Jake came to groggily. It took him a while to gather his wits and figure out where he was. The floor of a truck. Not one of those trucks the rednecks on a farm have, that they pull their horse trailers with- Jake thought it was just a stereotype, but then he went out of the city a way some years ago, and low and behold, trucks! But this was not one of those. This was what he normally thought of when you think truck, that is a sixteen-wheeler semi.

They called them something different in almost every city of America, even single families called them different from their own neighbors. But that thought journey aside, he was on the floor of a cargo truck. In the back of it too- the place where you put stuff and then it's a giant rectangle on wheels, and the tall weird car thing latches on and drives it away- the back of that- that was where he was. He was way too calm about this.

He was on his side, he realized that belatedly, only when he tried to lift his head. His hands were tied tightly in front of him, he could feel the rope, and in the dim lighting, he could just barely see the knots. He tried to move, to shift his feet farther away from each other and brace himself into a sitting position, but his ankles stayed stuck together. Frustrated, he let his head fall back to the ground. He assumed his ankles were tied as well.

To pass the time, he tried to loosen the ropes around his wrists, but every time he pulled on them, they got tighter and tighter. He gave up on that pretty soon after starting.

Maybe an hour later, the back of the truck opened slightly, letting in a sliver of artificial light. Jake blinked towards it, and heard that same language he had heard earlier. It still sounded like Japanese to him, but something about it sounded very un-Japanese.

"Who are you people?" Jake tried to ignore the fact that he wasn't really in a position to ask questions. He could see the gun peeking out of his jacket. The jacket was the next thing Jake focused on, it looked funny, in an unfamiliar kind of way. It had tribal patterns going in a line across it, and a long braid hanging down his back. His jeans were old and torn up, and his sharp features were angled into a scowl.

"you are the forever child?" the man asked, jumping right over Jake's question, which was fine, because Jake had almost forgotten he'd asked it, anyways, the man carried on, "the one with the medication to grow up?"

"My Adderall?" Jake frowned, how did they even know about that? He kept it hidden from the rest of the detectives until recently. And only because Amy just had to chuck the bottle halfway across the bullpen to him. Thanks, Amy, for ruining everything, jeez. Just kidding, he wasn't that annoyed with her, but it wasn't the best moment of his life.

Wait, the investigation into the flower shop had been going on for a little over three days… had they been stalking the precinct since the murder had been discovered? Had they been stalking him?

"You have forever child mannerisms."

Jake squinted, trying to figure out what that meant. Sure, he acted immature sometimes, but he didn't really act like a kid, did he? Or maybe the man was talking about his symptoms, he was actually really impulsive, "you mean my ADHD?"

"yes." The man made no change of expression, it reminded him slightly of Captain Holt.

But now Jake knew they weren't playing stupid, they actually knew what ADHD was, and they were still calling it that weird 'forever child' thing. Now he just needed to know, "why do you care?"

"The Rock People will thank us." The man smiled.

"What?" That explained literally nothing. What was that even supposed to mean. The rock people? What was that? People made out of rock? Statues? They wanted to give him to statues? Did they want to do that? Why though?

Luckily for Jake, the man did explain a little, "the little people. They will thank us for bringing them a forever child, they will make us a new Uktena."

"A giant snake?"

"The Uktena is far more than a giant snake, yoonayguh." (Word for white man, while it can be considered highly derogatory, depending on spoken context, and dialect, usually it's not, but in this instance, it is meant to be racist in intent. Also spelled English phonetically, actual spelling is yunegv.)

Jake blanched, "What the hell did you just call me?" he was seriously confused now, did this guy just call him… what did that even mean? It sounded mean. Was it mean?

"White man."

Oh, yay the dude clarified. Now Jake knew what the dude had called him, he was being called a white man, which he was white, but why did it feel so… gross? "Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool, so let me get this straight, okay? Okay, so you think I'm a forever child because I've got ADHD, and you want to sacrifice me to a bunch of people made of rocks-"

"Little people. The stoneclads would not give us a gift in return."

"cool, cool, little people, made of rocks-" Jake cut himself off, "Wait stoneclads?"

"No, just the little people."

"so, they're not made of rocks?"

"No, they are just little people."

"Why are they called rock people then?"

"They live in caves."

"Do they live with stoneclads?"

"No, stupid yunegv, just the little people."

"Okay. Okay, okay," Jake decided to drop it, "so you want to sacrifice me to a bunch of tiny people in caves-"

"Not tiny, little."

"Little people, little people in caves, so they'll be happy with you, and make you a giant snake?"

"No, they make one of us into a giant snake." There was a pause, Jake just stared at him, he had come to the realization that this man was crazy, the man himself just stared back, then he said, "with horns."

"Okay…" what? What even… Jake knew for a fact that this man was absolutely missing a ton of marbles, "cool, cool, cool, why a snake? With horns?"

"A giant snake, it tried to kill the sun once."

That sentence made Jake's brain stop computing for a moment, "Wh…" he had to seriously focus on not smiling over how absurd this was and smiling was definitely not appropriate at this time, "what?"

"The sun was angry with us, and shone brightly to kill us all, so we went to the little people and they made us two snakes, and one was the Uktena, and they tried to kill the sun."

"Oh, cool, cool," this was so weird. Maybe it was relevant to remind you that Jake was tied up on the ground of a sixteen-wheeler, talking to a random armed man who was holding him captive about a giant snake that may or may not have killed the sun. (that was the best sentence I have ever written in my life.) "so, uh," Jake had no idea what he was doing, maybe he was stalling, maybe he was actually interested in this weirdness, "did it kill the sun?"

"No, its companion killed the sun's daughter."

"Cool?"

A/N: Merry Christmas Chapter two of the day will be up soon.