Rlly Manifested Him That Quick 💀

This is so amazing it killed me

the world (it burns through me)

Chapter 26: Angel

Ao3 | 3.1k Words | Angel's POV

David gets guilt tripped. Angel stays home and sketches. Asher uses the bumper guards. Quinn can, most likely, get into the house again.

TW: emotional and mental anguish, disordered eating and sleeping habits, violence, sexual violence, threats of rape, general creepy behavior, blood and injury, fire.

It had taken a lot of persuasion and a touch of guilt tripping to convince Davey that you were okay spending a few hours home alone while he went out for some much needed relaxation. It was a herculean task even at the best of times. Going anywhere without you seemed to make him deflate, shrink in a bit, and look after you as he slipped out of the door like a kicked puppy. 

These were not the best of times, and Davey seemed almost frantic in his presence around you and the others. Since the barbecue, he had bounced from place to place, dragging you along, looking over everyone like he was searching for injuries hiding in the folds of their clothes. 

If it was bad before, it was torture now. He wasn’t sleeping. He wasn’t eating. When he sat still for too long and dozed off, he woke up screaming, calling out your name, Trouble’s name, crying out for his dad. 

You couldn’t comfort him. You tried. Nothing worked. He grew resistant and resentful of your usual tactics, as though your love and how you showed it was lulling him into a false sense of security. 

Every brush with this fucking guy set his nerves on edge. It had scared him, your little coffee date with Quinn at the end of February. You thought he hadn’t stopped being scared since. 

It was going to start frying his brain. 

“It’s only a few hours.” You said, dumping the untouched cup of tea you’d made Davey a few hours ago down the sink. It was his favorite, and made just the way he liked it. 

“So much can happen in a few hours.” Davey called from the sliding back door. He peered out into the backyard, his dark eyes dulled and lined with sleeplessness. 

“Nothing is going to happen.” You huffed. When he slung his head around to bark at you for jinxing it, superstitious firefighter that he was, you reached down to rap your knuckles against the wooden cabinet doors. 

“I’m not going.” He replied. “I already told Ash you were.” You turned and crossed your arms over your chest, staring at him staring out of the house. He was so scared. You couldn’t blame him. You should probably be more scared than you were. That was the sort of certainty and safety that Davey afforded you. Before you knew him, when it was just you and Guy, you’d been scared of a lot more things a lot more of the time. But since meeting Davey, you hadn’t had to worry about that kind of thing. There wasn’t a thing anybody on earth could do to you that they, at the very least, wouldn’t suffer for. 

Davey seemed to think that Quinn wasn’t something he could protect you from. He seemed to consider him as some sort of boogeyman, a specter that was going to slink into your walls and haunt you to death. 

Quinn Fox wasn’t a ghost. He was a man. Men could be fought. Men could be killed. Davey seemed to have forgotten. 

“You’re going.” You said sharply. “You haven’t slept in days, let alone gotten some actual relaxation in. You are going.” 

Davey opened his mouth to argue. You held up your left hand, flashing the wedding band that sat, snug on your finger. He couldn’t really argue with that. 

It had been three weeks since the barbecue, since… whatever had happened after happened. Davey told you pretty much everything, so you thought it had to be pretty horrific for him to skirt around the details like they would burn him if he got too close. You would have liked to say that you had a great respect for others’ privacy and decided to stay out of it, but that wasn’t entirely honest. You were an incessant gossip and you’d questioned Asher, but he had no more information than you did. It seemed that everybody who knew what happened that night was keeping their fucking mouths shut. 

You had been instructed, along with the rest of the 10-19, to go about your life as normal. That there was no more danger now than there had been before that barbecue, that you were safe doing what you always did so long as you stayed vigilant and called the police if you encountered anything suspicious. The way Davey was acting, though, told you that was very much not the case. 

But he was sort of falling apart at the seams. He couldn’t have a solid grasp on what was real danger and what was his mind playing tricks on him. Not when he hadn’t slept more than a few hours a night in weeks. 

Ash and Milo arrived a few hours later, both looking exhausted and stressed, but smiling. Ash tugged David towards your bedroom under the guise of getting him out of sweats and into something presentable. 

Trouble slunk in, trailing after Milo. Whatever horrible thing had happened after the barbecue made its home in their features. You could see the lines of it under their eyes, in the curve of their crooked nose, the feathering of their blown out tattoos. God, you wanted to design cover-ups for those nasty things. It felt rude to jump the gun and do it without them asking. 

