because they would have escaped under his watch or because he would’ve let them go?”

She waved the question off. “One or the other, impossible to know with him. Although those two don’t really seem like his type, especially not after he met you.”

“Oh.” She couldn’t help but wonder what would it have been like if he’d met one of them first. Maybe he would’ve been by Daniel’s side instead. The thought made her feel a little sick, though she couldn’t fully place why. Pushing it aside, she continued on with her neverending questions.

“What appointments are you missing?”

“I’m supposed to be drinking people’s blood, dear. Amongst other things. Why all the questions, are you interested?”

She smiled and Kate couldn’t tell if she was flirting or teasing her. If she had to bet, she’d put her money on both.

“Do you… kill them?” she asked hesitantly.

“God, you’re so dramatic. No, I don’t kill them. You’d be surprised how many people are ready and willing to participate.”

“You get men to willingly sign up to get their blood drunk?”

“Did I say men?”

“Just any old person then?”

She shrugged and gave Kate a knowing smile. Every smile from her felt almost antagonistic. Like it was meant to be a little frightening, an active attempt to make herself as offputting as possible. “I don’t discriminate. Bloods blood, after all, and a humans a human.”

One thing was missing from her menacing smile though. “You don’t have fangs. Don't vampires usually have fangs?”

The question seemed to catch her genuinely off-guard, reeling back a little before regaining her composure and putting on her imposing little performance once more. “I did. They got filed down, it’s standard practice nowadays. Hurts like hell but they say it's better than being so recognizable, that there are less suspicious ways to draw blood. It’s a shame, I wish I still had them. Fuck what the humans think, I can fend for myself.”

“Wouldn’t that just make everything harder? I imagine the clothes do,” she said, looking down at the intense black that even Kate couldn’t match in her funeral garb.

“It does. I don’t give a shit. We’ve hidden for long enough if you ask me.”

Kate couldn’t help but smile at the thought. She’d spent her whole life hiding and lying, not knowing there was any other option. And then these monsters, these creatures of honesty and bravery appeared and it somehow felt more foreign than anything else they ever could have shown her.

It was overwhelming, being faced with people with so much to lose being so much braver than anyone she’d ever seen, than anything she could ever do.

Now when she thought of returning home, back to normalcy, it wasn’t just dread of the inevitable that filled her. There was something else sneaking in, this sense that she would be choosing this, that she could escape the endless lies and the hiding. After all, they did.

Her breathing got shallower and her chest felt tight right under when she was holding Anne’s dress.

Looking down at it, she came to a decision and the tension dissipated. The dread and the grief couldn’t catch up with her if she just kept moving so that's what she’d do.

“I’ll get out of your hair,” she said with the politest smile she was still capable of. “Do you have somewhere I can change?”

“Where ever you’d like, I don’t mind.”

Kate got the distinct impression Evelyn wouldn’t have minded if she started stripping right there and then but still she wandered off until she found an empty room.

It had a bed in the center with some suspicious stains on it that she tried not to think too hard about and dozens of mirrors lining the perimeter of the room. It wasn’t exactly ideal but it would do for the short time she’d be here.

She had absolutely no intention of staying put, but she knew she couldn’t show up as she was. Even now she wasn’t that reckless. But Vincent had unintentionally given her a disguise and she’d be amiss not to use it.

It was a good bet, no one really noticed the servants, especially if she stuck to herself. The hardest part would be getting out without Evelyn stopping her.

Her attempt to get out of her mourning clothes was not going well. She hadn’t noticed how much she was shaking until she was face to face with the buttons and lacing of her dress.

A familiar, looming presence arrived in the doorway.

Kate could feel her gaze even before she turned to meet Evelyn’s eye.

“It’s polite to knock,” she said, not allowing the woman’s presence to stop her from attempting to free herself of the endless black clothing.

She watched, an amused look on her face as she watched Kate struggle to undo her clothes on her own.

“You need help with that?” Evelyn asked, not even attempting to hide her smile.

“I’m fine,” Kate replied with a huff.

“Seems like it.” She watched as shaky fingers struggled to untie a bow for a few moments more before pacing over and swatting Kate’s hands away.

She pushed Kate’s tensed shoulders down and added, “Relax a little, I don’t bite. Well, I do but that’s beside the point.”

Somehow that didn’t add to Kate’s trust in the woman.

