#DEATH SWIRL | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

garglyswoof · 7 months

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:D Ahhh, prompt prompt prompt - how about a mash up, vampires meet kastle?? :D

She found out about it purely by chance. Some part of her had been thinking of life in Vermont that day, the skies in New York the same sheet metal grey as the dreariest of days in Fagan Corners. Her thoughts drifted enough for her to battle with her phone in a losing effort that ended with her searching the surprisingly online tiny local paper. She’d trawled through the articles, smiling at the news of 4H Club awards and greased pig races. There was a comfort in these reminders of her small town history, and when she hit the obituaries section she continued out of morbid curiosity. Was old Mrs. Wilkie still alive? Stern in her housecoat, fuzzy slippers, and ever-present broom like some modern-aged witch? How about the bank president who had tried to buy coke from her? Sure, it was a college town, but it was also a small town and most people didn’t ever get out. She had certainly felt trapped.

“Former Penny’s Place owner Paxton Page…” The words crept into her brain slowly, as if reluctant to enter. She dropped her phone, her hand rising to stifle the sharp intake of breath.

Dad.

Things willfully ignored; things pushed back, hidden, and thought drowned rose to the surface, crested, and broke. She slid down to the floor, her hand shaking and still cupped over her mouth as if to hold it all in.

--------------

The drive was a long one and she went alone with her thoughts. She knew Foggy would have dropped everything to come along, and part of her still wished she’d asked, but…. this was better. She’d face this alone rather than explaining, though she owed Foggy the truth soon. She just wasn’t…she wanted a little more time, ok? From Kevin to Allied to almost dying in a prison to Fisk to now, Karen hadn’t had much good in her life, and Foggy and Matt, when he was tempered by apologies and guilt, were good.

Sometimes your heart makes judgments that aren’t logical, fueled by something just on the edge of your vision, just out of reach. In hindsight it’s why she latched on to them so quickly, something in her recognizing something in them. Enough to have her paying Matt’s bills when he’d vanished for months, enough to have her jumping right in as a strangely happy unpaid employee of Murdock and Nelson. Her heart panged at the memory of those first days, replete with casseroles and more flan than she could possibly eat in a week. Stretching the dollars to keep them afloat, the sound of Matt’s text to speech software and Foggy’s muffled curses whenever he tried to fill out forms on the ancient typewriter and failed miserably.

A flash of brake lights ahead jolted her out of her reverie and into the present, barrelling down the highway directly to a place she’d been forced to leave behind. Dad.

One hand gripped the wheel tighter, to prevent the shake, and the other hit the console in frustrated grief. Her phone jostled in its cubby from the motion and she wet her lips as she glanced at the screen, a picture of her and Foggy at Rosie’s, making bunny ears over what they’d thought was Matt’s oblivious face. Heh. She still loved it. If anything it made her realize that Matt had loved it too.

Damn it. “Call Foggy”

“Mmpf? Karen?” His voice sounded far away, muffled.

“Did i wake you?”

“Yes but it’s ok because apparently,” she heard the sheets rustle, “ I am lying in a puddle of my own drool and it’s clearly time to flip.”

Karen smiled, her cheeks stinging with the stretch of it. “Late night at Rosie’s?”

“I’ll have you know I also frequent high class establishments.” A pause. “But then I went to Rosie’s. We missed you there.” His voice was losing the grittiness of sleep and she could tell he must be upright now, imagined his hair stuck up in 10 different directions like it did after a face first desk nap.

“Yeah I uh, I went to bed early. I’m driving to Vermont.”

“What’s in Vermont?” Karen could hear the subtle eagerness in his voice and her heart panged with it. She really hadn’t told them much about her life, and she vowed to change it.

“Grew up there. Needed to take care of some family stuff.” She’d failed her first chance to open up, clearly, and tried to make it less obvious. “Dumb paperwork!” Even though she was driving she closed her eyes for a brief moment from the awkwardness of it.

