ADRIAN CHASE | VIGILANTE (peacemaker)
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“Too Much Excitement” (Adrian Chase x Fem!Reader)
| Adrian wants to meet his alternate dimension self, and as his partner in semi-legal activity you’re dragged along for the ride.
| SFW, established relationship, canon typical content, adrian almost getting stellar boyfriend points, angst, racist mob (TW: brief physical assault)
| Just let me poke at this idea, okay? (Pic source: Peacemaker S1E7 “Stop Dragon My Heart Around” & S2E6 “Ignorance is Chris”)
| 4k+ words
“Holy shit! Isn’t this so cool?” Adrian exclaims beside you, practically bouncing as he points out yet another slightly different detail in this universe. A fire hydrant that’s blue instead of red. A stray dog that’s surprisingly the same. And so on and so forth. All miniscule details of random things you happen to come across. “This is so cool!”
Sun in your eyes and sweating through your socks in your boots, you're having a harder time matching his energy.
Still, you toss him a wane little smile. Behind his visor his eyes are a mystified type of wide.
“For sure,” you grunt.
That look in his eyes and all his barely restrained bouncing around is the only thing keeping you from cussing at the weather.
Sometimes you truly did wish your boyfriend’s moral compass was a little looser in certain places— and a lot tighter in others, but you weren’t going to go down that road right now. Basically, you would’ve killed for a hijacked car right about now, is all you're saying.
Problem was, you don’t even think he wouldn’t steal a car if he needed to. If you’d ask he’d do it for that reason alone even if he normally wouldn't, but then he’d start talking about the drawbacks of driving around in a stolen car — And where would we even hide it so the cops don’t find us when they put out an APB, Babe? — and you’d just get irritated all over again because he’d be right.
The hassle just wasn’t worth it when the outcome would be the same regardless.
Still, you don’t stop yourself from glaring at the over green, perfectly trimmed grass as Adrian hustles you both through the quiet streets.
Just quite enough to feel…uneasy almost. Like you’d just walked into Silent Hill and not a glaringly sunny version of Adrian’s neighborhood.
Shit, at least there’d be monsters in Silent Hill. This was just a blanket, unexplainable creeping sensation.
“Does anything feel…off to you?”
“Noooo,” Adrian draws out, glancing back to give you a once over with a tilt of his head. “Should it? I’m actually super excited right now.”
“I’m aware, Adri,” you say, wry despite yourself. It’d be hard not to realize. “I don’t know though…”
Unintentionally, you trail off. Attention sticking to a flyer stapled to a phone pole. There’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s just—
You squint.
That’s almost the same flyer you’d clocked when Ads was driving everyone to Vigilante’s “base” after swinging by to pick you up, something advertising a real estate agency. Except you could’ve sworn one of the family’s shown in the picture gallery for prospective clients had been two black women and a dog. Even with the flyer curled due to the elements they’d been visible enough for you to snort to yourself.
Adrian had literally asked: "What are we laughing about”, from where he’d had his head ducked and pressed to your side because the texture of your shirt had really been doing it for him. The size constraints of Leota’s car had meant the only place you could comfortably sit without fucking with John was Adrian’s lap and the man had been more than happy to pull you in and lock you in place with his arms wrapped around your waist.
“Hm,” he’d gone after you’d described the photo, before exclaiming: “Oh, it’s like Ads and her wife!” before you could shut him up to save yourself the embarrassment of the awkward silence that followed, because Adrian was immune to shame. You hadn’t hallucinated that shit.
Adrian hadn’t seen the flyer to compare it though. By the time he’d questioned you the flapping paper had been passed and you’d just told him about it.
Maybe you were tripping.
In front of you, holding you by the hand as you trail behind him, Adrian doesn’t sigh, but his shoulders slump enough that you’d probably have sucked your teeth if you weren’t so busy grinding them together.
“Aww, man,” he huffs. “Okay, you’re slowing down,” he points out, and your brows hike up. Oh.
“…Sorry?”