She continued on, barely paying any mind to the rising tension of the girl below her fingertips.

“What do you think of him,” she asked as Kate felt the garment loosen.

“I don’t know. He’s one of the kindest people I’ve ever met, I guess. Haven’t had much time to think about anything at all lately.” That wasn’t quite true but she was sure Evelyn didn’t want to hear about the neverending flurry of thoughts that plagued her.

Evelyn guided the dress down her arms, the corset loosening around her a few moments later.

She kept talking as she worked. “That boy has a real bleeding heart. I try and get him to loosen up and have some fun and he brings home a handful of strays with sob stories.”

“Is that what I am?” she asked, trying to get a good look at the woman behind her through the mirrors. “One of his strays?”

“I don’t know. Usually, he moves them along pretty quickly, tries not to get too attached. With you, well, I think it might be too late for that. Good luck getting rid of him now, I certainly haven’t had any luck with it.”

The last remnants of her mourning garb fell to the ground and before Kate could protest that she could take it from here Evelyn was already helping her into Anne’s clothes.

“Are you trying to?”

“Not really. But don’t tell him that, I have to keep up pretenses. I would ruin my brand if people found out I wasn’t a heartless bitch.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t think there’s any danger of that.”

“Be careful. What is it they say about glass houses?”

As Evelyn finished, Kate looked at herself in Anne’s clothes in one of the many mirrors lining the walls, but Evelyn didn’t seem interested in leaving. She hovered just behind Kate, eyes roaming her without so much as a care about Kate’s feelings on being inspected.

Her head cocked to the side as if trying to get a new angle on Kate. “Your mind is elsewhere. What’s going on up there?”

“I need to go back.”

“I know. That’s why you’re getting dressed, isn’t it?”

“Vincent wouldn’t want me to go,” Kate blurted out.

Evelyn looked around the room. “Huh, I had no idea he’d snuck back in here. Making decisions for you before I could even lay eyes on him, how does he do it? Go. Do what you need to do. If he comes back early I’ll handle it.”

“Promise?”

“In regards to you sneaking out? Sure. I make no promises about anything else you might do. I have evidence of how easily you get carried away tied up in the other room, I’m not that foolish.”

“Thank you,” she said, and she wondered if Evelyn could hear her sincerity or if she’d gotten so used to faking it over the years that no one could tell any longer.

Getting home was easy. She lived in this city her whole life, lived there for so long, she could find her way home from anywhere.

It filled her with unease the second she laid eyes on it but the emotion didn’t feel out of place. It had always been there, bottled up with every other emotion.

She managed to make her way past people of various stations as she slipped inside, avoiding eye contact and keeping her head down as much as she could.

She was so set on keeping her head down and out of trouble that she didn’t even see her coming until she heard the faint gasp.

Her head rose to see Anne backing away from her, hands raised in a quiet surrender, like she was a wild animal who could pounce at any moment.

“Kate,” she said quietly. “You shouldn’t be here.”

She hadn’t been certain why she was coming back until this moment, with Anne in front of her. Before it was just the need to keep pushing forward propelling her, sending her back again. But now, staring down the person who’d been her only friend, she knew exactly why she was here. “I needed to come back.”

Anne kept backing slowly away, edging towards the door. “No, you didn’t. There’s nothing left here. Now I know we didn’t leave off on the best terms but you shouldn’t do anything rash.”

“I didn’t… you’re scared of me.” The observation felt like a punch in the gut, all of the air being sucked out of her.

“No, I’m not,” she said too quickly in a voice a little higher than it should’ve been.

“Please don’t do this. I’m still Kate, I’m still…”

But was she? She wasn’t even sure she could recognize the Kate that Anne knew anymore. For so long, that was the closest to honesty she’d gotten, and yet now that girl felt like just as much of a stranger as everyone else did with their own unique set of lies.

“Yeah, of course you are,” she said, in a desperate attempt to placate her.

There was nothing she could do to fix this. Not this version of her, not this person who Anne didn’t know. Kate had pushed her away at just the wrong time and now Anne was scared of her and there was nothing she could do to change that.

Anne finally seemed to decide she’d edged close enough to the door, turning heel and running through the doorway.

A few moments later, a familiar detective walked through the door, presumably retracing Anne’s panicked steps.

