#it's a heart of darkness into the years of lead‚ with shocking scenes of police officers massacred and uncomfortably cathartic moments | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

yminie · 3 years

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nine one one | tres | fin | pjm (m)

pairing: Jimin x reader genre/warnings: angst, fluff, oldflame!pairing, detective!jimin, firstresponder!reader, mentions of death, mentions of murder, mentions of mental health problems, mentions of weapons, explicit language, implied stalking, physical assault, fight scenes, mentions of blood, implied attempt at sexual assault, smut, brief oral sex (female recieving), unprotected penetrative sex. words: 15.3k summary: Your living nightmare has found its way into your home, and you’re all alone.

a/n: it only took me a year (sobs), but it’s finally here!! Thank you so much for all your support over the past two years with this storyline, and I hope you’ve all loved detective Jimin as much as I have! I love you guys so much, and I hope you enjoy it! Lemme know what your think <3

**********

Prev. on Nine-One-One;

Warmth grows in your chest at Jimin’s return, and you stretch out your legs from where they’d been tucked up close to your body as you await the call of your name or perhaps the familiar clicking of his shoes as he crosses your entryway to return to where he’d left you.

But like the night shadows drown the sun’s light, the warmth quickly freezes over into chilling terror as a dark silhouette moves across the room silently, not a sound following his gentle footsteps as he passes between you and the only light in the room. The blue glow of the charger dock sitting on the table against the far wall casting an eerie glow over his form, and just as terrifyingly outlining the fact that his height is a good head taller, and his shoulders are a decent few inches wider than they should be.

And as he makes his way far too confidently towards the hallway leading to your room, and that eerie blue light glints off a large silver shape in his hand, you come to the tearful conclusion that you’re right.

Jimin did not just enter your apartment.

And you have no idea who did.

**********

Fear has you stuck in place, lungs burning as you hold your breath, and only the hushed sound of his feet brushing across the carpet is to be heard. The shape of him gets fuzzier by the second until he’s too far down the hallway to clearly make out his silhouette, and finally your instincts kick in as you carefully slip from the couch and down onto your hands and knees on the floor, heart racing as you crawl as fast as you can behind the couch.

Back flat against the surface, you hear him again as he returns from what you assume to be looking in your room, but his footsteps this time are more stilted, each brush just a few milliseconds off to the last to seem like a normal pace, and it has your panic levels rising even further. You already know for a fact that your phone is up on the breakfast bar just a few metres in front of you, but you can’t bring yourself to move at the risk of him spotting you.

When he comes to a stop across the room, you can’t help but to risk a lean over to the right side of the couch and carefully peer past the corner. Your heart batters harder against the base of your throat at the dark shape of his body stood directly in front of the charging dock, the light bright in the absence of the city’s glow, and you can clearly see the shape of a rounded nose and sharp jaw. Eyes keen on soaking up every detail, you watch with a sense of disturbance as he gently plucks a photo from the stand before him and tilts it towards the light in an effort to see better.

He doesn’t grab your belongings with the aura of someone touching a stranger's things, but with the attitude of a person in their own apartment, merely giving a moment's attention to something they own, and the sight has bile creeping up the back of your tongue.

It feels like forever, the time that passes as you merely sit in eerie silence and watch with burning eyes as he slowly makes his way around the room, stopping at every shelf and surface to touch and hold even the smallest of trinkets that decorate your living room. Filling you with such discomfort and sadness that, you know already, you’ll never be able to look at any of the mementos and photo frames the same way after he’s gone.

You flinch when he turns suddenly, his left side to you now, and the dread swirling in your abdomen even seems to freeze as his features are once more sent into shadows, and he walks confidently to the curtains lining the majority of your apartment, hiding you both away from the world.

It’s barely possible to hold in the cry of shock that chokes its way up your throat when he reaches up and, with two hands, rips the curtains away from the wall with a loud crash.

Back hitting the couch again with a thud, you press a closed fist to your lips to hold all of the panic inside as your eyes squeeze shut against the sudden onslaught of light, and the beginning of the weekend nightlife is bustling away beneath the two of you, oblivious to the happenings right above their heads.

It’s sickening to imagine how many times you’ve been just as unaware as them.

Your whole body tenses up as his feet slide closer to where you’re hidden, and he paces a few steps before spinning on his heel and doing the same in the other direction, moving back and forth in front of the window as you shut your eyes tight and ignore the ache of your muscles. Distantly, you register the muted sound of a dial tone behind the crackle of his shoes over broken plastic and fabric, but it’s the shock of a fuzzy, familiar voice suddenly filling the space around you that has the fear truly setting in your bones.

“Hello, what is your emergency?”

**********

“Ah, yeah, hello?” Taehyung stands in his apartment, back stiff straight as he stares hard at the wall of his kitchen as if he could see through it into your apartment. “I’d like to request an ambulance, and possibly police too.”

“What seems to be the problem, sir?” The first responder on the other end of the line sounds tired, just as Taehyung imagines he would be this time of the night, but it’s even more so in comparison to the way his own body is hyped up with anxiety, ears keen as they listen out for any other crashes coming from your apartment next door. The sound hadn’t been too loud, but it was clashing enough to tell him it hadn’t come from his side of your place, but rather the other end, where he knew your kitchen was located.

The thought of you falling or dropping a plate crossed his mind, but it just didn’t seem to compare to the way the noise had truly made him feel.

“It’s-I heard a loud crashing noise from my neighbours apartment.” The clicking of the responders fingers are fast on the keys of the computer he’s imaging in front of him, and he pauses before speaking again. “And she’s all alone in there most of the time.”

“And she’s not someone prone to making noise? What was the address?”

“No.” Taehyung steps closer to the wall as he lists off the location, so close now to the front door. So close to just going over to check on you himself. “She makes none at all. She’s very quiet usually, I-” He pauses again, deaf to the sound of the general noise coming through the phone as he loses himself to his thoughts. “I’m scared something is really wrong. It just feels really off.”

“I’ll have the closest officer inbound and you’re on the list for the next available medical response, but I apologise since there’s no guarantee of injury or crime,” a few seconds tick by and Taehyung’s heart pounds with worry for you, “our response unit is done by priority so it could take some time as nights like these can be very busy, okay? Be sure to ring back should the situation escalate.”

“Okay.” His throat is dry. “Thank you.”

He doesn’t look away from the wall, merely places his phone down on the counter.

The waiting is almost worse than the fear.

***********

“Hello, what is your emergency?” The loudspeaker on the strangers phone is entirely too loud in the tense silence of your dark apartment, and you shiver uncontrollably at the sound of Taemin’s voice. There’s a tickle in your throat that itches for you to speak up, to yell for help from your friend, but you know it would be useless.

They’re nowhere near you, and lord only knows all the possibilities of things that could happen to you before anyone reaches you.

“I want to speak to the detective.” Head pressed to the back of the couch and body tight with stress, your eyes press shut as the voice of your nightmares echoes in your head, and you ignore the tears as they start to bud on your lashes.

“I’m sorry, you can’t be using this call line for non-emergency calls. We have the office number you can find on our website between the hours of–”

“What if it is an emergency.” His voice is colder than you remember, more than a little empty, and the complete 180 degree turn his attitude had taken from the last time you’d spoken was almost haunting. “What if it’s the worst emergency he could ever face.”

That sickening, burning feeling is back in your stomach, the same as the night you’d woken up in Jimin’s arms on the couch, and you fight against your tongue when you try to swallow. The semi-conscious part of your mind is fighting to remind you that he hasn’t seen you, he doesn’t know where you are. But you can’t seem to beat the way your body is growing evermore repulsed purely at his presence in your apartment.

More than a few seconds tick by, Taemin’s side of the call quiet all but the clicking of his keyboard as he types in a rush. Before they pause.

“It’s you, isn’t it?”

The heavy clang and thundering rattle of your window vibrating in its frame bashes around in your head when the stranger lashes out at it with a tightly closed fist, and you can see the shadow on the floor between the breaking blur of tears as he presses his hand flat against the surface with a snarl.

“I know he’s there, you’d better get him or else I’ll–”

There’s the clatter of the phone being transferred from one person to another, and you can faintly hear the indistinct noise of Taemin frantically speaking to someone on the other end before being hushed.

“Hello?” Hoseok’s voice comes over the line and you tense up even further, mind running wild with the possibility of where Jimin could be. “This is Detective Jung, you’re looking to talk to my partner?”

“Don’t want to talk to you. Don’t fucking–” The strangers head whips to the side, and you can see the silhouette of his features distorted and stretched in his shadow, and a lonely tear drips from your chin to the carpet with a noise far too loud for how sensitive your ears are. “Where is he?”

“You want Jimin right?” The stranger's feet drag as he takes a step to the side, shoulder coming into your peripheral view as he staggers a little, body looking off kilter as he hunches over before straightening once more. The way his body moves is unnerving, something not quite right in the way he seems to tense and relax repeatedly, hand fisting at his side sporadically. “I can get him for you. Can you wait just one minute?”

“Don’t like to wait.” He sounds distracted as he grunts, crushing a piece of plastic further under his foot as he peers down at the streets below. “Waited long enough.”

“I’ll get him for you.” There’s a rattle as the discarded earpiece hits the desk, and as the crunching beneath the strangers feet gets louder, the hushed whispering on Taemin’s end gets louder. The more frantic they get, the more agitated he becomes, vein in his neck throbbing as his head jerks to one side, muscles coiled and ready to pounce. A lot like your own, legs aching from being so tightly wound with stress.

There’s an abrupt break in the dull noise and chatter before the gentle chime of hold music cuts through, and then the hiss of white noise and the rev of a car's engine. And Jimin.

“This is Detective Park.” His voice sounds guarded from the moment he speaks, and you assume Hoseok had spoken to him quickly before handing the call over. “What is it that I can do for you?”

“Wanted to say–” His head jerks again, swallowing as though the words are hard to get out. “Thank you, hyung.”

“Huh?” Jimin’s front disappears, clearly caught too off guard to keep his usual composure.

“All the years of being so selfish, you finally did something for me.” The stranger's tone is awfully bittersweet, and it sends chills down your spine. “I’m happy. Things can be much more simple this way.”

“And what way is that?” There’s the blare of a car horn cutting through Jimin’s words, and you hear his car rev even harder as he drives as fast as he can during no doubt lots of peak hour traffic.

“You left her alone.” Your heart feels hollow, heaviness sinking into your stomach like that’s where it decided to fall, and your lower lip shakes before you hold it tight between your teeth, enough for an iron tang to coat your tongue. “I can...finally take care of her. The way she deserves.”

“Listen to me.” You’ve never heard Jimin’s voice sound so dark and thunderous, and it makes goosebumps pimple the skin of your exposed arms. “I’m only going to say this once, Jungkook.”

‘Jungkook’ stiffens, breath pushing through his nose in a huff before he starts to breathe roughly, a grating in his lungs like he can’t quite get enough air in. And it’s then you register just who you’ve been looking at, the person you recognized in the elevator, the boy behind the desk in the lobby of your apartment building…

The same boy who’d been so young and timid when he’d approached you in the lunchroom at the station, stammering and shaking as he’d confessed how pretty you were, and how he’d like to know if you wanted to come to the cafe across the street for lunch.

The same boy Jimin had laughed at, ruffled the hair of, and teasingly told that you weren’t free real estate. That he had kissed you right in front of; Jungkook’s expression tight, embarrassed, and whispered in your ear how ‘cute’ it was that you’d gained an admirer. Not seeing the way the young cadet's face had pinched and the way his frame had caved in to make himself seem smaller.

The same boy you’d defended with a gentle push and a light giggle against Jimin’s chest, telling him not to tease. Jungkook hadn’t looked at you when you thanked him for the compliment, or apologised for Jimin’s well-intended need to poke fun. In fact he didn’t look at you much after that...and you didn’t care enough to notice. You couldn’t even pinpoint the last time you’d seen him and recognized him, remembered his name or said hello. He’d merely faded into the background of your life along with the crowd. And the guilt feels nauseating as it creeps like thorny tendrils up your throat, choking the air from your lungs.

“If you even think for one second that you’re going to get as close to her as you did today ever again, you have another thing coming.” The more Jimin speaks the colder your blood runs, and you can’t help but note the irony of his words. “I’m not going to leave her side, not even once you’re gone. I’m going to catch you, Jungkook, and when I do, you’d better hope karma doesn’t catch up to you with me.”

Jungkook starts to shudder in front of you, and it takes you a tense second to realise he’s laughing. Chuckles wracking his chest until he wheezes for breath, and you can barely hear Jimin still talking over the sound of his husky coughing.

“Locking you in a psych ward would be a mercy for you, Jungkook. You’ll be lucky if Hoseok gets to you before I do.”

“Oh, hyung.” Jungkook giggles but Jimin isn’t done.

“You’ve gotten messy Jungkook, and today is the end of your little game.” Jimin grunts, the car revving again, and you pray he’s on his way to you. Unsure how long this can be dragged out before Jungkook snaps and rips your apartment apart, no doubt finding you in the process and carrying out whatever god-awful plans he’d had in mind tonight. “Your plan is over, she’s not going to be one of your victims. But you’ll be one of mine, that I can guarantee you.”

“It’s all mine, hyung.” Jungkook stops giggling, going so still and stone-faced it’s almost too haunting to witness. “This life. Being here with her. It was always meant to be me.” Jungkook's head hits the glass of your window with a heavy thud, and you jump in shock. Your eyes are still leaking slowly with tears, growing more blurry and stinging the longer you stare, and through your muddled thoughts, you’ve forgotten yourself.

So when he finally turns, the glow of the city haloing his face as he drops the phone in his hand to the floor with a clatter, his eyes lock onto yours instantly, where you’ve leant too far out of the safety of your hiding spot. And Jungkook’s lips twist in a shaky smile as he raises his voice. “She’s tried so hard to hide for you, hyung.”

Jimin doesn’t reply, and you’d almost think the line was cut could you not hear the struggle of him trying to speed through unseen traffic. Your eyes slips from Jungkook’s face to the phone discarded at his feet, tears dripping to the carpet once again, and it takes the crackle of debris under his shoe to note he’s turning further toward you, and its then you see the glint of the large dagger reappearing in his hand

“I ‘can’t get near her’?” Jungkook’s words have your eyes quickly lifting to meet his again, and you can’t even tell how badly you’re shaking, nails painfully dug into the carpet as he twists his neck to the side with a dull crack. “I don’t think your car is that fast, Jimin-hyung.”

Torn from your throat is the scream that shatters the silence, numb legs scrambling underneath you as he takes his first step in your direction, and you stumble over your own feet before picking up speed and shooting as fast as you can down the hallway. Your heart thunders in your ears as you feel the vibrations of Jungkook’s feet slapping even harder against the floor behind you, and it’s by sheer miracle that you manage to tear through the door to your bedroom seconds before he can catch up.

The slam of the door behind you hurts your arms with the force with which you push it, back pressed flat against it as you pray to whatever god might hear you for help. The sobs that are escaping you go without your notice, heaving pulls for air as you desperately try to blink the tears from your eyes and you cry out loud as the door is almost pushed out from behind you, wood creaking as Jungkook slams against with an almost inhumane sound of anger.

“_____... let me in before I have to hurt you.” You’re frozen against the door, heels pressed painfully into the floor as you hold the door in place with all the strength you can muster. And for a few seconds you almost believe it's working, hope creeping up your spine that you can hold him off long enough for someone to come to your aid.

The door shakes with a loud clunking noise right beside your head, before all attempts of penetration stop, and your head whips to the side as you listen to his footsteps start to retreat, heart thrashing in your hollow chest.

And then movement catches your eye across the room, and you compute the creeping of his shadow coming from your adjoining bathroom with a shriek as you scramble for the doorknob beside you.

Only for the knob to loosely rattle in the frame, mechanism broken from the outside, and you then realise your mistake. The reality of how trapped you are sinking in as he steps out into your line of sight, bloody knuckles and fingers red from his efforts. And you shrink into yourself in the corner of your room, eyes sliding shut as you begin to sob in fear once more.

His footsteps are deafening in the silence, the heavy sigh he releases as his feet come into your blurred vision humidly warm on the back of your necks as he leans down, bent at the waist. A cold chill runs down your spine when you feel his fingers on your hair, nails slipping in close to your scalp and filling your mouth with bile at the feeling of stickiness on his skin dragging through the strands.

Slowly, he crouches down, filling your nose with a sharp combination of fresh sweat, blood and an almost alarmingly clean scent. Disinfected. Citrus. Bleach. The way one may smell after visiting a hospital. And it burns. Singes through your noise and has every last inch of your body cringing in discomfort.

“Look at me.” His voice is alarmingly soft, almost sickly in its sweetness, and your skin crawls as he strokes through your hair again, playing with it with that same air of familiarity that he’d portrayed in the living room. Moving naturally as though he’d done so a million times over, his hand slips down to the back of your neck, cupping a cold chill around your nape with freezing fingers that has you shrinking even further into yourself. Every nerve ending in your body screaming at you to get away from him. “_____.”

The next few beats of silence are shattered as he rips his hand from your hair, stinging pains of tangled strands being pulled from the tender area of skin pulling another sob from your throat as his now free hand cracks against the wall beside you with force. You straighten up instantly, eyes clenched tight, not having to look to know the plaster is caved in around his fist and only able to feel slightly thankful the lash of anger hadn’t been directed at your body.

“Look at me!” You can feel the drops of spittle hitting your face and he screams hoarsely, voice cracking on the last word as the now even more injured hand returns to your chin to pull your attention. And with a shuddering breath that feels void of oxygen, your head spinning too much to focus properly as the adrenaline and fear spikes in your blood, you force your eyes open to land on his hallowed face.

Jungkook is far from the way he had lived in your memory. Bigger, yet more hollow. Stronger, but with a weakness floating just beneath the surface waiting to be broken. Older, and somehow still seeming so young behind the pain in his eyes. The Jungkook sat before you had physically grown, but mentally his pain is real, raw, as though it were just yesterday you’d managed to tear his heart apart and leave him cracked and broken at the seams. The only solace he’d found to hold himself together being the anger that lives now in his core, the expression being that of someone that loves you, but the energy of someone that has nothing but hatred in his being for you.

So many emotions are conveyed in his eyes, it’s hard to look at, but the terror you feel has you unable to look away, as though watching a hundred cars crash together at once.

“Don’t cry, I’m gonna take care of you.” Gut wrenching, you flinch as his hand lifts to brush stickiness over the tear tracks under your eyes, and you can feel the thickness of blood now streaking your face and suffocating your pores. He leans in close, breath washing over your cheeks, and you can feel the cool of the wet spots his fingers had left behind.

“Please don’t kill me.” The whisper is ripped from your raw throat before you can stop it, the chill in your hands and feet reaching all the way through your arms, legs and torso, as though he’d reached right through your ribs and grabbed a hold of your heart.

“He can’t have you.” The venom is back in his voice as he twitches, hand shaking under your chin before he moves it down to brush his fingers over your exposed clavicle, running a careful thumb right over your carotid artery, and you flinch away again as his fingers stray even further down towards your breasts, his breathing starting to come in pants before he groans. “Can’t.”

Crowding into your space, Jungkook leaves no room for you to dodge his advance as his grip returns bruisingly on your jaw and he pushes forward to press his lips against yours. His kiss is hard, painful and wet, with the moisture on your face. His tongue slips in around the cry of shock that escapes you, and for a few nauseating seconds you’re subjected to what you can only think he imagines to be a passionate kiss.

You turn your face in an attempt to break the kiss, but he follows you, hand pushing back across the left side of your face to curve around your ear and pull your lips back to his, leaving an agonising spike of pain behind as he jarr’s your neck in the process. Your hands are trapped against his chest, pressing futilely, unable to gather enough strength in your arms to push him away.

In one last desperate attempt, you open your mouth into his kiss and as his tongue slides across your lip and back into your mouth, you quickly bare down and bite his tongue as hard as you can. Blood is coating the back of your teeth when he rips away from you, and you spit it out without a second thought, flinching as he changes like a lightswitch. “No! Mine! You’re mine!”

In a flash the desperate softness is gone, the hollow emptiness back in his eyes as he grabs you by the throat and pulls you from the faux security of your corner with a painful tug. You wheeze as he pulls you close, wrapping the dagger-wielding arm around your waist and using his hold to twist your feet out from under you and push you backwards in the direction of your bed.

“Can’t have you–can’t have you. Won't let him.”

It’s your body's natural instinct to struggle, and struggle you do. Arms pinned under his are barely of use, but you thrash them anyway, unable to scream with the pressure he still holds on your neck, but your throat muscles contract painfully under his hand regardless. Only managing an airy screech, you break off into a choked gasp as the cold of the dagger finds its way onto your skin through your shirt, moments before he releases his hold and lets your weakened body drop back onto the bed.

The moment his hold is relinquished on your airways you’re gasping for air and bunching your legs up towards your chest as he rushes to climb utop you. Every self defense masterclass Jimin had ever made you take flashes through your mind as his hips quickly move in to press against the backs of your thighs, and you muster all the strength you can in your arms to lifts them right as he swoops in and brace your splayed palms firmly against the front swells of his shoulders.

Jungkook bares down against you with his entire body weight, and even as the both of you grunt in effort, his hold on the dagger limits his mobility just enough, too focused on getting his body as flush to yours as he can. The fingers of the hand not holding his weapon are slipping under your waistband, sticky, cold fingertips clawing at your bare flesh in struggle, and encouraging your efforts as you keep your arms locked at the elbows and plant your left foot on the bed. Jimin’s voice is in the back of your head, screaming the instructions at you over and over again, and you quickly twist to the left, right leg curling up even further until your foot can find the bend of his pelvis.

The pressure of your foot pushing him forces the hand on your hip to tear back out from inside your pants and clutch at the bed, trying to keep his stability, and hope reignites in your chest as he sways long enough for your hold to slip from his shoulders to just above his elbows. From here you have enough mobility to bring your left leg up to match the right on his other hip, effectively trapping him where he is and keeping him slightly off kilter.

The fabric underneath you makes it harder to move up the bed away from him as he pushes against you with a growl of anger, frustration clearly getting to him as he struggles to retrieve the power you’ve managed to regain. But with a relieved sob, the strength of your legs is just enough to have him slipping back on his knees, increasing the space between your bodies with only a slight struggle.

His anger mounts to the point where he attempts to lash out again, losing his grasp on the dagger somewhere in the sheets as he tries to pull back out of your hold, swaying only for a moment before attempting to swing the momentum towards you. Yet with a flash of movement, and the miracle of space between you, your leg rears back far enough to get some force behind it, and with your hands slipping down to claw a rough grip on his wrists, you deliver a swift, straight-on kick to his stomach.

Visibly winded, Jungkook forgets his advancement on you with a pained gasp, falling far enough back to slip half off the edge of the bed, barely catching one leg under him on the floor and one knee on the mattress as he curls over on himself and dry heaves a sob of absolute torture.

Taking the small window of chance you have, you don't look twice – rolling off to the side and falling onto the floor yourself. Ignoring the pain in your knees, as you scramble your limbs under you, and make a break for the bathroom doorway.

The roar of pure rage behind you has every hair on your body standing on end, and you scream as you slip on the bathroom tiles, almost losing your footing before you manage a hold on the bathroom counter. Dashing off to the left once you’re stable enough, you try your best to ignore the crash of Jungkook’s pursuit as he collides with the door behind you and seemingly breaks it right off its hinges.

He’s still affected by the aftershocks of your kick, gasping and staggering as his body tries to recover while he still pushes himself, but you’re equally struggling as your nerves are locked up with anxiety, legs stiff and uncoordinated as his growing proximity has you panicking. Right after you tear out into the hall, arm brushing against the wall as you swerve, he clashes with the plaster right behind you, reaching out and swiping at you roughly with the dagger. And you can hear the whistle of the blade slicing through the air, missing you by millimetres...the first time

“Help me, ple–ah!” You shout as the dagger manages to catch you on an upsweep, grazing your shoulder and sending a burning pain instantly across the area of skin. You grab your shoulder, staggering again before picking up the pace and finally escaping the hall into the openness of your living area. “Help!”

“No!”

As you manage to round the island in the centre of your kitchen, Jungkook finally comes to a stop on the opposite end of the table. There, the two of you stand-off in a tense silence, staring hard at each other as you both pant for breath. He spits a mouthful of blood out onto the countertop, a streak of it marring his chin before he lifts an equally bloody hand and swipes at it, careless of the proximity of the weapon he holds as he spreads the red stain further across his skin.