Adrian grunts, letting go of your hand to face you. Hip cocked and arms crossing over his chest.
It makes your brows raise.
“Fuck. You think this is a bad idea too, don’t you?” A pause. Blatant deliberation. You inhale to speak, rubbing your palm over the dark skin of your knuckles before he shakes his head. “Fine. Okay,” he raises his hands placatingly, even as he shifts impatiently, “it’s whatever— just the moment of my dreams dashed away, but I’ll live. Do you want to go back?”
Good question.
One which you deliberate in the midst of sticking your middle finger up at Adrian.
“That’s an overreaction,” he scoffs, reaching out to grab your finger and covering it with his fist. “Especially considering you want to fuck me more often than I want to fuck you.”
“Adrian,” you grunt, shooting him a look that’s just etching on a warning.
“I’m just saying, Babe. If you're gonna pretend to be mad at me, you’ve gotta try better than that at least. That was pretty pathetic.”
“Thank you, Adrian,” you say, tugging your finger free.
He lets you, eyes widening for a second with the grin he no doubt throws your way.
Side-eyeing him, you finally start mulling over everything.
Sure you felt funny, but did you really want to derail such a rare opportunity that he’s been fantasizing about since he found out on not even a hunch, but an unexplained icky feeling?
Sighing softly, you give Adrian a measured look.
“No. It’s fine. Let’s go meet other you and then we can focus on the mission. Or you can focus on the mission, I’m just here for kicks.”
Adrian chuckles, “Yeah, you are,” he says, nodding. And when he raises his hand for a high five you heed the request, slap your squishy palm to his.
“What’s the worst that could happen, anyway?” you say, and you don’t know who you’re trying to convince more, but after a seconds pause your boyfriend buys it enough for his assessment to ease up. “It’s probably just me feeling unmoored in a different universe. Like dimension hopping jet lag.”
“Sure, yeah,” Adrian hums, grabbing your hand again; and maybe him leading you does make you feel a little lighter. “Or maybe it’s all that cocaine that was blasted in your face,” he muses.
Silently, you incline your head in acquiescence, “There’s really got to be a better way to deal with all that, by the way.”
Adrian only laughs, waving you off like that’s an absurd thing to state. Squeezes your hand and reassures you that the amount of and the way you ingested the drug wouldn’t impair you if you guys had to run.
Too much.
“Your pupils aren’t dilated, at least,” he shrugs, almost taking you out when he leans in to check and forgets about the hard shell of his mask, if not for you jerking your head back while he nodded to himself, unphased.
After that, you start back on your journey. Tucked a little closer to Adrian or not.
The area feels familiar enough to where his house sits back home, even if you’d only been down the street to his and his mom’s place once.
With everyone else— no, you weren’t bitter.
It was fine.
Adrian’s mom was sweet though. If a lot.
Just as talkative as her son, just as woefully unaware of social cues as he often was, and you’d already knocked some on his foot for talking at her so hard when she started incessantly comparing his compliments about you and the descriptions he’d undoubtedly given her to your flesh and blood self in front of her.
She’d also brought up the collage of crudely drawn pictures of you guys together and the photos of you he collects, and that secret had made him screech as everyone poorly bit back their laughter behind you both.
The man was cute when he was flushed and embarrassed, besides. Going concerningly red and looking near murderous. You’d’ve kissed him on the cheek after he dragged his hands down his face in mortification if it wasn’t for his attitude.
Not that Adrian had minded your distaste, or his mother remained anything but unphased, but still.
Mama Chase was harmless, he didn’t need to act on like that.
Well…relatively harmless, you’d felt a little sympathy after that last agonized wail and plea for the woman to fuck off.
Back in the present you’re dragging your feet so much, you trip at the next shift in the height of the sidewalk.
Adrian’s not even paying attention when his arm preemptively snaps out to steady you. Head swinging around as he tosses out a jab at you being clumsier than usual.
You roll your eyes.