“Hey,” you smiled, pulling Milo down into a hug. “How’s…” you patted your stomach softly. His eyes cut to his periphery, caught sight of Trouble before he answered.  

“Good. Healing.” He promised. “If I can get them to take it easy it’d heal a lot faster.” 

“Unlikely.” Trouble muttered from over his shoulder.

Davey emerged in jeans and a t-shirt. Ash had even managed to get one of his silver chains around Davey’s neck, a step up from his usually minimalist ensemble. You smiled as you trailed your fingers down his chest. 

“Where are you guys off to?” You asked. 

“Bowling!” Ash supplied, bouncing on the balls of his feet. You grinned. 

“Davey’s gonna kick all of your asses.” You laughed. 

“Whoa now!” Milo nudged you. “Don’t count us all out! I happen to be pretty decent at bowling!” 

“Plus,” Asher smiled, a glint of mischievousness in the lines of his sharp teeth, “Tank is freaky lucky. Betcha he’ll lose.” 

“I’m not lucky.” Trouble scoffed. Their face was blank and serious for a moment before they seemed to shake themself awake. “Besides, Gutterball, he’ll at least beat you.” 

“You don’t know my secret weapon!” Ash said. “I’m using one of those kiddy guide things and bumper guards!” 

“The dinosaur or the unicorn one?” Milo replied. 

“Unicorn, obviously, what the fuck do you take me for?” 

They were off in the next minute or so, still bickering and laughing as they stepped out of the door. David leaned back inside at the last moment, his face gone dark again. 

“Please be careful, Angel.” He said. You felt yourself softened. 

“Always.” You replied. “Enjoy yourself, Captain. I’ll be here when you get home. Maybe I’ll be naked.” 

That made him smile. 

“Don’t make a guy a promise.” 

There were three or four multi-hour video essays on YouTube you’d been saving for a quiet evening at home. You snagged a beer from the fridge, gathered your sketch pad and pencils, and picked up on your latest flash sheet. When that proved too boring to hold your attention, you pivoted. 

You sketched out the jagged word “PRECIOUS,” mimicking the curve of Trouble’s eyebrow by memory. You stared down at  the imperfect edges of it and started trying out a few options to cover it. An olive branch. A line of curling, black smoke. A scythe. 

And then the power went out. You jumped, nearly spilling your beer, as you caught your breath. You’d been jumpy since coming home, knowing that Quinn had gotten into your house before, knowing that he most likely could again. 

It was probably nothing. It was probably a tripped breaker. 

You set you down your beer and sketch pad, walking blindly into the kitchen where Davey kept a flashlight in the junk drawer. You hesitated to click it on for a moment. If you left the flashlight off, if you couldn’t see what was in the dark, it couldn’t hurt you. 

That wasn’t true, of course. Maybe you could be convinced that ignorance was bliss. 

You clicked the flashlight on. Your kitchen was empty. The house was still and silent. The breaker box was in the basement. The baseball bat you’d used to beat in the fucking head of the guy who had broken into your first apartment after leaving home was kept propped up against the coat rack. It slid into your hands like an old friend and you made your way into the pitch black basement. 

The breaker box was dusty and the door clung to its latch as you wrenched it open. You ran your eyes and then your fingers over each breaker, trying to make sure you weren’t mistaken when you found that everything was exactly as it should be. 

You should have checked out your front window before coming down here to see if the neighbors across the street had gone dark too. Maybe it was a street-wide thing. Davey would have told you if there were rolling blackouts or any scheduled maintenance. He always kept up with that sort of thing. 

And then, the hair on the back of your neck stood on end. You sucked in a breath and held it. Some prey-animal instinct must have reared its head in you, because for a moment, you went perfectly still. 

The house was still and silent. Until you heard the puffs of slow, deliberate breath in the echoey darkness around you. You dropped the flashlight and wrapped your hands firmly around the grip of your baseball bat

Movement behind you. You’d learned well enough in your time that hesitation rarely benefited you. You were small. You weren’t fast. You weren’t strong. So you had to strike first and strike decisively. Any amount of trepidation could get you killed. 