Neither of you move for a good few moments, and as you start to catch your breath, and the ringing in your ears starts to wind down, you hear it.

Sirens. Loud. And getting closer by the second. And–

“_____!” Taehyung’s voice cuts through the tension, the door to your apartment rattling as he bashes into it from the outside. “_____! Let me in, what’s going on? Are you okay?”

“N–No! NO! YOU’RE MINE. MINE! HE DOESN’T GET THE HAPPINESS I DESERVED!” Jungkook steps to the side, as if to dash around the island towards you, but you immediately counter his movement with a step of your own, closer to the apartment door, and he immediately corrects himself and steps back, which you mirror.

“_____! The code! What’s the code?!” Taehyung is desperate, and it has Jungkook panicking even more, head whipping off to the side before snapping back to you.

“It's over, Jungkook.” You whisper, calming down faster as you listen to the sirens get even closer. They’re right outside now, and you know it’s only a minute or two before they get up here. But as you watch, Jungkook starts to shake with fury, and faster than you can comprehend, he’s flicking the dagger in his hand to pinch the blade between forefinger and thumb before lining up his shot and readying himself to launch it at you.

You won’t be able to move fast enough, this much you know instantly, and the sudden confrontation has you panicking, eyes wide with shock and pulling a smirk on his lips as he watches your expression change.

“If I can’t have you, _____. No one can.”

“Taehyung! The code is 64785!” You act on survival instinct, hands grabbing ahold of the counter as Jungkook’s arm rears back, and you can hear the beeping of Taehyung entering the code immediately, hope blooming in your chest.

But dread is what holds onto your heart like cement.

“I’m going to kill your friend.” Jungkook’s voice is merely a poisonous whisper, and as fast as you can register his words, he’s moving. The small throwing knife he has procured in his left hand whips through the air faster than you can move. You throw yourself to the side, regardless, not even registering the chime of your apartment door unlocking or the crash of Taehyung breaching the entryway.

Pain flares through your right arm as the knife embeds itself through a decent amount of flesh, a shriek leaving you as you sway off to the side and collapse to the floor. But the sight of the two men before you colliding in the entryway of your apartment is what truly leaves pain stabbing through your heart.

Taehyung barely manages to throw a punch in Jungkook’s direction, too distracted with your collapse and not enough on the opponent in front of him, and in one short, swift movement, Jungkook curls his arm between them, and pierces the blade right into Taheyung’s stomach.

“NO!” The scream that rips from your throat is dry and burning, and tears well up anew in your eyes with a feeling akin to needles. Futile, you struggle on the floor with only one good arm, immediately beginning to crawl towards the pair as Taehyung drops to his knees, eyes wide and gasping up at Jungkook’s still form.

Jungkook let’s go as Taehyung falls, leaving the dagger embedded in his abdomen and turning to you with an empty look. You can still hear Taehyung fighting for air as Jungkook takes his next steps towards you, watching with an almost numb expression as you whimper and battle with your own body to move backwards away from his approach.

“_____!” The two of you have barely a moment to freeze in place as heavy footsteps scatter into the hallway outside your apartment, and Jungkook cracks. You can barely hear your own noises of panic as he launches himself at you, scrambling to do whatever he can to reach you but Jimin is faster. You can only watch as Jungkook spins on his heel to meet him head on, as Jimin crashes into him.

They fall hard in front of you, Jimin immediately gaining the upper hand and rearing above Jungkook to rain a heavy fist down over his face, but Jungkook recovers faster than you’d have expected, hand pulling from his side with a glint of silver, and Jimin’s name leaves you in dry shriek as Jungkook swipes up from underneath and tries to stab into his chest.

Jimin manages to jerk back fast enough, the thin blade now in Jungkook’s hand only managing to very slightly slice through Jimin’s shirt and over his stomach before the knife is knocked from his hand, but you heave and scramble up onto your knees as a sliver of blood is left behind and Jungkook is rearing back for another attempt. He uses his advantage of having gotten Jimin off balance over him, lifting his body and using the space between them to land a well placed palm into his jaw, and you sob as Jimin’s back and head hit the floor with a dull thud.

You move in synchrony with Jungkook, lifting yourself up even as your legs scream beneath you. The dazed, pained look on Jimin’s face and the sight of Jungkook getting the upper hand, wide, bloody palms wrapping tight around Jimin’s neck and the choked sound that escapes him filling you with enough energy to launch yourself forward.

“Jimin!” Hoseok finally appears in the doorway in your peripheral vision. “_____! Fuc–!”

Jungkook howls and jerks under you as you pierce his back with the blade you’d ripped from your own arm, the blood covering your hand making it harder to hold it firm but the pure blind panic filling your every sense keeping your grip tight even as he twists off Jimin and attempts to face the new attack.

Twice, three times, four–eight–eleven–nineteen, thirty.

You have no idea how many times your fist plunges the blade into Jungkook’s abdomen, losing time in the grey haze that settles over your mind.

“_____! Jesus, fuck, baby stop! He’s dead, baby, stop!”

Jimin holds you tight, battling the way you thrash and twist in his arms as he attempts to catch your chin and tilt your face towards his. You’re gagging on your own gasps, whimpering and pushing at his chest as he drags you further away from where Jungkook’s body lays prone between the back of your couch and the island. The knife he’d wrangled free of your fist lays somewhere in the splattered pool of blood that halo’s Jungkook’s form.

Slowly, slowly, you come to, and the moment your body recognizes the safety and warmth of Jimin’s embrace, you sag into his arms with a heavy sob, clutching at him tighter than ever as more voices fill the room.

But nothing else matters now, because the only thing you can hear is his heart as yours beats in sync.

**********

You haven’t a clue what time it is, staring blankly at the wall of Jimin’s office as people rush back and forth outside the glass windows. Only thin slivers of light make it through the shuttered blinds, casting beams of white that barely manage to light up the room. Shivering again, you tuck your feet tighter beneath you on the leather chair, Jimin’s blazer pulled tight around your shoulders, and you bury your nose down into the fabric, trying to fill your senses with him as an attempt to keep yourself calm.

The numb feeling that had gripped ahold of you hadn’t yet dissipated, sticking around long after the tears had dried up, eyes burning and head throbbing with pain. Detective ‘So-and so’ Min had done his best to take your statement, frowning and sighing through your harrowed silence and broken sentences, finally conceding when Hoseok had quickly dismissed the questions for the rest of the day.

Jimin had been pulled from you shortly after arriving at the station, promising to come back to you within a couple of minutes but disappearing for close to an hour. You could only console yourself with the knowledge it wasn’t by choice, only imagining the pile of questions and paperwork that had awaited him, regardless of how badly you ached to be back in his arms.

Hoseok had come in to check on you periodically, but even he had left you to the silence, instead retreating to his own office with the reminder he was only next door if you needed anything. You appreciate the sentiment.

Your eyes had begun to grow heavy quickly, drooping and fluttering before a noise in the hall outside would have you jumping back into place with your heart beating out of your chest and your skin crawling. Each time forcing yourself to calm down with whispered words, closing your eyes and reminding yourself that you were safe, and Jungkook couldn’t get near you anymore. But after last night, nowhere felt secure enough to calm your raging anxiety.

Footsteps outside the door merge with a shadow, breaking through the blinds and flowing over you before they stop behind the wood and the handle gently turns. You no longer have the energy to greet Hoseok each time he comes in, so you stay in place on Jimin’s office chair, almost huddling yourself deeper into his blazer.

“Hey.” Jimin’s voice immediately breaks through your exhaustion, and your head whips to the side as you quickly stand to meet him, blazer falling to the floor without a second glance. His arms wrap around your shoulders, and your face buries into the warmth of his chest, inhaling his scent deeply as you shiver against him. Instantly, his palm is stroking the back of your head, squeezing you tight enough to make you feel like you’re whole again, and you finally start to feel more at ease just being with him. “The doctors got back to us about Taehyung.”

“He’s okay?” You pick your chin up only far enough to see up into his eyes, and he gives you a tired smile, hand shifting around to cup your cheek, and you lean into the warmth.

“He’ll definitely be sore for a while, but he’s being well taken care of. There’s no serious damage done which is very lucky.” Your bottom lip quivers, the relief affecting you more than you thought it would; cracking through the emotionless shell that had started to harden on your face. Jimin pulls you close again, this time pressing his lips gently to your forehead before rocking you back and forth, and your eyes instinctively slip shut. “You already know he doesn’t blame you for what happened, sweetheart. He’s just happy you’re safe.”

“He could’ve died.” Your voice is little more than a croak, throat too dry and tender to speak comfortably at regular pitch, and you can feel Jimin shake his head slowly where his lips are still pressed against you.

“He’s not the only one.” He reminds you, finally relinquishing the embrace to lean down and sweep the blazer from the floor, shaking it out before slipping it back around your shoulders and rubbing firmly up and down your sides. You can see the muddy stain of dried blood on his neck, knowing just as well that your own body has similar stains in a few areas –some more intense than others– as well as a few aches and pains.

The arm which Jungkook had managed to injure was luckily all flesh wounding, the angle having merely skimmed past the muscle and luckily left no permanent muscular damage, and a small pit stop at the hospital, some high strength anti inflammatory painkillers, and a short sit had you stitched right up in no time. And even better was the mark on your back, barely a scratch that had felt like a scarring wound.

But the fatigue hasn't taken long to catch up to you, your body weary from stress and adrenaline, aches that only time will fix lingering in your bones, and now that he’s back with you, it makes it ten times harder to resist finally letting your eyes fall shut. And though Jimin wears a strong mask of composure for you, the tightness around his eyes and the slack of his shoulders tells you more than he could ever say.

“You’re okay too, right?” Pulling away, you look down at his stomach, mind flashing back to the sliver of red Jungkook had swiped across his stomach, and you automatically reach for the hem of his freshly-changed tshirt. He chuckles, shaking his head as he grabs your hand halfway, and you frown up at him.

“I’m fine, you don’t need to worry.” You continue to press on, waving off his attempts to convince you, but you quickly see he’s not just lying for your benefit when the toned muscles are revealed. “Heh–“

You can certainly see the mark, a thin, arching line that starts deeper to the left of his navel and the feathers off up under the right side of his ribcage. It’s still more than you would want, but you’re relieved to see no stitches or heavy bandaging, the sliver of damage no doubt going to disappear in a few days.

“See?” He teases, distending his tummy out and slouching to make his stomach more pronounced, only stopping when your lips lift and you poke at his bellybutton. Bright smile dropping, he pulls your hand till his shirt falls and holds you close again, looking down into your drooping eyes. “There’s that smile.”

For a few calm, peaceful moments, the two of you stand in the hush of his darkened office, ignoring the bustle of the work outside the door. Looking into his eyes, there’s so much sitting within them that you know he wants to say, and you don’t doubt he finds the same in yours. So much has happened in the last 12 hours that your outlook on life and the way you want to live it has changed entirely. Including who you want to live it with.

But before anything can be said, Jimin squeezes you tight around the middle and tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear before taking your hand in his and leading you away from his desk.

“Let’s go home.”

**********

A sense of relaxation, even as the bureau disappears into the horizon behind Jimin’s car, seems far off and unattainable as ever, the silence between the two of you covered with the layer of deafening noise within your own head. Jimin’s hand moves occasionally between the gearstick and your thigh, fingers warm and grounding as he does his best to soothe the war he can see raging behind your irises.

Your skin stays raised in goosebumps under the too-thick fabric of your jeans, the layers of clothes tightly trying to hold you together whilst only making your skin feel like it’s ready to rip apart. Exhaustion weighs heavy in your bones but your muscles haven’t seemed to lose their sense of adrenaline, and the way each different part of your body fights for your brain's attention makes you feel even more numb while you try to overcome the overload of sensation.

Every dark corner and unfamiliar noise on the way up to Jimin’s apartment has you flinching and holding onto his arm tighter and tighter, but he simply pulls you into his side and wraps his arm around you, pressing his lips to your temple as the elevator stops on his floor and he leads you down the hall.

The chime of the security system locking only serves to make you feel the slightest bit safer, and as much as it makes your head hurt to consider, you can’t help but remind yourself over and over that Jungkook is dead, and he can’t get near you anymore.

“You want some water? How is your head feeling?” You turn to look at Jimin as he gently pulls the jacket from your shoulders and slips it over the back of the nearest dining chair.

“I don’t think this headache is gonna go away with just aspirin.” You try to lift one side of your mouth into a smile but you lack the energy, and Jimin frowns at the emptiness behind your eyes. “My brains working way too hard trying to process this whole...this whole day. I don’t know what I’m meant to do, I just...I feel so numb, Jimin. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel like myself again.”

“No one expects anything from you right now, _____.” Jimin steps forward to rub at your arm, and you feel sick to find that this kind of careful, weary comfort does nothing but make your skin crawl. You crave more from Jimin, the kind of consolation you know only he can provide you, and though the hurt flashes deep in his eyes before he can hide it, you’re recoiling out of his reach and taking a deep, shaking breath. “And you don’t have to try and force yourself to process this. Take your time, reflect on the way you want to feel, and we can go from there.”

You stay looking into Jimin’s eyes, soaking yourself in the underlying strength he’s always been able to hold even on his most tired of days, and trying your best to take some of that on yourself. And after a few moments of silence, you step forward and wrap your arms around his middle, closing your eyes when he returns your embrace and squeezes you tightly.

He holds you there. Long enough that you start to feel the way he’s holding the million fragile pieces you’d become, together in one piece in the palms of his hands. Achy bodied, you eventually pull back just far enough to look up into his face, and he immediately presses a soft kiss on the crinkle between your brows “What can I do for you, sweetheart?”

“I’d…really like a shower.”

He nods, smiling gently, and seconds later he’s pulling you through to the bathroom and leaving you momentarily to fetch a change of clothes from his room for you. Though you’d rather avoid it, your eyes immediately run over your reflection in the mirror, and you find yourself leaning in close as though you can search for the answers to your hundred and one questions somewhere in your hallowed eyes. There’s a few smudges of blood still on your chin and neck that you hadn’t managed to clean up completely, and the water from the tap is freezing on your skin as you scrub it raw.

When you finally stand from where you’d bent over the sink, whipping at your dripping chin, you make eye contact with Jimin behind you in the mirror, and it takes the heavy look on his face and the breathlessness taking over your chest to realise you’d started to gasp for air, eyes growing teary and aching.

“Oh, baby.” He drops the clothes and towel on the bench beside you, pressing himself against your back and slipping his arms around you. One hand lifts to cup the side of your face, thumb meeting a stray tear halfway down your cheek and swiping it away. “Shh.”

“I can’t...I can’t go back, Jimin.” You sob roughly as he holds you even tighter, keeping his eyes locked on yours no matter how much you blink or shake. “Everything I own, he’s tainted. My home isn’t my home anymore. I don’t have anything, I don’t know what I’m gonna do…”

“Shhh, sweet, silly girl.” Pulling you until you face him again, Jimin cups both your cheeks. “I’m right here. What’s mine is yours, _____. Always has been, always will be. No matter what you need, you have it. Even my heart is yours, _____. That’s never changed even for a second.”

“I love you, Jimin.” It’s not at all the way you’d hoped to have told him, feeling so out of sorts it’s hard to recognize your own reflection as yourself, but if anything has shown you that time is too short to bite your tongue over the way you feel, it’s today.

Jimin inhales, not a gasp but a deep, steadying breath, and his thumbs indent the soft parts of your cheeks as his hands tighten their hold on your face. Your fingers tangle in the hem of his shirt as he leans down closer, and you almost shut your eyes on instinct before your lashes flutter open again.

“I love you. So much.” Stroking over your cheeks, his thumbs trail down to your jaw before he slips one hand behind your neck, the other dropping to hold you tight against him with a palm pressed to the small of your back. “My darling girl. I love you more than you can ever know.”

Jimin’s lips meet yours like two waves crashing together, colliding against each other before blending together as one, and as your eyes slip closed, and Jimin guides your head to deepen the kiss, you finally get that feeling of safety and comfort that you’d been waiting for.

There is no goal to be made in this embrace, no race to be won. Simply the two of you locked so tightly together as you both give your entire soul to make the other feel all the things you want to say but can’t find the words for. Jimin’s hand cupping the side of your neck sweeps back, shifting your hair behind you, and soon his arm is holding you tight as his palm finds the nape of your neck, and the hand on your lower back relaxes and comes forward to hold you at the hip.

The skin of Jimin’s stomach is balmy on your palms where your hands have slipped beneath his shirt, searching for his warmth as you start to shiver in his arms, and he pulls away from you to press heated lips down over the tear tracks on your cheek.

His lips find yours with a soft press one, two, three more times before he simply rests his forehead against yours and holds you close for a moment, nothing but the sound of your two heartbeats to fill the silence. “Shower?”

“Yes, please.” You concede his pulling away from you, trying not to feel too hollow when his warmth moves away from your chilled skin, watching as he flicks the shower taps on with practiced ease, adjusting it to the best temperature and holding his hand beneath the stream to test the heat. “Will...will you stay with me?”

There’s not even a second thought crossing your mind before you ask, the sheer desperation to keep Jimin close at all times for the foreseeable future, something you don’t dare to deny yourself for the fear you may fall apart without him.

“Of course I will.” When you glance back up, Jimin is already looking at you over his shoulder, shaking the water off his hand before turning to close the bathroom door most of the way shut. Your hands reach for his shirt as he returns to you, and he doesn’t question you for a moment, simply lifting his arms above his head and letting you slip the fabric from him and drop it to the floor. He finds the buckle of his pants on his own, belt clanking on the floor with his shirt before he kicks the slacks to the side and soon he’s completely bare in front of you, both body and soul, and before you can think he’s reaching out to help you.

Kneeling on one knee, Jimin quickly and gently plucks open the button of your jeans before shuffling the too-tight fabric down your legs. He soothes the goose-pimpled chill that follows with a caressing hand as you lift each foot out of the jeans one at a time, instinctively using his shoulders to stabilise yourself and letting your eyes slip closed as he presses the softest of kisses along your inner left thigh, his hand cupping your calf as you find your balance again.

Your shirt and bra are handled in the same manner, Jimin’s tentative touches and soothing warmth seeming to cover every place you need it to, and when you’re down to just panties you take that step yourself, hooking your thumbs under the band and letting them drop to the floor before Jimin grasps your hand and pulls you into the steam-filled shower.

The water is almost too hot, the steam fogging up the glass walls and blocking out the outside world, and you finally allow yourself to relax into Jimin’s arms fully, the warm water streaming over the back of your hair and down your spine as your bare flesh presses to his completely. It's been so long since you’ve felt comfort to this extent, and you can help but hum into the base of his throat as his fingers run down the length of your spine to tickle circles into the small of your back.

Your arms are wound loose around Jimin’s hips, as you allow him to simply guide you himself, twisting the two of you side to side under the stream of water, avoiding your bandaged arm regardless of the waterproofed dressing. One arm releases you to reach somewhere behind you, and the sound of a bottle cracking open echoes against the tiles moments before you feel him rub his hands together.

Reaching up to pull your hair away up from your back, you look up as Jimin presses his lips to your forehead, hands finding the base of your spine and massaging the tense muscles lining your back to up and around the base of your neck. The water streams down between your bodies from the side where he’s turned you, slicking up the press and slide of him moving against you, and your eyes slip shut again as you simply enjoy the feeling as he washes the rest of your body.

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you the way I should’ve been.” Your eyes snap open as you feel his fingers trace the outside of the bandage on your arm, and you can see the complete devastation in Jimin's face without even needing him to meet your eyes.

“Jimin.” You let go of your hair, trading it to hold his face until he finally returns your gaze, and you can’t help but press a kiss to his lower lip, unable to resist now that you’ve been given the chance again. “Jimin, I’m alive because of you.”

“You’re in this position because of me.” He pulls away from you, using his hold on your hips to push you back under the water until you’re forced to let go of him. He guides your head back under the stream further until every inch of your hair is drenched and then pushes you to turn until your back is to him. “Because of the way I acted. If I had been better, if I’d done the right thing and treated people the right way back then...none of this would have happened.”

“Stop.” You reach back to grab his arm, pulling it around you and urging him to hold you tight. “I dont...I can’t talk about things like this, please.”

Jimin spins you once more in his arms, eyes still sad but a twist to his mouth that tells you he’s doing his best to do as you ask, and you hold his gaze until you no longer can, hair rinsing out under the water.

He washes you from top to toe, cleaning every inch of you until you start to feel a little more human, a little more put together, and when he guides you to step from the shower it's straight into his arms and the fluffiest towel he owns before you can blink.

Nothing much else is uttered from there, only words unspoken that linger in his eyes as he dresses you and himself before tucking you into bed. And you simply lose yourself in those moments between consciousness and sleep, finding the only comfort you need in his arms and between his lips and yours.

**********

You’re torn from sleep by your own scream, mind unable to remember or comprehend the nightmare that had taken over you. Heart beating out of your chest, your eyes fly around the room before landing on Jimin’s worried face above you, and for a few seconds you simply stare at him as the ringing in your ears starts to subside and give way to the gentle murmuring of his voice as he does his best to reassure you.

“S-Sorry.” You sit up into his embrace with his help, sweeping the hair back away from your face and taking a shaky breath. Jimin stay’s close, pushing your hair behind your ear and blocking the outside world out as you slowly regain your composure.

“Don’t be.” He whispers into your cheek, nuzzling his nose against you and pulling you close as you both close your eyes and simply breath. You can hear the faint sound of the city below outside his bedroom window, but there is not yet any sunlight to break the darkness. “I’m here. Everything’s okay.”

You can’t explain the way you feel even to yourself, skin feeling too tight over your muscles and the sour sense of discomfort that has seemed to linger no matter the efforts of Jimin’s consolation. And nothing is truly as draining as the feeling of inescapable numbness that lines your consciousness, and you know it’s your brain struggling to process everything that’s happened and trying to give you something you can truly feel.

But all you can stand to feel is Jimin.

It takes a mere second to lift your head and press your lips to his, feeling his own part instantly in acceptance of your embrace while his hands press to your shoulder blades to help hold you where you’ve lifted yourself to wrap an arm around his neck. Yearning for more of his essence has you lifting yourself up onto your knees and crawling into the triangle of space between his own, and he cradles your waist as you move towards him.

Jimin’s hands tighten at your hips with the desperation building in the ardent presses of your lips and for a second you feel him start to pull back before his questioning hum is immediately silenced by your tongue trailing along his lower lip. All at once he withdraws from you, firm in his ignorance of your pleading whine as he pushes you back just far enough to stop your advances and fix you with a weary, confused expression.

“Are you alright, sweetheart?” Jimin pays no mind to the way you reach for him, holding you solidly in place as he studies your features carefully. “I’m not sure what’s going on here, I need to know you’re okay.”

“M’fine, J’min, please…” Your hands reach for him again and he lets you get close enough to touch, eyes still piercing as his brows pinch together in concern. “Just, I just wanna feel… something good. I–”

“Baby, I wanna take care of you.” He reassures you easily, finally letting you get close again without losing your eyes. “I want nothing more than to make you feel good in every way I possibly can. But I need to know that we’re doing things the right way for what's best for you right now.”

You gaze up at him quietly, fingers tangled in the hair at the nape of his neck as he plays with the ends of your own. His brown eyes look black in the darkness of the night that paints his room, but there’s an uncompromising warmth that no amount of light or darkness has ever been able to hinder.

“Please.” Frustration starts to bubble in the pit of your stomach. The one thing you want right now so close yet so far in this moment that it has tears starting to prickle your tired eyes. Embarrassment whirls in the forefront of your mind but you’re too tired to care and, as a lonely tear manages to escape you, Jimin quickly surges forward and pulls you tight against him. Lips cover your cheeks in tiny kisses, and he hushes you gently as a whine is pulled out of your throat once more, only to be cut off but Jimin’s lips.

This kiss is different from the last. Heat now underlines the ardent press of his lips and he holds you close like he fears you may disappear into thin air should he release you. This time when you lift higher above him on your knees and slip a leg over his, his other hand follows to pull you more easily onto his lap, and his legs spread out beneath you as he slowly reclines back onto the bed.