“Honestly,” Adrian stops, turns to you, “do you wanna get on my back? You know, on account of the clumsiness? So you don’t bust your head open? I’d really hate for that to happen, actually. The D&D group can’t take that hit in numbers.”
Stopping, you do suck your teeth this time. Stare at him blankly.
“I’m so glad I play such a pivotal role in your life Adrian,” you say, deadpan.
“You do!” he exclaims, though this time he’s semi whispering as he drags you both behind a tree just off the sidewalk on someone’s front yard. Across the street a brunette man and his toddler have come outside to check their mailbox.
Adrian plants you with your back against the tree and practically pins you to it with his bulk when he crowds you.
“Even if you're kind of bad at it, it’s nice playing with you.” He checks past the tree before looking back at you, green boring into your brown despite the visor between you both. “Plus, if you weren’t around, who would I call on my lunch break when John gets too dorky, and who’d run their acrylic nails over my skin when I rage quit an RPG? That’s all pretty cool, I’d totally miss you too much if you tripped and got yourself killed.”
“Hn.” Shaking your head, you grunt unhappily at the quirk forming at the corner of your lips. Swallow back your amusement. “Are they gone?”
Adrian only wiggles his fingers. “Get on my back, Babe. I’m good for it, I swear.”
“Ha,” you laugh, finally losing the battle against your smile with a shake of your head in a protest that’s more token than anything. You’re far too used to Adrian to be all that phased by the more morbid tilt to his words. “You know what— yeah. I will.” Hand lifting, you gesture for Adrian to hurry his ass into a crouch, already fully prepared to jump on his back. You don’t even care about his digs, if he was gonna carry you, you weren’t complaining. “Saddle up cowboy.”
The man laughs, shakes his head, expertly ducks you two around the trunk of the tree you’re using as cover, shifting out of the line of sight of the truck barreling into the driveway of the home you two are in the yard of.
Father and son from across the street bound their way back to their house with their backs turned to you. The driver of this new truck remains unaware of your presence.
“Ugh, Babe, that’s so hot it’s unfair,” Adrain mutters, briefly meeting your eyes behind the red of his mask’s visor.
You raise a brow, shuffling back out from the tree’s cover as the truck driver makes their way into their house.
At least he was taking your dimension interloping serious enough to make sure you weren’t seen.
The crinkle at the corner of Adrian’s eyes is visible when he grins, brushing kicked up dirt from his uniform.
“You should boss me around more often,” he finishes, snickering and looking your brown-skinned, black-clad form over like he’s about to forget what he’s doing.
Probably to try finding his “testing site” and dragging you off to watch him show off and blow shit up.
Which was bonding time for Adrian, outside of playing games with him and rewatching fucking Fargo and being offered mysterious cans of food to eat that you haven’t once taken him up on the offer for and the one time he used himself as a test dummy to show you how to properly slit a throat.
…and the occasional fuck if he was in the headspace to indulge you, but…
“We have someplace to be,” you remind him, lips pursing. The urge to stick your tongue out and laugh at how entranced he is by you is there too, but as the pit in your stomach persists you can’t find it in yourself to give in.
“Right,” he says, gets in place for you to hop onto his back, your legs wrapping around his middle and arms around his shoulders and his hands keeping your bare thighs secure. The short bottoms you’ve got on and exposed legs really only serve to point out how much you didn’t come here to kick ass.
Still, you appreciate the expediency he moves with, tucking your head into his neck and trying to force the gnawing wrongness from your skin.
It’s not too long after you hop on Adrian’s back, being hurdled into a bush for cover, your boyfriend breaking you fall, notwithstanding, before his mom’s place comes into view.
“Oh my god!” he’s breathing out, pointing out a few things to you that are altered and absolutely throwing him as he rushes onto the lawn. The decorations and trinkets only faintly amuse you, and that’s more because of his reaction than any of the shit he’s going gaga over on its own accord.
Adrian snorts, gestures to a lawn ornament in front of the door, "That is so supposed to be a chipmunk. That’s crazy.”
