#named reader insert

“…Oh my gosh!”

“Are they okay…?!”

“Where’d they come from?”

Oh my god, can anyone tell them to shut up?! Some people are trying to sleep here. 

Well, if you can call this sleep, really. Now that I’m actually a bit conscious, I can actually feel the agony weighing on me. Every inch of my body is crying out in the sort of pain that will leave bruises and scars and aches for days. Either I’m having the hangover of a century or I got hit by a semi, and neither seem appealing.

A groan leaves me at the thought, my eyes moving behind eyelids. I need to get up at some point. Get to my phone. Call my—

“…Hey, I think they’re comin’ round,” a deep Southern drawl above my head. 

“Step back!” Another voice, nasally and anxious. “Give them some air!”

The shuffle of many feet makes me feel a little less stifled. With a deep breath, I force myself up on my elbows. Then grasp my forehead, feeling pain pain pain, god, ow! Feels like I was run over by a truck, shit. Did I drink anything last night…? 

Actually, what did I do last night? 

Blinking, I keep trying to remember…but it just makes no sense. I came home from work, pet my cat, went into the bedroom to greet you, and then—nothing. Nothing except the memory of smelling smoke.

All my focus returns when a huge hand lands on my shoulder. I blink again and look over to see that it’s blue and…fuzzy. 

What the hell…?

My eyes follow the length of the arm to see a huge, huge blue dog staring down at me. His brows are furrowed and his eyes seem to hold worry. And even worse, in a way that disturbs me right to my bones, his mouth parts and a voice comes out.

“Hey, buddy,” he says softly, almost comforting. “Ya good?”

A ringing starts through my ears.

(Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.)

Immediately, I push away from him and scramble to my feet. I look around, seeing all the bright colors—too bright. Doesn’t look real. The grass, the trees, the flowers, and even the houses—none of it look real. Looks too bright, too colorful. And the…the people.

Wait, no. Not people. Not with those eyes, and that…that skin? Grayish-purple, orange, y-yellow…is that a bird? A sun? And omigod, what the hell is that?

(—Not human!)

“Whoa, they, uh. They don’t look too good, Barn,” says the big green one with too many arms to the big blue dog, his eyes narrowing slightly. 

“P-perhaps we can bring them some tea,” says the huge red bird, a fucking bird, her eyes soft and full of worry.

“Maybe they just need to lie down,” says a huge one with orange skin, wearing a hat. A mailman? His mouth spreads into a gentle smile as he walks over to me, his hand lifting, possibly to calm me down. “Hey pardner, just relax. Everythin’ is okay…”

(DON’T TRUST THEM.) 

And despite my heart pounding so hard it feels like it’ll burst out, despite my lungs pinched from a lack of air, I look around at all of them and scream.

“Get the hell away from me…! Who are you? Where am I? What…?”

As I lift a hand to point, I pause. A dread creeps over me, coats my back in a cold sweat. My gaze falls to my hands, my arms. My fingers are spread as I spin my hands palm up. Then they curl to stroke over each other, to touch, to feel.

(No skin. No skin, no skin, what the hell happened to my skin? It’s just. Just—)

Again, I can’t seem to breathe, my heart hammering so loud I can hear it. But then again, do I even have a heart anymore? Lungs? My hands go to my face, feel the fuzz there and a sob starts to tremble from me. Impossibly so, water flows from my eyes and down my cheeks, making my gaze blurry. Noise happens around me, like yelling but not, just voices full of worry and confusion.

And then, yellow hands grasp my own and it all goes silent.

“Neighbor…?”

That…that voice. I know it. I know him. But how? From where?

“Jamie?”

How does he know my name?

“Jamie, look at me.”

Despite everything, my eyes lift from where he’s holding my hands and meet with his.

You’d think that it was his hair that would catch my attention first, with how blue it is and how it seems to curl in on itself  in a pompadour. But no, it’s actually his eyes. They are huge in how open they are, pupils too wide, and black like the void as they stare into my own. The smile he wears is too wide, it should be splitting his face apart, and yet I kind of know it’s not with anything malicious. He’s excited that I’m here, like he’s been…waiting for me. 

I’m both unnerved, yet drawn to the gaze, despite all the alarms going off inside my skull. Like he is slowly sucking me in—

But then in a blink, his eyes look—normal. Neutral? 

“There we go. Are you all right, Neighbor?” he asks me, his smile not as wide, but still holding warmth…I think. “That was quite a fall.”

I blink. “Fall? F-from where…?”

His eyes dart pointedly upwards, silently coaxing me to follow his gaze. For a split second, high up in the clear blue sky above us—almost too high to see—there’s a black hole with a spiral of white. But then, just as quick as I see it, it closes up and blinks out of existence. I blink again and then start actually looking around me, feeling a sickening thud through my chest. 

What…what is this place?

“I…what…who…” 

Groaning suddenly, I squeeze my eyes closed and let my head fall slightly forward, the nausea making my stomach twist. Fuck, it hurts! But why does it…?

But then he squeezes my hands again, grounding me.

“Of course not, that was a dumb question,” he says in a monotone, but still somehow sounds warm and welcoming. “Come, let me take you to Home. You can have tea there, and we can talk.”

“I’ll come with!” the huge blue dog adds with a grin, and then a grin. “Walls and I can show you ‘round afterwards.”

“That’s a great idea, Barnaby! He’s really good at explaining things, much better than I am.”

At this point, I feel so numb. I can only stare into the slightly shorter man’s dark eyes. Finally, after a beat, I dare to ask:

“Who are you?”

His expression goes blank for a moment. And then, he smiles wide.