You shuffle up, straddling his hips properly, and Jimin pushes your hair to one side when he reaches up to grasp your chin and pull you back down to his lips. You feel jumpy, almost like adrenaline, desperation in the way your hands press and grip at the hard curves of his shoulders and biceps, flexing when he’s got a handful of your thigh and is pulling you ever closer. His tongue meets yours with a tentative flick, teasing as you deepen the kiss and he sucks your lip between his teeth with a hum of pleasure.

His thighs twitch upwards when your hips start to roll slowly, without you even noticing, and the squeeze of flesh over your hip between his fingers has you jerking to a stop before pressing down again even harder, feeling the way his length starts to respond quickly under your ministrations as he groans into your mouth.

Breathlessness pulls you away from him as your face starts to flush, starting to become overwhelmed by sensation as he caresses every inch of your body with his touch. But he doesn’t give you a moment of pause before moving his kisses down your neck, and a firm hand eases your head to one side to expose the most sensitive spot that he’s never forgotten about.

The spot that made your breath hitch under a gasp, and your hips undulate just that little bit faster. That one spot that, combined with the hand that has now crept up to tease the stiffening peak of your nipple through the fabric of your nightshirt, has the crotch of your shorts starting to stick between the apex of your thighs.

Jimin is unhurried when he reaches up, pulling the end of your shirt up and over your head to expose your torso, and as he thumbs at the waistband of your shorts, he presses his face into the swell of your breasts to take a deep inhale of your scent before pushing against you to lay you back on the bed. You cradle him to your chest, moaning as his hands slip underneath your shorts to take two handfuls of your ass and encourage you to lift up just enough to quickly pull the fabric from your legs.

It’s instinct, the way your hands immediately reach for Jimin’s own waistband to even the scores but you’re interrupted by your own gasp as he pushes you down with a hand on your chest, the second slipping between your thighs to leave you scrunching his waistband between your fingers. His heated stare keeps your gaze locked with his as he runs his fingers through your folds, gathering the wetness on his fingertips slowly as you gasp against his lips.

His mouth pouts against yours gently, eyes never breaking focus, and the corner of his lips perks up when you swallow a moan at the sparks of pleasure starting to ignite as he strokes slowly over your clitoral hood. Fabric crackling under your hands, you try and pull his hips closer to yours, but your efforts prove futile when he easily pulls further away to kiss down over your breasts. The sky outside is starting to lighten in the early morning sunrise, warm light only just starting to peak over the horizon, and it means that when Jimin finally pulls back to look down at your body properly, you can’t help but instinctively turn your head to the side shyly knowing he can see every inch of you like this.

“So beautiful.” Reverent hands glide down over your breasts and waist to squeeze the extra flesh at your hips, and though you’re embarrassed to know you’re not the skinny young woman Jimin once knew, the heat in his eyes when you meet them has your skin tingling with excitement. His hands push back up to cup and roll your breasts until the peaks of your nipples are tight against his palms, and this time when he leans down, it’s to envelope one into his warm mouth and roll it under his tongue.

Your back arches up into his ministrations, and you gasp into the empty air far too loudly for this time of morning, teeth clamping down on your lower lip as Jimin hums tingles of delight into your skin until you’re thoroughly covered in goosebumps. He then switches to your other nipple to repeat the sensations until you’re writhing uncontrollably, and when you finally break and jerk against him to reach down and wrap your hand around his hardened length through his shorts, he pulls back with a hiss and reaches back down between your thighs instead.

You moan as he slips further down the bed on his stomach, far enough down to lay his head on your thigh, and you blush heavily as his eyes land on your core, shining with desire and clenching down in despair as your craving peaks. A gentle thumb presses on your flesh, easing back the hood of your clitoris and before you can mumble a complaint about his staring, his mouth is enveloping the sensitive nerve in warmth as his tongue grazes against it roughly.

His hand moves down to tease his thumb around your slit, gauging just how wet you are before his tongue swipes down over your folds to leave you even wetter, making the gentle prodding of his finger a little easier as he starts to drag it harder and harder over your entrance until the flesh starts to part for him on it’s own.

“Hnng-ah!” There is nothing gentle about the way your hands grab and pull at Jimin’s hair, unable to control yourself as the pleasure blooms between your hips way more intense than you expected, but he quickly eases up at your overwhelmed whine, using just the tip of his tongue to gently flick and stroke over the pulsing nub. “D-Don’t–”

Jimin pulls back instantly, hand moving to carefully caress your outer thigh as he eases your legs back together under his chin. Concern is clear in his eyes and you bite your lips, feeling silly to have lost yourself so fast and worried him. “You okay? You wanna stop, sweetheart?”

“N-no! I-I’m sensitive. I just–” Heavy blush is warming your cheeks and Jimin smiles up at you softly as he presses a kiss to your knee. “I-I havent...nobodies...not since you.”

A sweet smile breaks across Jimin’s lips at at the darling way you shyly whisper the words, and he reaches down under you to wrap strong arms around your waist and pull you back up to sit in his lap, hips pressing firm against each other as he uses the freedom of his hands to run soothing fingertips up and down your back.

Your arms wrap around his shoulders as he pulls you close, and you can't help but return his smile as he leans in and puckers soft lips against the crease of your elbow.

“Me too.” You blink down at him in surprise, but he simply grins up at you before easing the flyaway hair at the back of your head down with gentle fingers. “It’s always been you, _____. I don’t think I could bring myself to even think about someone else.”

“I love you, Jimin.” Your arms and legs wrap tight around him, and he squeezes you tight to his chest with a happy hum.

“I love you.” His reply is muffled by the way your lips crash against his, and this time when you reach down to tug at his shorts, he lets you. Leaning back to brace himself on one arm, he lifts his hips until you can both shimmy the fabric off and under the sheets somewhere, and when you finally wrap your hand around him, and he groans deep in your mouth, the heat fully envelopes your mind and every sensation is full of Jimin like you’ve craved for so long.

His abdomen tenses as he thrusts up into your hold instinctively, and his hand loops around your wrist to tug your grip away from his sensitive member as he pulls you up over his hips and scooches up the bed until his back meets the headboard, staring up into your eyes. He breaks your gaze only to reach over into the bedside table, the small bottle he procures leaving a smile on your face as he uncaps the lubricant and squeezes some into his palm.

The gel is warm by the time he spreads it over his fingers and brings it between your thighs, and you lift yourself up just enough, bracing yourself with arms wrapped around his neck as your hips twitch at the gentle touch. Liberally, he spreads it over your folds, running his fingers through and down to your entrance with a tilted smile, and his grin only grows when your hips jerk unintentionally.

Barely a minute can pass before the slight touches become almost unbearable, and you’re reaching down behind yourself to grasp him at the base. But he catches your arm behind you quickly, hand leaving your core to run whatever is left on his fingers down his shaft until his hand meets yours. And together, with the slightest tilt of your hips, the two of you ease him between your walls.

You don't even notice that you're holding your breath, the tension in your body fully encompassed by the way you gradually relax down onto him, and for a few long moments, all either of you can do is revel in the feeling of being connected again. And even though the moment has only just begun, it already feels like coming home, body opening up for him as though he’d never left.

Jimin’s eyes flutter as his head hits the wood behind him with a dull sound, and your eyes zone in on the muscle in his jaw that clenches the lower you slide onto him. His hand wrapped around your wrist behind you gives a squeeze, and as your hips nestle deep into his, his free hand lifts to grip your face as his hips give an unintentional roll, and it's like a punch to the stomach as air finally rushes down into your lungs when you gasp, thighs immediately clamping down around him.

“O-oh!” You’re barely strong enough to hold yourself upright, the intensity of finally being this close to Jimin again is staggering, and you can’t control yourself as your hips jerk down into his, leaving the two of you gasping at the surge of unprecedented pleasure.

“Shit.” Jimin’s fingers squeeze a little harder as he groans, and your fingernails dig in on his shoulder as you watch heat swirl in his eyes, any sense of composure he normally holds completely lost. He pulls you closer by the chin, the heat of his breath now brushing over your lips, and the arm behind you pulls you even further against him as your walls give a shuddering squeeze as they clench around him rhythmically. He can feel the way your breath hitches against his face, and the slow dance starts as the two of you groan and pant, hips rolling slowly into desperation against each other.

Blood is starting to rush through your ears as your movements become more depraved, and the way he pushes against all the right spots inside you leaves your memories a mere shadow in the distance. Nothing you’ve ever felt compares to this moment in his arms, and the shock to your body has you hurtling into the abyss as you lose all semblance of self, feeling as though you're dissolving into him.

Sweat coats the skin between you, hips gliding in slick movements as you writhe against him, and the moans vibrating through him hum right into your core, and you find yourself echoing him. He spears deep into you, another tilt of his hips and yours grazing the tip of his length deep into the front of your core, leaving you crying out as you finally fall against him, and with a sharp tug your lips are pressing to his and he’s drinking in the sounds that escape you like an elixir.

“H-nghh-ah!” Your eyes clench shut as you grasp for his hand behind you, fingers squeezing between his as he continues to roll his hips under you. And it’s with an impressive example of his restraint that he manages to slow them to an almost stop and pulls away from your lips to let you breath, throat burning around a shuddered breath that almost kicks into a sob with the moisture budding behind your lids.

“Baby.” Jimin eases you carefully back to the surface, and it takes you a few seconds to realise just how hard your panting against his neck, arms both around his neck as he strokes a gentle hand up your back and over the nape of your neck. “Baby, talk to me.”

“J’min.” Shock takes over as your voice wavers, and you swallow thickly as he eases you back from his neck to look into your eyes. Your core is still pulsing around him, but you’re grateful for the reprieve as the two of you start to calm down, needing just a moment to really soak it all in before you can revel in him too much.

“Breath for me.” You do as he says, taking a deep breath as he runs a gentle thumb under your eyes, and for a few seconds all you do is return his gaze as he runs his hands over your body. “Doing so well for me. So beautiful. Love you so much.”

The words are so quiet you could almost think he hadn’t meant to say them out loud, but the warmth in his eyes and the tilt of his lips say otherwise, and you give him a shy smile in reply, cheeks starting to heat. “I love you.”

Jimin pulls you down to his lips once more, and you meet him eagerly as the need in your centre returns with a vengeance. The hitch of a moan you feed into his lips is echoed by the pulse of his member deep inside you, and you lift yourself up just enough to feel the friction of his against your walls, smiling shakily as a hiss leaves his lips at your ministrations. The pleasure starts to take over the forefront of your mind again, and as your movements grow bigger and more eager, so does the knot starting to tighten between your hips.

“F-Feels s-so–” You sob, teeth finding your lower lip as you jerkily roll your hips into Jimins, and at his deep growl of pleasure your clit gives a heavy throb, and you fall back to brace yourself with hands on his thigh as you lift yourself with a debauched level of eagerness. Jimin’s hand drop to find your hips, fingertips deep in your flesh as he holds you tight and throws his head back in ecstasy. The way you can see his eyes roll back before he closes them tight, nostrils flaring as he clenches his jaw, leaves you throbbing, and had you been of sound mind, the lewd sounds of your hips pushing and rolling against each other might’ve made you blush.

“S-So good, I–” But you’re in far too deep now, a hiccuped sob leaving you every time your hips drop into his, and Jimin is hardly faring any better as he grunts and moans, the veins in his neck popping as he swallows thickly, and your eyes catch on his tongue as it runs over his lower lip. Chin dropping forward, his eyes pierce straight into you when they finally open, and you almost jerk to a stop as the sight has your core clenching tight with a shocking pulse of lust.

“H-ah! I’m–!” Shuddering over him, you try to get back into a rhythm that resembles controlled, but fail miserably as Jimin leans up and forward to brace an arm behind himself as the other winds around your waist. You follow his lead, wrapping your arms around his shoulders, but you fumble as he gives a strong tug and leaves you gasping as his length pierces straight into you, deeper than before. And he is unwavering.

“Come on, baby.” Deep slaps of your hips against his echo around the room, almost drowned out by your cries as your entire body tenses with shock, and you can feel more than hear his groan as he leans in to suck your lower lip between his teeth, teasing you into a messy, breathless kiss that you can barely hold for half a second. You’re weak against him, entire body thrumming with a pleasure that is so wholly encompassing that it catches you off guard, and all you can do is take it as he pushes himself back until he’s laying back against the pillows. You’re too far gone to notice the hand he lifts to his lips until it’s too late, fingers wet with saliva when they slip down against your clit, and you choke on your own breath. “Come for me, sweetheart.”

Your climax hits you like a freight train, not a sound or breath escaping you as you rip Jimin’s hand from between your thighs and fall down weakly against his chest. You can’t hear a single thing around the blood rushing through your head as you pull up and off Jimin’s length in instant oversensitivity, and he automatically catches you in his arms as he shushes your now heaving sobs.

“Good girl, baby. You did so good for me, sweet girl. God, you’re so beautiful cumming for me like that. Missed you so much–” Jimin brings you down, gentle kisses lining your cheek as he holds you close and whispers into your ear, and as you start to breath again, and your mind starts to slowly clear, you can feel the way your release eases down your folds and no doubt pools over his length.

“J’min.” You slowly pull back with a weak arm trying to brace you against the bed beside his head, and his eyes glint as he grins up at you, holding you carefully. He hushes you again, thumbing at your chin now as he pulls you in, and the kiss is tender against your swollen lips as he strokes his other hand down to your lower back.

You kiss languidly for a few minutes, the strength slowly returning to your limbs as you regain some energy, and ever so gradually, the kiss starts to grow more eager. And with the sheer burning heat of him right underneath you, it’s not hard to expect the way your body starts to desire the feel of him again.

He hisses as your hips undulate back down against him, the sensitive tip of his length grazing and parting through your folds and leaving you to moan against his lips as he twitches and grunts beneath you. The hand at your hip squeezes you tight, shifting to take a handful of your ass as he pulls you against him again before pulling away from your lips and fixing you with his heavy stare.

“Only if you’re sure baby.” You look at him for a moment, smile small but growing quickly as his thumb runs over your lower lip, and you quickly move in again to fix his lips against yours, and wordlessly you reach down to lift his length until it aligns with your core, grinning as he jerks and squeezes you in his hold.

Your jaw instantly drops, a heavy breath escaping the both of you as he parts your folds once more, and this time the slide is a little slower, a little more intense for you as he parts your walls and nestles deep inside, but it doesn't take long for you to start to rock back and forth over him, and Jimin hides his face in your neck as a high pitched sound of pleasure escapes him. Hips rolling, you close your eyes and focus on the sounds he makes as you pleasure him, engraving them in your mind and shuddering as they lift the hairs on the back of your neck.

Pulling back in an effort to ground yourself from becoming too lost in him too fast, you sit up slowly and start to properly move, pushing down on him right to the hilt before pulling away until his tip barely kisses the insides of your folds. The sunlight has peaked over the horizon in the distance, filling the room with a lavender glow that quickly intensifies as you ride him with increasing desperation, and soon his hands join your efforts and pull you against him as he gazes up at you heatedly. His lips are parted on his breath, and you bite down on your own as the sight of his eyes starting to roll again has your clit throbbing.

“Baby.” Jimin’s head flies back as you grind down on him hard, the delicious expanse of his neck now exposed to you as he cries out, and just by the sound of his breath hitching around his little gasps of pleasure and the way his hands are shaking, you can tell he’s starting to get close to his release. And so you double your efforts, slamming down against him hard enough to make you yourself cry out, eyes clenched shut as he brushes against the deepest spots. “F-Fuck!”

“Hmh-ah!” Your breath is punched out of you as you’re twisted to the side, your back hitting the bed unexpectedly, and your eyes shoot open to see Jimin now above you, length gripped in his hand as he squeezes the tip hard in a desperate attempt not to cum, while he growls as he pushes your legs apart and falls over you to claim your mouth once more.

His breath is scalding as it washes over your lips, his heaving gasps for air a reflection of the way the sight of him has you breathless, and while your lips stay pressed together he pushes his hips forward to connect the two of you once more. Your arms find their way around his neck as he lifts a hand to cup your jaw, and with the first drive of his hips your body is thrust upward closer to the pillows.

Elbows dent the bed on either side of your waist, and Jimin's hands slip under you to cup the back of your shoulders and hold you in place. A gasp escapes you at the way his length delves deeper still as his thrusts hasten, and he pushes his thighs further apart as he solidifies his position over you, leaving your own unable to resist as you’re spread wider and your hips tilt upwards automatically.

This minute change in position has your core completely victim to Jimin’s will. And with every drop of his hips into yours, your body vibrates with electricity as the angle drives him right over your most sensitive spots and deep within where even the slightest twinges of pain are left to ignite the burn of impending doom even brighter. You can merely hang on and try to breath as ecstasy mounts.

A heavy clench of your walls has Jimin’s hips faltering for just a second before he resumes with a deep growl that he muffles into your neck, and you hold onto him desperately as he shifts a hand to clasp the back of your neck instead, shifting his weight to his elbow and using the now free hand to curl your thigh even higher on his hip.

The heat between the two of you is stifling, the slickness of sweat coating your bodies as the push and pull intensifies, and as your lashes flutter and the feeling between your hips starts to mount, you pull him back by the hair at the nape of his neck and fix his heavy gaze with yours.

“J’min, please-ah!” He cries out as you feel him swell and throb at your centre, and his hips grind heavy against yours. The press of him catches your clit and you whimper in oversensitivity as you squeeze him tight and you feel your core clench repeatedly as the tsunami drowns you, his breath hitching and lashes fluttering as his hips stutter and then finally stop.

Warm wetness leaks out and down from where you’re connected, but you pay no mind to the way it pools on the sheets under you as you cup his cheeks and lose yourself in the kiss he pulls you into. You drink him in like nectar, returning his embrace fervently as his tongue teases at the tip of yours, and he leans his weight off to one side to twist his fingers through the hair behind your ear.

By the time he pulls away from you light has broken through the buildings and runs vertical lines through the blinds to decorate the walls and the side of his face, and you can’t help but to run fingers over them in reverence as he smiles gently down at you. A few more kisses find their way to your lips before Jimin manages to pull himself away, and regardless of the warmth of the sun's rays filling the room, you instantly feel cold without him.

But he doesn’t go far lifting himself just enough to wrap you in the sheet that’s found its way to the end of the mattress before lifting you smoothly into his arms and standing from the bed. You find yourself smiling as you wrap your arms around his neck and lean in to press your face to his warm skin, breathing in the scent of him that resounds so strongly as home even before.

Gentle kisses rain over your exposed skin as he walks to the bathroom, and your feet barely touch the cool tiles before the patter of water fills the room and you're deafened to the world as Jimin pulls your lips to his with a hand under your chin.

And you know that regardless of the trials that no doubt will still litter your near future, having Jimin by your side once more makes any hardship that little bit easier, makes you that little bit stronger.

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bluegarners · 3 years

Text

Dick comforts a dying civilian. He wishes he didn’t have to lie to do so.

~oOo~

“You’re going to be okay. I promise.”

That’s what he says. What he swears. The dying man, hardly a man, couldn’t be a man, he’s barely an adult, he’s so young, so young, only nods his head at the lie. It’s a sure movement, confident and trusting, and Dick has to force his mouth shut in order not to take it all back.

The asphalt is cold, it’s barely eleven thirty, but there are no stars or street lamps to help soothe the roughness of it all. The ink that oozes out and stains the black is staining his suit as well. It coats his hands and fingers, breaks through his knees, slides under his feet. Despite the pebbles that press into his shins, Dick can only focus on how soft and slick blood is.

Blood is soft.

“My name’s John,” the young man offers. Red stains his teeth in a grin that reminds Dick of his own. “Nice to meet you, sir, uh, Nightwing.”

He knows he’s not really supposed to listen to the scanners. Old habits die hard, and even though Batman’s disapproval is almost enough to keep him away, Dick’s fingers still twitches to his retired radio. It’s how he got here. It’s why he’s here now.

“Hi, John,” is all he can really offer, too focused on keeping his hands in position. Too focused on trying to slow the stream, the bubble of life that keeps pouring out. Upper left side of the sternum. Exit wound out from the third left rib. Estimated time of sixty, maybe ninety seconds, since the shot. Too late. Too late.

“My sister’s name is Rita,” John says, and his eyes are wandering across Dick’s masked face. “She’s thirteen.”

Dick nods. Digs his fingers into the small hole further. The ambulance is maybe two minutes out. Maybe more. The call only just came in.

“What’re you doing?”

Finally, Dick shifts. John has brown, unremarkable eyes. “I’m stemming the blood flow. You were shot.”

“Really?” John is genuinely surprised. “When?”

Dick presses his hands down a little harder. “A few minutes ago. Tell me more about your sister, John.”

“Why was I shot? Who did it?”

“I don’t know,” Dick responds. “You said Rita was thirteen?”

John smiles, eyes scrunching up. “Yeah,” he sighs. “She’s going to turn fourteen next month. An actual teenager.” He adds, softer, “She’s growing up too fast.”

“I know the feeling,” Dick agrees, thinking of his own teenager. Damian, indeed, was growing up too fast. He was almost up to his shoulder now. “Any plans for a birthday party?”

The blood isn’t stopping despite the pressure. It keeps seeping through his fingers, a warm envelope compared to the dry cold.

“She wants-” John coughs, chest caving. “She wants to go to Disney World. Go see Mickey Mouse.”

“That sounds like fun,” Dick cheers, trying to calculate how much time is left. John’s green coat is soaked, drenched, and Dick knows if he were to squeeze the front, it would dribble.

John jerks his head and his eyes are roaming. There is little color in his face, lips parted in desperate gasps. The shock from before is steadily going away. The adrenaline is leaving, but everything else is fixed in place.

“Am I,” his voice cracks, “Am I dying?”

“No,” Dick reassures. “You’re going to be fine.” He presses down harder.

John whimpers. “Stop, stop. That hurts.”

“I know,” Dick soothes. “Everything is going to be okay, John. Look at me. You’re going to be okay.”

A lie.

The younger man doesn’t look at him though and he bites his lip, squeezing his eyes shut. “I can’t feel my hands,” he admits. “I-I don’t feel very good.”

“Help is almost here, John.”

Another lie. He can hear the orders going back and forth in his ear. There’s traffic. It’ll be another three minutes until an ambulance is free.

“Just stay calm. Deep breaths. Breathe with me, okay? In and out.”

John is trying his best to copy the exaggerated movements, lungs stuttering and shaking. The panic is setting in though. The panic and the desperation.

“What am I gonna tell Rita?” he asks like he’s expecting an answer. “What am I gonna tell mom?”

Dick doesn’t know.

“We were-- We were all gonna go together, you know? She’s turning fourteen but she still wants me around and I don’t understand why but-”

John coughs again. It’s weak.

“I’m scared,” he whispers. “What’s going to happen to me?”

Dick opens his mouth again to spew some half-hearted reassurance or answer that’s just lies with a pretty bow atop. He stops though. John is staring at him with dirty brown eyes. There’s nothing special about them. Nothing notable. There are no flecks of gold or amber in them that catch the light. There’s no stony wall of indifference built behind them. The whites of his eyes are splattered with burst vessels and strain, and they hide nothing.

But John has brown eyes that stare at him, stare into his soul, and beg for honesty. Truth.

Dick can’t bring himself to use harsh words though. Can’t bring himself to form the sentence ‘You’re going to die,’ because that’s cruel and too blunt and death is so personal. Dying is too intricate to be put like that. You can’t explain death.

Dick’s died before. Only a minute or two of complete nothingness, but death nonetheless. He remembers the moments leading up to it more vividly than he does the moments after. His body hurt, ached in a way that he was sure he’d never feel the same again. His throat was sore, deep gouges and scratches still oozing blood. He could barely see out of his left eye, nearly swollen shut, and his wrist were throbbing.

Most of all, though, Dick remembered suffocating. Remembered Luthor’s clean, clean face. There wasn’t a speck of dirt or blemish on that man. His teeth were a perfect white and his eyes were filled with apathy. Luthor’s metal gauntlet smelled like oil, and he could sometimes taste it on his tongue during the worst nights. The pill was small, shoved down his throat so efficiently, but the very idea of medicating like that again leaves him shivering.

He struggled. He did. Dick struggled as much as he could, muscles screaming and heart crying out. At some point, he recalls looking for Bruce. Looking for a small comfort in his despair. A familiar face to ease the panic.

There was only Luthor though. Luthor and his pearly white teeth and apathetic eyes.