Minding your ankles, your boyfriend swings you around. Sets you down on the front stoop while incredulous giggles keep falling past his lips.
Content enough, and grateful for the break from walking, you let him be while readjusting your clothes.
“Hold on,” Adrian says, stopping in front of the door and turning to look at you. “I don’t think other-me will be a huge dick or anything, but even Ads can be right sometimes. Maybe you should wait out here until I’m sure it’s safe.”
“Mhm.” You give him a thumbs up, scanning the other cookie cutter houses around you and failing to ignore how your hair stands on end. Part of you wants this other Adrian to be evil for real, just so that this unexplained feeling will finally have a cause.
“And, hey,” Adrian continues, “maybe if we get really lucky there’ll be another you in there too!”
Okay, or maybe you didn’t actually want that. Hypothetical or not.
Your eyes light up. Adrian quietly cheers. It’s only a little off putting in his full suit with his sword strapped to his back. And all the knives.
The guns too.
“Oh, I like how you think, Vij,” you wave him off, staying conscious of his code name now you're closer to other people. “Now go. The faster you get your initial excitement out of your system, the faster I can be let in.”
Into blessed air conditioning, and away from the oppressive watch of the bugs buzzing around or the clouds or whatever the fuck was setting your nerves off.
“Or we can run,” Adrian tacks on far too calmly, keys jingling cheerily as he pulls them out of one of his pouches.
“Yeah, that too,” you murmur, side-eyeing him while he steps through the door he’s swung open.
Adrian gives you a tiny wave goodbye.
You salute him.
Incorrectly, and with two fingers, but it’s still a salute.
─────
Honestly, you can’t be too mad about lounging on the front steps, at least you’re sitting — in shade — but there’s still a bounce to your knee as you wait.
The sense of unease that’s attached itself to you doesn’t leave, but it does at least wane with your arrival.
Thumbs swipe over your phone to pull up a book, and to see if this new dimension will change your social media feed.
The concept of two Adrians wasn’t a bad one to turn over in your head either.
Finding someone who could really keep up with him would be good for him. You think.
So long as his doppelgänger wasn’t an asshole. Or yours for that matter.
What the hell would you do if you had to fight yourself? What if she was cooler than you?
In the distance you hear a door open. Glance up from your phone just enough to clock it’s some white woman throwing out the trash.
Blonde hair swinging in a ponytail behind her, she gets halfway to the bin on the sidewalk when she looks up and freezes.
Light-colored and flitting, her gaze feels like a physical thing when it pins to you. A certainty washes over your shoulders that makes your jaw tick.
Goddamnit, where was Adrian?
When you wave it’s not because you want to, it’s because you’re trying to dissuade whatever assumptions she’s made about you sitting on this white lady’s doorstep before she does something drastic.
Whatever version of you that existed here did not need you getting them put in any more databases.
A gasp loud enough to reach your hearing drops out her mouth at the same time the garbage bag she’s holding slips from her fingers.
It crashes to the floor with a swoosh and a thunk that hits the air like a gunshot.
“Um, I’m visiting here,” you stutter out, the two new people dashing out of the house beside you ratcheting up your heartbeat, “it’s fine.”
Except the way Blondie’s moving now, circling you in a pattern you can’t track and glaring as she comes closer, doesn’t bode well for you when you’re very covered in cocaine.
Shit.
That did not give off harmless, and you did not want to deal with alternate dimension cops.
Being with Vigilante was incriminating enough.
How she’s closing in on you while on her phone. How more people are starting to migrate from their homes, is making your blood crawl.
Uncrossing your legs, you shift listlessly. Surely, this was just an oddly escalating overreaction.
“Hi,” you call out, trying again to get a human response out of the woman as your brows slam over your eyes.
Honestly, you should probably start knocking on the door now, but considering how you waving had made her react you’re a little scared to make such a big move.
Instead of calming the woman down, your greeting just makes her sneer. Her eyes storming over as a man runs to her from the house she came out of across the street and snags on her arm to pull her back like you’re the one showcasing concerning behavior right now.
