A Man of Many Masks || 'The Grabber' x Reader

Hardware Store

sorry that i became that one person with a picrew for their pfp but at least now you have an idea of what i look like.

TW: Quick description of wanting to skin someone alive

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From the moment he saw you enter the store he was... intrigued. He gave Ernie, the boy who was on shift to be cashier, an early break and offered to take his shift for the next twenty minutes. He just needed to talk to you. About seven minutes after you came in, you walked up to the counter holding a hammer, nails, and a screw driver. As the interaction continued he studied everything about you that he could. The way you fidgeted, stuttered, and struggled to hold a conversation. The way dark circles shaded underneath your eyes and your shoulders tensed from nervousness. The way your voice was small but you had pushed it to make yourself sound more confident and social. He found you to be so innocent... and he hated how you looked like you were being broken down to the point of looking dead, and seemed to be so scared of just talking to people or being in public. He felt a need to help you. But at the same time- he didn't want you to get better. He wanted you to stay broken so that he could be there for you.

When you'd left the store, he made sure to take a mental note of what direction you walked in so that he'd at least have a vague idea of where to look. He remembered you looked like you were still in high school, -how could he forget? Your face was stuck in his mind. Just like everything else about you- and so the next day he went for a walk that just so happened to take him by the high school just a minute after the dismissal bell had rung. When he didn't see you, he did the same thing the next day. This time, he saw you. He followed you on the opposite side of the street, and behind you far enough to to the point were you weren't able to see him, but if you turned the corner he could see where you had gone. He followed you all the way home, and wrote down the address in pen on the little stack of post-it notes he had in his back pocket.

><Just a reminder that Y/n is 18><

Every night for six nights since then he would walk to your house at around 7:00 pm to 11:00 pm. He just told Max that he liked to go on night walks to clear his head before bed. But if he went later Max would normally be asleep. But every single time he would walk past your house he'd hear yelling. Screaming. Fighting. Every time it had been a man and a women. The first night it was,
-bold is father slanted is mother-
"GO RUN OFF WITH YOUR LITTLE SKANK AND ALL THE COKE YOU HAVE STASHED IN YOUR CAR!"
The second night,
"YOU DON'T EVEN CARE ABOUT Y/N!"
"OH AND YOU DO!?"
The third,
"WHY DON'T YOU JUST DRINK AWAY ALL YOUR GOD DAMN PROBLEMS, JUST LIKE YOU ALWAYS DO! JUST LIKE YOUR FUCKING MOTHER ALWAYS DID!"
And the fourth fight was about same subject as the first night's fight: cheating and coke. But this time he saw a man, the one who he correctly assumed to be your father, leaving with a suitcase. The man -quite aggressively- threw the suitcase into the trunk and slammed it closed with enough force that Albert was sure the car's windows or taillights would break. He then got into the car and left.

The fifth night was when Al finally saw you. You were on the porch, arms thrown around your legs and head leaning against the railing. The light from the lampposts reflected in your tears, leaving bright white streaks leading from your eyes down your face. It made Albert angry that someone else had made you cry. Not just angry, but absolutely infuriated. He wanted to not only destroy the person who did this to you, but he wanted to skin them little by little, making sure to cauterise the wound so that they wouldn't bleed out before he was done with them. He wanted them to still be alive to see the hideous, bloody, burnt pile of scorned mussel that they'd become. Al didn't know if you were crying because your father had left (he knew this because he could see that the car he had gotten into the night before was still gone) or because of something you mother did, or for some other wretched reason. He needed to help you. Needed you to need him. To be forced to take comfort in him. Trust him. And it only made it worse that he couldn't do that right now. You didn't know him- hell, you probably didn't even remember him from the store. At least that's what he thought. And so he walked back to his house, furious, alone, and almost remorseful. Almost.

On the sixth night he did something different- it was like there was a voice in the back of his head telling him what to do. A voice he was all to familiar with, but still didn't trust. It demanded him to get ready to preform a magic trick, and to bring the car. He did as he was told, unsure of the outcome, and still not entirely trusting. He got into his car and drove to your house. The dark of the night sky was only to be interrupted by the bright streetlights, like the ones that had illuminated your tears the night before. Every once in a while he would see a light on in one of the houses, dim living room lights just barely escaping through the curtains. But at last, he made it to your street. He slowed down so that the black van was quietly and slowly crawling down the street. He kept his eyes on your house, glancing to the road every now and again to make sure a cat or something wasn't going to run out in front of the van. Once he was just a few houses down from yours, he stopped the van, waiting to see if you'd be outside. After about four minutes he heard it, "Yeah that's right Y/n, just go. JUST LEAVE ME ALONE LIKE YOUR DRUNK OF A FATHER DID!! AND DON'T FUCKING COME BACK ONCE YOU WALK THROUGH THAT DOOR!!"  And then he saw you, running out of the house and down the opposite street where he was parked in the middle of the road. He didn't know if he should follow you, but he found himself putting the car back into motion regardless. He'd lived in this town since he was a child, he had every street mapped out in his head. Eventually, he saw you walking down a sidewalk with your eyes seemingly focused on the ground. He parked just a block in front of where you were walking, and the Grabber's fifth victim was caught.

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Word Count: 1.1K+

sorry it took so long to get out but... here you go ig :,)

-Bowie <3