Foggy was quiet for a moment, his voice soft when he spoke. “Well be safe, Karen. You back soon?”

“Yeah.” Her throat was closing up and she had to end the call soon. “Just, let’s hang out when I get back? Sunday maybe?”

“Of course.” Still soft, still accepting. Still more than she deserved.

----------------------------------------------

The town was bright with spring green as her old Cherokee rumbled onto Main Street. She passed the hardware store, sun-faded display from her childhood still advertising weedkiller, the old barrel she’d always tried to climb on top of anchoring the door open. Many shops were closed, and she saw that most of them had town curfew signs plastered in the windows. When had that started up, she wondered.

She wasn’t immune to nostalgia, obviously, or she’d never… her heart clenched with the reality of what she was here for, and she turned on Sycamore, right on Laurel, her blinker clacking loudly. There were a lot of church signs up, not something she remembered from last time she was here. Not…not signs saying “St Luke’s Lutheran Church” either, these were like that weird stretch of road Marcie had talked about on I-70 outside Kansas, where every other billboard was Hellfire and Brimstone.

THE DEVIL WILL TAKE YOU

FAGAN CORNERS IS DAMNED

She thought it strange, but when she crested the hill the diner was a shock piled on top of another. The sign was bright and clean, Sue’s Vittles, and she felt the rage rise up in her, an urge to tear it down, before she came to her senses. It wouldn’t just… have sat there forever. The town had to move on. She wondered when her dad had lost it, and how far in debt he’d taken Penny's Place. She wondered if she could have saved it.

She knew she could have, if he’d let her.

The return home tour continued on, her eyes rimmed with red now, wet with tears both shed and not. She had never felt so alone in her life. She drove three miles in the wrong direction to avoid the bridge and tried to think of what she was doing here even as she pulled into the town cemetery. She knew he’d be buried next to mom, and pulled a small bouquet of peonies out of the passenger seat as the engine settled, ticking.

There was a new stone next to her moms, and she knelt, tracing the letters with her fingers. Paxton Page. She remembered her and Kevin making fun, popping the syllables, “Paxton and Penny Page” before they’d dissolve into giggles. Everything she thought of made her heart ache.

She sat there for hours, talking to her mom, saying what she couldn’t say to her dad. That she’d thought herself beyond redemption until Father Lantom had gotten through to her, that she still did, sometimes. She told her mom about Foggy and Matt, and then she told her about Frank. God, she’d needed this. She knew her mom would understand, more than anyone, about seeing through to the heart of people. She wondered where Frank was, wished she knew, wished she had some way of contacting him. Despite their last meeting and her anger towards him, she would never let go, not really.

“Sometimes, just someone makes you feel safe, at least when you’re with them. And then when you’re not… I don’t know.” She shifted, sitting back on her haunches and idly rubbing a peony petal between her fingers.

“Me and Frank. Wrong place, wrong time, maybe that’s what it will always be for us.” She said, staring at her mother’s name, carved in stone.

The gravestone stared back, mute, as the light dimmed and she ached with the silence. Evening fell quick in this neck of the woods, without the conflagration of light that made up the city. She shivered in the fall of the spring evening, her throat aching with tears spent but feeling better in the spending of them.

She leaned over the gravestones one last time, peonies settled at the base, and said goodbye.

Gathering her things she startled at the sound of a footfall, the first time she’d heard any noise since she’d settled in. It was hard to see in the fading light, but the man standing at the hood of her car looked like no one she knew, though she waved anyway, small town and all. He didn’t wave back and she shrugged and rounded the back of her car, warily eyeing him as she slipped behind the wheel, the curfew signs flashing in her mind.

