thegentletwin:

iamthefirechild:

“Not yet,” she mumbled. “They’ll ask a lot of questions and I’ll forget to take the pictures. You can do it if you want.” Straightening up, she slung the camera back around and looked at the other person.

And then looked again. With all her senses. She opened her mouth, started to ask him what he was, and hastily changed it. “Wh—who are you?”

Was he the killer? He was clearly supernatural somehow, and she was pretty sure nothing normal could have drained the blood so completely. But nothing about him implied an ability to commit quite this kind of act, emotionally speaking. Curious.

“I’m sure the police will take lots of pictures,” Ethan said pulling his phone out and dialing 911. He noticed the change in the way the girl was reacting to him. He furrowed his brows at her. “Ethan, who are you?” he asked raising one of his eyebrows. He was thinking it was odd that a girl was so casually taking picture of dead people.

“Yes, I’ve found a man dead. On a large stump,” he told the operator when she finally came on. He gave a description of the man and where they could find him. He hung up and put his phone in his pocket. “Do you always take pictures of old dead people in the woods?” he asked trying not to look at the man. It was too weird.

Also there was something weird smelling about him. Not the smell of death but rather that he didn’t smell like an old man. He turned so that his back was to him. “Weak stomach,” he offered to the girl as he took a couple of steps away.

“I won’t be able to look at the police photos, and I take pictures when I want to be able to remember something very clearly. Details.” Summer crouched down beside the stump and the dead body again, frowning. “I need the details.”

The boy — Ethan — was lying about the weak stomach. Coming back to her feet, she put her hands in her pockets and stepped around to his side. “I’m Summer. Did they tell you to stay here? I expect you’ll be okay if you just go to the other side of that tree there.” With a dip of her head she indicated a pine tree a few steps away.

thegentletwin:

iamthefirechild:

Jaime Hardee pelted through Beacon Hills Preserve, continually risking glances over his shoulder. In between ‘44 is too old for this’ and ‘I’m too young to die’, he tried to figure out if he was being chased for some personal reason or just because he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was just starting down the list of people he might have offended, throwing another glance over his shoulder, when his time ran out.

~~~

Summer Rainault crouched by the side of the massive stump, sleeves shoved up her arms. The wind blew a strand of red hair into her face, and absently she stripped it back behind one ear. The body was laid across the wood in a way that was clearly deliberate, the wide-legged ‘Vitruvian Man’ pose, eerily reminiscent of crucifixion.

She swallowed hard, trying to breathe carefully. It wasn’t the scent — there was very little of that — so much as the lingering aura of absolute terror. She pulled the camera from its slung position behind her back and focused in on the slit wrists — cuts that were utterly clean of blood, yet ran nearly the length of the forearm. She had to steel herself for a long minute before she could snap any shots of the face.

The man’s face was seamed with wrinkles, the skin age-soft and hair nearly pure white. Every visible joint was knobby with arthritis. Except for the cuts, and the positioning of the body, he could easily have died of old age.

“I don’t think you did,” she muttered to the body. “Something killed you. What was it?”

Ethan spent every morning the same way. He went for a long run. He started to run because his mind was getting very cloudy from being here. He never expected to care about some of the people he came here to kill or have killed. But here he was feeling sorry for them, saving them. He was also lucky to be alive. Jennifer had snapped his neck while he was in Alpha form with his brother and Deaton managed to save them.

He caught a strange scent as he was running and went to follow it. He ran through the woods, curious if the scent was something to do with Jennifer or not. When he broke into the clearing, he spotted a girl taking a picture of someone laying on a giant tree stump. “Oh sorry, I-” he noticed that the person wasn’t just laying on the stump; they were killed.

“Holy shit, did you call 911?” he asked as he walked over to the tree stump to get a look at the old man in it. It was strange but death never scared him. “Maybe we should back up, the police might not want us so close to the body, you know?” He just didn’t want his DNA accidentally on the man.

“Not yet,” she mumbled. “They’ll ask a lot of questions and I’ll forget to take the pictures. You can do it if you want.” Straightening up, she slung the camera back around and looked at the other person.

And then looked again. With all her senses. She opened her mouth, started to ask him what he was, and hastily changed it. “Wh—who are you?”

Was he the killer? He was clearly supernatural somehow, and she was pretty sure nothing normal could have drained the blood so completely. But nothing about him implied an ability to commit quite this kind of act, emotionally speaking. Curious.