#baranbas

Next one in my Endless x Reader fics. This one was a lot more fun though I’ll admit the ending isn’t the best XD Either way enjoooy!

“I like the ribbon,” you hear a small voice say from behind you.

“Uh huh…” you answer, only half paying attention, your eyes not breaking contact with the mess that is your work on the wall. Though you suddenly snap back to reality, exclaiming, “Wait-” as you turn to find the voice.

Your caffeinated brain not fully registering what was before you.

“Red is a good colour, only when it stays inside though, outside it gets messy and everywhere,” said the small girl who was sat on the edge of your bed.

“How did you get into my room?” you ask, looking at the door to see if it was open.

“Well I turned left from my place, walked upside down for a bit in this dark place and came to a door. It was pretty easy to get past, as long as you know how, which I do,” she replied with a beaming smile before flopping backwards onto the covers.

“But it was locked, and we’re on the third floor of my campus apartment?”

“I did meet someone on the way here, and they were quite shouty. I think I made think a penguin was attacking him, but I’m not sure. But the door wasn’t hard. I just asked it nicely. Or was that the man?”

This girl spoke so quickly it was giving you a headache. Or at least, a worse one, which was the last thing you needed at the moment. This university project was driving you nuts, because it was due in a week and was taking up all of your time.

“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be with you family or something?”

The girl sat up and tilted her head, gazing at you with her… eyes. Which were mismatched, one being blue and the other green.

“Well… A lot of them scare me, especially Despair, Destiny and very muchly Desire. Dreamy is kinda sweet, but I think he’s judging me behind his frowning. Death is always nice to me, she’s cool, and likes to chat when she’s not busy…” she pauses for little while. “…and I had a brother but I don’t know where he is and I miss him… but he gave me a Barnabas, and I like him a lot!”

You blink. In the process of explaining… whatever it was she had told you, you were pretty sure her hair had changed colour. It was a vibrant green, but now had turned to a dark blue with yellow highlights.

“Right… Well, please, can you go? I’m sorry I just have this thing-”

“Ooo, what is it?” she interrupts you, springing off the bed and climbing up onto your desk, examining your work. As she passes you notice she smells kind of like sour wine.

“Hey! Careful! It’s my latest class project,” you protest, but before you can stop her, she’s looking at everything. All across the wall you have various papers, articles and other pieces of information stuck on via a mix of tac, pins and tape, and connected via strands of red ribbon. You had spent weeks carefully putting it all together and even though it looked like an unorganised mess, it made sense to you.

“I met a solving man once, he called himself Dee Tektiv,”

“Do you mean he was a detective?” you ask.

“Um… yes. But anyway, he had a wall like this, though he used boring blue ribbon, which isn’t inside or messy. His wall had a man who stabbed someone, though he wasn’t sure”.

“That sounds delightful…” You mumble to yourself. In the blink of an eye the girl is suddenly an inch from your face, glaring into your eyes with her own from the on top of the table.

“That isn’t me. Not now me. A while ago me. I don’t like thinking about Delight me. It hurts. Like it did to that stabbed man who was stabbed”.

Before you can apologise, even though you weren’t sure what you or her had said, she had turned back to the wall as quick as she’d looked to you.

“Where are the stabbed people on your wall?” she asked inquisitively.

“I’m not a detective, there aren’t any dead people there,” you pinch your brow in frustration. “If you must know, I’m doing a psychology project assignment on why nightmares are so vivid”.

After hearing this, the girl jumps off the table and starts jumping up and down, clapping cheerfully as she does.

“Oh, oh, oh! I know someone that can help you! I mentioned him earlier, he’s great with all the stuff about dream stuff, I’ll go ask him”.

With that she disappeared, with a sound that resembled a quick trumpet note. Like straight up gone before your eyes. For a second, her shadow still remained on the floor before also blinking out too leaving behind a faint smell of spearmint. You don’t move for a good minute, eyes fixed to the spot she was just stood. You drop to the bed and place your hands over your face.

“I’m losing my mind,” you muffle, letting out a large sigh. “It’s just the stress, why else would you be seeing things?” you assure yourself. Taking a deep breath, you open your eyes. Only to be met with blue and green.

“Hello, sorry if you were sleeping, or were dead, or both. I used to know a woman who had that happen too,” said the girl. She was standing by your bed and was leant over your face. You aren’t even annoyed by her presence.

“What happened to her?” you ask, unsure as to why you are playing along with what was clearly a hallucination at this point.

“Oh… she died. Or fell asleep”. She shook her head violently. “Speaking of, I spoke to my brother about helping your wall. He said he was busy and didn’t know what I was talking about, which I thought was odd, since I’m sure I used words”.

At this point you had given up trying to understand… whoever she was. The way she disappeared like that and the way her hair kept shifting was unsettling. In fact, her clothes had changed slightly too. She was wearing a pink shirt with a leather jacket over it and ripped jeans. But now her leather jacket had changed to a simple red hoody.

“Who are you?” you finally ask, since you realise you don’t know her name.

“People have called me lots of things, I’ve forgotten a few of them though. I think they have too, I’d like to know where they left them… Usually my sister calls me Del and I like it when she does. Barnabas calls me ‘girl’ but I think he’s just jealous I have hands, see?” to prove her point, she waved her hands wildly.

You stare at her for a second or two, then sit up and lean back against your wall, resting your hands on the top of your head.

“Am I going mad? Is that it?” you sigh to yourself. It was the only thing that made sense. As a teleporting shapeshifting teenage girl wasn’t possible, so your brain must be fried from all the overworking you’ve been doing.