Like you’re the threat.
Fuck.
What the fuck?
The conversation you’d caught the tail end of from over the phone rings through your mind: “Uh, duh. I’m going to an alternate dimension! Of course I’m bringing my girlfriend, what the fuck? How else will she know how awesome I am in two universes, come on?”
At the time you’d thought the sentiment fairly sweet. Enough, honestly, that it’d dampened the initial glower you’d thrown at the picture of Adrian in your contacts when you’d realized all the 11th Street Kids were also there.
Now, as eyes turn to you and that darkness you’re so used to seeing in the shadows of people's cross looks and their backhanded comments becomes a frontward thing— alien for all it is bone deep familiar, you wish he had left your ass back home.
Blondie closing in, skittish and damn near snarling, looks at you like a ‘thing’. Like a rabid vermin the exterminator missed.
Chills snap and sizzle down your spine. When you stand, brown eyes flitting wildly around you, she flinches back some. Like your very state of being is diseased.
The sudden crack of a man’s voice starts up and you flinch. The siren call of “A black!” hits you like a ton of bricks. The follow up comments about you “getting out” have your heart seizing up and lodging itself in your throat.
Fear grips you in that second so hard, so instinctual, the anger can’t even come. Crawls up your esophagus and chokes the horrified wail that snaps out your mouth without a thought.
The pivot you make is too quick. You trip up the singular step you need to, but the scraped knee doesn’t even register, not when there’s what’s rapidly becoming a mob at your back.
Hell.
Fuck.
This was the last time you went on one of Adrain’s adventures.
Twin fists hardly get the chance to meet suburban wood.
“Adrian—!”
Hands grab and grab at you. Someone curls their hands into your coils or around your head and tears spring to your eyes, flow like water from a broken dam.
Your head is jerked back and you sob.
When the blooming pulse of pain cracks through the side of your skull and darkness overwhelms your vision it’s almost a mercy.
─────
This was like…thee conversation of the century.
Adrian doesn’t think he’s ever had a less exhaustive conversation in his life.
And it wasn’t like talking with Peacemaker, or even you, was hard, but you guys had the weirdest priorities in a conversation and Adrian always got a little concerned by how often he had to explain obvious stuff to you.
Like snakes definitely having two really small stomachs or it being basically impossible for him to ever take being told to wait five minutes as some type of nebulous time constraint; why bring specific numbers into the mix when you could just say you wanted him to wait an unspecified amount of time?
So long as he got to watch you Adrian hardly gave a shit about waiting for you to be ready, you could just tell him that.
Admittedly, though, the animal comments were usually his way of making conversation or getting you off his case, but regardless it still got everyone off his dick but you most days. Which he doesn’t always dislike, but still.
Alternate dimension Adrian and him — real him — go back and forth with increasing excitement. Filling in each other’s sentences while they go over their likes and dislikes, amazed at the lack of differences.
That is until Adrian brings up Peacemaker, fully expecting his doppelgänger to answer in the affirmative when he brings up them being best friends (because it only makes sense that that’d be a dimensional constant).
Except Other-him stops and recoils, expression instantly going flat, partway through Adrian’s, “Yes!” as he attempted to answer the question for him with such obvious disagreement Adrian doesn’t even notice right away.
“Peacemaker?” Other-him says, voice turning irate in a split second. “I fucking hate that guy.”
Adrian feels his smile drop. His brows crinkle together.
“What?”
Whatever excitement he’d build up over their easy chemistry slips from his posture. He leans back on the futon, slumping some, and looks up at the man he shares a face with in abject confusion.
“I’ve dedicated my entire life to tearing down everything he stands for—” the guy says, lips curling and getting more worked up by the second, “you’re friends with Peacemaker?”
“Yes.” Adrian answers, shrugging and still more than a little caught off guard. “He’s…he’s my BFF. We’re two peas in a pod.”