Was there some sort of crime ring? Her brain ticked as she started her engine and the man stepped away from the Jeep, a dark slick of a smile caught in the headlights. Karen felt a frisson of fear and pulled away back onto the gravel, eyes in the rearview as she turned down the lanes that led to -

A closed gate, though she remembered from illicit midnights with friends that it was like a fence gate, unbolted and something she could lift and swing out. Karen reached into her purse and felt the comforting weight of her gun slip into her palm. The man wasn’t in her rearview mirror, but it was too dark to tell where he was. She put the Jeep in park and left it running, sliding quickly out of the seat and lifting the gate latch, spinning around and slipping her other hand up to grip the gun two-handed. It was no use, the darkness was complete, no lights to break up the dim beyond the Jeep's headlights, and she rounded the vehicle, shoulders tense, her mind racing, her -

A hand across her mouth, an arm across her chest, pulling her arms down and pointing the gun at the ground. She screamed behind the clamped hand, stamped her foot where she thought the man’s instep would be, snaked a hand up and smashed her elbow backward, hearing a satisfying grunt as the blow landed. She spun away from the arm banded across her middle, trying to transfer the gun to her now free hand, but he was too fast. Her wrist wrenched back, pain shooting up it, the gun falling to the gravel below.

She could see him now, his hair dark, unkempt, his face attractive if it weren’t for the gleam of satisfaction in his gaze, if not for the - oh god oh god she’d known they were real Matt and Foggy had made fun of her but she’d known it and oh god she fought she kept fighting she had to escape, her arms thrashing, trying to duck and use his weight against him, but nothing shook that iron bar of an arm loose from her chest and the smile descended and with it those fangs, sharp and oh god she closed her eyes she let them slip closed because maybe this was redemption, this was closure, maybe this was…

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ONE MONTH LATER

The city reeked of hot dogs. Hot dogs approaching rancid as the last of the summer sun baked the scent of an overturned delivery truck’s escapees into the street. Frank’s nose wrinkled with the stench as he ducked into an alleyway. The smell of piss here wasn’t much better, but Frank wasn’t here to avoid smells, knocking hard on an unmarked door. He waited, knocked again, heard an irritated voice shout back at him, accent thick even through the door.

“Don’t expect a delivery til -”

Frank lodged his foot in before the man could pull the door closed, stepping in and locking the man in a headlock with an athlete’s grace.

“Get the fuck off -”

“Shut the fuck up.” Frank squeezed tighter, feeling the trachea beneath his arm.

The man floundered feebly, choked gasps ragged as he lost the air to function. Frank maneuvered him into an office close to the door, pulling out some duct tape and lashing him to the chair, gagging him for good measure.

The warehouse would be empty this late in the day - Frank had been monitoring it for weeks. Still, he let the captive’s head loll as Frank pushed out of the office and scanned the warehouse, moving low to the ground in a room clearing pattern ingrained into his bones. Clear. He checked the warehouse door, ensuring it was locked, and placed a nearby bucket of loose hardware on the lip of the door’s bottom edge, advance warning should someone decide to open it.

He circled back through the warehouse, eyes still darting about, up to the loft, behind the stacked crates, his footsteps less than a whisper on the concrete as he circled back to the office, unfolding a chair and straddling it, arms propped on the headrest, waiting for the man to awaken.

He did with a start, his eyes bulging and curses muffled behind the tape.

“I’m just here for a few questions Aron,” Frank said, watching as the man’s eyes widened at the use of his name. “Word on the street is that your little Albanian enterprise here is bigger than Rudaj ever was,” Frank said. “Something about a secret weapon, huh?”

Aron’s eyes narrowed. You didn’t live long if you weren’t able to face a little questioning, and something in Frank’s demeanor told him that Aron held all the cards here. Frank needed to flip the program.

He looked up, spotted the beam he’d seen in blueprints, and rummaged through his bag for some rope, tossing it over the beam before knotting one end through a set of shelves and forming a noose in the other. He slipped it around Aron's neck, patting the man on the cheek with a smile, before hoisting the man up to his feet, looping the slack in the shelves.

He removed the tape at his mouth then, deftly avoiding the spit and rolling his eyes at Aaron’s Balkan curses. “So what can you tell me?”