His lungs had burned and it had spread to the rest of his body like he was on fire. Dick’s last moments, his death, his murder, was filled with nothing but horror and pain.

Dick hadn’t wanted to die. Dick hadn’t wanted to know he was going to die. There was no hope with that. No sense of faith for another outcome. Fruitless as it may have been, Dick had wanted to dare for a savior.

No, Dick would not be cruel. He could not be.

“Nightwing?”

His name is hardly a breath out in the open air. The wheezes have stopped. Blood still pours and pours and pours. His suit is stained. The ground is soaked.

“It’s not scary,” Dick says, leaning closer. It’s truthful, this time. Dying wasn’t scary. Everything up until death was. “It’s like falling asleep.”

“I’m not ready,” John rushes to say. “I--I don’t wanna be alone.”

His eyes keep flickering closed, slowly fluttering open every few seconds. Carefully, cautiously, Dick removes his hands. Alleviates the pressure. There is an awful suctioning noise as he releases his fingers from the wound. John doesn’t notice.

“You won’t be,” Dick whispers, taking the other man’s trembling hand into his. “I’m here. You won’t be alone.”

“You said it’s like falling asleep?” His voice is hardly a rasp. “I go to sleep and it’ll all be just a dream?”

Death was a dream for Dick. A nap in oblivion. He closed his eyes, held his breath, and then opened them and gasped. That was it.

“Yeah, just a dream. That’s all it is.”

“And after...” John trails off, pausing for such a long time that Dick doesn’t know what to do except to continue to hold his hand. He speaks up again though, eyes flickering to find opaque lens staring back at him. “What happens after?”

There’s a wailing in the distance, close enough where the high pitched whines sound like hope and the flashing blue and red lights look like safety. There’s too much life around him though. Too much of it leaking into the asphalt and draining out of that green winter coat. John stopped shaking awhile ago. His grip lessened, and even though his eyes were meeting Dick’s own, Dick knows that he was no longer seeing.

On some level, Dick knows it’s too late. It was already too late when he arrived. John, this man that barely looked over twenty one, with a chipped tooth and boring brown eyes and a thirteen year old sister named Rita, had the misfortune of Nightwing arriving too late.

“After?” Dick repeats, squeezing the man’s hand. “Well, that’s the easy part. After, you wake up.”

He doesn’t see the exact moment brown eyes become dull, doesn’t look at his watch to confirm the precise second of when John takes his last breath, but he does know that sirens flood the dim street thirty seconds later and that it is much too late to do a thing about it.

He lets go of John’s limp hand, briefly considers wiping his gloves onto his already smeared suit, and allows two paramedics to swarm the quickly cooling body. He waits for police to arrive, watches as they drape a black tarp over Rita’s older brother’s body, and declare it a homicide. Even throughout the questioning, of which they let him off relatively easy considering the sheer volume of-- of life splattered all over him, Dick lets them do their jobs.

He leaves with little fanfare, grappling away from the scene and flipping through rooftops.

The radio in his belt feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. The static in his comm is loud and screeching, and for a moment, Dick entertains the notion of flinging it out into the night. Throwing the cheap device into darkness, watch it plummet and shatter.

The sirens are soft, muffled with distance, but the taste in his mouth takes him back as if he never left. Copper. Oil. Dirt. His own sweat. A dry pill.

See, the thing is, Dick isn’t very good about being honest. He’s tongue and cheek most of the time, quipping and tossing around puns as distractions and ice-breakers. When people go to him for guidance, they aren’t looking for his honest thoughts. They’re looking for leadership. They’re looking for advice that’ll help them through their trials. Most of the time, they just want hope.

John was looking for hope.

Call him an optimist. Call him a pessimist. At the end of the day, there’s still water in the cup, and that’s all that matters, right?

Dying was not like falling asleep. It wasn’t taking a little nap and floating in forever. You don’t wake up from death. It wasn’t a dream that you don’t remember after opening your eyes. It wasn’t a nightmare that leaves your heart beating out of your still chest.

Death was nothing. Nothing.You aren’t supposed to come back from nothing.

You aren’t supposed to wake up either, and yet here he was.

Dick isn’t very good about telling the truth. He’s a very good liar. A good actor. Manipulative, some would say. He prefers to see the other half of the coin. He doesn’t like the darkness or the grim. He tolerates it all, yes, but he’s a good liar. Good enough to fool himself.

Sometimes, Dick wonders if he ever actually woke up.

Thoughts like these are dangerous. They lead down a rabbit hole that’s difficult to claw out of. He’ll do it again, shovel through his own thoughts until his nails are broken off and the tips of his fingers are raw, but he can’t let himself ever succumb to it all again.

Death wasn’t like a dream, but it took all the same. It took memories from him. Those short, precious, important minutes he spent dead took away a lot of things. And he gets so angry when he can’t remember the good things.

He gets so furious when he has trouble recalling his first birthday at the Manor. He feels an unbridled rage when he doesn’t know off the top of his head when Jason got adopted. These dangerous and purging flickers of loathing for himself shove everything else aside when Tim talks to him about certain missions that he knows he should know like they happened yesterday, and yet even the thoughts of it are fuzzy and woven with cob webs.

He’ll never forgive himself for forgetting what it was like to hug Damian for the first time.

Death, trauma, it all stole from him, but he was also lucky enough to wake up.

Blink. Gasp. Breathe. Taste ash and inhale smoke.

John had brown eyes. Rita is turning fourteen next month.

The radio call requested emergency services for a neighborhood disturbance at eleven twenty five. Nightwing arrived on scene at eleven twenty eight.

The blood under his fingernails will take three showers to get out.

John bled out and his life now stained every part of Dick Grayson.

These are things Dick will remember.

Death is not a dream, so this is the price for making it one.

#dick grayson #dick grayson needs a hug #nightwing #dc #fanfic #late night drabbles #angst #cw:death #tw:blood #mentions of the following characters:#bruce wayne #jason todd #tim drake #damian wayne #dick grayson centric #honestly no idea where this came from #just kinda happened and now i'm too tired to do anything about it #hope ya enjoyed my angst fest #my fic

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sometimesiwritebadly · 4 years

Text

Paintbrush (Spencer Reid x Artist!Reader)

Summary: You’re an artist in DC, and a serial killer has started using your artwork as inspiration for his murders.

Warnings: Mentions murder (duh) but doesn’t go into detail

Notes: This is way longer than I planned lol. I based the chaotic-artist vibe that the reader has going on the tiktoker @/artistkatiesmall so y’all can watch her tik toks if you like chaotic energy and paint as much as i do. Oh also I tried to keep this gender-neutral but if there are any pronouns in here that shouldn’t be let me know and I’ll fix it!! I use she/her so sometimes it just comes naturally and i don’t notice.

Word Count: 2.3k

Masterlist

You were in your studio, listening to music as loud as physically possible. Your art studio is like a safe haven; the only place you feel completely yourself. Right now you’re working on your latest piece. Your art style is very “splattered paint that ends up looking like something”, which your mother had told you on multiple occasions. She had meant it as an insult, but you ended up taking the term and making it your own. She’s not wrong; you typically start your pieces by throwing some paint on a canvas and letting it take you somewhere. So here you are, slapping paint on a canvas and screaming the lyrics to your favorite song.

As the painting began to take form - you hadn’t decided what it would be yet, but you’re excited with what you have - you heard some pounding that didn’t match the beat of the song. Grabbing your phone, you turned down the music, and the pounding could be heard much more clearly now. “Y/N Y/L/N! FBI!” You quickly paused the music and rushed to the door. As you opened the door, your paintbrush (still covered in paint...oops) was tucked behind your ear. At your entrance was two men, one tall and skinny, and the other older with graying hair. “Y/N?” The younger of the two asked, his voice considerably softer than when he’d yelled through your door. You only nodded, and each of the men showed you their badges before the older of the two spoke.

“I’m SSA Rossi, and this is Dr. Reid, we’re with the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI. Can we come in? We need to ask you a few questions.”

“Uh, yeah, of course.” You opened the door wider now, allowing them both to step inside your small studio. “Um, sorry about the mess, I’m not exactly the most conventional artist.” You apologized. You would've offered them a seat, but you only had two chairs in the place, and they were both occupied by piles of your various art supplies. “What is this about?”

Dr. Reid held a file in his hands, which he passed over to you as he spoke. “Do you recognize any of these paintings?” You open the file to find 4 pictures of your own artwork; portraits of various different people. One short blonde woman, one ginger man with an impressive beard, and a hispanic woman with a pixie cut.

“Yeah, I painted these a while back...Why does the FBI care about some random commission artwork?”

“Someone commissioned you to do these?” Dr. Reid spoke quickly, causing you to look away from the pictures and back towards him. “Uh, yeah. He calls me every once in a while and asks for weirdly specific portraits.”

“What do you mean, weirdly specific? You don’t base your work off of pictures?” SSA Rossi asked you.

“No, he’s never given me pictures to work from. He just describes the person he wants me to paint. Like about two weeks ago,” You paused as you walked over to your cluttered desk, and grabbed your notepad, which was still open to the page you’d jotted down your notes on, “He asked for a portrait of a short, Asian man with bleach blonde hair, dark eyes, and one pierced ear.” You handed the notepad to Dr. Reid, who scanned it quickly.

“What’s his name?” He asked, before handing the notepad to his partner.

“Tanner. I don’t know his last name, he always pays with cash. What’d he do?”

The two men looked at each other briefly, before Dr. Reid spoke again, “We believe Tanner has been killing the people that you paint. He left the paintings at the crime scene.”

Your heart dropped. Not only had you been in constant contact with this psychopath, but you felt like you’d inadvertently helped him. You took his money, and he killed the people who looked like your paintings.

“I know this is shocking, but have you painted anyone else for him?”

“Uh, no, this was the most rece-” You cut yourself off, remembering something from the last time you’d spoken with Tanner. “He bought a painting of me.”

“When?” Dr. Reid asked.

“When, uh, when he picked up the last painting. I had a self-portrait sitting over there that I'd done for fun. He asked if he could have it along with the other one, he paid me extra for it-”

“What day, Y/N?” Dr. Reid placed a hand on your shoulder, trying to comfort you. You felt like you might pass out.

“3 days ago.”

Again, the two agents looked at each other, and their faces didn’t make you feel any better.

“Y/N, why don’t you come with us to the police station, you’ll be safe there.” You could only nod in response letting them lead you out of the studio. Before you exited, Dr. Reid grabbed the paintbrush from behind your ear, placing it on a table before you made your way out to the car.

~~~

Sitting in the police station was like torture. First of all, you were wearing your normal painting outfit: a paint-stained t-shirt an ex had left at your place, jeans that were so ripped up you could barely call them jeans anymore, and of course, socks and sandals. The cops were either completely ignoring your presence, or asking you the same questions you’d already answered dozens of times. One top of all that, they wouldn’t let you do anything besides sit and wait. You had managed to find a paper pad and a pen, so at least your doodling could help pass the time.

You’d been at the station for over an hour already, which meant your doodle was nearly perfect; you ended up drawing one of the agents, Dr. Reid. From where you were sitting, he was in clear sight, and one of the only people who was actually sitting still enough for you to draw. And, y’know, he’s the only person you want to look at long enough for you to draw.

“Is that me?” His voice startled you; you’d been looking down at the paper and didn’t notice Dr. Reid coming towards you. You dropped the pen immediately, and moved the paper out of his sight.

“I’m sorry Doctor, I was just, y’know, bored and-” You tried to put together a sentence, but your embarrassment was getting the best of you.

“I don’t mind, I, um, think it’s kind of flattering. Can I see it?” Dr. Reid asked, and you reluctantly handed the paper over. You’d been an artist for so long, you were almost never nervous for people to see your work anymore; you have a very “if they like it, great! If they don’t, I don’t care,” kind of attitude when it comes to your artwork. But Dr. Reid was making you nervous. “You don’t have to call me Doctor by the way. Reid is fine. Or, uh, Spencer. You can call me Spencer.” He had a light blush on his face as he spoke, which calmed you a little bit. At least he’s just as nervous as you. Suddenly, as if he was snapped out of his train of thought, Spencer handed the paper back to you and cleared his throat before speaking. “We used the phone number you gave us to find Tanner, but he doesn’t have any listed addresses. Did you ever deliver paintings to him?” Behind him, another one of the agents who’d talked to you, Hotch, walked up.

“Um, no. I’d just call him whenever I finished a painting and he’d come to me.”

“Would you be willing to call him again?” Hotch asked. Your eyes widened at the idea. You’re already terrified at the notion that you may be a target for a serial killer, but calling him? Hotch must have noticed your fear, as he began to explain further, “We can track his location with a phone call, but we need some time to do it. If you’re the one speaking, he’ll probably stay on the line long enough for our technical analyst to find him.”

You took a deep breath, before nodding slowly. “Y-yeah. I can do that. Can you guys give me a minute first? I need some air.” You didn’t wait for an answer before walking out of the police station. Once you got outside, walked to the end of the building and leaned against the side wall. You closed your eyes, breathing deeply. You couldn’t shake the feeling of responsibility over those people’s deaths. Tanner had taken your artwork, your passion, and ruined it.

“Are you ok?” You looked up to find Spencer standing in front of you, hands in his pockets.

“Not really.” You played with your hands as you spoke, not making eye contact.

“You feel guilty, don’t you?” He asked, as he moved to lean against the wall next to you.

“Shouldn’t you be inside? Y’know, you’ve got a serial killer to catch.”

“You know there are a lot of signs that someone feels guilty. Avoiding eye contact, changing the subject, lack of an appetite...I noticed you didn’t eat the snacks JJ got for you.” He was right, Agent Jareau had gotten you some snacks that you left untouched back in the station. When you didn’t say anything, Spencer continued, “Usually when I see people acting like this, they have good reason to be guilty. You haven’t done anything wrong, Y/N.”

“I inspired him.” When you looked up at Spencer, he gave you a confused look. “When I saw him last, when he wanted to buy that painting of me, I asked him why. He said that my artwork inspires him. If...If I hadn’t painted those people, they could still be alive.”

“You don’t know that.”

“But there’s a possibility, isn’t there? You can’t say for sure that he would’ve killed them anyways, can you?”

Spencer was silent for a moment, confirming your fears. Eventually, he spoke up. “He may not have killed those exact people, He would’ve killed someone. He’s already killed before.” Your eyebrows shot up at this, so Spencer kept talking, “We think we can connect him to two murders from a few years ago. If he had never used your art as part of his signature, it would’ve taken us a lot longer to find him. He may have even gotten away with it all together.” Spencer’s words did give you a little relief. You still felt bad for the way your art had been used, but it was a good reminder that you weren’t the murderer. That Tanner’s actions had nothing to do with yours.

“Thank you.” Spencer nodded in response, giving you a small smile. “I guess I have a phone call to make.”

~~~ a week later ~~~

You were back in your studio, getting ready for a new painting. Just as you placed your canvas on the easel, there was a knock on the door. When you opened it, you were surprised to find Spencer Reid on the other side. “Spencer?”

“Hi.” There was an awkward moment of silence before Spencer spoke again. “I, uh, saw your mural. It’s beautiful.” A small smile formed on your face at the mention of the mural. After you helped the BAU catch Tanner, you reached out to the family of the victims. With their permission, you painted a mural that was put up at the memorial down the road. The mural had been featured on local DC news channels, which is probably how Spencer had seen it.

“Thank you. I probably wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t for you.” As you spoke, you moved over so that Spencer could enter the studio space. “Back at the police station, I wanted to quit art. Figured I’d finally put that communications degree to use or something.” Spencer lightly laughed as you continued, “But you made me realize that I can still do something good with my art.”

“I’m glad.” Spencer paused, and took a deep breath, and a step towards you, “Do you, uh, think we could go get coffee sometime? I mean, it doesn’t have to be coffee, we could get tea, or um, lemonade, we could get lemon-”

“Spencer!” You cut him off, with a light laugh. You found his nerves to be both flattering and cute. “I’d love to get any beverage you’d like, as long as you’re there with me.” You ran your hands through your pockets, looking for the sharpie you’d had in your hand before you’d opened the door. “Where is…” you mumbled, looking down at your pockets. Suddenly, you felt Spencer’s hand at your ear, where he pulled down the sharpie you’d placed there.

“Looking for this?” He was now standing close enough to you that he only had to whisper.

“Yeah” You responded, at the same volume he’d used. You took the sharpie from his hand, but before he could pull it away, you grabbed it and wrote down your phone number. When you finished, you looked up to Spencer’s face, which had turned pink. “Call me whenever.”

Neither you or Spencer said a word, you just stood there, staring at each other. You couldn’t help but try to memorize every feature of his face. Your staring contest was interrupted by Spencer’s phone dinging. He took a step back, much to your disappointment, and looked down at the text. “I, uh, I have to get to work. We have a new case.” You could tell he was disappointed too.

“Ok.” You whispered. Spencer looked at you for one more moment before he did what you least expected; before you even realized what was happening, his hand was wrapped around your waist and his lips were on yours. Your hands found their way to his collar, pulling him even closer to you.

You two didn’t pull apart until Spencer’s phone went off again. “You better call me.” You said, finally letting go of him.

“I will, promise.” Was the last thing he said to you before rushing off to work. When the door closed behind him, you turned to your blank canvas with a clear idea in mind. So you turned up the music, grabbed your paints, and began to put every detail of Spencer you could remember onto the canvas.

~~~

Notes: i’ll be honest idk how i feel about this ending lmao but i hope y’all liked it

Tags: @dr-reid-ismyspiritanimal @la-vie-en-amour1 @peculiarinsomniac

#spencer reid #spencer reid angst #spencer reid one shot #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x gender neutral reader #Criminal Minds #criminal minds fic #david rossi #aaron hotchner

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halzore · 3 years

Text

For @nelba, I hope you have a wonderful 2021 and a nice and snowy rest of 2020. I had a lot of fun writing this little scene, with hopefully a clone you like!

Tagging @starwarssecretsanta and thankyou @lilhawkeye3 for organising this and bringing some extra seasonal cheer in a pretty tricky year

disclaimer I cannot write titles for Shit, please excuse me while I scream.

Word count: ~2000

Warnings: So much fluff I think i just suffocated.

Without further ado:

FOX^2

“That’s it. Get up.” Thorn had burst into Fox’s office, irritation etched on the man’s features. Fox’s head barely moved from the mountain of data pads, focus tuning out his brother’s arrival.

“Get up!” Thorn repeated. Fox looked up from his work, vexed by the interuption. “You’re going on the beat.”

Thorn was flurrying around the room, trying to dismantle the precarious pile of data pads and bother Fox into moving. Fox was not buying it.

“I’m not going on the beat.” It was a statement, matter-of-fact. No one would have argued with Fox. Except for Thorn. Thorn turned around to his brother, copping the determined stare and matching it with a grin. He waved a paper in front of Fox’s nose.

“According to this signed override form from Marshall Commander Cody, you are.” Thorn was too proud of himself, a shit-eating grin beaming across the room at his peeved brother.

“I’ve got paperwork, I can’t go.” Fox gestured at the scattered data pads, in a last ditch attempt to rid himself of his persistent co-commander.

“You. Are. Going. On. Beat.”Thorn had marched himself around the back of Fox, lifting him up by the shoulders, out of his chair, dragging him along behind. “Now.” Thorn thrust him out of the door and locked it from the inside.

Fox stood in the hallway, he had not had enough caf for this. He turned to the locked fort calling through it.

“Thorn, I need my helmet.”

~~~

The beat was pretty quiet, it usually was. Fox had to admit that it was nice to have some air, even though Coruscant wasn’t particularly well known for the freshness of it’s air. Leaning against his speeder, he absent-mindedly listened to his police scanners as he scanned the streets for miscreants. His mind wandered to the pile of work sitting back at headquarters, making little lists of what he had to fill in and when. He was so far away in his work that he didn’t see you barrel down the street.

Your feet were carrying you as fast as they could, your running form weakened by the small bundle you held close to your chest. Your eyes were fixed on the little nose pointing out of the material, it’s round eyes peering up at you. You didn’t notice the plastoid covered man getting closer and closer until you rammed into his chest plate.

Your chest was heaving, bent over, one hand holding the bundle to your chest the other placed firmly on you knee. The clone trooper hovered for a moment, his bucket turned towards you in intrigue.

“Uh, ma’am” You looked up at the clone.

“Ah shit..” You bundled your little friend closer to your chest and turned away from the officer. Fox looked at you, his eyes scanning trying to sus out the scene although you couldn’t see that.

“What have you got there.” Fox carefully enquired. Your face had guilt written all over it, eyes searching desperately in the Courscanti air for an answer, when none came, you squared up to the officer, trying to give off an air of confidence.

“I can explain.” You unwrapped the little bundle you had been clutching at your chest. A little red snout popped out, followed by two dark but inquisitive eyes. The red fur wrapped around the little creatures face, except for it’s chin and chest, where it was contrasted by a crisp white.

“You see, I was walking down the alley behind my work, and I saw a rather dodgy gentlemen.” Fox was half-listening still looking incredulously at his own namesake. “I saw him try to palm this little beauty onto some back-street crim, and I knew the little guy was in trouble.”

“So you stole a fox, off an illegal smuggler.” Thorn was definitely never going to hear the end of this.Fox would never let Cody get away with this. The commander of the Courscant guard, back on beat for one day and this. “What were you going to do after that?” Fox took a deep breath as you wriggled on the spot, your face settling in a nice cringe.

“You see, I hadn’t thought that far…” You trailed off, your eyes focussing around back the way you came.

“And…” Fox prompted

“And that.” You pointed at the angry man walking unnaturally fast towards you and the clone, before you wrapped the fox up again, turned on your heels and began to run away from your pursuer.

“Hey! Wait!” Fox called after you, he drew his pistol and set it to stun. He sent a blue ring towards the angry man, before turning around to catch up with you. You were a decent runner, but not good enough to outrun the likes of the GAR’s finest. A strong hand grabbed your free arm. “Wait.” He said more softly now. Fox took his helmet off and clipped it to his belt.

You let out a laboured sigh, admiring the clone’s handsome face.

“Thankyou.”

“Just doing my job,” He stretched out his armoured arms towards you. “How about you hand me that little guy and I’ll keep your little vigilante action to myself.” You gave the clone a little blush as you handed over the fox.

“What’s your name trooper?” Your hands, now they were unoccupied, hand gone to fidgeting with your hair.

“Fox.” A shocked silence followed.

“Your joking.” You scoffed at the man before you. “No way.” Fox’s mouth gave a little uptick, a smirk. “You’re serious” An amused disbelief shone in your eyes as you began to laugh at the wild situation you had gotten yourself into.

The fox wriggled in Fox’s arms. You took a step back admiring the image.

“Well, Fox, there is no way this day can get any weirder, so I must ask.” Fox’s eyes were trained directly on you as one hand scratched the head of the animal in his arms. “Would you like to go to dinner with me tomorrow?”

Taken aback by the question, and by the ease of the deliverance of the question, Fox took a moment to regroup. He seemed to mull it over for a few moments, all the while your stomach was doing flips and you swore that your heart had got loose of it’s casing. Fox looked at you again, a small smile creeping across his features.

“Yeah sure, why not.” You beamed up at the man, before writing you comm channel onto a little slip of flimsi you found in one of your pockets.

~~~

Fox stood in front the mirror in the barracks. Behind him, Thorn and Thire were gossiping as usual.

“I can’t believe it was a Fox.” Thorn shook his head. “It could have been any animal in the galaxy.” “Nice hair, ori’vod” Thire chuckled, earning himself an approving punch from his brother. Fox looked in the mirror, his hair slicked in an unnatural way. Why did this have to be so hard, why did Thire say that Fox’s hair was too unkempt for a lady. Fox sighed, wondering if he should bail. He didn’t want to, but going out for dinner, in public, without his armour, sounded worse than going on the beat.

At least you would be there, the little firecracker he had met for fifteen minutes. Hopefully that would make it worth it. Behind Fox, Thire and Thorn continued to chat shit as Fox continued his scrutiny.

“Would you two shut up and help me out.” Thorn and Thire looked at their older brother. “Would she like this?” Fox asked as he moulded his hair into the sixth new hairstyle fo the night. Thire grinned, Thorn facepalmed, before releasing their critiques.

