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tramplemain
ꫀꪜꫀꪹꪗꪮ᭢ꫀ ꪶỉꪜꫀక
1 - kol when he finds out why kieran proposed this experiment.
2 - anything with the heirs prior to David getting possessed.
3 - allison and lydia post nogitsune
4 - shep's early days in the underground
5 - bela and elijah's jet setting adventures
6 - oliver and laurel getting together
7 - rebekah and doc, first meeting
8 - derek and hayley, date night
9 - alice and doc, attempts to bond
10 - faith and mia, training montage
11 - That is a very long story involving a psychic and a circus in South Florida. Sweets.
4.
Date: 2025-09-21 07:59 pm (UTC)No.
Before dying.
He hears them before he sees them again. He can feel the shitty sheets he's been placed on top of. He can hear the tick of Alexander's watch his wears. He hears Annie's tap of her toe. He smells the blood he'll later learn is for him. The stark lighting is on low, not blinding, which he decides he appreciates as soon as he stops playing possum. Yeah, he's awake. He's here. They can stop talking about him like he's not there.
Except, why do they have that look on their faces. Like he's a ghost. Like they know his entire sordid history, like it's always been his fault. Except for his psychotic brother. That was Kai's fault.
"He'll make his choice," Alexander says as his eyes blink open. His gaze says he's been awake for longer than he's let on. But, he's been so focused on the sounds around him, he missed pertinent details. Like why Annie frowns (which he'll learn is her perpetual scowl) and why Alexander talks to an older man - his father? - in the hallway.
"Thanks for not blinding me," he manages, catching site of dimmable fluorescents.
"That's by design," Alexander confirms. Annie stays silent, watching over him. Frustrated by something. Shouldn't he be the frustrated one? "You're going to be sensitive to sounds and senses for a few hours. I haven't gone through it myself, but I know how it goes."
"How it goes?" he asks.
"He doesn't know, Alexander," she says. Annie checks her watch. Her niece finishes one of her trainings in twenty minutes. She promised drinks. And yet she's here.
"What's the last thing you remember?" Alexander asks, head tilted down. He is warmer than Annie, yet he likes Annie's no-nonsense approach. She looks like she'd rather be anywhere but here. Fuck, he'd rather be anywhere but here.
Shepherd doesn't know how to answer the question. His limbs remember that work and he stretches out his entire body like he's been asleep for hours. The last time he was honest about who and what he was - well -
"Her. Soaked in the rain. And you on the phone."
"Before that?"
"I collapsed. I was tired."
"Drained," Alexander says.
"That is another word for tired, dude."
Alexander smiles. "It is," he says. He perches on the edge of his bed as Shepherd gets his bearings and more comes into focus. The room isn't large, but it is big enough for the three of them. The wallpaper is peeling and there's a faint smell.
"Is someone making pasta?"
"Crash," Alexander says, like that's a name and not an order.
Hilariously, he does, suddenly very weak.
He awakens in the middle of the night, Alexander asleep in a chair. A handsome man is bent over, no, not him, but the night table, letting go of a bowl.
"Soup," he says.
"Thanks," Shepherd replies, pushing himself up to a sitting position. He blows on it, instinctively. He gets one or two bites in, but it tastes - off. He must be making a face, because Crash gives him a sympathetic look, like he expected his cooking to be shit.
"You need your strength, so push through the grossness." Shepherd glowers. "I promise I'm not poisoning you. I wouldn't do that. Well. I did teach myself to cook, but, Food Network goes far."
Shepherd just takes a few more sips.
"You just let me know if you crave anything else," Crash says, knowingly. Like he can feel and smell and anticipate what Shepherd might need. The soup doesn't do it for him. Isn't enough, even when he cleans his bowl.
"No one's telling me anything," he says.
"To be fair, you've been in and out for hours. And you haven't asked anything."
"And if I do?"
"Oh, I always tell the truth. I was lied to for a long time, so I refuse to lie to anyone else." Or for anyone else. Shepherd muses on that, for a second, but Crash says something else as he grabs the bowl back. "Know that what I have to say, you might not like."
"I'm convalescing with strangers," he admits. "There's not much to like. And I don't think Annie likes me."
"Annie really likes you, actually," Crash blurts out. Then, he closes his mouth. "She has a soft spot for you. We kind of all do."
"We?"
Crash indicates Alexander, asleep in his chair.
"You do only have twelve more hours, give or take. So, if you have any questions, now would be the time to ask."
"I don't even know where to start."
Crash sets the bowl back down, the spoon clanging against the ceramic. Shepherd winces.
"Sorry," he says.
"It's cool. I think - it feels like I have a wicked hangover."
"Oh, my friend. You do," Crash admits.
"Crash," another voice calls out from the open doorway. The older man.