In response, Del gazed deep into you, slightly tilting her head as she did. She narrowed her eyes, looking like she was genuinely considering the question.

“Not quite,” she finally responds. “You’re almost in my realm, but not really. Like, the door is unlocked but you’re undecided”. She said this with such certainty you can’t help but believe… whatever she was saying. The way she spoke made it seem this was a topic she understood, which was no less comforting.

“How do you know that? What do you mean by your realm? And are you even real?” you ask, firing out questions like malfunctioning conveyor.

“I just do. I know a lot of things, more than my oldest brother, though he doesn’t like admitting it. My realm is a cool place, though someone not… um… with screws loose, wouldn’t like it, what with all the hurty. And real is difficult. Sometimes things are real and I don’t mean it…” She trails off during this sentence, as if distracted by something.

“Uh, hey? Del?” You wave your hand in front of her face and she snaps back.

“Yes? Oh sorry I was thinking about these butterflies my sis-bro stole and made them set themselves on fire. I didn’t like that,” she huffed and sulked, sitting cross-legged on the floor.

You blink, slightly frustrated you didn’t get an answer for your last question. Relenting against your better judgement, you get up off the bed and look down to her.

“Listen… I have no clue what you want with me, but are you thirsty at all?” you ask her, crouching down so you’re eye level.

“Do you have any mango juice?” she responds quickly.

“No I don’t, sorry”.

“Good, cause that stuff is bad. Can I have a bowl of water please?” she looks at you and smiles in a cutesy way, and you can’t help but oblige, despite the odd request.

“Sure thing Del”. You stand up and walk out of your room and into the common area kitchen. You bump into a friend who gives you a confused look when they see you filling up a cereal bowl under the sink, though they dismiss it and leave you to it. You pour yourself an apple juice and make your way back to the room, where she is still sat.

You walk over and sit in front of her, handing the bowl. She claps in excitement and produces a straw and handful of some powder from her coat (which was now a green denim one, that was two sizes too big for her). She drops the powder into the water and puts the straw in her mouth. Taking a deep breath, she then proceeds to blow into the liquid, producing several bubbles.

Somehow, each one was a different shape, with spheres, cubes and even cylinders now floating around your room. One floats over and pops on your nose, creating an odd smell of a freshly peeled banana. You can’t help but let out a laugh, an honest outburst of enjoyment that you hadn’t felt since before this project.

Del also lets out a giggle, before blowing more bubbles. Another one pops near you and it somehow makes a noise like a miniature foghorn, which almost makes you spit out your drink. After producing another wave, she jumps up and begins to try and catch them, popping bubbles left and right and producing various sounds and smells.

Acting quite unlike yourself, you also stand up and burst a single bubble, delighting in the honest-to-goodness cartoon ‘POP’ sound it makes. You can’t help yourself as you continue. Before long, you and Del are running around your room like children, and you couldn’t care less.

All your worries fade away as you revel in the childish endeavour. At some point, you knock over the drink you left on the floor, though you aren’t fussed by it. After a while the bubbles are all gone and you slump to the floor to catch your breath. Del picks up the bowl and drinks the rest of the liquid, which is followed by a sharp belch as a frog shaped bubble flies out her mouth and pops on the floor.

“Ok, I’ll admit that was fun,” you pant, smiling at the mess all over the room. “Seriously though who are you? And are you real?”

This time, she doesn’t avoid the question, and shuffles over until she is sat right in front of you. She gingerly lifts her hand and reaches out, gently, but kind of firmly, poking you on the nose.

“See? All real!” she says, confirming with a second prod. “As who I am, I told you it depends who you ask, but I’m happy with Del”.

“Ok…” you are still just as confused but you continue, “what are you even doing here?”

“Um...” she says, genuinely confused by the question. “I can’t remember, I’m pretty sure I was looking for something?” she taps her chin and looks around the room, as if looking for something that will jog her memory.

“Looking for something?”

“Oh, I know! My friend Barnabas! Have you seen him?” she says, looking at you expectantly.

“Not that I know of, what does he look like?”

“Small, grey, very talky, four legs?”

You pause for a second, confused at what she’s saying, before you work it out. “Wait, is he your dog?”

“Oh you have seen him then?”

“No, I haven’t, though I can help look if you-” before you can finish you hear a loud bark from outside your window, and all of a sudden, Del disappears with a sound that resembles a champagne cork.

A second later she is back with a dog of the description she gave.

“Is this Barnabas then?” you ask, somehow unfazed by her teleportation.

“Yup that’s me,” says Barnabas. For a small moment you almost lose it, but regain your composure as you realise this isn’t the weirdest thing you’ve seen all day.

“We were playing catch in her realm when someone threw it too far and it landed here!” the dog turned and looked judgingly at Del, or at least as much as he could as a dog. “Then you get distracted and come here?”

“I’m sorry Barney, but the door was closed and I couldn’t turn it down!”

“That’s not how that works Delirium”.

“Aaaand there were nice ribbons!” as she says this she points at your project wall.

“Yes, yes, very nice, can we go home now?”

“Oh fine! I just need to get my penguin”.

“Your what now?”

And with that both of them blink out, leaving no trace behind. You sit in still for several minutes, thinking on what to make of the whole experience.

Soon though, you stand up and walk over to your bed, where you see a small plastic tube. You pick it up and with a smile you read the label “Bubbles”.

Delirium and Barnabas by Jill Thompson  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Thompson