~~~

He was standing outside the restaurant you had picked for what seemed like an eternity, his eyes peering into the streetlight lit night, searching for your face. He was beginning to wonder whether you had stood him up, when you came walking purposefully over to him.

You looked amazing, your hair was done differently than last time Fox had seen you, a semi-formal outfit that was dazzling. You looked ethereal.

“Wow…” Fox’s mouth was agape, ogling at your presence.

“Your jaw is supposed to close there buddy,” you gave his chin a gentle push to where it was supposed to be. “Sorry I was late, the taxi service is so unreliable around here and I didn’t want to walk.”

“I’m just glad you made it.” Fox smiled a little, before you lead him inside.

The restaurant was like a little garden, surrounded by pot plants of every colour and variety. Creeping vines crawled up perfectly placed metal bars that separated the tables into their own little private areas. There were a few wooden seats up by the bar, all of which were filled by humanoids and aliens of all species. The restaurant was bustling, a lively electric energy that buzzed through the place. You and Fox found your seats that you had booked earlier, they were over, just off from the bar.

Both you and you clone date regarded the menus, scouring for options to suit your culinary needs. It was after the second drink you shared with Fox that you noticed something was wrong. A blue Twi’lek man sat on the end of the bar in silence, glaring at the back of Fox’s head. You nodded you head over Fox’s shoulder and he glanced in that direction quickly. The Twi’lek noticed, moving up from the bar and over to your table. Fox instinctively reached for his pistol and cursed when he couldn’t find it.

Fox had stood up now. You as well, waiting for the tense scene to unfold.

The Twi prowled forward, disdain emanating from his entire existence. He moved in closer to Fox and you could see him shift his feet to a better stance. There was a stone cold silence, charged with a violent static. All the patrons and staff had turned to look at your small corner of the restaurant.

The Twi didn’t move, Fox waited with bated breath. A sound, followed by a wet sticky substance landing on his face.

“Republic scum.” It was a deep grumble from the Twi. He stood a head taller than Fox, who didn’t move, trying to diffuse the situation. Anger bubbled up from within you, a distaste settling in your mouth causing a sour expression on your face. You cracked you knuckles, took a deep breath, walked around the table, never breaking eye contact with the Twi and placing yourself between Fox and the irritator.

“What did you say?” You voice was low too, carrying danger. The Twi returned your glare.

“I asked you a question,” you repeated. Again, the Twi didn’t respond. You moved right up close to the blue alien, to the point where you could smell the alcohol on his breath.

“I said, Republic Scum.” The Twi’lek repeated.

“Brrrr. Wrong answer.” You broke the tension, by sending your knee straight into the man’s groin. The restaurant descended into chaos as the Twi tumbled to the floor. You felt a hand wrap around your arm and pull you towards the exit. All the action blurred together until you were out in the street just you and Fox.

You walked along silently for a few minutes.

“Trouble really has a knack at finding you doesn’t it.” You blushed, it wasn’t the first time someone had said that to you.

“No.” You corrected. “Unfortunately, I seem to find trouble. Thanks for getting me out of thier.” Your tone turned apologetic. “I shouldn’t have done that, put you in that position I mean.”

Fox turned to look at you.

“I’ve never had a civvie stick up for me like that before.” A sort of sadness settled in your chest at the revelation. You slipped you hand into Fox’s entwining your fingers as you kept walking.

~~~

Fox wished he didn’t have to let go of your hand as he made it to the front door of your apartment. Despite the event of the evening, you had grown on him quite a lot.

“So I guess I should say goodbye.” He stood close to you, hand still in yours.

“Only you have to, or you could come in? I could make you a hot chocolate.” A small smile played on your features as your eyes seemed grow wider in plea.

“One hot chocolate sounds good.” Fox conceded.

He settled on the couch as you babbled away about your family, friends and life whilst bustling in the kitchen, making the hot chocolate. Steam poured off it as you brought it into the room. You placed one in Fox’s hand before plonking yourself next to him on the couch. You drank in a comfortable silence as you watched the speeder’s whizz past in the coloured lights of a coruscant evening.

“Ah, you have a bit of froth there.” You reached up, a little tentatively, to wipe some from underneath Fox’s nose. Your cheeks reddened as your hand came to rest on Fox’s cheek. Fox put his drink down on the table in front of him and reached up and placed his hand over yours. “Thanks for a wonderful night Fox.” It was quiet, nervous, the vigour from earlier in the night vanishing in the midst of the butterflies in your stomach.

“We will have to do it again sometime.” Fox leaned, the tip of his nose tickling yours. An unspoken invitation, an energy, Your heart pounded in your chest as Fox brought up both his hands to cup your cheeks. You lips met in a tender moment, savoured by the both of you. Fox pulled away.

“I really have to go, but I’ll see you soon, that’s if you want.”

You offered him a warm smile. “Of course I want.”

You followed him to your doorframe, where you wrapped him up in your arms. “See you soon Fox.”

~~~

Fox walked into the barracks with a huge grin. Thorn ran to catch up with him.

“So, how was it.”

“Perfect.”

Thorn began to ask a number of intrusive questions. Fox ignored him. Nothing could ruin this night for him. A thought crossed his euphoric mind, he reminded himself to thank Thorn. Maybe he should go on the beat more often.

#fox x reader #swsecretsanta2020 #commander thorn #commander fox #clone trooper thire #TO NELBA #A MORE PRESONAL MESSAGE #I see you in my notes all the time and I really appreciate it #I love your content so much #and when i found out I got the opportunity to write for you I was so excited #So i really hope you enjoy #Also #perks of being an aussie #you get your fic first #Its about to turn midight for the 23rd here #so early seasonal greetings present for you!#Because your amazing

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fandom-strumpet · 3 years

Note

Hello you amazing human! Me having an unhealthy obsession with Kai Parker (and TV sociopaths in general) I am requesting like a Romeo and Juliet inspired story? It can be like the 1996 version of R and J and make it like modern? Idk I think you are talented and I love you and I want you to adopt me.

Here is a modern version of the 1996 Romeo and Juliet movie in the vampire diaries world. Story takes place in Mystic Falls.

Word Count: 11,032 OMG

The characters I have used/ re-written are:

Kai Parker in place of Romeo Montague from the Gemini Coven, Reader Cadell in place of Juliet Capulet from the Oasis Coven, Kai Parker's friends: Sampson, Gregory, Benvolio, Mercutio and Balthasar, The Cadell boys: Abra, Petruchio, Tybalt, The Father/ Priest, Reader Cadell’s nanny, Parents to Reader, Parents to Kai, Rosaline, The governor’s son aka Dave, Police Captain, news anchors

* * * * * * * * * * * * Scene: Local gas station* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Kai Parker’s friends pull up to the gas station hooting and hollering. The ill tempered red head name Gregory shouts,

“Those dogs called Cadells really piss me off! Any dog from that Oasis coven will make me angry enough to take a stand!”

Sampson exclaims in response to his friend, “This quarrel is between our leaders...”

The red head interrupts “...and us their men!

“I would be a tyrant, fighting the men and being merciful to the women by cutting off their heads!”

Gregory is mock outraged, “The heads of the women?”

Sampson turns up the car radio and the boys start to dance but stop abruptly at the sight of a black car.

Sampson says, “Here comes the Oasis coven boys.”

Abra and Petruchio Cadell stare coldly. Sampson gulps nervously as Gregory nudges him mockingly.

“Fight back and take a stand, will ya?”

Sampson tries to hide his panic and responds, “Let them start the fight.”

The gas station door slams closed, BANG. The Parker boys jump at the sound, their attention drawn back to the Cadells who are laughing at the sight of the terrified group. Sampson brazenly flips them off out of embarrassment. Abra’s eyes look back in the mirror to see Sampson’s finger. Abra whips the car around full speed to block the Parker boys from escaping. He jumps out of the car and yanks Sampson out of his car.

“You dare flip me off? Huh?”

“Yeah I gave the bird.” Sampson sneers.

“You dare to?!” Abra roars, gun drawn.

“You think the police will be on our side if I say yes?” Sampson turns to Gregory.

“Nope.” Gregory grimaces.

Sampson turns back to Abra stuttering, “Well I- I did give the bird. But I didn’t give it to you.”

“You want a fight?” Gregory asked.

“No I don’t want a fight,” Abra fake smiles.

Sampson turns to Gregory, “If you do fight, I will be by your side.”

Abra laughs, “Ha! Only you two? You can’t do better?”

“Uh...”

Just then, Benvolio comes back from the bathroom, and shocked by the scene pulls his gun out.

“Here comes our back up!”

“You fools!” Benvolio shrieks, “You don’t know what you’re doing! Let us keep the peace.”

“I hate peace.” Tybalt spits. He fires his gun at a child on accident, smacking the child’s toy gun to pieces.

Benvolio panics and accidentally shoots a bullet near Tybalt’s head. Gregory shoots and nicks Abra’s arm when he attempts to move it away from his face with his magic. A gas tank explodes after a magically moved bullet hits it. A news van screeches around the corner going live with the gun fight and explosion. Tybalt corners Benvolio, placing a gun to his head.

“Look upon your death, Benvolio.”

Suddenly a burning light blinds Tybalt and the Police Captain yells through a megaphone. Police cars have surrounded the scene.

“Enemies! Place your weapons on the ground now! Stop using your magic!”

Tybalt looks to the police and stands down.

* * * * * * * * * * * * At the police station * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Police Captain sits down at his desk, across from the leaders of the Gemini and Oasis covens.

“This is the third time your covens have disrupted the peace of Mystic Falls in a brawl.”

Cadell’s lawyer tries to intervene, “Captain I can-”

The captain slams his fist down. “If you ever disrupt the peace again, I will personally see you both go to prison.”

* * * * * The Parkers are on an awkward ride back to their mansion * * * * *

Kai’s mother sighs and looks out the window. “Oh where is Malachai? Have you seen him yet today?” She turns to her husband. “I’m just glad he wasn’t at the fight today.”

Benvolio feels guilty and answers, “He’s been at the lake side. I saw him walking there this morning.”

Kai’s father scoffs, “He walks too much around there, crying like a child.”

“All he does is hide away in his room, penning himself up and shutting out the light to make it dark as night.”

The driver leans back, “Ma’am, I’ve just received word. He’s at the pier.”

Kai is eating a bag of pork rinds, looking out at the sunset. “Love is a smoke that leads to disappointed sighing. I will never be able to get her, the beautiful Rosaline. Niece of my enemy. Unflawed love would make me feel powerful and alive. But when one does not return the love, the love only creates sadness. Love is madness. Love is bitter tasting but keeps us preserved and alive with its sweetness.”

Back in the car the family continues to chat.

“It’s not healthy for Kai to shut himself away with this depressing behavior. He needs a friends counsel to get him over whatever troubles him.” Kai’s father urges Benvolio.

“Let me out, I’ll talk to him and see if he will tell me what is wrong.”

Kai’s father gives an encouraging smile that disappears as soon as the door is closed. “Let’s go home.” He sighs.

* * * * * * * * * * On the beach * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“Good morning cousin,” Benvolio tries to act casual.

“Is it really only morning?” Kai asks seriously.

“It’s a new day.” He tries to act cheery.

“Sad hours seem long...” Kai turns to Benvolio. “Was that my father that just drove off?”

“Yes Kai but...” Kai shakes his head and starts to walk off, Benvolio walking swiftly after him. “What sadness makes your hours long?”

“Not having the love of her. With her the hours seem short.”

“You have gentle love in your view, but in others it is a sign of tyranny!” He exclaims.

“Whose view matters on my love...” Kai pauses when he sees a TV, playing back the news report of the fight from last night. “You had a fight?”

“I -”

Kai interrupts, “Don’t give me an excuse. I’ve heard them all. It’s much easier to hate someone than to love them. You are wasting so much time on someone who does not care about you.” He storms off in a rage, going up to the sidewalk heading toward a night club. “Why do you love to fight and love to hate, creating conflict out of nothing? My heart is swept away by love but it weighs on me that I am bound to it. It is agony my cousin.” He screams at a bouncer and uses his magic to flick him aside into trash cans. “There is no love like the one I feel,” he dark chuckles, “What cousin? Not going to laugh?”

Benvolio says nervously eyeing the crumpled bouncer, “No...I’d rather cry.”

Kai smiles mischievously, “Good bye, cousin.” And he takes off running down the sidewalk.

Benvolio sighs and starts to pursue. Finally arriving home, Kai gets to a car and a man hurriedly gives him the keys.

Benvolio cuts him off panting, “Tell me... who is it...that you love?”

“My sad heart is in love with a woman.”

“I knew it was a woman,” he rolls his eyes,

“She’s a beautiful lady.” Kai pulls down his shirt to reveal a small tattoo that says ‘Rosaline’.

“Rosaline?!” Benvolio is surprised but impressed. “She is quite beautiful.”

“She does not love me back, her heart is well guarded.”

“Hmm.. You know what? Forget about her!”

“How can I forget about her?”

“Look at all the other ladies,” he motions toward the girls on the sidewalk.

Kai laughs dismissively. “Good bye. You can’t teach me how to forget.”

Benvolio hurries and jumps into the passenger seat of the moving car. The boys head to a bar.

“She would be in just as much trouble as I would be anyway, being a Cadell and a Parker.” He continues, “I think I could keep the peace between our families though.”

The bartender smiles. “It’s honorable of you to try, it’s too bad your families are fighting.

* * * * * * * * * * At the Cadell Mansion * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Cadell leader of the coven, your father, is set down at a meeting with the governor’s son, Dave.

“So what do you say to my proposition?” Dave asks.

Cadell looks at the picture frame of his wife and daughter. “My daughter is still young and innocent. Give her 2 more years and then she will be a perfect wife.”

Dave is persistent. “Sir, girls younger than her are happy mothers.”

“Hmm,” Cadell eyes him hard, “And younger girls married too soon are blemished. She is my pride and joy. If you can woo her and get her consent then you have mine as well.” He comes around the desk to give Dave a fatherly pat on the shoulder. “I will hold a large feast tonight, join us and meet y/n.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * Back at the bar * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Benvolio and Kai have started playing pool.

“Bring another lady into your sights and heart, then you will forget about her.” Benvolio hits a shot and Kai stops it with his hand, throwing it to hit other balls. “Are you insane?” Benvolio asks in mock outrage.

“Insanely in love, yes.” Kai mocks back, stepping toward the bar.

An entertainment show is on the TV above, the female news anchor excitedly announcing. “Tonight the rich Cadell is hosting a great feast-”

“A grand costumed event!” Her partner interrupts.

The partner starts to read off some of the important guests who will be there. Rosaline’s name is on the list and Benvolio turns to Kai, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Looks like Rosaline will be there.” Kai grimaces as Benvolio continues. “Let’s go to the feast, it’s perfect. We can sneak in disguised and find you another woman who is even more beautiful than Rosaline.”

“More beautiful than her? Ha! There has never been a more beautiful woman since the dawn of time.”

Their attention is drawn back to the anchor. “If you’re not a Parker, come and drink some wine at the feast!”

Kai pauses to think. “Fine. I’ll go, but only to prove that no one can be more beautiful than Rosaline.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * At the Cadell mansion * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“Y/N!!! Y/N!!!!” Your nanny yells.

She rushes around the house trying to find you. You roll your eyes and sink down further into the bubble bath, ignoring her calls. Lady Cadell is trying to ready herself for the feast, going maniacal at the nanny screaming. She yells your name.

“God’s sake nanny, where is my daughter? Tell her to come to me.”

“I’ve been calling for her ma’am but I still can’t find her.”

“Mother, nanny? You called?” You said coolly, feigning innocence as you stood there in your bathrobe.

The nanny exclaims in shock, “Oh! Get dressed y/n!

“Just leave her alone. We will speak in private, you can stay as I need your advice.” Your mother looks casually into the mirror, examining her costume and continuing. “You know, y/n darling...I was about your age when I was married.” She turns quickly, unable to hide her excitement anymore. “The governor’s son wants to make you his wife! Isn’t that exciting?”

The nanny tries to take her side. “He is a charming young man, miss.”

“Oh the most charming and handsome!” Your mother giggles, her drinks obviously kicking in.

“What-” you are too stunned as she speaks again.

She grabs your arm, “He’s coming to the feast tonight! To see you! He is a rich man, fall in love with him. You will become his and all that is his will become yours!”

The nanny asks you cautiously, “What do you think of his love?”

You choose your words carefully, not wanting to put your mother in a foul mood. “I’ll try to like him and see if there is anything likeable, but ultimately I will only marry him if you approve and give me the strength.”

A maid comes in. “Lady Cadell, the guests have started to arrive.”

She gasps in excitement. “Hurry y/n, get ready!”

The nurse leans in to whisper, “And don’t forget to enjoy yourself.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * Down by the pier * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Kai Parker and a couple friends are sitting down at the pier, watching the bright lights of the Cadell mansion from across the lake. They hear a roar of a sports engine pull up and turn back to see who it is. Getting out of the car stands Mercutio, Kai’s best friend, dressed in drag. The boys practically fall over laughing as Mercutio pretends to be posing for paparazzi.

“Now applaud!” He yells and whips out the party invites from his mini skirt.

“Holy shit dude, you did it!” Benvolio and friends jump up to grab them.

“I dunno.” Kai stands and continues to look out at the lake.

“Oh come on man! You have to go and dance.” He grabs Kai and starts to waltz.

Kai laughs and shoves him away, “You can dance but I can’t, my heart is too sad.”

“Aw, poor heart broken child.” He mocks.

Kai looks at the stars. “Is love soft, or rough harsh and rude?”

Mercutio jumps on his back. “If love is rough with you, then be rough with it. Beat it down.”

“Your love is crushing me cousin.” Kai laughs, starting to fall down.

Benvolio honks the horn impatiently. “Come on! We’re wasting daylight!”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * At the feast * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The boys pull up hooting and hollering. Waltzing inside, it is obvious that Benvolio and another friend have already started drinking. Kai walks in calmly, looking at the dance floor. Mercutio dances with a woman and passes her off to Kai.

“Come on, every guy should have the chance to dance.”

A Cadell boy drunkenly strides up to Kai who is dressed as a knight. He puts an arm around him, not recognizing him to be a Parker.

The Cadell yells out, “Musicians! Play us a song!”

Kai felt as if his heart would burst out of his chest at any moment. He quickly ducks out of the boys grip, abandoning the lady and tries to find an area away from the crowd. As he is walking he spots an angel. A literal costumed angel in the form of you. You are wandering through the crowd aimlessly when you spot him. Kai stares back at you, his plump lips forming a smile. His brown hair falling to the side, frames his perfect face. In that moment you knew he was the one. A yell disrupts your focus and you turn to see the nanny calling you.

“Y/N!”

You look back for the mystery boy but he has vanished. The nanny starts to drag you toward Lady Cadell and Dave, the governor’s son.

He extends his hand, “Will you dance with me?”

Knowing you can’t decline, you place your hand in his.

Your mother trills, “Oh such a fine young man.”

Kai didn’t know how it had happened but in one moment he had lost sight of you. Rushing through the crowd to find the angel again, he accidentally bumps into a Lucifer. Little did he know, the man dressed as Lucifer was Tybalt.

Tybalt then turned to Abra. “How dare Malachai come to a Cadell event. He mocks us with his mischief and antics. I will not consider it a sin to kill him in order to protect our coven’s dignity.”

He starts to storm off when your father Cadell stops him with a strong arm. “Where are you going off to?”

“It’s Kai Parker, he’s here.”

“Calm yourself, Tybalt. Don’t ruin this night, be peaceful in this house. Tolerate him for tonight and don’t waste your time on him. He’s not worth it, save it for another night.”

“I won’t tolerate him!”

Cadell rages, “You will! You will behave and stay out of any fights!” He shoves Tybalt. “You are making a scene.”

An older couple looks on shocked and Cadell tries to regain his composure. Comforting the couple he turns.

“Don’t worry, cheer up and have some drinks.”

They smile heartily and walk away. Turning back to Tybalt, he harshly whispers. “I am the leader of this coven and you will obey me. Now go away.”

Kai spots you on the dance floor once again, but this time you are with a man. He whispers, “I have never known what love truly means until I have spotted this angel. I take back and disown the idea of love I had for Rosaline.”

Even dancing with Dave you were still distracted by looking for the handsome mystery boy. Then you spot him again, your eyes connecting. You quickly look back to Dave, not wanting to seem too distracted but within a moment you were back to staring at the boy over his shoulder. The lights black out, colorful spotlights turn on as confetti and balloons rain down. You had stopped dancing. You let out a gasp as a hand suddenly yanks you behind a curtain. There stands Kai, he pulls you close to his body so your chests are almost touching.

“Your hand is so clearly holy, if I offend you by touching it with my rough unholy hand, then let me make it better with a kiss.” Kai woos.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You holding my hand is a sign of devotion. Placing our hands together is a palmer’s kiss.”

“Might I suggest we do with our lips what we do with our hands?” Kai kisses your lips sweetly. “Now my sins are gone.”

“Oh but now your sins are on my lips and the only thing that can make it better is another kiss.”

Kai kisses you once again. “There, now all is right.”

“You are very clever in coming up with reasons to steal kisses from me.”

Suddenly the nanny interrupts. “Y/n, your mother wants a word with you.”

You head toward your mother, and wave a hand, signaling Kai not to follow but he trails anyway. Kai watches the nanny and you head up the staircase instead of leaving like the guests. At the top is a furious Lady Cadell standing with Dave. Your eyes dart nervously to Kai as your mother starts to harshly whisper in your ear. She pullls you away from the stairs and that is when it dawns on him.

“She is a Cadell?” he whispers under his breath.

You stop to look back at Kai and the nanny whispers in your ear. “HIs name is Malachai Parker from the Gemini coven.”

You feel a coldness fill your chest, disappointment and reality crashing down. Mercution runs up and claps a hand on Kai’s shoulder.

“The party is starting to break up, we need to leave now so we don’t draw the attention of the Cadells.”

“It’s what I thought, yet I’m still dissatisfied.”

Mercutio ushers him out to the waiting car while Kai looks back over his shoulder longingly. As Mercutio starts to drive the boys away, noisily singing, he spots you in the window.

You see Kai and whisper, “My true love is born from the coven that I’m born to hate. I fell in love too soon and now it is too late to hate him. It is such a large degree of love, that I must love my enemy.”

You close the window and lean your head against the glass, unable to take your eyes off Kai’s disappearing form. Down below in the doorway stands Tybalt, also unable to take his eyes off the enemy.

“I will obey my uncle tonight. Malachai’s intrusion may seem sweet but it is bitter and will come back to poison us in the end.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * Out at the car * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

There is a traffic jam from all the cars trying to leave. Kai sighs and whispers beside his noise raucous of friends. “How can I leave here when my heart stays behind? I have to go back.”

Kai leaps out of the slow moving car and Benvolio yells.

“Kai! Where are you going?”

Kai is running back along the road, using the cars and bushes as a way to shield himself from the guards’ view. He stealthily climbs vines and leaps onto the other side of the stone wall bordering the property. Mercutio pulls the car around in front of the gates that are swinging shut.

Benvolio points out, “I think he ran that way. Call his name!”

“I’ll do you one better,” Mercutio laughs. Jumping out of the car he dances in front of the gate swaggering like a flirtatious drunk lady. “Oh Kai!” He calls in a falcetto voice, “It’s me Rosaline! Come to my plump lips, my bright eyes and my long legs and quivering thighs!”

The boys cheer Mercutio on. Kai smiles at his calling.

“He makes fun of love scars that are non existent.”

The boys are now laughing hysterically at Mercutio swooning around like a love sick fool. The fun is cut short when a security guard yells and a spotlight comes to life, pinning Mercutio in its beam.

“Alright boys, let’s go.” He quickly hops into the car and they speed off.

Outside the rear wing of the house, Kai creeps near the pool, taking cover when a bright light comes on.

“But wait, what light shines through that window?”

Almost in response, the balcony doors open and you step out still in your angel robe. You start to walk near the pool, unaware of Kai hiding in the shadows.

He whispers, “Y/n is the sun, rising in the East and killing the jealous moon. She is far more beautiful than any others.”

You sit on the pool ledge, legs dangling in the still water.

“It is her! My love!”

You sigh. Looking longingly to the stars you ask, “Oh Malachai, my Kai. Where are you? Deny your father and rebuke your name, or if you will not, my love, I swear I will no longer be a Cadell.”