Silence, and once again a discomfiting smile spread across Aron’s face. Frank hated when they were difficult. He pulled the rope, reknotted it. Aron's back was rigid now, spine stretched as far as it could to lessen the pressure, breath harsh in the closed space of the office.

“If you don’t already know,” Aron smiled despite his struggle to breathe, “There’s no harm in telling you. You’ll be dead within a matter of hours.”

“Yeh? Good to know.”

“Even if you are the Punisher.” A ragged breath. “Yes your reputation precedes you. It also means nothing.”

Aron’s idle threats were wearing thin. “Okay.” A tug at the rope.

“Superhumans.” Aron rattled out. “Stronger than you. Faster than you.” His eyes glittered. “They’ll drain you dry.” He coughed, and Frank caught what it was trying to cover. A shift in the eyes to a point over his shoulder. Frank ducked and rolled and heard the swish of air above his head, shot back with an elbow and caught air himself. A faint footfall, a flap of fabric, where the fuck was this guy?

Fast. Too fast. Impossibly fast, Frank thought as he was thrown out of the room, his head cracking on the wall outside. He shook it off even as he was moving, realizing he needed to put distance between him and the threat. He vaulted into the main warehouse, analyzing the terrain, potential weapons. Superhuman. Drain me dry, huh? He knew he had only seconds, ducked behind a crate and backed against a wall where pallets stood leaning. A flash of movement and Frank heard laughter as the heel of a hand smashed against his ribs. Broken, he had a moment to consider while the other hand closed around his throat.. Pain and rage clouded his vision and he knew he had one chance, one chance or it was all over.

In hindsight he’d probably wonder if it was worth the choice, but for now survival instincts kicked in and he cracked a plank off the pallet behind him and brought it up with all of his strength, trying not to breathe in to avoid the pain dulling the blow. His assailant’s grip on his throat proved his downfall, removing the advantage of speed. The plank hit its mark, the adrenaline and training allow the jagged edges to pierce through skin and muscle, through ribs. A high-pitched keening, terrible in its inhuman sound, issued from the assailant’s throat, and Frank watched features swim in and out of view. Pale skin, a jagged scar cutting across a pair of thinned lips. A mouth split in pain, and there, there - he couldn’t be sure but he also knew it couldn’t be anything else - incisors long and sharp.

The hand tightened on his throat briefly, muscles trying to continue past the ceasing of life, and the vampire in front of him dropped to the floor, wheedling noise still issuing from its throat, fading now with the dying of light in his eyes. The eyes, Frank thought, were the worst. Sclera shot through with red, but so human. Equal in death, the light gone. He fought his failing consciousness, he needed to get out of here before more showed up. He knew that face. Knew him from the papers, when he was human. The Albanians leg up on gang activities needed no more explanation than this, he thought as every inhale felt like ground glass in his bruised throat, his chest.

He stumbled back towards the office, lurched through the doorway to the shocked face of the mobster who still stood, throat noosed. Frank tugged at the rope anchored to the shelving and looped it a few more times with the rest of his strength, ignoring Aron’s choked breaths and gasps.

--------------------

Lana almost killed him when he returned. The pit bull / boxer mix hadn’t yet learned to not jump up, and her paws on his chest earned a pained grunt.

“Fuck. Down, Lana. I need you to be a good girl, please.” She tilted her head at him, boxer jowls flopping. He couldn’t help smiling through his pain. Pushing past her into the small kitchen, he grabbed a steak out of the freezer and some aspirin and eased himself down on the couch, steak pressed against his ribs.

This was as close to home as he’d had in a long while, this warehouse unit in Queens. Secure enough with Micro’s help - he still couldn’t call him David. David was for the married guy, with kids, that Frank shouldn’t be bothering. The separation helped. His chest panged again, but not from pain this time, as he thought of those he’d lost in his unceasing war. Curtis had let him go. David wanted nothing to do with him. Karen -

Karen had disappeared off the face of the earth a month ago and it was driving him crazy. If he knew where she was, if he just knew, then she was safe. He pulled his phone out of his pocket with a grimace as Lana’s tail thwacked against the couch cushions, her brows alternating as she looked up at Frank, face nestled in her paws.

