New Story!

[tempered-rose.livejournal.com]

Title: What Hides In Plain Sight Will Get You in the Shadows, Chapter 1
Characters: Martin Kelly; Andy Carroll, Daniel Agger, Martin Skrtel, Jamie Carragher, Pepe Reina, Steven Gerrard for now (others later)
Rating: PG now; higher later
Summary: Martin Kelly gets teased about his tolerance for all things supernatural. But does he have good reason to be afraid?
Words: this part: 1031
A/N: I was watching creepy movies today, scaring myself in the process, and decided what better way to scare everybody—share the fear!—than by writing a fic? So…yeah, that’s where this came from. Features my lovely and winning! Liverpool boys <3 Comments are love <3333 I also hope I don’t freak anybody out too badly…apart from myself cause I’m really easily frightened by these types of things. It’ll start out pretty vanilla but then it’ll get worse, I promise. I wouldn’t lie about such things >:D




Martin sighed quietly to himself as he shifted under the bright lights of the studio set. It wasn’t that he had anything against LFCTV, but he just wasn’t very keen on interviews in general. He was always a little anxious about doing them. He didn’t want to say the wrong thing or make himself out to be some sort of bumbling brainless idiot.

The young lady that was going to interview him smiled politely at him. He struggled to return her smile and cringed inwardly when he realized that the expression he had created was more like a grimace instead of the intended smile. He tugged on his shirtsleeve and suddenly took newfound interest in his shoes.

He just wanted to go home as soon as possible.

Once the camera’s came on, the young lady, Renee or something—he couldn’t quite remember her name—smiled at him again. Martin leaned back in his seat and listened politely as she began to speak in a perfect Scouse accent.

“Thank you for joining us Mister Kelly,” she smiled at him.

Martin swallowed nervously and tried for another half-smile. “Thank you for having me.”

“These questions were written in by fans of the club. I’m sure they all appreciate you taking the time to answer them.” The woman smiled and Martin forced himself to take a calming breath before he replied.

“I’m appreciative that they took the time to think I was that interesting.” He smiled a little easier now and the woman laughed quietly.

She began to ask some of the questions that had been typed on a piece of paper. He relaxed almost completely and answered them easily. They were standard questions like what was his favorite sport aside from football, what was his favorite color, did he have any brothers or sisters, and those sorts of questions. He didn’t mind answering them. He was flattered that the fans of the greatest football club in the world took this much of an interest in him.

“Oh, this is a very good question Martin!” The woman smiled again, “what’s your favorite dessert?”

Martin thought about it for a second before he replied. “My mum’s brownies.”

She smiled again. “I bet they are quite lovely.”

He nodded and felt a smile amount of pride and lots of affection when he thought of his mother’s cooking. He smiled genuinely.

“Here’s an interesting question, Martin. Do you believe in ghosts?”

Martin’s smile flickered before it completely disappeared. He swallowed and took a calming breath.

“Yeah, yes. Yes, I do.”

He saw the woman, as well as the rest of the video crew, raise their eyebrows. He saw her mouth open to speak and he quickly interrupted, shrugging his shoulder as if to blow it off.

“I mean, who doesn’t want to believe in something else out there, yeah?”

“Exactly, right.” She hesitated, clearly wanting to ask more but something must have flashed in Martin’s eyes because she accepted the answer and continued asking more questions.

Martin shifted in his seat and swallowed to calm his nerves and hoped that the questioning would end soon. He hadn’t expected that question and it made him very, very uncomfortable.



The training session that afternoon proved to be rather humiliating. Martin wasn’t sure how, but somehow word of that particular question had reached the ears of the entire first team squad. As soon as he had walked past the door to the changing rooms, most of them stopped their conversations and looked up and began to chuckle at him.

“Scared of ghosts, eh? Have nightmares when you were younger, lad?” Laughed Jamie who nudged Daniel. Daniel smiled a little and Martin felt his cheeks burn. His eyes went immediately to his shoes.

“No, mate, he just saw ghosts and heard voices when he was a lad.” Steven chuckled and finished lacing his boots.

He received more teases from the other Martin, Andy, and the others. He looked at his shoes again and felt sheepish and foolish, as well as a little bit disappointed. It wasn’t that he was expecting his teammates to believe in spirits either, but he didn’t think they had to continue this teasing.

Martin was about to open his mouth and say something when Pepe walked into the dressing room. He was late, but no one said anything.

He smiled slightly at the teasing. “What have I missed?”

Steven, who was laughing loudly at the last joke Carra had made, barely got the words out. “Kelly believes…in ghosts!”

He wheezed out the last part and Martin felt even worse. That didn’t stop him from looking to see Pepe’s reaction out of the corner of his eye. Pepe’s smile twitched before it slipped away. His warm brown eyes turned onto Martin and his expression grew concerned.

“Is this true?”

Martin just nodded and he felt his face burn even more. “Go ahead, tease me like the others. Let’s have it.”

He heard Pepe mutter something in Spanish but he wasn’t sure what the man said. He felt Pepe come closer and sit next to him on the bench. Stevie and Jamie as well as the others were laughing too much to really pay any more attention to Pepe at all. Stevie and Andy began to add UFO’s to the mix of taunts.

Pepe’s voice startled him a little when he spoke so close. “I’m not going to tease you, Kelly. I just want you to know that you aren’t the only one that thinks that way. If you ever need anything, give me a call.”

Martin’s head raised and he looked over to Pepe. He saw the warmth in the man’s eyes and he found himself nodding slowly. Pepe nodded once towards him and then stood up and continued on towards his own locker. He just rolled his eyes at Stevie and Jamie and began to make preparations for training.

Martin watched Pepe leave and he sighed softly. He squared his shoulders and turned to get ready for training himself. As he heard another joke from Steven, he sighed and rested his head against the door to his locker.

It was going to be a really long day.