Chapter Text
You are new at your job.
Of course, they would mess with the new girl. Give her the directions slightly wrong, put a different label on top of the package. You have seen it all before at the last place you worked.
You have been doing deliveries since you were able to get a driver’s license. A motorcycle one, but it still counted; your small but trustworthy 220cc of relentless pull could take you through muddy dirt roads and flooded sidewalks and…
Well, that 's it. It’s small, and street ready, and nothing else. But you love it as if you have built it yourself, paid for every bolt and plastic with the sweat of your brow, and you would take care of every weird noise as soon as they started, care for it with all the time in your hands and the money in your pocket.
Which, realistically, wasn’t much; that’s why you changed companies.
That’s how you got here.
In front of the most ominous storefront you’ve ever seen.
There are a couple of tables near the windows, some other closer to what looks like a counter; around it, in weirdly empty shelves and on every table rests a candle lantern, although most of them were off. The walls are decorated with a beautiful gold on red wallpaper, reminiscent of something sacred, something ancient. It is awe strikingly gorgeous, if not for the eerie silence of the place. As if something was watching, constantly.
Your eyes look for cameras in the corners but there’s none.
The counter covers, with a sharp turn, a door that clearly goes to the back. Another door, the light behind it off, next to it seems to lead to the bathroom area. There’s the shape of something in the dark at the far side against the wall you can’t quite define.
You take a step into the dark. “Hello?” The air feels old, but not stale: there’s a penetrating spice in the air, like burned cinnamon, cigarette smoke, and old leather. And the known sweetness of fuel, more intense as you come closer.
The shape, you notice soon enough, is a bike. A cruiser bike you have seen only in old magazine cutouts, customized to the point it’s hardly recognizable, its tank painted matte black and the sissy bar forged into a pattern of tendrils or tentacles surrounded by a hardened chain. And something on it.
Something that moves.
You stare, trying to adjust to the poor lighting. So much so, you don’t hear the movement behind you; when you turn around there’s maybe half a dozen dogs, all looking like feral strays, all easily your weight or bigger. All fiercely snarling and showing their teeth at you.
You turn to hold the box in your hands in front of them, trying to appear as non menacing as possible, taking a step back.
Your back connects with something when you do. Someone.
“Are you lost, little sparrow?”
The voice startled you, but you couldn’t move; on one side, you’re surrounded by vicious animals, looking like they’d like to tear out your flesh strip by strip, on the other, who the fuck knows who, with a gritty low voice barely breathed into your ear, the touch of worn biker gloves on the thin worn fabric of your old band tshirt, and a presence that is making his body heat alone feel suffocating.
“Are you Ais?” You try to hold your voice from stuttering; you clutch the box against you. It feels quite light. It’s been feeling quite light the whole way through.
“Depends on who’s asking.” He drums onto your shoulder softly with his fingers as if you were a piece of furniture. It might be your patience already stretched thin, or the smugness in his voice, but something in you snaps.
“Your fucking delivery driver is asking.” You don’t turn around, refuse to give your back to the dogs, who do not like your tone, but still look up to meet the bastard’s eyes. His red gaze seems to shine in the dim light, his dark clothes blending him in the shadows if not for the seafoam colored tattoo on his right arm. You try not to stare. You hate it’s quite a hard thing to do. You find the strength somehow to get your phone out of your pocket, open it on the app you work with. “I need your signature.”
He leans over you, and the height difference would be enough to make your head focus on the wrong thing but no, he has to talk over your shoulder, breath on the back of your neck, his hand moving to circle your arm so he can examine the screen better. “Huh.” He says simply, before standing straighter to whistle a quick command before furling over you again. “Weird.”
The terrifying pack becomes a bundle of soft eyed panting sweetheart in a split second; the whiplash hits you hard but instead of taking the space they leave as they disperse into the shadows around and behind the shop, you lean further into the stranger. Ais, says the app. No last name.
His hand doesn’t move from your shoulder, his chest from your back; the zipper of the leather jacket digs onto your arm slightly but you could not possibly give two shits about it.
“It’s your name and your store, right? Sign there.” You hold your phone out for him and he promptly makes a quick few dashes; it almost looks japanese, not that you would know.
Left handed. For some reason your mind locks in on that. On that, or the fact he used his left hand so he wouldn’t have to let go of you.
You pocket your phone in a hurry, turning to press the box onto your chest. You despise it a little, secretly. It made you come to the other side of the city when you have no other deliveries here, wasting time and fuel, for a guy who didn’t know had a package coming, to the creepiest place in the world… and now it’s occupying a place you don’t want to admit to yourself you were getting really fond of.
He opens it, digging his fingers into the corner and tearing half of it off.
He looks at you. You look at him.
He looks at you and smiles. No, smirks.
Oh no.
Oh, what did they send?
You cover the small distance to peer onto a box of nothing but packaging material.
You were set up. You weren’t supposed to get here, to not get chickened out, to actually do your job right.
There was no package. Your shithead coworkers made a phantom delivery to the scariest place they could think of to mess with you. And now you have a handsome smug asshole staring at you as if you’re the butt of the joke because you are.
“So. Are you new?” He says so smoothly, as if it was a line someone was trying on you at a bar, it makes you wanna slap him.
“I’m gonna gut each and every one of them and tie them together by their intestines.” You murmur to yourself as you walk away, ignoring the guy who just laughs behind you.
“See you soon, Sparrow.” You can hear the grin in his tone and it pushes you off your senses; you might need to speed it up back to the office but they will have a piece of your mind. The fuckers! How dare they!
A wet nose touches your hand before you can reach for your helmet; a black long haired dog, with swift legs that cannot stay still, a huge scar across her face that grows up an empty eye socket, and the quickest, happiest tails you’ve ever seen, comes to you, sitting at your feet and pawing at your leg.
You can resist; you pet her and she gets up, walks around happily and comes back. You pet her again and she jumps on you, making soft whiny noises.
If you keep going you might need to take her home.
You put her paws back to the ground for good measure and get on your trusty motorcycle; she whines but doesn't try to follow, instead taking a spot to sit by the shop’s door.
You wave before accelerating.
You ave a feeling he might have waved back.