Other-Adrian confirms they’re talking about the same guy with an incredulity that blows his mind. Says Peacemaker's name and alias like they’re a curse.
“…Yeah,” Adrian confirms, mouth now permanently agape as his mind works around the reaction he’s getting.
“He’s my fucking archenemy,” Other-him says, almost glowering at him now due to the topic alone. “He’s the reason I joined the Sons of Liberty in the first place.”
Adrian balks, “The what?”
One absolutely insane sounding explanation later and Adrian’s still boggled.
“So…Peacemaker’s a fascist in this universe?” Adrian shakes his head, some part of him pinging oddly at that. “No way man. We saved the world together.”
Other-him throws his arm out, pacing away before spinning around in a circle to argue back: “Yeah? Well he ruined it here,” he snaps.
It was kind of freaky watching himself get angry.
Insightful too.
“He’s half the reason I do what I do and you’re gonna tell me I’m wrong?” Other-Adrian keeps up, talking over him when he starts to protest.
“So he’s just not a hero?” Adrian sounds the faintest bit hysterical to his own ears. “He just helped his dad and did whatever the government wanted?”
“Exactly,” Other-him sneers, “He’s a piece of shit fuck up who’s no better than his father who’s a fucking monster!”
“Then what about—” Adrian stops himself, your name choked halfway up his throat.
In all the excitement he’d forgotten.
“Oh shit! I’m, like, the worst boyfriend ever right now,” Adrian nearly squeaks, jumping up from the futon in the face of Other-him’s furrowed, stiff jawed look.
“Wait— what? Dude, what are you talking about?” his doppelgänger asks, shocked out of his fuming, but he’s already following after Adrian. Taking the stairs two at a time the same as him.
Something in the rough tone of his voice sends panic crackling through Adrian.
Or maybe that’s just the revelation of the dimension he just led you to squeezing him in from all angles.
It’s uncomfortable. Nearly as uncomfortable as your discomfort had made him before you’d assured him it was fine.
He’s officially freaking the fuck out.
“Please tell me you’re not dating who I think you’re dating,” the other guy rushes out, passing his parents where they’re somehow still zoning out on the couch— he’s really gonna have to ask about that weird shit later.
Adrian speeds up.
“Who—?” Adrian asks, saying your name right afterwards as he throws the front door open wide, leaping down the empty steps by virtue of going too fast not to.
Except you should absolutely be on those steps, and he had absolutely just tried to accommodate his leap to not hit you for nothing.
“Um, the fuck?” Adrian staggers, head immediately going on a swivel and heart unfamiliarly kicking up in a frenzy in his chest. “Where is she?” he asks, whipping around and calling out your name a few times.
No answer.
Other-him only quietly repeats your name instead of helping him out, frozen in the doorway and caught looking down at the scrape of blood on the front steps. The eye twitch that causes behind his silver frames is not on command.
“Fuck, Man, focus,” Adrian cries out, tugging on his hair and completely uncaring that he’s sans mask while still in the rest of the Vigilante suit.
“Hold on— shit, okay.” Other-him starts to brainstorm. Brimming with an energy that means he’s only seconds from pacing. “Well she’s gone. There’s sirens in the distance. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say someone made a citizen’s arrest.”
“Alright. Fine,” he huffs. Adrian’s spinning around uselessly in the too plush grass, like you’ll pop up from behind a garden gnome if he looks at the right angle. “On what bullshit charges! What does that even mean here?”
If it’s possible Other-him’s jaw clenches tighter. Adrian’s hands drop to his sides and ball into fists inside his gloves.
“Nothing good,” he says.
The look on his face is back to that stern cut from when Adrian had first burst into the basement, startling him. His eyes (Adrian’s eyes) hard as he gives every house on the block an assessing look.
Other-him is biting his lip, chewing on one corner badly enough it’s gone an angry red.
His expression, wallowing for all it’s hidden behind a stonewall mask, isn’t entirely foreign. Not when Adrain’s lived in a copy of the same body for so many years. And that’s why it sends a lash of emotion through him that has him barring his teeth in frustration, his own eyes burning.
