Pigment (Millard Nullings X Reader)

Sitting at the Table

When we went downstairs, everyone was already sitting down, chatting happily to each other. Emma habitually went to a seat near one end of the table. Two other empty chairs sat beside Emma's seat, one on each side of her. Being as lazy and awkward as I was, I chose the chair that was closest to the door, in case I were to ever need to leave. This was obviously for unexpected circumstances, of course, and not because my social anxiety always got the best of me. How silly would that have been? (No, it definitely wasn't the fact that I could freak out or say the wrong thing or somehow manage to pee on my seat or have weird mannerisms that they thought was weird.)

The chair was already pushed away from the table, which made it absolutely perfect. Emma raised her hand toward me, as if she was trying to stop me from sitting down, but it was too late. When I tried to sit down, I could immediately feel that I wasn't sitting on the wooden seat that I thought I would.

"Mind getting off my lap?" A new voice asked, obviously annoyed. I couldn't see where it came from, but I knew that it was directed towards me.

I stood up quickly, my whole face immediately heating up. I turned around towards the chair, to still find that it was empty.

Was.... was the chair itself talking to me?

It wouldn't have been the weirdest thing to happen to me all day.

"It just occurred to me that I've never met you before," the voice said again.

"Maybe..." Miss Peregrine walked into the room. "If you were to put clothes on while you dine, like any respectful person would do, Miss (L/N) would not have mistaken you to not be here. Mister Nullings, why don't you go do that now, since we're on the topic of introducing ourselves to others."

The chair grumbled, then messily got pushed back under the table. I started to suspect that I was not sitting on a magical chair, but perhaps it was just an invisible person.

I saw Emma gesture for me to sit on the other side of her, and I did. Luckily, no other invisible person sat there.

I grabbed a napkin, and respectfully put it on my lap. I was a guest, afterall.

Miss Peregrine sat at the head of the table, and didn't talk until the food finally came. She then silenced the room, so she could make a few announcements.

"Wards, some of you may have already noticed that we have a guest in this house today." She waved a hand politely towards me, and I awkwardly waved. "For those who haven't met her yet, this is Miss (Y/N) (L/N). Would you like to introduce yourself some more?"

No.

I stood up reluctantly, and felt everyone's eyes on me. I made sure to look everyone in the eye before starting, and found Bronwyn giving me a thumbs up. Even Enoch seemed mildly intrigued as to what I was about to say, and smiled while rolling his eyes. 

"Um, hullo everyone," I started. From the corner of my eye, I saw a pair of clothes sit down in the empty seat next to Emma. "I'm (Y/N) as most of you already know, and I actually came here with my cousin, Heather, who you all will hopefully meet tomorrow. I came from 1972, and yeah, that's about it. Oh, and I like laying on the floor face-down at random times, so please don't trip on me."

I sat back down in my chair, and watched as people started whispering excitedly. One boy raised his hand, and I recalled seeing him from earlier, when he was sitting with another dirty haired girl. The guy wore a bug net around his head, and bees escaped his mouth freely when he spoke.

"In 1972, have you guys explored the whole world yet?" he asked.

"Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure we finished doing that forever ago," I said. Of course, I didn't know if that was true, since I never actually payed attention in Geography class. "But I do know that America traveled to the moon a couple years back."

This seemed to excite the children even more, and the whispering became louder. People would shout questions out at me, and I tried to answer them the best I could. I looked over at Miss Peregrine for help, and I watched her stand up with a glass in one hand and a knife in the other. She clanked them appropriately, and everyone quieted down. 

"Now, I know that you are all excited to have a guest from the present arrive, but there is no need to ask so many questions. We are lucky enough to be in a safe loop where we are, so why would we need anything else?" Everyone's expressions seemed to drop a bit. "I believe that we can all eat now, and perhaps you can all introduce yourself to Miss (L/N) individually later on."

The cases on the food came off, to show an arrangement of strange and beautiful foods. Some things were familiar to me, such as roasted pig, and chocolate pudding. Other things like cat and exotic berries were new. It made sense that peculiar people had peculiar appetites and tastes, but I decided to play it safe and only get things that I knew I've had before. Call me plain, but I'd rather be known as boring, than 'The Girl who Threw Up her First Day Here'.

Emma nudged me, and whispered, "You should try out your peculiarity here. Let's see who would actually notice!"

Everyone noticed, actually. It was secretly quite fun to watch people's eyes grow large when their food suddenly became black and burnt, to only turn back to its normal color. People seemed to love it when I turned everyone's hair pink. Miss Peregrine either didn't notice, or didn't seem to care, since she said nothing against it. 

When dinner was over, people left to go get ready for bed. Some took The Bird's advice, and went over to me and introduced themselves. I eventually learned Bee Boy's name, and promised to become good friends with him. I grabbed a biscuit for the walk home, and let Emma lead me to the door.

"Are you sure you don't want to meet Heather?" I asked her. 

She shook her head. "If I were to leave the loop for a long time, I'd age to match the time period, so it would be safer for me to just guide you back to the loop entrance. Ready to go?"

I nodded, but then suddenly heard footsteps rush over to me. I turned around to see the invisible boy from earlier running towards me. He was nicely dressed, surprisingly, and I watched him pit his hands on his knees, panting heavily. I felt rude thinking about it, especially since he was a stranger to me, really, but damn he looked pathetic.

"It's (Y/N), right?" he wheezed. "Thank Bird I was able to get here before you left."

He stood up, and I put my hand on my hip. Our first encounter wasn't the best, that was for sure. What was he going to do? What did he even have to say? 'Sorry for letting you sit on my lap for a good five seconds while humiliating you in front of everyone. Have a good night!'

"I just wanted to apologize for earlier," he said. "I didn't mean to seem rude, but I mistook you for another peculiar. My name's Millard Nullings, by the way."

Millard. Where had I heard that name before? A book, maybe? But then I recalled my conversation with a group of peculiars earlier, talking about how excited this 'Millard' would be to see me.

I snapped my fingers. "Oh yeah, Bronwyn was talking about you earlier!"

"Well, I hope that I could make up for today," Millard said. "Would you mind me asking if-"

He was interrupted by Emma, who said, "(Y/N), we have to go before the bombs go off. You don't want to be out there when it happens, trust me."

"Look, I'll see you tomorrow," I told Millard. I waved him goodbye, and walked outside the house with Emma. 

The sun slowly began to set, as a blimp started coming in as if to replace it. I followed Emma into the bog, and back to the lip of the cave I first traveled into. 

"You just have to walk back into the cave, and come out again," Emma simply instructed.

"See you tomorrow, then," I told Emma. 

We hugged, and I walked back into the cave. I knew that I had left the loop when my ears popped, and I could hear the town's one furnace going off in the night.

It appeared that I was back in Cairnholm, Wales, 1972.