He found her last byline - a little over a month ago - a report on the growing presence of Eastern European crime families, actually. It…didn’t seem enough of a report for her to be targeted but who knows what she had gotten into. He knew her, she was persistent beyond what was safe. Karen wouldn’t let go.

If he was being honest with himself, he didn’t want her to, despite his claims otherwise.

So where was she? He slid a palm down his face, frustrated.

He checked his sources, found nothing. Reaching over his shoulder with difficulty - you forget that the simplest of actions is immeasurably harder when you’ve got a broken rib - he flipped on the police scanner. He and Lana listened for news of vampires, caught no mentions, nothing unexplained. The warehouse he’d invaded was off the radar, so he had some time before that would be circling around the airwaves, at least police ones. The steak was partially thawed now, so he tossed it in the dog bowl where Lana inhaled it as if it were her only meal in weeks.

Where was she?

-----

TWO WEEKS LATER

The Albanians were still expanding their empire, despite the setback at the warehouse. Frank wondered how many vampires there were. It clearly wasn’t an epidemic, which he’d feared initially but understood now - hard to keep power when you’re just spreading the source of that power around. Frank was on the streets, ribs starting to heal but deep breaths still causing sharp twists. He knew he needed more time. He also knew he didn’t have it.

He had to find her, and so he was here in Hell’s Kitchen, eyeing the neon Rosie’s sign as he approached, it flickered Ro ie' tonight, the esses flickering in and out. He didn’t want Red catching him out here, instead hoping his friend would be the first to leave. It was a flip of the coin whether Murdock would find a way to turn him in, that high-and-mighty morality of his a ticking time bomb, Frank thought.

His eyes shifted from the flickering sign as a voice called out.

“Spare some change?”

That voice...he'd know it anywhere. “You’re alive, oh god I thought -”

Karen laughed, blanket wrapped over her telltale locks, ball cap pulled low over her brow. “Nice to see you too, Frank.” She reached out a hand, as if to take change from him, and pressed a folded paper into his grip. He held on a beat too long, her grip cold in his own, taking in the details of her face, what he could anyway. He ducked down to catch her eyes and her own darted away.

“Not now, ok?”

He nodded and walked away, waiting until he was back in the warehouse to open the paper. The smile spread unbidden across his face.

Grand Ferry Park. You know where. 1 hour.

She sure had a sense of drama, he thought, thinking of a time long past, jokes of hipsters and her hair a bright flag in the breeze off the water. He thought of the softness of her cheek, and when he took a deep breath this time he didn’t even notice the pain.

-----------------

Lana was losing her mind, and not in a good way. He’d brought her with him, knowing Karen loved dogs, but she was having none of this meeting. This sweetheart of a dog had her hackles raised, growl low and deep as Karen put up her hands and squeezed her eyes shut, as if pained.

“What is wrong with you, girl?” He knelt down beside Lana, hand tight at her collar and glancing up apologetically at Karen. “Sorry, she’s the calmest dog usually, I thought you might like to see her.”

Karen slowly lowered to the ground, her hand held out. “Do you have a treat I can give her? Maybe that will help.”

“Yeh, sure.” He tossed her a packet from his bag and she opened it, shaking out some near where she knelt. Lana licked her chops but still growled low in her throat, if a bit more of a confused growl.

“Here, what’s her name?” A glance up at Frank as he responded. He noticed her hand shaking. “Lana, sweet girl. Got a treat for you!”

Frank encouraged Lana when she looked up at him, her expression almost hilariously human and clearly saying “you trust this lady??” The dog edged forward, tentative, and snatched the treat from the ground where Karen had placed it, backing up but calming her growl.

“Well, progress at least.”

Her smile was just as he’d remembered.

“Where have you been, Karen?”

A flash in her eyes. “Didn’t know you kept tabs on me, Frank. You seemed pretty clear about me staying away.”