Kai whispers, “Should I say something or remain silent?”

Starting to pace you continue, “It’s only your last name that is my enemy, but you, yourself are not a Parker. But what is a Parker? It is not a body part of a man. Why can’t you have some other name! What is a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. So if Kai, if not called called Kai Parker, would be just as perfect. Kai, lose your name. Trade in your name, which has nothing to do with you, and take all of me in exchange.”

“I will take all of you in exchange at your word!” Kai steps out of the shadows and calls wildly. “Proclaim your love for me, and you can call me whatever you want!”

You scream and topple backwards, Kai tries to balance you out by grabbing your hand but is instead plunged into the pool with you. A security guard moves toward the pool area and you wave him away. assuring that everything is fine.

“Kai, why did you hide in the darkness and listen to my private thoughts?”

He puts his hands up in a calming gesture. “My own name is so hateful to me, if it were written on a piece of paper I would rip it up.”

“I have not heard you speak over a hundred words, but I recognize your voice and have memorized it’s sound. Should I not call you Malachai? And a Parker?”

“Neither my love, if you don’t like the names.”

“How did you get over the walls? If any men of my coven find you here, they will kill you.”

“The darkness of night will hide me, besides let them kill me. I would rather due than live without your love.” Kai leans forward, you kiss long and greedily until you push Kai away.

“I’m glad it’s night so you can’t see how embarrassed I am that you over heard me gushing about you. Part of me feels I should pretend I am not interested, as that is how proper ladies would act. But it is too late for that, do you love me?”

Kai starts to speak but you silence him and continue. “I know you will say yes and I believe you. Swear to me so you can’t be proven false my sweet Kai. Say it faithfully. If you think I’m too quickly won over then I will frown and see you no more, no matter what ends of the earth you may go to win me back. Honestly... I favor you too much, you may not believe me but I’ll prove myself to be more true and loyal than any other woman.”

“My love, y/n, I swear by the moon, that lights the night so beautifully.’

“No, don’t swear by the moon for it constantly changes.”

“What should I swear by?”

“Do not swear at all. But if you dare to, swear by yourself. You are my idol and I will believe you.” You touch his cheek with your palm and Kai moves his lips close to yours.

“If my hearts dear love-”

Confused, you break away. “Do not swear then. I take joy in you, but not in a rash, sudden contract. We need to slow down, we don’t have to rush into anything. We should take our time and see where this love goes.”

Another light turns on and the nanny begins to call. “Y/N!” You rush up the pool stairs.

“Will you leave me so unsatisfied?” Kai tries to keep up.

You scoff and give a shocked expression, “What more satisfaction do you want tonight?”

“I would be satisfied if you promised me your love so we could exchange vows and be married.”

You run joyously into Kai’s arms. “I will gladly exchange vows with you and promise my love!” You kiss fiercely and passionately before being interrupted by the nanny’s yell again.

“Y/N!!”

“Good night dear Kai. If you really intend to marry me, send word tomorrow. I will come to you, tell me what time and place. I will leave all my fortunes behind and follow you all over the world.”

“Y/N!”

“I’m coming!” You holler. “A thousand times goodnight.” You kiss again and finally run inside. You reappear at the top of the balcony. “Kai! What time should I come to you tomorrow?”

“By 9 o’clock!”

“I will be there! Good night sweet Kai until tomorrow. Parting is such sweet sorrow.”

“Sleep well my lovely y/n.” Kai blows kisses to you and heads back toward the wall to take his leave.

* * * * * * Morning time in a greenery * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A priest is giving an herbology lesson to some young boys.

“Plants, herbs and stones are a beautiful thing.” He makes a small cut in the bulb of a purple flower. “In this flower, lies a poison while also having the power of a medicine.” He carefully puts the sap in a beaker. “It smells lovely, but if tasted, can stop the heart. Our lesson is done.”

Turning to put the beaker away in the fridge, he pulls out a jar of candy. Looking at them sternly, the boys take their candy and scram. The Father starts to watch the TV but his thoughts are interrupted by Kai knocking on the door frame.

“Good morning Father.”

“Good morning! Why do you come so early in the morning to see me?” The priest studies Kai for a minute. “It is very early for you to be getting out of bed, and if I guess right it means that you never went to bed last night!”

Kai follows the priest as he starts to walk through the empty church. “It’s true, I never slept because I was enjoying the sweet night.”

“God have mercy on you! Were you with Rosaline?”

“With Rosaline? Father no. That name is out of my mind and long forgotten.”

The priest starts to lay out preparations for communion. “Good my son, so where have you been?”

Out of old habit, Kai starts to help him. “I was feasting at my enemies house. So suddenly I was wounded by love and now both of ours only cure can come from you. I gave no hatred, and your power will benefit my enemy.”

“Speak clearly. Tell me what you mean. I do not know how to help you if you speak in riddles.”

“I am in love with the leader Cadell’s daughter. I love her and she loves me. We’ve promised our love to each other but we need you to make it official. I’ll tell you more later about where and when we met, how we fell in love. But I’m begging you to marry us today.”

The priest stands there a moment, thunderstruck. Two of the young boys enter in robes and he dismisses them. They get the message and bolt. He turns back to Kai, still stunned.

“Holy Saint Francis! This is such a sudden change. Have you given up on Rosaline so quickly? The one you claimed you loved? Young men love with their eyes and not their hearts. How many tears did you waste crying over Rosaline? I can still freshly remember you crying to me about your heart’s woe. You’ve changed so suddenly.”

“You’ve always scolded me for loving Rosaline.”

“I did not scold you for loving her, but for obsessing over her.”

“Don’t scold me over y/n now, we truly love each other. Rosaline did not love me.”

“Rosaline knew you loved her but didn’t really know what it meant.” The priest sits down in a chair and looks off into the distance where the childrens choir are assembling. The priest is moved by the childrens singing and he turns back to a waiting Kai.

“Come with me, I will help you with your secret wedding. If we’re lucky it may turn the hatred between your covens into love.”

“Then let’s go, I’m in a rush.”

The Father stands and looks down on Kai, “We need to be smart about this and take it slowly. We don’t want any slip-ups.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * At the beach * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Benvolio and Mercutio are arguing.

Mercutio snaps, “What do yo umean Kai didn’t come home last night?”

“I spoke to my uncle’s maid, she said Kai never came home.”

“He’s so obsessed with Rosaline, he’s gone insane.” Benvolio paces the sidewalk, “Tybalt sent a message to Kai’s father’s house.”

Mercutio interrupts, “I bet it’s a challenge.”

Benvolio stops pacing. “Do you think Kai will take up the challenge?”

“Anyone can write a letter demanding a challenge. But it takes a true witch to demand a fight with a siphoner like Malachai.”

“Kai is daring enough to challenge Tybalt.”

Kai’s car pulls up beside the lake’s parking lot. Benvolio heads toward him.

“Here comes Kai! Here comes Kai!”

Mercutio saunters up the beach with mock chalance. “Bonjour Kai,” he speaks with an accent, “You gave us quite the slip last night, no?”

“Good morning to you too. What slip did I give you?” Kai feigns innocence.

“WHAT SLIP? You gave us the slip last night, are you mad?”

Kai grins smugly. “Oh my apologies, Mercutio. I had a great time, thanks for asking. It was very important business, I didn’t have time to say a proper goodbye.”

“Oh I’m sure you were kept quite busy last night.” He jokes and Benvolio hoots, jumping on Kai’s back.

“Oh shut up.” Kai shoves him off into the sand. “I’ll fight you.”

Mercutio flicks sand at him and starts to run down the beach. Kai laughs and starts to chase. Kai gains on Mercutio and dives into the sea, following him.

“See, isn’t this better than groaning over love?” Mercutio splashes and Kai tries to dunk him underwater. “You’re much happier now!” He walks onto the beach, “Come on Kai.”

Kai tackles him onto the wet sand and Mercutio suddenly becomes serious. “How happy you are now, is who you naturally are.”

A shadow falls over the boys and there stands the nanny in a bright red ‘disguise’.

“God, you are a beautiful woman.” Mercutio remarks, bemused at the sight.

The nanny ignores him and speaks to Kai, “I need to speak privately with you.”

Kai gets up and starts to follow the woman up to a black car waiting in the parking lot. Mercutio looks questioningly to Benvolio who shrugs. “Maybe he’s going for dinner?” Mercutio yells at Kai, “Come home for dinner!.”

Before stepping into the car he yells back, “I will be there soon!”

“Goodbye old dragon lady!” He jests, blowing her a kiss.

* * * * * * * * * * * * In the car * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The nanny leaned in uncomfortably close to Kai and whispered harshly, “If you lead y/n on, treat her poorly or break her heart like a delicate tea cup then you will suffer an ill fate.”

She leans back to her seat and there is a silence. Kai chooses his next words carefully. “Ask y/n to come to confession today. The Father will hear her out, absolve her sins and we will be married.”

* * * * * * * * * * The Cadell mansion * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

You are waiting excitedly in your room, looking for the nanny’s arrival. The black car pulls into the driveway and out steps the nanny.

“Here she comes!”

You bolt from from your room to meet the nanny at the staircase going to the rear of the house. You burst into the kitchen following her where she proceeds to start looking in the fridge.

“What did he say?” You ask again impatiently, “Nanny! What did he say!”

Stepping away from the fridge the nanny sets food down on the counter. “Let me rest a minute, I am tired and hungry.”

You continue to plead, walking to her. “Please tell me! Is it good news or bad?”

“My God, why such a hurry? Can’t you stay here and talk for a while? I am out of breath.”

You cannot stand the suspense anymore. “How are you out of breath? Tell me! Is it good news or bad? Just tell me that much!”

The nanny sits and take a big bite of her sandwich, talking between chews. “You’ve made a simple choice of a man. You don’t know how to pick one. He is a very handsome and attractive young man but he doesn’t have the best manners and composure. However, he has a gentle spirit and nature. Have you had something to eat yet?”

“I already know those things about him, tell me more! What does he say about our marriage?”

“Oh dear, I feel a headache coming on, and my back aches...”

This is a game you know well. You climb onto the back of the recliner, setting down so you can massage her,

“Ooooo yes! Get right there!”

You then coo sweetly, “Oh sweet nanny, what does my love say?”

“He is an honest man, kind, handsome and virtuous. Where is your mother?”

You crack. “Where is my mother? That’s your reply?! My love says like an honest gentleman, ‘Where is your mother?!’”

The nanny pouts, “Calm yourself y/n!”

You explode in frustration. “How can you tell me to be calm? WHAT DID KAI SAY?”

The nanny goes quiet for a moment. “Do you have time to go to confession today?”

“I do.”

“Then go to the priest, Kai awaits there to be a husband and make you his wife!”

With a scream of joy, you hug the nanny.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * At the church * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The priest shakes his head. “Such extreme emotions about this kind of pleasure often ends in disaster. Even the taste of too much honey can become sickly because it is so sweet.” He looks to Kai. “So love carefully and long may your love live.”

You push through the oaken double doors to the church. The priest cues up the choir and beckons for you to come to the altar.

“Good afternoon Father.”

Before the priest can reply, you and Kai kiss passionately. He wait just a moment then delicately interrupts you.

“Come, come and we will make this quick. Because, if you don’t mind, I’m not leaving you two alone until you’re married.”

You and Kai exchange vows and rings. The priest follows the two of you out, throwing hand fulls of rice. Your driver takes a perfect picture as the bride and groom kiss. He holds the car door open and you reluctantly get in. As the car drives away, Kai runs along side it until he watches the big car speed away.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * At the beach * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Mercutio stands knee deep in the water fishing. Benvolio shelters himself from the heat under a life guard tower.

“Come on Mercutio, let’s go. It’s too hot!”

Mercutio ignores him and continues fishing with his gun. Benvolio looks around nervously hoping they don’t draw the attention of the Cadells.

“The Cadells are out, and if they see us, we won’t get away without a fight.”

“You are like one of those men who enter a bar and put their gun down on the table saying, ‘I pray I never have to use you’ but by the time he orders his second drink, he pulls the gun on the bartender for no reason at all.”

Benvolio doesn’t find him funny and turns away when a black Sedan rolling up stops him cold. “Oh great, here come the Cadells.”

“Well, well, I don’t care,” Mercutio drawls.

The car slides to a stop only feet away from where Benvolio stands. Tybalt, Abra and another Cadell emerge from the vehicle and step toward the Parkers menacingly.

“Good day gentleman, can I have a word with one of you.”

The rest of the Parker boys stand nervously at Tybalt’s words. Mercutio responds wittily, “You want just one word with one of us? Put it together with something else. Make it a word and a blow.”

“You’ll find me ready enough to do that sir, if you give me a reason.”

Tybalt’s hand moves to rest on his gun handle. Mercutio stops jesting upon spotting the firearm.

Breathily he asks, “Could you not find a reason without me giving you one?”

The Parker boys start to snicker again and Tybalt snaps. “Mercutio you hang out with Malachai.”

Mercutio’s anger grows. “Hang out? What do you think we are, a bunch of musicians? If I am a musician, then this is my fiddlestick,” he motions to his gun, “And I’ll use it to make you dance.”

Benvolio tries to mediate, “We’re talking in a public place. Either go someplace private, or it talk it over rationally or just go away. Out here everyone can see us.”

Mercutio retorts, “People’s eyes were made to see things, so let them watch. I’m not moving to please anybody.”

Just then, Kai arrives in his car, heart full of happy news.

Tybalt walks away from Mercutio, “Nevermind you. Here is the man I am looking for.” He calls out to the approaching Kai, “Malachai, there’s only one thing I can call you. You are a villain!” Pulling his jacket aside, Tybalt reveals his gun to Kai.

“Tybalt, I have a reason to love you, let me put aside the hatred and forgive your remark. I am not a villain. So good bye. Clearly you do not know who I am.”

Kai turns and walks back to his car, surprising everybody. Tybalt is confused and outraged, hurling himself back into his Sedan. He kicks the car in a U-turn, slamming into Kai’s car. Kai locks the car as Tybalt gets out to beat down on it. He smashes the passenger window and hauls Kai out.

“Boy, your words can’t excuse the harm you’ve done to me!” Tybalt punches Kai across the face, sending him sprawling to the ground. “Turn and draw your gun!” He yells.

Kai shakily lifts himself from the ground, feeling his busted lip. Speaking through his bloody teeth, Kai answers. “I never hurt you. And so, good Cadell - which name I care for more than you can understand,” Kai cautiously pulls out his gun, “be satisfied.” He throws the gun to Tybalt’s feet.

The Parker boys can’t believe their eyes as Kai starts to walk down the beach. An angered Mercutio steps forward.

“This calm submission in dishonorable and vile!”

Tybalt grows angrier, handing Abra his weapon and sprinting down the beach after Kai. In a bone cracking collision, Tybalt tackles him to the ground near an abandoned life guard house. The boys run to catch up while Kai still refuses to fight and runs up the stairs. Tybalt trips him and he careens into the old wooden railing, smashing it to pieces. Tybalt kicks savagely at him, willing him to fight back. Mercutio runs after him, picking up a piece of wood from the broken railing and hitting him across the head making him fall down.

“Tybalt, you ratcatcher!” Will you go and fight me?”

“What do you want from me?” Tybalt swings a lump of wood and Mercutio dodges.

“Why, King of Cats, I want to take one of your nine lives. I’ll take one and depending how you treat me after that, I might beat the other eight out of you too.”

Tybalt swings his wood again and Mercutio blocks, throwing the stick away. Tybalt, now empty handed, charges and slams him against a window shattering the glass. Mercutio is back on his feet lightning fast. He raises a rock, ready to smash in his head when Kai rushes between them.

“Stop this fight Mercutio!”

Seizing his opportunity, Tybalt lunges up and aims to slash Kai with a piece of broken glass. Instead, he misses and slashes Mercutio across the stomach. He screams out in pain, grabbing his side. Everyone goes quiet. Abra tugs at a stunned Tybalt.

“Let’s go Tybalt!”

The pair bolts for their car and Benvolio goes to Mercutio.

“Are you hurt?”

Mercutio covers his wound and laughs, “Yes but it is just a scratch.”

Kai helps him get down the stairs. “Have courage, the cut can’t be that bad.”

“It’s not as deep as a well or as wide as a door, but it’s enough to do the job.” Mercutio jokes, “If you ask for me tomorrow, you’ll find me a very grave man. Goddammit! I can’t believe that rat could scratch me to death!” He says through crazed laughter.

He now turns his attention from the cheering boys to Kai who is struggling to support his weight.

“Why the hell did you come between us? He struck me under your arm.”

“I thought it was the right thing to do.” Kai starts to panic.

Mercutio pushes himself away screaming, “May a plague fall upon both your covens! They’ve turned me into food for the worms. I’m done for. Curse your families!”

He collapses to the ground and Kai kneels, cradling his best friends dead body. Thunder booms and it starts to sprinkle, turning into a heavy rain.

Benvolio whispers, “Mercutio is dead.”

Kai cries out, “Oh sweet y/n! Your beauty has made me weak, you have softened my bravery when before I was hard as steel.”

The sound of Tybalt’s car peeling off brings back cold reality. Kai’s sadness turns to uncontrollable rage. He runs to his car, in an effort to head him off. The rain is now blinding but Kai stops for nothing. Pedestrians scream and cars screech to a stop. He rounds a corner and slams into Tybalt’s car, veering out of control. Tybalt scrambles from his car and Kai runs toward him. Tybalt draws his gun but Kai continues to march on.

“Go on! Kill me so I can join him!”

Tybalt nervously starts to walk backward.

“Either kill me or I will kill you!”

He shakes his head in panic, Kai flicks his wrist sending Tybalt’s gun into the air.

“Why did you come between us?”

Kai remains silent. Police cars screech to a halt, surrounding the area. The gun lands back in Kai’s hand and he fires three shots.

“Put down the weapon!” A police officer calls through a megaphone.

Tybalt’s body collapses to the road. A cop fires, grazing Kai’s arm and he screams.

“Oh! I have awful luck!”

A strong gust of wind and rain blinds the police. Balthasar drives up and starts screaming.

“Don’t just stand there! Come on!”

Kai quickly slides into the passenger seat, holding his wounded arm and crying.

Lady Cadell pulls up to the scene and runs to crouch over the body. “Tybalt! Oh my sweet nephew. My family’s blood is spilled on the streets.”

The Captain parts through the police line. “Where are the men who started the fight?”

A hand cuffed Benvolio is pushed forward. “Captain, I can tell you everything about the fight. Tybalt killed your relative Mercutio and then young Kai killed him.”

Lady Cadell begins to scream again. “Tybalt was my nephew! Oh my nephew is dead! Captain, you are honorable, take revenge by killing someone from the Parker family.”

The Captain ignores her and turns to Benvolio. “Benvolio, who started this fight?”

“Tybalt started the fight before he was killed by Kai. Kai spoke to him reasonably and didn’t want to start a fight but rather make a truce. Tybalt refused and was deaf to peace!”

Lady Cadell interjects savagely, “He’s lying! I want justice, Kai killed Tybalt so Kai must be killed!”

The Captain, losing his patience turns to the woman. “Kai killed him after Tybalt killed Mercutio.”

Malachai’s father, Sir Parker l arrives and begins to plead with the Captain as well. “Please Captain, don’t make Malachai pay the price. He was Mercutio’s friend. His death has been avenged by Tybalt’s. It is even.”

The Captain eyes him coldly. “And for the crime of murder, Malachai is exiled from Mystic Falls. You have involved me in your rivalry. My nephew Mercutio is dead because of your bloody feud.”

“But Captain-” Parker starts to plead.

The Captain silences him, “I will not listen to your excuses and your begging will not change my mind.” He turns to address his officers. “Tell Malachai to leave the city immediately or else if he is found he will be killed.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Your bedroom* * * * * * * * * * * *

“I wish the sun would hurry up and set already so night can come immediately. Because when the night comes and everyone goes to sleep, then my Kai will come to me, leap into my arms and no one will know. Gentle night, give me my Kai and when I die, turn him into the stars and make a constellation in his image. His face will make the heavens so beautiful that the whole world will fall in love with him. I belong to Kai now, this day has been so long, waiting for him.”

A car pulls up into the driveway and you rush down excited to meet the nanny. Your knees buckle and you fall to the ground at her news.

“Oh god! Did Kai kill Tybalt?”

“He did, he did! This is a most cursed day!”

“He’s like a snake disguised as a flower. Was there ever such an evil book with such a beautiful cover? I can’t believe such evil lurked inside someone so beautiful!”

“There is no trust, faith or honesty in men. All of them lie, cheat and are wicked. Shame on Malachai!”

“How dare you wish shame upon him! He was not born to be shameful. He deserves only honor, I was an idiot to be angry at him.”

“How can you say such good things about the man who killed your cousin?”

“Am I supposed to speak badly about my own husband? Oh my husband! How could I speak bad of him when we’ve only been married 3 hours? Kai why did you kill my cousin? Probably because my cousin would have killed my husband. It is comforting to know my husband is alive, but I am crying still because he has been banished. This is worst than the murder of 10,000 Tybalts. No words can express my pain. Nanny, where are my father and mother?”

The nanny gets down to comfort you. “They are mourning the death of Tybalt. Go to your room, I’ll send Kai to comfort you. I know where he is.”

You look up through tears. “Please hurry and find him. Tell him to come and say his final good bye.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * At the church * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The priest leads the nanny into a bedroom. Kai lays on the bed, shirtless and bandaged.

“Nanny!”

The woman rushed to his side.

“Tell me about y/n. Where is she? Is she okay? What does my hidden wife say about our ruined love?”

“She doesn’t say anything. She just cries and cries. She falls down but when she tries to get up, she just calls your name and collapses again in tears.”

Kai has started to cry uncontrollably, “She calls out my name as if I were a bullet murdering her, just like her cousin.”

The priest shakes Kai, “I thought you were smarter and more rational than this! Your y/n is alive, you should be happy. Tybalt wanted to kill you, but you killed him. Be happy that you’re alive. You have been banished, not sentenced to death. Be happy about that. Your life is full of blessings.”

Kai has calmed down and the priest helps him get changed into a new white shirt.

“Go. Go to your wife and comfort her. Get out of here before daybreak. Good night.”

The priest ushers Kai out of the church and gives him one last handshake good bye. Kai and the nanny sprint towards the car.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * At the mansion* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Dave stands by your father holding flowers awkwardly. Your mother comes down the staircase solemnly.

“She refuses to come out of her room.”

Dave replies calmly, “It’s understandable. These times of pain are bad for romance. Good night ma’am, give your daughter my regards.”

“I will. And I’ll find out what she thinks about marriage tomorrow morning but tonight she is shut up with sadness.” The three leave down the hallway.

* * * * * * * * * * In your room* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

You are softly crying into your pillow when you feel a hand gently touch your face. Your eyes dart up to see Kai standing above you. There’s a still moment of disbelief. Leaning down, Kai kisses away the tears that fall from your wide y/e/c eyes. Your lips find his and he gently sinks back into the bed with you.

* * * * * * * * * * Back in the living room* * * * * * * * * *

Your father sits reclined in an armchair. Dave and your mother sit opposite him. He whips himself in a drunken frenzy of excited thoughts.

“My sir, I’ll make a desperate argument for my daughter’s love. I think she’ll do whatever I say- no - I think she’ll do that and more. I have no doubt about it. Wait- what day is today?”

Dave answers, “Monday, sir.”

“I will talk to her tomorrow about marrying you on Thursday. Does that sound good to you?”

Dave tries to catch up, stunned at the suddenness. Your father eyes him.

“Sir- I wish Thursday was tomorrow. It sounds wonderful.”

Your father raises his glass to toast and they stand. “Well go home. Thursday it is then.” He turns to your mother, “Go see y/n to prepare her. Tell her to get ready for her wedding on Thursday.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * Your room* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Morning time comes, shining light upon yours and Kai’s bodies tangles together. You lie blissfully asleep. Balthasar’s car quietly pulls into a side road near the estate. Sitting up suddenly, Kai wakes up remembering where he is. Sitting on the side of the bed he starts to get dressed. You silently wake up and climb onto his back, kissing him gently on the neck.

“You’re leaving already? The day has just begun.”

Kai turns and softly strokes your cheek. “If I want to live I must leave now, if I stay then I will die.”