Adrian knows that look.
Hates it.
Fuck, he needs to kill someone.
“We’re still going to get her, right? Don’t tell me you’re just going to leave her—”
“I’m not,” Alternate Adrian snaps lowly, green eyes flashing behind gold frames— wire, the same as his.
Adrian doesn’t really hear him, however. Too busy trying and failing not to choke on the sick, too intense feeling fighting its way up his chest maybe.
Too busy still talking.
Seconds away from storming across the street and interrogating whatever two bit, demented, daughters of the confederacy ass soccer mom or white nationalist family patriarch he needed to tear into to get some answers.
Maybe he’d finally use a chainsaw.
“—because if you know her, then you know how important she is and how much that’s not an option, because she’s mine to—”
“I know!” his alternate dimension self exclaims, voice cracking along the edges and a tick past too loud in the unnatural silence. “I know okay? That’s why we need to go.”
Adrian should’ve known the soul had been sucked out of this place from that odd, permeating silence alone.
There’s a weight in Other-him’s gaze now that settles uncomfortably over his shoulders. He recognizes it in a vague, stomach dropping out of his ass, sense.
Doesn’t want to touch it or what it means with a ten foot pole.
Jesus fucking Christ, he brought you here! If you— because of him—
“Get in the house, Vig,” Other-him grunts, reaching out to physically grab his wrist and tug. Only once; specifically so he doesn’t trigger Adrian more, but can still redirect his attention. Goddamnit, he wished he could enjoy this. “I’m not leaving either of you, come on. If we want this to be easy we’re gonna need to intercept the van before they get her to a holding facility. Or worse, to the nearest enforcer, who’s definitely the Blue Dragon.”
Okay, yeah.
God, this dimension was the absolute worst.
Adrian runs his hands down his face, just resists the urge to throw his glasses off and fails to stop himself from kicking the stupid fucking squirrel on the stoop.
It’s supposed to be a chipmunk anyway, who cares.
It smashes in a cloud of crushed ceramic and splinters sharp-edged shards against the house.
The destruction hardly sates him.
Now — you gone and your goddamn blood the only thing left in your wake, and other-him dragging Adrian back into the house as cops and an armored van come barreling down the street — now he’s freaked.
Fucking scorpions!
“Fuck!”
NOTES: Hope you enjoyed!
This is its own horror story so I’m not too broken up about messing up my October fic schedule to let the idea for this little oneshot take me. And writing the kidnapping scene did fill me with a sick sense of dread, thank you for asking. I’m nervous about how haphazardly Ads being chased down and likely snatched is probably going to be handled, but I’m gonna leave it alone.
Also, this was written pretty quickly so apologies for any plot inconsistencies or typos. I’ll get any typos eventually. It’s also relatively rushed because I had other shit to write and this was not planned so forgive me if it doesn’t flow right, especially considering I had to fill in some blanks for how the world got to be the way it is. On the bright side, I think my writing for Adrian has improved; even if it’s not one hundred percent where I want it.
Alt!Adrian would definitely take charge here. A tracker would be on that van before it could pull off — he can’t fight a whole neighborhood mob and be sure he won’t get caught even if he wouldn’t care about sparing their lives, even with Main!Adrian helping him — and they’d be mobilized within five minutes tops. Our Adrian locks in too though, this is just a rare moment of complete and utter distress for him, he’s unused to operating in such a manner. That’s a lot of emotion for a man who isn’t used to it.
I don’t know, I kinda wanted to mess around with Adrian’s unwavering conviction here (for its good and its bad) and so that’s what the back and forth between both Adrians was about. And I kinda just had to go with episode six for how long I wrote him forgetting about the reader-insert; it’s a while, but he’s often one track minded so I’d say it still fits.
Anyway, bye!
btw: if you’d like to leave a comment I’d very much appreciate it!
EDITED (10/4/25): Wrote back in some scrapped lines after mulling them over again.