You hadn’t had to think like this in a very long time. When it was just you and Guy, when you were the only line of defense between him and hunger, him and abuse, you fought and you fought like hell. You hadn’t had to fight since you’d met Davey. But you hadn’t forgotten how to. 

Your bat connected with a solid source. You were aiming for the head, the best and most effective way to incapacitated your opponent, but he was a good foot taller than you. Instead, you made contact with his chest. You felt his mass hold for just a moment before it gave, bone crunching under your momentum. 

You didn’t wait to see him go down in the askew, barely-there illumination of your flashlight now spinning on the ground. Instead you made a mad dash for the stairs. You had to get up the stairs, through the door, out the front door. Shit, no, he would be faster than you. He would chase you down before you made it to the neighbors’. Scratch that, you had to get up the stairs, through the door, to the guest bathroom. It had a lock and you could shove the linen cupboard in front of the door. You could call Davey. No, actually, you should call the cops first. 

Your fingers just barely brushed the door handle when he caught up to you. A bruising grip wrapped around your ankle and pulled, sending you sprawling on the stairs. Your forehead connected with one of the wooden steps as you went down, stars bursting across the murky darkness of your vision. 

By the time you got your coordination back enough to start fighting, he had you pinned on the dirty concrete floor. His hips pressed into yours, one hand wrapping around both of your wrists and pinning them over your head. Davey had had you in this exact position before, and your stomach rolled at the implications. You felt something primal and ugly rear its head in you. You would not let him hurt you. Not without a fight. 

“Quiet down, little lamb,” he purred, and even in the darkness, you recognized his voice. Cloying and sickly like too sweet chocolate. You bucked against him with renewed force, but he was so much stronger than you were. Your foot connected with the flashlight, and it cast it’s beam onto Quinn. Under-lit, he took on a movie-monster image, dark shadows on translucent, colorless skin. “We’ve got plenty of fun to have yet. If you don’t stop making such a fuss, I’ll have to find another way of shutting you up.” 

“Fuck you!” You snarled, kicking up in the hopes of at least stunning him long enough to squirm out from under him. He took the hit, your bare foot digging into his back, his eyes rolling up with the sharp pain. He seemed to be enjoying it. “Let me go, you fucking freak!” 

“Or what?” He laughed, his voice high and light. “You’ll fight me? You’ll run? I’m stronger. I’m faster.” He placed his free hand against your throat, applied just the smallest amount of pressure. It wasn’t the same as when Davey choked you. His big, warm, rough hands squeezed at the sides of your neck, so small in his grasp, cutting off blood flow. With Davey, it was more of a warning than anything, a reminder of how much bigger he was than you. Quinn pressed on your windpipe, the flat of his palm applying precise force. If he pushed much harder, he could cause damage. “You and I both know that I can do what I please with you.” 

“My husband is gonna kick your ass.” You bit out, voice harsh. “He’ll fucking kill you for touching me.” It wasn’t a threat. It wasn’t a warning. It was the simple truth of the matter. You were Davey’s. He did not share. And he did not abide anyone hurting his people. 

That laugh again, bouncing around the basement and drilling into your pounding skull. Quinn bent forward, his hand tightening down on your throat. You snapped your head to the side, an undignified whimper escaping your throat as you squeezed your eyes shut. Quinn’s hot, wet tongue met the side of your face, flat against your cheek. He licked up your face, groaning low in his chest, his hips rutting against yours. Tears pricked your eyes. Quinn’s lips pressed into your skin. 

“He can try.” 

He didn’t rape you. That was the fact you kept repeating over and over in your mind, the thin shred of dignity you maintained. He didn’t rape you, but he did drag you up the basement stairs by your hair. He did pull you, screaming and swinging out in messy punches, to your bedroom. He let you get your bearings in the darkness, fingers threading into the thick, plush carpet, before he started laying into you. He beat you like you were a violent dog, punishing kicks and hits that tore into the meat of you. You heard more than felt when the steel toe of his fancy boots broke something in your rib cage. You gasped, wet and metallic, and clung to his leg in a pathetic bid to make it stop. 

