Jjba Vampire AU- Children Of The Night (Jonathan/Erina/Speedwagon x Reader)

Some Kind Of Stranger

Content Warning: This fic contains depictions of period-typical homo/biphobia, alongside attitudes towards gender and mental health. There is also some mild gore, brief mentions of animals being harmed, and some spicy (yet not explicit) scenes. Now on with the story!

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The dream came again tonight. That terrible, dark dream, an illogical nightmare you'd been having for weeks. You didn't know why you feared it so much, as there was really nothing scary about it at all- which only made it worse. After a long day of restoration, cleaning up paintings for an old widow who lived in Kensington, you fell asleep as usual in your thin, single bed. You rented a room above a dressmaker's shop, and although it was small, it was always clean and warm. This was of little comfort to you, however, as you felt your body paralyse the way it always did when this dream came about. You couldn't move a muscle, but it's not like running would do you any good- after all, this terror lived inside your brain, and you could never separate yourself from that, making it all the more horrific.

The dream played out as usual. Before you stood an enormous house, built in the style of a Tudor palace. It reminded you of Hampton Court, all red brick and tall walls. Unlike Hampton Court, however, this palace was on fire. Huge tongues of flame belched from the broken windows and ravaged any wooden structures in sight, like some kind of gigantic phoenix spreading its wings. Before you lay a man, head turned so you could only see his back and his hair, which was an odd shade of dark blue. You were filled with eerie terror, a strange kind of petrifying anticipation as the figure moved his head as he always did in this dream. It slumped to one side, and you let out a shriek as you saw his face. It was covered with a stone mask, carved to have a humanoid face on it, albeit with short fangs. His figure was grotesquely limp, like some kind of ragdoll, or a drowned corpse washing up ashore. It shouldn't have scared you, it was just a mask in a dream, but by God... The uncanniness of the entire spectacle was awful, turning your legs to jelly and making your heart race in your chest. The sense of unease crept through you, higher and higher, like rot creeping through an abandoned house. The flames roared higher and higher, and your eyes snapped open as you let out a soft yelp. As usual, there was no fire, no dead man in a stone mask- just you, in your nightdress, in your room.

You'd woken up far earlier than you usually did, but you knew that you couldn't go back to sleep after that cursed dream. The sun had not yet risen, and no golden light crept between the chimney pots and roofs of Bath, the town you called home. You got out of bed, pulled on your dressing gown and slippers, and padded over to your dressing table. Your room only contained a bed, wardrobe and dressing table/washstand, alongside a small bedside table where you kept your candlestick. You splashed cold water onto your face from the bowl on your dressing table, trying to wake yourself up. You shuddered as cold rivulets of icy water dripped down your face, but it didn't do any good. Your head still swam with nightmarish images, and you rubbed your temples, as if to rid them from your mind. You considered going to a doctor to see what was wrong with you, but the reality of the situation crashed down on you before you could consider this any further.
Needles. Laudanum. Straight jackets. They'd ask questions, and they'd find out about your hidden thoughts, the ones about women, and they'd take you away to a terrible place where you'd be locked up in a padded cell and pumped full of drugs, a burden to every good citizen! Unless they got curious about those new American treatments, and brought out electric shocks, and carbolic acid, and borax and awful, rough wire brushes that would shred your flesh like pins through silk, and the whole world would know how filthy you were!
Talking to someone professional about this would be suicide. So you'd have to bottle up your dreams for now, and simply hope they went away.

As you weren't going to go back to bed, you quickly got dressed, made your bed, and headed downstairs to get some work done. Although you were a restoration expert by trade, clients could sometimes be scarce, or just plain stingy. You had some savings, but because of this, you'd made a deal with the seamstress you rented a room from. If you cooked and cleaned the living areas whilst she worked in the shop, she'd provide food- or rather, ingredients to make food- and a room to sleep in. You set about sweeping the floors and lighting the fireplaces, before filling the kettle and sweeping the front steps. As you got bacon and eggs sizzling on the range, the clock struck 7, and the seamstress came padding downstairs in her old down-at-heel slippers. She went to check the post as usual, and you heard her give a curious hum.
"There's a letter for you, _______" She said, passing you an envelope. You took it from her as you plated up breakfast and poured tea, and looked at it curiously. You advertised your skills in a few major newspapers, alongside a journal for this kind of business. There weren't many women in your line of work, but it was seen as a respectable job for an unmarried woman to have, and it paid the rent. Looking down at the letter, you saw that it was like nothing you'd ever received before. The address was written in an odd, curling font, and the envelope's paper was thick and bumpy, almost the colour of weak tea. It was sealed with a blob of dark blue wax stamped with an emblem of a star, and you eagerly opened it as your breakfast congealed on your plate.