Disclaimer! I do not own Bungou Stray Dogs. The characters are owned by Kafka Asagiri and illustrated by Sango Harukawa. The only things I own are my storyline and OC's. I am not making money off of this story, nor do I plan to.
This story takes place sometime after season 3 of the anime. This can be seen as canon divergence as I do not follow the manga nor the light novels.
…...
Charlie raised a fist to knock on the door, feet scuffing against the carpet when it was abruptly flung open. Chuuya stood on the other side, cheeks flushed red and pupils dilated. He was obviously still drunk and now very upset. She assumed he had found her letter when he dragged her inside.
"Where have you been?!" He demanded and waved her letter in her face, stumbling as she followed him inside the apartment. She held his shoulders to steady him and plucked the note from his hand, crumpling it up as she did so.
"I told you, I went to meet Dazai." She said simply. There was no point in sugarcoating where she had been and even less point in lying.
"That mackerel?! Why?!" Chuuya shouted, and Charlie winced at the volume.
"I told you in my letter. I went to meet with Dazai to get more information on the case. They're working on the same issue; Ranpo is interested in what I'm working on." She explained patiently, ignoring the bubble of her temper that was building in the back of her mind. She didn't like dealing with drunk people. She had dealt enough with that back home in England.
Charlie slowly led a rambling Chuuya up the stairs and towards his bedroom. Once in the room, he flopped face-first on the bed. He didn't even take off his slippers. Charlie sighed and slipped off his slippers, helping him adjust until he was somewhat comfortable under the covers, his head on his pillows. She refused to help him change; that was crossing the line. So instead, she went and got a glass of water from downstairs and a bottle of painkillers from the medicine cabinet.
Setting them on his nightstand, Charlie left the mumbling mafioso in his bedroom and shut the door most of the way behind her.
"Let me know if anything changes with him, please." She said to Rimbaud, who nodded and directed her to the nearest computer at her insistence. He pointed her to a sleek black laptop in the last room on the right of the upstairs floor. This room looked like an office for Chuuya to work at home. It was just as sleek and dark as the laptop on the mahogany desk.
Charlie drew the curtains and powered on the laptop. She stuck the thumb drive in the little port and realized she should probably have checked for viruses before just sticking the little thing into the computer. Then she shrugged; Chuuya probably had virus protection on his computer anyway. Hopefully.
Luckily for her, the computer was already logged in, and she pulled up the thumb drives access. On it was files upon files of information. Charlie checked the clock.
10:49 PM.
She sighed and slumped over, banging her head on the table. It looked like she had a long night ahead of her.
…
Charlie woke up to the sound of a door slamming shut and the shower turning on full blast. She jerked awake, head shooting up from her folded arms, and glanced blearily around.
What time was it? She glanced at the clock.
6:57 AM.
She probably fell asleep around four in the morning if she had to guess. So that meant she got around three hours of sleep.
Great.
She pulled out her phone with a yawn and saw she had a missed call from her mother. Actually, she had several. Twelve, to be exact. Charlie frowned; what was going on? Was something wrong? This was the most activity she had gotten from her mother in years. So she started a new text message.
To: Mother
Is everything okay? Why are you calling me so much?
Charlie sent the text and rebooted the laptop, looking through her notes that she had typed in a half-asleep state. She took a sip from the coffee she had gotten somewhere around two in the morning. She made a face; it had gone cold. Then, her phone buzzed.
From: Mother
Call me.
At this, Charlie's frown deepened, and she pulled up her mother's contact. She hesitated. Did she really want to call her mother? Could she handle it?
She pressed call.
It took three rings for her mother to pick up.
"Charlene?" Charlie cringed at the sound of her full name and swallowed,
"Why did you want me to call? Is there something wrong?" She demanded and heard the sounds of her siblings talking in the background. Where were they?
"Yes, something is wrong. Where are you? We're at your work, and you aren't here."
Wait.
What?
"What do you mean you are at my work?" She demanded and heard her mother scoff in what sounded like disgust.
"I need to run some errands and have nowhere to leave the children. So I got your work address from the hospital and showed up. The man there, Jacob Marley? He said you were usually there overnight."
"Wait, you— what? You got the address from the hospital?! That's a huge invasion of privacy!" Charlie shouted into the receiver, her temper getting the better of her for a moment. She took a moment and breathed in, pinching the bridge of her nose and adjusting her glasses. Of course, her mother would get that kind of information.
Abruptly she realized her mother was talking.
"—it's was necessary! You never answered my calls yesterday, and I need to run errands! So where are you?!" Her mother screeched into the phone, and Charlie had to take the phone away from her ear, so she didn't go deaf.
"I'm not there, obviously. I'm at an acquaintance's house—the man who took me out of the hospital. We're working on a case." She explained, fighting desperately to keep her calm. However, her mother just brushed her off, just like she always did.
"Then put it on hold! Family is more important than a silly little game of detective." Her mother snapped, and Charlie gritted her teeth, the pressure doing little to calm her down. She rubbed at her forehead, already feeling tired despite just having woken up.
"Look, I can't just leave this case. I'm being paid. No amount of blackmailing is going to get me to come back—"
"Who are you? How did you get in here?!" Came her mother's voice over the phone, cutting off Charlie's rant and making her heart go cold.
"Mother? What's going on?" She whispered into the phone, able to hear a commotion through the receiver. It sounded like someone was breaking in. But who?
"Wh—what are you?! Stay away! Fanny—" The phone abruptly clicked and hung up, leaving Charlie looking at her phone in worry.
There was a knock on the door before Chuuya came in, looking haggard and positively miserable. He was dressed for the day in a button-down and trousers, his vest open and unbuttoned. He leaned on the doorframe and glanced at her phone,
"Everything alright?" He asked, and she shook her head. How could she be okay after hearing that?
"I think my family was just kidnapped."
…
FairyTailWzard's OC's (these are mine! Do not steal them!):
Charlene "Charlie" Dickens: Sleep-deprived 23-year-old medical examiner works to solve homicides and performs autopsies for the police, Port Mafia, and the Armed Detective Agency. Ability: The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain; allows her to see and interact with the spirits of the dead.
Rudyard Kipling: Deceased Englishman in his 30s, unknown background. Ability: The Jungle Book; he can manifest his tattoos into real animals. He has the tattoos of a python, a Bengal tiger, and a giant bear.
Jacob Marley: He is Charlie's assistant in the morgue and during autopsies. He lives with his nephew Tim Cratchit and businessman Ebenezer Scrooge.
"Bones": Port Mafia member found dead
Katrina Van Tassel: Port Mafia member found dead
Ichabod Crane: Port Mafia member found dead. The only one not to come back as a ghost.
Diedrich Knickerbocker: Port Mafia member found dead. Ability: Storyteller-Basically whatever he reads/writes becomes a reality.
Dickens Family: Mother, father, eight children. Charlie's family.
Washington Irving: Suspected serial killer still on the loose.