You sigh in resignation. “You’re right, you have to go. Now leave before it gets any lighter!”

You frantically help Kai get dressed. You both freeze when there is an urgent knock on the door.

“Y/n!”

“Nanny!”

“Your mother is coming to your room!”

You hurriedly usher Kai out to the balcony.

“Good bye my love, one last kiss and I will leave.”

You caress his face and whisper. “Do you think we will meet again?”

“I have no doubt.” Kai smiles up at you and heads down the wall.

You turn at your mother’s voice at the door. “Good morning y/n! Are you awake?” Your mother walks in right after you hastily flop back into bed. She crosses over to the window, opening the curtains to let light in.

“You have a caring father. He has arranged a day of joy to end your sadness. A day you did not expect and that I did not look for.”

You try to play along. “What day is that?”

Your mother takes a deep breath in. “You will be married to the handsome and charming governor’s son! You will go to the church and there become his wife.”

You are too stunned, “By Saint Peter he will not make me his wife!”

A look of fear crosses your mother’s face. “Here comes your father, tell him that yourself.”

Cadell with a whiskey glass in hand, barges calmly into your room. “Have you told her what we have decided?”

“Yes, but she refuses to and says thank you. I wish the foolish girl was dead and married to her grave.”

Your father becomes dangerously calm. “How could she refuse? She should be grateful and proud of the match we’ve made. She’s not worthy of the gentleman.”

“I am not proud of what you have decided for me. I am thankful that you tried. I can’t be proud of something I hate, but I can be thankful it was done out of love.”

He thinks for a moment, then throws his glass across the room, shattering it against the wall. “You are a spoiled little girl and not really showing me any pride or thanks. You are going to get married to the governor’s son on Thursday. I will drag you there if I have to.”

You try to move into the hallway but he grabs your shoulders, shaking you.

“Please listen to me...” you beg.

“NO! You will not speak back to me.”

Your father throws you to the ground and you sob. His hand slaps you across the face.

“Are you insane?!” Your mother retorts and he responds by backhanding her face.

“You disgust me y/n. My worthless daughter!”

The nanny gets between you and your father. “God bless her! You are wrong to berate her like that!”

Your father now furious, shoves the nanny aside and grabs your face up. “I’ll tell you what- you WILL get married at that church on Thursday or you will never show your face to me again. I will disown you and you can die on the streets, I swear to god!” He storms away down the stairs while you lay huddled on the floor.

“Mother, please don’t disown me! Delay this marriage as long as you can or I will kill myself!”

She looks at her lip in the mirror and speaks softly. “Don’t talk to me because I will not say a word. Do whatever you want, I don’t care anymore.” Your mother turns and leaves.

You beg your nanny, “Please nanny! Tell me how I can stop this!”

The nanny doesn’t respond and sits in a heavy silence, moving towards you.

“Please give me words of comfort!”

“Listen to me, I think it would be a good idea for you to marry this man. Malachai has been banished and can’t return unless he is undercover. I think you could be happy with the governor’s son, you are no use to Kai anyway.”

You stay still. “Do you honestly mean this?”

“I do.”

You decide to play along, despite the pain of faking. “You’ve comforted me a lot nanny. Tell me mother I am going to the priest to confess and be forgiven for angering my father.”

“Alright, I will. That’s a good idea.”

* * * * * * * * * * At the church* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The priest stands at the front of the church with Dave talking about what will happen on Thursday.

“Her father wants us to rush and be married very soon.”

Just then you walk into the church, not expecting to see them there.

“Look! There is the woman who is my wife!”

“That might be the case sir, after I’m married.” You respond icily, one hand hidden resting on a pistol.

“That ‘might be’ will be on Thursday.”

“What must be will be.” You walk down the isle coolly.

The priest states, “That is a certain truth.”

“Did you come here to confess?” Dave inquires.

“If I answered that question, I’d be confessing to you, Dave.”

You and the Father turn to leave and Dave starts to excuse himself. “Y/n, I will marry you early on Thursday morning. Until then, good bye.”

You give him a stone cold glare as he leans forward and kisses your cheek.

“Keep this kiss, and goodbye for now..”

As soon as Dave left, you stormed into the backroom, the priest following your lead. “Y/n, I already know about your sad situation.”

“Tell me how I can prevent it, Father.”

“I’ve heard you must marry a man on Thursday and that nothing can delay it.”

“If you’re so smart but can’t help me, then you will call my solution smart and I’ll solve it by myself.”

You pull the gun out and point it at your head. Horrified, the priest moves to stop you but you panic and point the gun at him.

“Hold on, y/n!” He holds out a soothing hand. “I have an idea. But we must act boldly because the situation is so desperate. If you’re so desperate you would kill yourself instead of marrying Dave, then you must be desperate enough to try something similar to death to solve this problem. Come with me to the greenhouse.

You obey, eager and desperate to try anything on the face of the earth to be with your love.

The priest holds up a little vial with a blue liquid in it. “When you are in bed, drink this. The sleep inducing drug will run through your veins and stop your pulse. Your body will turn cold, you’ll stop breathing and you become so pale, your family and Dave will think you are dead. You will stay like this for 42 hours and then you’ll wake up like you’ve only been sleeping. They will take you to the family vault. I will tell Kai about the plan and he will come to you and take you far away.” The priest cautiously hands you the vial.

* * * * * * * * * * * * Later that night* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

At a trailer park out of town a mail truck pulls up to a bland looking trailer. The mail man knocks loudly at the door with the letters from the priest. Kai is too busy with his headphones to hear the knocking. The mail man shrugs and slips a ‘WE CALLED’ note under the door.

* * * * * * * * * * * * The Cadell mansion* * * * * * * * * * * *

It is the night before the wedding and you stand in front of a mirror. Two od the maids hold up your wedding dress, fussing over which shoes match the best. Disinterested you point to a pair and satisfied, the maids leave.

“Nanny will you please leave me alone tonight?”

“Why?” The nanny asks as you guide her to the door.

“I have to say a lot of prayers so the heavens will bless me. You know I am troubled and full of sin.”

The nanny leaves, shutting the door. Confident that you are alone, you rush to the bedside table and pull out the glass vial.

You whisper, “What if this mixture doesn’t work? Will I be forced to marry Dave?”

You cautiously begin to unscrew the tiny black lid. Suddenly there is a knock on the door. You palm the vial and turn to see your mother walk in.

“Do you need my help?”

“No, we’ve already figured out what I’m wearing tomorrow. So if it’s okay with you, I’d like to be alone now.”

You slip into bed and your mother sensing your unease nods. “Good night then.”

“Good night!” Your words surprise her and she smiles, closing the door. “There’s a slight cold fear running through me. I have to go through with this.”

You bring the vial to your lips and toss your head back. You have a sudden violent convulsion and then collapse backward, face painted with fear.

It is morning time, the sun light shines down on an ambulance and police cars in front of the house.

One of the medics speaks over the radio. “Drugs?”

The second medic responds, “Yes, a deadly amount. She overdosed.”

The family numbly enter the house again, wedding decorations mocking their pain. The priest enters your bedroom, kneeling by your side and quickly checks your pupils. He pockets the vial and looks toward the undertaker.

“She is ready to go to the church.”

The man dressed in black nods. “We will take her to the Cadell vault.”

Balthasar, hearing the news of your death, rushes away to tell Kai.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * At the trailer park* * * * * * * * * * * *

Kai is sitting at his table, writing in his notebook, still not paying attention to the ‘WE CALLED’ card. Balthasar’s car speeds to a stop in front of the trailer and an excited Kai rushes out.

“What is it Balthasar?”

Balthasar is too stunned to speak.

“Did you bring me the letters from the priest? How is y/n?”

Balthasar does not know how to word what he has come to tell Kai, and looks away. “She’s not well, she lies dead in the Cadell vault.”

For a long moment, Kai is still and when he speaks, his voice is chillingly calm. “Is it really true?”

Balthasar nods. Kai turns and stares out into the distant wasteland.

“Then I hate the stars!” he moves to the car. “I have to see her tonight.”

Balthasar tries to hold him back, “Just wait-”

“Leave me alone!” Kai roars, pushing him against the car.

“You look pale and wild as if you’re going to hurt yourself.”

“Well, you’re wrong. Leave me alone. Do you have a letter from the priest?”

“No I don’t.”

Kai shakes his head and smiles, “Nevermind. I’ll go see her tonight.” Kai hops into the passenger seat and Balthasar reluctantly gets behind the wheel. The car roars out of the park and Kai silently whispers, “I am coming to be with you tonight, y/n.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * At the church* * * * * * * * * * * *

The priest speaks into a phone, concerned. “Did Malachai get my letter?”

The mailman responds, “No. He didn’t answer the door.”

The priest hangs up the phone and looks at the time. “I need to get to the vault, y/n will be waking up withing an hour.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * At the cemetary* * * * * * * * * * * *

Balthasar’s car pulls into the cemetary’s driveway and Kai hops out.

“Give me your flashlight.” Opening the trunk he pulls out a crowbar.

“Kai just listen to me.”

Kai turns around a punches him hard causing him to fall down, blood spilling from his nose. “Go and stay away from me or I will tear you apart!”

Balthasar rises slowly, both boys are trying not to cry.

“My plan is wild and savage, more fierce than a starving tiger.”

“I will go and leave you alone.”

Kai smiles and the boys hug. “Go live and be happy, good bye my friend.”

They part ways and Kai goes to the mausoleum, starting to pry the door open.

“You horrible mouth of death. You’ve taken the most precious girl on earth away from me. I will tear your jaw open.”

Kai grunts and with a final heave, the door scrapes open. All is silent inside, flickering candle light the hallway.

“Despite my hatred for you beast, I’ve come to give you another body.”

Roaming the hallway he finds your coffin, collapsing to his knees he cries out. “Oh! How often are men happy before they die!”

* * * * * * * * * * * * Outside the mausoleum* * * * * * * * * * * *

The priest thumps the steering wheel in frustration as he slowly pulls into the graveyard. “I am afraid something terrible is going to happen.” The priest shakes his head in horror seeing the vault’s door broken open.

* * * * * * * * * * * * Inside the mausoleum* * * * * * * * * * * *

Kai pushes aside the lid and kneels by your figure. Moonlight streams in, lighting your beautiful face as you sleep.

“Oh my beautiful wife! Death has sucked the life out of you but it did not take away your beauty.” Unconscious tears fall from his eyes as he continues, “Ah y/n, why are you so beautiful? Should I believe death has fallen in love with you and he keeps you away from me? I hate that death, so I will stay with you and never leave this vault! Let me kiss you one last time!”

Kai kisses your lips one last time. Your hand twitches but he doesn’t notice. He pulls out a vial of poison he stole and drinks it quickly. He convulses and falls, his head resting on your body. Kai fights for breath and you wake up, becoming aware of Kai.

“Kai? Is that you?” You sit up and cradle his head in your lap.

His clear wide eyes stare back up at you but he is unable to move, save for his weak breaths. You find the vial in his hand and start to cry.

“He drank it all and left none for me. I will kiss his lips, maybe there is some poison still on them to make me die with him.” You delicately kiss Kai on the lips. In a broken hearted whisper, “his lips are still warm.”

Desperately you both cling to each other. With all his might, Kai whispers, “Thus, with a kiss I will die.”

His breathing stops, there is only silence from him as you sob, hugging his lifeless form.

“Malachai, oh my sweet Kai.” You look to the gun in his jacket.

* * * * * * * * * * * * Outside* * * * * * * * * * * *

The priest hurries to the entrance of the vault when a gunshot rings out.

“God have mercy! Y/n? Malachai?”

His breath escapes him, coming upon the tragic scene. There, under the statue of Saint Peter, lie Kai and y/n. United again in death.

THE END!

#kai parker x reader #kai parker #kai parker fanfiction #romeo and juliet #tvd fanfiction

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dottiechan · 3 years

Text

Tempest (Pt. 5)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Read on AO3

Pairing: Ava Du Mortain x f!Detective

Wordcount: 4048

Warnings: mourning, mentions of death and torture, smoking

Summary: The private detective must work through the sudden and unexpected disappearance of Ava - quite literally, as she embarks on solving her greatest mystery yet. But she is not the only one who's been busy...

A/N: This chapter is a rather long one as there's much to unpack at this point of the story, and there is much to explain. Sorry for the long wait, and thanks for being so patient and supportive of me!

The Private Detective’s Office, London, 1898

5 months after Ava’s disappearance

The key turns in the lock with ease. The door creaks as it gives way to the dark office. The lights flicker in the corridor outside, and the entrance gapes like a mouth ready to swallow her whole.

She steps inside, unaware of her fingers skittering across the glass pane that has the name of her detective agency painted on it. Some have great bloodlines to look back on, and nobles and kings to proudly call their ancestors. Her legacy is this stuffy little office, her sigil is a hand painted business logo. But her ancestor - her father - was a warrior too, noble of heart, even if not of blood.

She hangs her coat and hat, and proceeds to smooth down her hair before locking the door and switching on the lights. The old pieces of furniture that would have been regarded fashionable 20 years ago are dimly illuminated, and the sight of them makes her heart ache. They belonged to her late father, and in a way he lives on through them. The dent in the cushion of his chair where he always used to sit, the scuff marks on his desk he carelessly carved into the polished surface with books and folders, the medical and law tomes he hoarded lining the bookshelves that hug the dark green walls... As a child, she was afraid of coming here in the evenings - something they often did after her mother passed away and her father tried his best to raise her alone. The heavy nailhead leather armchairs looked like hunched monsters in the dark, the looming mahogany desk with its long curving legs resembled a giant spider, and the serious wallpaper enveloped this macabre scene like some sinister forest. “The real monsters are in here, my darling,” her father would ruffle her hair affectionately, pointing at the files he came to pick up.

It is late, but the office no longer feels scary. Her rational mind knows she should have gone home to her empty bed and her unread books and the cold supper awaiting her. And yet she’s here because hardly anything matters anymore. Because no place ever really feels like home ever since her father left. Well, her small house felt like home for a while when she was still here. But she left as well, and with her she took the last tattered shreds of joy the detective had somehow managed to cling to. She is submerged in saturnine reticence now, and ironically it helps her stay focused, even though it makes her more and more like the person she tried to thaw out. More and more like Ava.

One should only embrace the iciness of a statue if they’re willing to risk turning into marble themselves.

The Commissioner would be lucky to have a detective such as myself, she thinks bitterly as she glances down at the neatly kept files piled on her desk. Most are petty cases, even she has to admit - cheating husbands, unanswered invitations and letters, and the likes. But she takes all the work she can, and she prides herself on her ability to solve them with the proficiency of a man. Ava used to praise her for that. Now she whispers praises to herself even if the words turn sour in her mouth, because she will not let anyone ruin her. She will not. (Even though Ava has, because the world feels different without her in it.)

Her sudden disappearance left her on the precipice of panic at first. Ava, along with her partner Nate, simply vanished into thin air as if they never even existed at all, as if they were a pleasant reverie she used to lull herself to sleep at night. No trace, no item that belonged to them was left behind. If not for the spare key to her house being gone - the one she gave to Ava - she wouldn’t even be able to tell the difference between reality and her mad suspicions. But oh, she was here. She was. Missing her is a malady burrowed in her heart, but it is also the testament of her existence.

She opens the file on top, and hums in bitter satisfaction. Right. The aching of her heart isn’t the only testament anymore. It took her months, but she’s finally one step closer to the solution, planting her foot firmly and holding her crumbling sanity together with a determination she didn’t know she had. Ava was probably never meant to be in the background of a photograph taken during the opening night of the National Gallery of British Art.

But she was. And it really only takes one mistake.

The private detective picks up the photograph gingerly, giving herself one second to lose herself in the whirlwind of emotions Ava’s angular silhouette awakens in her.

One step closer.

She leans back in her chair, her gaze gliding over the photograph and landing on her personal little project. The blackboard is filled with dates, locations and places with a map pinned to the middle of it - by now, it is practically a blueprint of Ava’s and Nate’s every activity over the past two years. The deeper she digs, the more unknowns she unearths about the people she once thought she knew.

But there’s still time to get to know them - first impressions are overrated anyway.

Train station, Wayhaven, 1899

7 months after Ava’s disappearance

January quickly set to work and changed the countryside. It swooped down from the heavens and gently buried the forests and the hills under a heavy blanket of snow, concealing the detective’s childhood home from her as she exits the train, the handle of her heavy bag already digging into her gloved fingers. The shapes are still visible though underneath all the snow and ice - she sees the old station with the crumbling roof, the road leading into town, the bell tower of the small church peeking out just above the treeline. She recognises them all, though she sorely wishes she didn’t.

Because with the recognition comes the inevitable sting of her memories. Faces emerge in her conscious she hasn’t seen in years. The kindness of her mother’s eyes and the curve of his father’s lips, both lost forever now, never to be seen again, cutting deeper than a knife ever could.

An old woman is prating about her insufferable nephew, a business man is constantly checking his pocket watch with a disdainful look from across the station, three young women gossip, a man is rubbing his hands together in an effort to stimulate his circulation in the cold weather. The detective tunes out the comfortable commotion of the small town station, imagining she is still in London and not here. Anywhere but here. People brush past her, the train whistles and whirs to motion, and before she knows it, she is alone, paralysed in one spot, snowflakes catching softly on her fetching ensemble of a royal blue travelling dress and matching hat.

She takes a shaky breath, almost already on the verge of tears.

“Are you alright, Miss?”

No.

“Of course,” she turns with a slight smile. “Just admiring the view. I used to live here.”

“Ah, then the gossip about you was true,” the man nods, his eyes glinting intelligently under his bushy brows. There’s an apologetic smile sitting on his lips, and a twinge of regret spoiling the beauty of his otherwise handsome square jaw and bold features. “I apologise, I couldn’t help but overhear some women on the train talking about your father. About you.”

“I didn’t know our name carried such weight,” the detective admits cautiously, one hand reaching up to fix her hat self-consciously. The man seems to notice the way her fingers linger over the hat pin, and he almost cracks a grin. It would be a highly inappropriate moment to joke, and besides, he’d rather befriend this interesting person than anger her to a point where he’d end up being skewered by the hat pin in question. After all, her friendship and assistance is why he’s here.

“Your father served in India with Sir Edward Bardford, the current Police Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police,” he adds gently. “You were betrothed to Montagu Edward Bradford.”

“How do you know about that?” the woman asks, her eyes widened by shock as she takes a step closer to him.

“Who didn’t Montagu tell?”

The strained grin the stranger allows himself seems to put her momentarily at ease. Montagu did tell everyone, God rest his soul. In a way, she could never really begrudge him for the betrothal - it was their fathers’ scheming, even if Montagu really didn’t seem to mind. She always wanted a way out, but she never wished for his death. He was in India when it had happened, and she was in London. In a way, even 9 years after, it feels surreal. She never saw the body. For years afterwards, she sincerely thought he would turn up one day unexpectedly as if nothing had happened.

He never did.

“How awfully rude of me to not even introduce myself!” he exclaims suddenly, sheepishly sticking out his hand. “Dr Van Helsing. Abraham Van Helsing.”

“I believe Mont had spoken about you,” she nods as she shakes his hand, deliberately squeezing his fingers with more force than a mere handshake would warrant. Yet another trick she learned from Ava.

“I hope so. We were... we were quite close. I know it’s been a while since he...” Van Helsing pauses as he withdraws his hand and waves it in the air before drawing it up to his ginger curls. “Please accept deepest my condolences.”

“Thank you, Dr Van Helsing.”

Her tone signals the end of the conversation, and she nods her head stiffly before turning. She knew coming back here would unearth the loss of her parents, but she is not ready to speak of Montagu yet. She bared her soul once regarding the matter, and only to one person, but she will not repeat the experience again. As liberating as it had been to tell Ava everything, she wishes to leave this heartache and guilt where it belongs - in the past.

“Please wait. We got off on the wrong foot! I didn’t come here to ask you personal questions - in fact, it is a disappearance that I was hoping to discuss with you.”

“You are a physician, not an inspector, correct?” she asks over her shoulder, not bothering to slow down her steps as she strides towards an unclaimed hansom.

“Yes, but-”

“Are you here to hire me?”

“No-”

“Then we have nothing to talk about, Dr Van Helsing. Good day.”

The driver, smelling a wealthy client who’s just arrived from London, clambers down from his seat quickly to open the door for her to get in. Just before she could disappear inside, the physician speaks again.

“I’m trying to find Miss Ava Du Mortain and Mr Nathaniel Sewell. I was hoping we could help each other out, but more importantly, I was hoping to warn you.”

“Warn me?” the detective pauses, looking back at Van Helsing with genuine shock on her prepossessing features.

“They’re not who you think they are - what you think they are.”

There’s a stretch of silence between them as her eyes assess the tall, lanky man as he stands just before the hansom, hands stuffed into his coat pockets, his breath fogging in the chill air as he looks back at her expectantly. The nerve on this man alone is making the private detective want to leave him high and dry in the snow, but her insides twist and her pulse quickens at the mention of Ava’s name. She’s all but given up hope - for months now, she could find nothing regarding the woman and her partner, or the Agency they claimed to work for. She knows virtually nothing about this man, but her need to find Ava outweighs her better judgement.

“Are you hungry, Dr Van Helsing?” she asks, scooting further down the seat to make room for the man.

“Is eating and working on disappearance cases simultaneously a habit of yours, Miss?” the physician asks as he climbs in next to her.

“And here I was trying to be nice. I suppose I will not offer to pay for your lunch then.”

“I take it all back! I am positively famished.”

Meanwhile, across the train station

Lucille Licht twirls her cane, lips pressed into a disdainful frown. Cities at least have crowds upon crowds of people to distract her, but small towns such as Wayhaven hold no entertainment value whatsoever. She isn’t here on pleasant business anyway, she thinks to herself as she sighs, pulling her fur coat tighter around the expensive suit she’s wearing. No, she is here on ghastly business indeed, even by demon standards. But the prophecy was clear - though irritatingly vague too, no doubt to account for the rather large margin of error witches have these days in their prophecies. They’re more lawyers than soothsayers by now, their profession diluted by those who hunger for nothing but profit and security, and who are willing to sacrifice quality for those two aforementioned gains. Lucille finds sordid business such as this distasteful, even in her line of work. Falling from grace is one thing, but living in the Agency’s ever growing shadow is no excuse not to have honour among thieves. Or rogues. Or both, when it comes to the social circles she frequents.

A small voice in the back of her head whispers sadly, poisoning the faux assuredness she’s lulled herself into on the train. She’s just like I was, in a strange way. Before it all happened. And now I’m about to do the same horrible things to her that were done to me.

But the private detective is the one she’s been waiting for. She has to be. It all fits - the dead father, the career, the place where she was born. Lucille can’t smell anything strange about her blood yet, but she is sure she can bring about the power that was promised to reside in her veins. She has her ways, and her old magic, and her knife. And most importantly, her determination.

It was centuries ago, when she was stripped and bound and the curse was carved into her flesh. Strange, how vividly one can remember a single terrible moment, even centuries later. Even though the ancient magic rendered her undead, she can still feel the searing pain all over her body, red lines raging like fire in the form of symbols and Echolian text. It made her immortal, but it also bound her to her creator. He is the reason why she’s on the hunt. Why she is desperate to gain power beyond what she could achieve alone. Even as a human, as a meagre farmer’s child, she was roaming the fields of her father as she pleased. She was free. It was so long ago that she can’t even remember the name her parents gave her, but her freedom she remembers.

And nobody enslaves Lucille Licht and gets away with it.

Her slow burn vendetta must be coming to an end soon. There’s only so much of the supernatural underworld she can bring under her control - what she has will have to suffice. She already runs a widespread rogue organisation, with its key leadership positions held by her loyal Daughters, as she eloquently calls the women she’s bound to her service over the centuries the same way she was bound once. A necessary evil. Pawns in the game she plays with the Ancient One. There is nothing she wouldn’t do to ensure her victory in the coming battle. I will not be outwitted again by that Echolian bastard, she thinks, whacking away at a nearby bush with her cane. Specks of snow and ice glitter where her hits land. And yet she always finds herself hesitating before turning another human.

The abhorred feeling of helplessness always comes creeping back. As well as the pain, and the panic of thinking your life is about to end. She has to push it all down. Grit her teeth and get it over with. Months of preparation leading up to the final act that barely lasts ten minutes. And then you wait, and 3 days later their pain and mortality will be but a distant memory.

