a fast explosion and the embers | chapter 5 (complete!)
post-s8 arson investigator au | bucktommy | E | 33,400 words | chapter 5/5
He calls Tommy one night, out of desperation, out of loneliness, out of longing, and it goes straight to voicemail. He doesn't leave a message. He takes to writing emails—or, really, one email; he adds to it most days, at night when he's trying to sleep, just narrating what he's done and what he's thought and what he's regretted recently, and then he saves the draft and carries on. One night his thumb slips and he sends it instead of saving. He doesn't get a response. But that's okay.
He starts sleeping on the couch after one too many nights tossing and turning in his too-large, too-empty bed. The couch is better. It's a tight squeeze, but if he curls up just right it feels like a brick wall of a man, a line of couch cushions of a man, a warm and heavy, kind but snarky buttress of a man is holding him gently, spooning him to sleep.
He gets used to eating alone. He gets used to moving around in the quiet, in the dark. If he has friends, they don't text; his family, as ever, is busy. But it's fine. He works on his arson cases. He fleshes out his database. Now that its integrity isn't compromised with bad data, it really is pretty good.
It doesn't make him less lonely, or any less sad.
And then one night there's a tentative knock on his door.
my arson investigator fic is complete! you can read it from the beginning here.
𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓. ✞ 「 heavy, cigar-scented laughs carrying across a recently emptied bar, a voice carrying wisdom but not without its biases and clear emotional ties towards the knowledge; years of memories bleeding with too strong of an opinion and with it the matters of heart, blood stains well hidden in the dark of a dress shirt; teeth long licked clean and a smile left in the wake of a fainting body; the body is more inviting than the smile, the protective shadow over their own turned haunting figure at the hint of betrayal. 」 agender. they/them. ╱ now nobody in lafleur is saying ARJUN MEHTA is trouble, but nobody's exactly rushin' to defend them either. folks have been talkin' about the thirty-six / six hundred and fifty-two year old owner of after hours & vampire monarch of lousiana since the day they rolled into town. seems there's always some new story about how they're allegedly a vampire and have been here for long than anybody realizes. i don't put much stock in every rumor that floats through this shithole, but with a dramatic, caustic & protective reputation like theirs, something tells me we only scratched the surface of the DEV PATEL wannabe's story.
⁰¹. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐒
birth name ⸻ long left behind .
current alias ⸻ arjun mehta .
species ⸻ vampire .
dob ⸻ 1374, will claim April 16th .
age ⸻ thirty-six, six hundred and fifty-two.
gender ⸻ agender.
pronouns ⸻ they/them .
sexuality ⸻ bisexual .
relationship status ⸻ single .
family ⸻ lourenço castro, maker. three long dead younger brothers.
occupation ⸻ owner of after hours .
status ⸻ vampire monarch of louisiana .
⁰². 𝐏𝐇𝐘𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄
height ⸻ 6 ' 2" .
hair color ⸻ black .
eye color ⸻ brown, almost black .
build ⸻ slender and lightly muscled .
a once feeble hearted mortal, turned by their maker under the guise of great purpose; a false promise to be something greater than a aimless traveler in the midst of india's turmoil in the 1400s. as all things go, it was too good to be true. arjun became a subject of prolific exploitations and going against the balancing rules of the vampire authority. targeting of fellow vampires, other supernaturals and harmful use of mortals. through sheer wit and eventual allyship with members of the council once they'd sailed to america, arjun managed to usurper their maker and convince the council of his wrongdoings. however, justice is not clean and arjun has been left permanently shifted by the means in which they'd outsmarted their maker. mimicking the ideal progeny and right hand man comes with scars and a disillusion of the self over years. trust comes slow, if at all and their idea of protection is often seen as overbearing and erratic due to fear of betrayal.
⁰⁵. 𝐓𝐈𝐃𝐁𝐈𝐓𝐒,
⸻ THE MONARCH, they were considered by the authority for lousiana due to their feat over their master and how closely arjun worked with council heads. it wasn't arjun's first decision and they were hesitant to take a position further than, that they'd consider, eyes on the ground ... but they were convinced due to enjoyment of the state. they've overseen louisiana for a total of thirty years following the destruction of the previous monarch.
⸻ LAFLEUR, they have been a constant come-and-goer within this specific town. due to their position they attempt to make an appearance across multiple cities, trying to maintain a presence towards other vampires. it wasn't until the great revelation that they settled within this town.
⸻ THE REVELATION, arjun was against it and they find the themselves further disturbed. a sense of control has been taken away from them and floods into threatening their agency. in retaliation, they established the dive meant for vampires: afterhours, on a whim. their first operator was their own progeny, but since then they've opened more to other vampires to assist in running it.
⸻ THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE SUN, the very thing they'd fretted about; the threat of safety and agency. it was only a matter of time. if inner-species turmoil was potential, of course mortal turmoil would be. they've become increasingly paranoid in the following years due to the whispers of formations and interact cautiously with those not within their circle.