It hit him like a blow he deserved, and he fought for a response and lost. There was nothing he could say, he knew that, but he still wanted to try. It came to him in as he saw her eyes damp and hard, but still not hiding the hope behind them.

“I’ll always want you to be safe, Karen.”

She scoffed at that and stood up. “It’s a bit late for that.”

“What, what is it, what happened to you? Do I need to punch Red’s light’s out?”

Karen laughed at this, bitter and so unlike her it closed his throat. He did this.

“Just…stop, Frank. I need you to listen.” A barge horn sounded in the distance as if to punctuate her words and her brows eased, just a little, at the humor of it. “I’m…” She stepped closer, Lana alert at the motion, and cupped his face in a hand. “I know the Albanians are after you. The vampire you killed was one of their sires from the old country. I don’t even - Only you, Frank. Older vampires are so strong, you had a one in a million chance.” She shook her head at this, as if still disbelieving.

“How do you know?” he asked, leaning into her touch, cold yet still a comfort. He searched her eyes, gripped Lana’s collar a little tighter.

“I know, because I’m one of them.”

He tore away from her, the motion and the tension in him sending Lana into a fit of barking, her muzzle flecked with spittle. He couldn’t - he heard that high-pitched keen in his head, tried to reconcile it with the expression on Karen’s face. He pulled his Beretta out, trained it on Karen’s anguished face, looked around for bystanders. He backed away towards the railing bracketing the East River. If he needed to he’d escape in the water. But Lana…

He’d let down his guard, bringing her here. Letting himself dream and hope and wish and here was Karen and goddamn she looked beautiful, her eyes bright and hair streaming in the wind off the river and he could not reconcile the pieces.

His voice was a shadow of itself when it rasped from his mouth. “Explain, Karen. Tell me you’re not a monster. Tell me -” he stopped, unable to say more.

He saw her eyes close and the resoluteness stiffen her spine. Hope bloomed in his chest. She…she was still her. Her stubbornness, her implacable will.

“I’m not a monster, in the same way you aren’t.”

He worked his jaw, thinking, eyes casting about, settling on anything but her now. Her words were ones he’d normally deny in his heart, but it seemed the stakes had shifted, and his gut reactions fell flat in the face of the fact that Karen Page was here, and she was a vampire.

“Guess that’s why Lana’s losing her mind,” he said finally.

Karen laughed at that and goddamn if it still didn’t make his heart flip with the sound. What was wrong with him.

“Look I -” she started, uncertain. “I was bitten a month ago in Vermont.” She noticed his quizzical expression. “My Dad, he…I saw his obituary in the paper, so I drove up there. The town was riddled with vamps, some offshoot of the Albanians taking root in Fagan Corners of all places. They’ve locked it down since, but lucky for me!” She lifted her hands, her tone mocking. “Not my favorite trip ever. One star.” She joked, and cast her eyes down when it fell flat.

“Came back and have been feeding off criminals. Not like they're hard to find in this town. Frank -” She caught his gaze in her own. “I wanted to see you, wanted to see you and…I don't think anything can stop them, not anything human." She stopped, searched his eyes.

He wasn’t sure if she found what she was looking for but somehow knew what her next words would be all the same. Still, he let the pause linger. It was a moment, one to let go in. If there was anyone he trusted, it was her, goddamn, and maybe...maybe it was finally time to show that.

She inhaled then, and he idly wondered if that was force of habit or if vampires needed oxygen. He breathed a breath of his own, rib aching with the effort, and drew closer, sliding his hand into the silk of her hair, fingers sifting through it. He looked at her then, full on, not letting his gaze wander, not letting himself look away. He nodded then, an answer to the questions in her eyes, and bared his neck to her.

also on ao3

#kastle #kastle fanfiction #kastle ff #idk what genre to tag this as tbh #hello i will be editing this after posting like an insane person #gotta stop this has been swirling for two weeks in my brain i hate how slow i am #tw: parent death

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