Worry creased his brow as he laid eyes on Kate. “What’re you doing here?” he asked, rushing to her side. He pulled her chin up, forcing her eyes to meet his in an attempt to ground her. “You shouldn’t be here. I’ve got this, you’re going to get yourself hurt.”

“No. I… I needed to be here.”

He glanced nervously behind him as he spoke. “Alright, we have bigger problems right now. Is she going to tell someone you’re here? Do we need to run or can you just hide?”

And she didn’t know. She has no idea if her best friend in the world was turning her in as they spoke.

The most she could manage was a shrug and then they were off, Vincent dragging her behind him.

This time there were no arguments as he took her back to Evelyn, shouting, “I told you to keep her here,” as soon as he entered.

Evelyn rolled her eyes. “She wanted to leave, what was I supposed to do, lock her up?’

He was wide-eyed and disheveled, looking more frustrated than Kate had ever seen him before. Evelyn stood as confident as ever.

Kate just let them bicker, Vincent furious and insisting she could’ve been hurt while Evelyn tried to remind him that it wasn’t his choice to make.

“What were you even doing there?” Kate finally asked, cutting off their fighting in an attempt to make sense of as much of this as she could.

“Talking to your mother, trying to get her to recant her statement. To give you an escape route, if you needed one. I think if you let me try for longer, I might be able to-”

“Please stop.”

He shook his head, “No, I really think it’s possible.”

He didn’t get it. She had to make him get it. “And who then? If not her, then who? What innocent soul are we sacrificing if it's not my mother? “

“I don’t know, we’ll figure it out.”

“No, let’s talk about it right now. Maybe Evelyn, what about that? She’s an easy target.”

He looked like a kicked puppy but she couldn’t stop. She needed him to understand. “You’re not being fair…”

“Okay, not her. Blame it on one of the staff then. They had easy access, I’m sure we could come up with a motive. I’ve got an easy one, just say it was Anne. Everyone knows we’re close, it would be an easy sell.”

“Stop it.”

“I can’t. I can’t stop until you understand.” She got more and more frantic the more she spoke. “ It has to be her. She did this. I know she’s my mother and I know you feel for her but I also know that we can’t just leave this be. He’s dead and she did it and that has to be it. I need that to be it.”

“Okay. Yeah, okay, that’s it then.”

“That’s it?” she asked, and she hated how small she sounded.

“That’s it. Your call.”

She expected to have to fight harder but he backed down. He’d been telling the truth, she supposed. It was up to her, her choice to make.

She opened her mouth to thank him but before anything could be said, a knock on the door echoed through the room.

Kate and Vincent turned to look but Evelyn sprung right into action. She manhandled Kate into the closest cupboard, shutting the door after hissing at her to stay absolutely quiet.

She held her breath as she stood in the wooden box that was barely big enough to fit her. The front door swung open and Evelyn alone greeted the people at the door, Vincent off somewhere. Maybe he was hiding in some other equally cramped space.

Her blood ran cold as she heard a few words through the door, muffled talk about warrants making its way to her.

The police were here. If they found her she would be arrested but worse than that, there were two kidnapped people in this house, kidnapped people who knew far too much.

If they found and freed them, that was it. Evelyn would be arrested and what would Vincent even be able to do? Harvey and Daniel would hear tales about all the things they managed to do despite having been kidnapped and they’d all know. Vincent would have to just go, leave the two of them at the mercy of the law, or worse, he’d try something stupid and all three of them would get hurt.

Kate did the only thing she could think of. She took one final, deep breath as she stepped out of the cupboard

“I’m in here,” Kate called, praying she could convince the police that Evelyn had no idea she was hiding here, that at the very least she could protect someone.

It certainly got their attention. Barely a moment had passed before she was being restrained and hauled towards the door.

On her way out she passed Evelyn, giving some sob story to the officer in front of her.

In one fleeting moment of eye contact, as Kate was pulled out, she saw a gleam of acknowledgment in her eyes, a quiet thank you that turned to fear once more before any of the officers even had time to notice.

It was in Evelyn’s hands now. Kate was shoved into the back of a police wagon as she sent a silent ‘good luck’ to the pair she was leaving behind. She had a feeling they’d all need it.

#the shapeshifting detective #terato #monster bf #monster boyfriend #monster x human #shapeshifter #Evelyn my beloved <3 #we’re almost done folks

80 notes · View notes