"That is my cue," he says, picking the bowl back up. "I'll see you soon, handsome."
Crash leaves them, the wise man closing the door behind him. That's how Shepherd would describe him. Wise. And with an accent. He looks like Alexander. So, he thinks.
"You're awake," he says. Straight to the point.
"Why is everyone just stating the obvious," Shepherd asks. "There's something nobody is telling me, but your son? Is worried. And Annie --"
"Isn't here."
"Where is here?"
"A waystation of sorts. Our West Coast location."
"People really need to say what they mean."
Alexander's dad, he's decided, doesn't move closer. He stays leaned against the doorway, half shrouded in darkness.
"You're in transition," he says, simply.
"No."
"Yes. You are. And, normally, even when people don't know they are, they... know. So, I asked everybody to handle you with kid-gloves."
"I'm not a kid."
"No, you're worse. You're a dead kid." Shepherd goes to gesture that away and the man almost laughs. "Everyone's a kid to me. Don't take it personally."
"I'm a vampire."
"Not yet. Unless, I missed you taking a crucial step. That smell you can't get out of your nostrils, that should tell you."
"It does."
"Then why fight it?" he asks, like he's well and truly curious about the answer. Shepherd remains tight-lipped, putting a hand to his chest. "Abernathy," he says, calling himself a name. Now they're familiar. Not strangers.
"I don't know."
"That's a lie, but you're lucky, we deal in lies here. At least, at first. Everyone who comes here has lied to themselves at one time. It's - kind of a requirement."
"That's a fucked up requirement," Shepherd says.
"Life is fucked up. But, you know that. What's your name?"
"Shipp." He doesn't hesitate. Abernathy waits, then pops an eyebrow up.
"Like Cher."
"Might as well be," Shepherd says.
"Well, Shipp. You have a choice to make. And it's not up to Alexander, or Annie, or Crash, or anyone else." A brunette woman knocks on the door, opening it a crack. Abernathy looks back, surprised by something. Her clothing... is familiar.
"I was told Delilah's needed," she asks.
"Cagey baby werewolf. Needs someone to trust. You're going in undercover." Abernathy provides a folder Shepherd didn't even know he'd been holding behind him. Delilah steps further into the room and takes the file. She opens it, flips two pages over the front. "Take Benny."
The woman looks up.
"He's not too... seasoned?"
"He has a temporary assignment there. Your substitute teacher."
"No offense, but I hate when you send us in as teenagers."
"Teenagers need help, too, Crash."
"Crash?" Shepherd asks.
Bringing the folder down, "Crash," moves closer to him.
"Sorry, I never introduced myself. I'm Crash, like the Dave Matthews song." Shepherd just looks like he's trying to uncover a secret. "I made you soup." Off his look, she winces. "Look, I'm a long story, but we did meet. And you hated my soup, so, I will step up my soup game for you. After I go back to high school." She nods to Abernathy. "You're going to do the right thing," she says, looking back once before leaving him alone in the silence.
"By our count, you have a few hours," Abernathy says, bringing the bagged blood closer. He sets it down closer, on the surface next to him. Next to a glass of water. It's a macabre sight. "I know better than to think you're unfamiliar with this. And, when you make the decision we all know you will, I do need to debrief you. I have one dead witch and an empty sarcophagus."
Shepherd looks away.
"We know you didn't do this," he admits. Quickly.
"But, we do need to know more," Abernathy says. "And, I'm sorry, but it's policy, you're not going to be left alone, not at first. Annie's got first shift tomorrow. I heard you liked her."
"What's not to like," he asks. That earns him a devilish smirk. "It wasn't my fault," he says.
"I said that."
"I trusted the wrong person," he says. And then, he turns back, eyes wide. "Empty sarcophagus?" Abernathy nods. "And Patrick?"
"I'm guessing that's our dead witch." More like a raisin, but Abernathy's not letting that slip yet. Shepherd can see it in his eyes.
"I didn't mean to."
"It's survival," he says, understanding. "Just like that."
Abernathy leaves him there after that, leaves him in the darkness and his son's snoring. He knows he doesn't want to die. He knows he doesn't have anyone. But, he also knows he needs to trust in people. And if that trust falters, then he'll move on again. But, he can't move on if he withers away.
He picks the plastic bag up, holding it in his hands, testing the weight. He drinks for the family he lost. And the other family that, likely, hates him now. He drinks for the group he's unknowingly stumbled into. He drinks for Crash, although, they must be brother and sister using the same moniker. He drinks, thinking of his sister, gasping, telling him to run. He drinks because he's a survivor and he's so fucking sick of that being a positive trait.
He drinks to unfinished business.
Annie brings him McDonalds and a deck of cards. Crash brings him Soap Opera Digest and a mini DVD player.
And Alexander brings him Donna. Donna changes everything.