It did stop. He left you on the ground, his laughs and taunts echoing around in the space you’d made with Davey. He had built your bed frame, reclaimed wood and rustic edges, he had made nearly every piece of furniture in the room. At the foot of the bed he’d held you in, he’d worshiped you in, the bed he’d fucked you in on your wedding night, Quinn stained your handpicked carpet with blood. He used the ropes Davey decorated your body with when the mood struck him, tying them tight enough to bruise from wrist to elbow, your fingers going cold and tingly by the time he was done. Quinn snatched your jaw up and had you thrashing again. His thin, cold fingers pressed past your lips, hooked over your molars and forced your jaw open. Your heart was in your throat, afraid of what he would force into you. It was almost a relief when it was fabric, a makeshift gag that he tied tight enough behind your head that it dug into your cheeks painfully. 

Time drifted. Your head was fuzzy, unsure. His hands wandered, threatening but never seeing anything through. His voice filled you up inside, took over every inch of room that was left in your head. You choked on it, the sound of him laughing in your ear, whispering threats in that gentle, sure tone. 

“If they find you in time,” he purred, his hand caressing your cheek like a lover would, “you tell them that it was me. You tell them that every mark on your body is on them. That your blood is on their hands.” 

You smelled smoke. You felt heat. Your body, the one that was married to a firefighter, the one that sat through his lectures about safety with rapt attention, the one that had practiced your evacuation route a hundred times to assuage his fears, refused to let you lay there and die. You had never been good at that, just letting things happen to you. You had a fight in you that you couldn’t explain, you couldn’t deny. 

It forced you up, bare feet scrambling against the carpet. Pushing your heavy, limp body as far as you could, you inched your way across the carpet, blood trailing behind you. By the time you met the dark tile of the master bathroom, you knew that the heat you felt was from the fire, not exertion. You took a moment, and only a moment, spread out on the bathroom floor, to cry. Your body ached to stop, to let go, to give in. You knew that you couldn’t, that if you did, then that was it for you, that you had no chance of surviving. You sobbed into the gag that tugged at your mouth, pulled at the ropes around your wrist, whacked your head against the tile in utter frustration and fear. 

And then you started moving again. You pushed yourself forward, your shoulder painfully crushing into the tub, and didn’t stop until you tumbled, ass over tea kettle, into it. You laid there, stared up at the shower head, and breathed. You counted to three. Then you started kicking for the faucet. 

It wasn’t until you felt cold water splashing over your face that you let yourself drift. 

Davey would know. You could feel it in your gut when something on a call went sideways, when Davey was hurt, when he was afraid. So you had to trust that he would know. He would find you. He would find you.

Teenage Angel met David, Asher, and Milo at a convenience store. Obviously they didn’t know it at the time, but in the background of a silly photo they took with their friend, teenage David can be seen spilling his slushy all over himself.

Imagine the crazy angst bombshell we’re expecting from Erik is just Caelum coming back

Please bring Caelum back I miss him so much oh my god-

Finally made a reference sheet for my listeners, because I was sick of forgetting wtf they looked like 😭

(I hate Rooks clothes now that I looked at it for two hours)

ANOTHER BAAABE POST BC I MIGHT AS WELL END THE YEAR WITH ONE

Was kinda rushed bc I plan on napping before getting dressed but it is what it is yk

ALSO I LOVE SEEING PPL’S BAAABE DESIGNS LIKE OMG LEAVE UR MAN PLS I CAN BAKE I CAN CLEAN 🙏🙏

Anyhow, the upcoming year I def wanna be more active on tumblr js cuz I’m too much of an anxious mess lol I might not start my new years well but hey things happen. I wish everyone a early happy new years and many awesome sauce days to come 👋

Yall probably forgot that Sunshine sketch I did a while back. So did I, but it's done now

Ludinus Da'leth, the ultimate villain of everything we've seen from Exandria so far, in a meeting with Essek: "you're a bitch, caring about people"

Essek Thelyss, who learned about the power of friendship Yesterday: "and you're a friendless loser"

I LOVE EPIC THE MUSICAL

BRO THE ITHACA SAGA WAS SO GOOD IM SO HAPPY IM LITERALLY LISTENING TO A PLAYLIST WITH EVERY SAGA 😭

What a good year to be a nerd :p

Nobody talk to me because what do you mean Sam never wanted to be a vampire and yet he is one in every universe. What do you mean he would have rather died trying to heal his own wounds than be turned and yet he has to live with the reality of his turning in every damn universe??? He was owed so much better and I will never emotionally or financially recover from this.

Last thing Asher sees before Baaabe rocks his shit for messing around with their skincare products (HC)

Or

Last thing Quinn sees before anyone catches his ass 😒