But she’s slipping. She no longer only hesitates before, now the intrusive self-doubt catches up to her after the rituals too. The Ancient One is still the centre of her nightmares, but the dream has changed. She is no longer the helpless little lamb brought to the slaughter. She is one with the Ancient One, his hand is hers too as it raises the knife, their voices merging together as they chant the same curse together.

She knew this victory would cost her everything. But she never imagined the real price to pay would be stepping up to fill the void the Ancient One’s death will create.

Lucille never wanted to be like him. She only ever wanted to kill him. But it seems those two things are one and the same.

She awakens from her thoughts when the man joins the private detective in the hansom. An annoying little man, that Dr Van Helsing is, though harmless in the grand scheme of things. It doesn’t matter that he’s taken care of a Transylvanian rogue vampire with his entourage, it would take far more to stop her plans now. Lucille focuses on the woman instead, letting her will force itself into her mind. All too easy, she raises her eyebrows in an unimpressed fashion as she flicks through her thoughts as if she were reading the latest issue of The Times. She thought she would be more difficult to read. To control. But alas, she is just like everyone else, aside from the love that seems to seep out of her every thought for none other than Agent Du Mortain.

She grins, remembering her failed attempt at getting to the private detective earlier. She’s learned several invaluable lessons in those two years. One, you can’t trust dark elf mercenaries, no matter how much you pay them. Two, it’s better to divert the attention of the Agency first before you try to kidnap someone who has important connections in the London Metropolitan Police. Three, love makes people do really, really stupid things.

Thankfully, Lucille Licht is a smart woman, and an even better strategist - not to mention a quite powerful demon with telepathic abilities and her boot firmly planted on the supernatural underground’s neck - and this time, she has learned from all three of her mistakes. This time, there will be no Agent Du Mortain rushing to the rescue. (But that doesn’t mean she can’t use her name as bait, yes?)

Cemetery, Wayhaven, 1900

1 year and 8 months after Ava’s disappearance

He doesn’t appreciate being jerked around the way he has been lately, but he isn’t a man to grumble too much either. He was closest to the backwater little town, he gets to check out the possible supernatural case. Everyone draws the short straw sometimes, and he’s learned to cope with it. He has certainly lived long enough to do so.

The wind shifts, and suddenly Agent Fuller’s nostrils are invaded by the stench of magic. Things finally start looking up for him, and that thought alone is enough to make him pick up his pace, excitement coursing through his body. He lights a cigarette to conceal the smirk threatening to overtake his lips when he sees the pallid looks of the constables as they pass him by. One stops him to ask what his business is out here, but the Agency has already notified the meagre Wayhaven police force, and he is soon on his way again to the centre of the commotion. Cemetery of the commotion would be a more accurate description though - the little town was as dead in the mid-February frost as a place could get, and aside from the bored stationmaster who gave him directions, these men are the first living beings he’s encountered since his arrival.

“Name’s Agent Fuller. What can you tell me about the crime scene, constable?” Fuller asks as he exhales a lungful of smoke, turning to the least disturbed looking man surveying the scene.

“Welcome to the middle of nowhere, sir. Why don’t you come see for yourself?”

A handshake and a suppressed grin later Fuller follows the young man down a row of tombs. They take a sharp turn to the left, and immediately it is clear why he was called here. The sight is confirmation enough, but the smell of potent and ancient magic is the real giveaway.

“Looks like we’ve got ourselves a walker,” Fuller snorts as he crouches down, picking up a piece of the crumbled marble.

“The poor woman was buried only 3 days ago,” the constable mutters, rubbing his hands together before bringing them to his lips and blowing hot air onto them, desperately attempting to revitalise his frozen fingers. “Who could do such a monstrous thing?”

“Indeed, who could...” the agent mutters, too focused to really pay attention to the human on his right. The tomb was torn open, the coffin deserted, the body missing. It coincides with many reports made over the centuries - it’s unfortunately not rare for the dead to be taken and repurposed again for magic, but this particular pattern is characteristic of demonic rogues having too much time on their necromantic little hands. He will need to consult a few colleagues to confirm it, but the 3 days and the apparent magic hanging in the air is all the evidence he needs right now.

He stands, the lapels of his dark coat flapping in the chilly wind ominously. There’s a page typed up about the busy life of his missing body in his pocket, crumpled around the edges from being handled carelessly, but he takes it out to skim over it again. That’s when he spots the little detail about the private detective’s history with the Agency that he seemed to have missed the first time around.

‘1896-1898: under Agency protection

Threat: classified

Agents on the case: A. Du Mortain, N. Sewell’

The Agency gossips like there’s no tomorrow, and ever since Lady Ashbury’s return to the main facility, the gossip about the ‘Ice Queen’ and her pet detective have been the most fashionable thing to blabber on about. And since Fuller has been to the scene, it will be him who will have to provide all the answers when Du Mortain comes with her demanding questions, no doubt breaking down doors in the process as it is in her nature. Fuller is by no means a man who shies away from conflict or hard work, but he’s never been particularly good with emotions. Explaining to a lovesick elder vampire that her alleged lover is now very dead, and also quite probably the plaything of a very bored and elusive demon who likes to play with necromancy is not a task he would gladly carry out.

“Well, shit.”

Fuller shoves the page back into his pocket and sighs. He should retire and buy a house in the wilderness. Get a cat. Maybe try some cocaine - he once saw Heinrich Quincke use it for spinal anaesthesia before one of his surgeries, and have been meaning to try it out ever since. But he does none of those things - he never does.

He walks back the way he came, trying to prepare himself for the most awkward conversation of the century.

Needless to say, he couldn’t prepare himself for what was to come. But for once, he couldn’t feel mad about a messy situations. He just felt a little more hollow afterwards. And then he got another case as this one was closed and the woman was declared dead once more. And he moved on.

But, like with all his cases ending in death, he never forgot.

#dottiechan writes #ava du mortain x detective #a du mortain x detective #the wayhaven chronicles #twc #twc detective #ava du mortain #a du mortain #a lot to unpack here #i know a lot might still appear strange but i promise it will all make sense soon haha

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shirophic · 3 years

Text

stray kisses | celestia ludenberg x kyoko kirigiri

hello again! this is the second last 1st place prize for @mourningmad ! (4/5)

tw: mentions of death, knife mention, minor character death

He was an unfortunate soul.

Kokichi Ouma was a high school student at Hope's Peak academy. He was known to be a playful and mischievous boy, up until his untimely death.

One Friday afternoon, one of his friends, Himiko Yumeno, found him lying dead beside a garbage container. Instantly, she shrieked, alerting others around her. Soon after, almost half of class 79 and some other students showed up. There was shock, disbelief and grief in the air. Students bid a tearful farewell, despite the fact that only a small handful of students were crying.

Kyoko Kirigiri was there at the time. After a day from getting the police and taping up the crime scene, she began to go through the files.

Victim: Ouma, Kokichi Type of Death: Murder Time of Death: Around 9 am to 12 pm Place of Death: Around the Hopes Peak Academy dumpster Weapon Used: A knife was found near the body covered in blood Suspects: ???

Kirigiri sighed, she had wanted more information on this case but she’d have to make use of this. Kirigiri was still in highschool, year 12 in fact. But she was the Ultimate Detective as well as another of her fellow detectives.

Shuichi Saihara, a year 11 highschool boy. He was in the same year as Kokichi Ouma, and had been hit hard by this case. Ouma was a close friend of his even if Ouma constantly bugged him and his fellow classmates. Although he was in shock, he stayed at the crime scene to determine who had killed his classmate.

Speaking of Saihara, he came in the direction of Kirigiri with a Cassette in hand and a determined but confused expression.

“Kirigiri-senpai.” He greeted, nodding in Kirigiri’s direction.

“Saihara,” Kirigiri greeted as well. “What is that cassette in your hands?”

Saihara glanced at Kirigiri and then gave her the cassette. “It may lead to the murderer.”

Cassettes were used frequently to quote messages and speech in case police/detectives miss anything. This was crucial to find the murderer, so Saihara and Kirigiri went inside the school to play it.

Thanks to Kirigiri’s dad, there had been a room dedicated to play cassettes, films, tapes, etc. This had become useful to the detectives’ cases, so she was really in debt to her father.

When they finally arrived at the room, Kirigiri placed the cassette into the cassette player, praying for more evidence and leads.

In the film it showed one of Kirigiri’s classmates - Celestia Ludenberg.

Celestia Ludenberg was known as the ultimate gambler in Hope’s Peak Academy, her reputation has risen due to her gambles with multiple students - always crushing them of course. Her collected and cunning nature led others to fear her, even going out of their way to do anything for the gambler, hopes of never angering her.

“Hello Ms. Ludenberg. We have heard that you and Ouma were quite close, we suspect you might be involved in this case.”

Ludenberg for a split second had a grim expression on her face before returning to her signature smile.

“Yes, Ouma and I were quite close. What does this have to do with the murder?” Ludenberg questioned, sipping her milk tea.

“You two have been seen almost always together, therefore making you a suspect.” The policeman stated.

Ludenberg sighed stiffly before putting her tea down and making direct eye contact with the police officer. If looks could kill, the man would have been dead by now.

“I do quite miss Ouma, we have been friends ever since he stepped foot into this school. Why on earth would I murder him in cold blood? He has many other close friends, yes? Why not suspect them, and come running to me first?”

She then smiled sinisterly waiting for the policeman to go on.

“Well-”

“Before you say anything, do you have any evidence of me being the culprit? If yes do show me, unless you don’t. If you don’t then this meeting was pointless in our regard, you and I have both wasted time here.” Ludenberg stated coldly, “Now if you’ll excuse me I will take my leave.”

The policeman called out to her one last time before the cassette ended, leaving Saihara and Kirigiri to their thoughts.

Saihara then spoke up, “Kirigiri-senpai, you’ve spoken to Ludenberg at least once right? Why don’t you go question her instead of the police?”

Kirigiri didn’t respond, deep in thought. After about a moment or two thinking about what to do, Kirigiri faced Saihara and nodded. She then left, leaving Saihara to try and process the information the cassette gave him.

Kirigiri sighed as she prepared to talk to Ludenberg. She had arranged a meeting at the Hope’s Peak game room, hoping for a good one-on-one with Ludenberg. It had been 3 days since Ouma’s death, Hope’s Peak Academy held a memorial for Ouma as he was one of the first deaths Hope’s Peak had had in 5 years.

As Kirigiri went over with what she was going to say to the gambler, the door opened to a familiar face. Black drills, adorned with a white lace bonnet. A gothic lolita dress with matching knee length stockings. Dark red mary janes clicked as she walked over to Kirigiri.

Red eyes pierced through Kirigiri as Ludenberg stared at her, after a while the silence was broken.

Kirigiri stood up instantly and hugged Ludenberg, a few tears coming out of her eyes. Ludenberg hugged Kirigiri back, her head tucking into Kirigiri’s shoulder.

Kirigiri then pulled back, hands on Ludenberg’s arms. “It’s been so long since we’d spent time together, alone.”

Celestia took Kirigiri’s hand up to her face, feeling the smooth gloves as she relaxed into them. “It has been a long time, love.”

Kirigiri had a worried expression on her face as she began to speak up, Ludenberg cut her off.

“I know dear, they suspect me of being the culprit.” Ludenberg started, “Do not fret, I am not the culprit.”

“I know that already, and I’m trying everything I can to prove it wrong but they just keep bringing up “evidence”. I promise I’ll get you out of this.” Kirigiri said, sighing as she looked down.

Ludenberg sadly smiled and cupped Kirigiri’s face with her hands, then kissed her softly.

Their lips glided over each other effortlessly, they both flushed as they leaned into the other’s touch. Kirigiri’s hands felt their way to Ludenberg’s waist as she pulled Ludenberg closer, as her heart beated fast against Ludenberg. They pulled away after a minute or two and they both giggled softly as they took deep breaths, faces redder than ever. Ludenberg then took Kirigiri’s hand up to her face and kissed them, looking lovingly into Kirigiri’s eyes.

They both knew they couldn’t be in each other’s arms longer, but were more grateful that they could even share a kiss without being carried away by their duties.

But at the end of the day they were still two girls who longed to be at each other’s side, without any disturbance.

“You do know that we’ll have to leave soon, right detective?”

“Let us enjoy this a little bit more.”

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anightflower · 3 years

Text

Come and Find Me Chapter 4: The Andrew Curtis Case

Guys I am so sorry this took so long. On top of school kicking my ass, I had to rewrite and reedit this chapter several times until I got to one that I deemed worthy. I am going to try and post Chapter Five early for you guys if I can.

Spencer Reid x Reader

Warnings: Mentions of Violence, Rape, Abuse

Masterlist

Spencer glanced around the room at all the police officers assembled. He cleared his throat.

“The Unsub is a white male in his late 20s to mid-30s. He is a man with an average build and a friendly face, someone who women would not pose as a threat.”

“Since there were no signs of forced entry, we believe he’s posing as someone who women would let into their house. Classic cases of this include maintenance men there to check up on things, someone who needs help after their car broke down, or a similar case like that.” Emily explained. “This is a man who fakes confidence, but in reality views himself as inadequate in some way, he knows he can’t fight off another man, so he chooses women who live alone and are essentially defenseless.”

“Yet, he hates that they are successful enough to support themselves or that they have any sort of power.” Morgan chimed in.

“He clearly was cheated on or had some sort of marital issue that caused him to spiral into this spree. He is a sexual sadist projecting his partner onto the women he attacks, that’s why he chokes them, watching the life drain from their eyes sparks something in him and gives him a sense of power. That is also why he rapes his victims, he loves the idea that he is all powerful and they are helpless.” Hotch explained.

Spencer swallowed, “Comparing his last four victims it seems his type is 20-30 year old females with (Y/C/H) and (Y/C/E).”

Which coincidentally looks like the love of my life. Spencer thought, repressing a shudder.

________________________________________________________________

Spencer starred in shock at the scene around him. He was just finishing up the geographical profile, when they had received a call about yet another body.

Her empty bulking eyes stared up at the ceiling, her body was beaten, cut, and bruised.

“Strangulation marks on her neck, multiple stab wounds and injuries, this looks like our unsub.” Emily resisted the urge to shudder.

“Man, whoever cheated on this guy, must have really broken him.” Morgan mused, looking around at the bloody scribblings on the wall.

Spencer knew that if they tested the blood on the wall, it would match the victims. He looked at the frames on the wall, trying to ignore the blood that seemed to coat everything. The victim had her diploma hung up and multiple pictures of her smiling with family or friends. Spencer stared hard at the name on the diploma; Adria Winston.

It scared Spencer how easily he could see you in this woman’s place. Injured, dying, pleading for him, for anyone to save you-

“Reid. Reid, are you alright?” Morgan clapped a hand on Spencer's shoulder, drawing him back to the present.

Spencer shook himself out of his dazed state. “Yeah, uh I just need to step out for a second.” He said, pushing past Morgan and making his way outside Adria’s house. He pulled out his phone and dialed your number, it was late, so you would most likely be asleep, but-

You picked up on the third ring. “Hi baby, are you alright?” Spencer bit back a smile at the sleepiness in your voice.

“Not really, but I just really needed to hear your voice. How is Ohio?” Spencer asked, trying to distract himself from what he just saw. You could tell, but you played along with it.

“Not too bad, whoever designed the Google lounge has nothing on me.” You joked.

“Well, we already knew that.” Spencer smiled.

“Yeah, you wouldn’t believe some of the cool stuff I found, I’m telling you if the employees complain about these amazing comfy chairs I got for their break room, I am totally coming back and stealing all 22 of them for my apartment.” You said enthusiastically. “They're perfect for reading in Spence, I’m telling you, you would love them.”

Spencer let out a little laugh, “I’m sure they are. We will have to see if we can find some, but I don’t think 22 will fit in either of our apartments.”

“I suppose you’re right” You sighed dramatically, but then took a more serious tone of voice. “Are you alright baby?”

Spencer’s chest tightened at your worried tone of voice. “There’s a sick selfish part of me that is so glad that you aren’t here (Y/N). All of these girls look so much like you-” Spencer paused, swallowing back tears. “I just am so glad you are safe, I don’t think I could focus as well on this case if I knew you could possibly be in danger.”

“Aw Spencer, I am so sorry baby. You aren’t sick or selfish for wanting me to be safe, everyone focuses on the safety of those they love, it’s only human. I know you are going to catch this guy, you are the most brilliant man and agent I have ever met. Just don’t tell your team I said that, I don’t want a bad reputation before they even meet me.” You teased, trying to lighten his dark mood.

Spencer let out a small laugh and sniffled. “Trust me the team is going to love you. We will have to figure out when you can meet them, but I definitely want to wait until things settle down a bit here.”

There was silence on your end for a second. “Listen Spence, I can stay here a bit longer if it will help you focus, but when I come home I am taking self-defense classes and such. I want you to have a sane mind knowing that your girlfriend actually can handle herself. I honestly think it will help me keep sane too, after hearing everything about this case.”

Spencer heart skipped a beat, as much as he wanted you safe and sound, he also needed to hold you in his arms to keep his sanity. But ultimately you were the one who should lead your life, not Spencer. “I appreciate you considering me, but I want the ultimate decision to be made by you Princess, I trust your judgement and I don’t want you living your life based on my fear.”

You breath caught in your throat at the sentiment. “I love you Spencer Reid.”

Spencer could have sworn his heart stopped. The two of you hadn’t said I love you yet. Part of him wished it was in person, but just hearing you say it, meant the world to him. “I love you more (Y/N) (Y/L/N).”

So help him god, Spencer would catch whoever this unsub was and put him away, so you could come home to a safer city.

________________________________________________________________

“You know what strikes me as funny?” Emily asked, looking at the crime scene photos.

The room was silent, waiting to hear what she had to say.

“Each of these unsubs reported strange gifts and letters being sent to their home. The police had thought it was nothing, but now I am thinking that maybe this could be a connection. I mean think about it, didn’t you guys notice that each victim received a gift box wrapped the exact same way?”

Morgan nodded. “Yeah they had the white box with the red bow-”

Spencer chimed in, “Red typically symbolizes love and infatuation, but in this case it was the unsub’s warning, red meant war or violence was about to come upon this victim.”

“Reid and JJ I want you to talk to the officers and get the reports these women filed for harassment, I think we are missing a connection.” Hotch ordered.

An hour or so later they had that connection.

“All of the victims received their gifts from a delivery service called ‘Special Delivery.’” JJ explained to everyone.

“Well it seems we have to pay them a visit.” Hotch said.

________________________________________________________________

Special Delivery was a small Ma and Pa store, located just a couple blocks from Ava’s coffee shop. Spencer debated on stopping in to check in with her and maybe grab the team coffee.

Spencer had quickly taken a liking to Ava, not only because he had called him your “sexy superhero boyfriend,” but because she was a reliable friend to you, one who always managed to bring a smile to your face. She reminded Spencer of a more wild Emily, in the best way possible.

Emily stopped outside the storefront window, glancing at the display of chocolates, gift baskets, and jewelry. “Why is it always the cute small places that get ruined? Can’t it be one of those big corporate offices that fuck over their employees instead?”

Spencer huffed a laugh.

As they entered the store, the bell let out a delicate twinkle. Causing a silver-streaked brunette to pop out from the back of the store. Her round face held a warm smile as she approached them.

“Hello dears! What can I do for you?” She asked as she excitedly clasped her hands together.

“Hello Mrs. Ellison, my name is SSA Prentiss and this is Dr. Reid, we had a few questions for you.” Emily said gently, flashing her badge to the woman.

The woman's smile dimmed a bit, “Oh, uh of course, is everything alright?”

“Mrs. Ellison I am sure you’ve heard of the recent tragedies-” Emily began,

“Oh yes, I’ve been keeping up with the news, it’s just dreadful that something so horrible could happen so close to home. You see these things in movies or in other places, but you just never expect them to happen right near you.” Mrs. Ellison said sorrowfully, wrapping her arms around herself.

“Mrs. Ellison, I am afraid everyone of these victims received several deliveries from your shop. Each was wrapped exactly the same, white box, red bow, does this ring any bells for you?” Spencer asked, cutting to the chase.

“Well dear, it is Valentine season, red, pink, and white are the typical go to colors.” She shrugged.

“Do you have any regulars? He would have each gift he bought wrapped the exact same way? He would seem friendly, but would be on the quieter side?” Emily asked, attempting to prod the older woman’s memory.

“I’m afraid none of that is ringing any bells dear, I am so sorry.” Mrs. Ellison said apologetically.

“Do you have any other employees? Or do you run this place all by yourself?” Spencer asked.

Mrs. Ellison, let out a small laugh, “Oh goodness me, no. I get so many orders, I could never do it by myself. I previously had three employees, Jess, Remy, and Andrew, but I had to fire Andrew when I found him stealing from our stock. It was a shame too, he was a hardworking boy, but I’m afraid he just fell apart after his wife left him.”

Emily and Spencer exchanged a quick glance. “Do you happen to know why his wife left him?” Spencer asked, his heart picking up speed.

“Oh it's not my business to share-” Mrs. Ellison hesitated.

“Please Mrs. Ellison, this could be crucial information.” Emily urged her.

Mrs. Ellison let out a sigh. “That horrible girl cheated on him. I just couldn’t understand it either, Drew was such a doting gentleman to her, it simply didn’t make sense.”

“Do you still have his contact information? His address?”

“Why of course, but you couldn’t possibly think he has anything to do with this-” Mrs. Ellison began, making her way to behind the counter to grab a binder. She looked up worried when Spencer and Emily didn’t answer right away. “Do you?” She urged.

“It’s quite possible he had nothing to do with it, we just need to follow through with every angle.” Emily quickly explained.

“Of course.” Mrs. Ellison said, but her hands slightly shook as she opened up her binder to get Andrew’s address.

________________________________________________________________

“Andrew Curtis, this is the FBI, open up.” Hotch hollered from outside the door. There was no response. Hotch looked to his team to make sure they were ready, then kicked in the door.

As the team checked different rooms, several calls of “Clear!” echoed throughout the house. Curtis was not there.

Morgan made his way to the basement and swallowed back a gag. “Hotch! You better come see this.”

Guns at the ready, Spencer, Hotch, Rossi, and Emily, made their way down to Morgan.

“What the hell.” Emily huffed as they all beheld the horrific sight before them.

It was a girl, for sure. She had the same mutilated marks as far as they could tell, but her body was decently decayed.

“He’s displaying her like a trophy.” Spencer observed. “He props her up naked and makes sure her wounds are fully on display to remind him what he did.”

“There’s more trophies over here.” Rossi said in disgust, gesturing to a shelf full of different valuables.

“He’s sick.” Morgan hissed.

“We need a med team down here to remove a body. As soon as it’s IDed we need to know and alert any next of kin.” Hotch ordered into his earpiece.

Rossi put on a glove and began to go through the other trophies for evidence. “I’ll talk to the victims families and see if any of them recognize these items.”

Morgan dialed up Garcia.

“Speak and be heard, the all-knowing goddess listens.”

“Hey baby girl, I need you to look up any missing person’s reports from around this area. The victim has (y/c/h) and (y/c/e). She fits our victimology to a t, but we need to figure out who she is.”

“I’m on it.” Garcia said.

“And Garcia,” Hotch said, stopping her before she hung up. “I need you to find a license plate for Andrew Curtis. Also check to see if he rents or owns any other property, he’s currently not at his home and it is too close to other buildings for his victims to not be heard.”

“You got it. Talk soon.” She said, hanging up.

About half an hour later Garcia got back to them. “Curtis drives a 2003 silver sedan with the license plate 637-IRT. I also found that he rents a small storage unit that’s a 20 minute drive in a more secluded part of town. I am sending the address to you guys now.”

“Thanks Garcia.” Hotch said. He turned to JJ “I need you to get an APB on Curtis. I want you to warn the public to keep an eye out for him.”

JJ nodded and rushed off with her phone. Hotch looked to the rest of the team. “Everyone else, vests on, we are heading to that storage unit.”

________________________________________________________________

“Fuck Drew, what are we going to do?” The boy asked as he looked at the screen projecting a news report on Andrew Curtis.

“Well, it might be the end for me, little brother, but I have you as my legacy. They don’t have a clue that you are even involved, so I need you to get out of here.”

“No, no, no. I am not going to leave you!” The Boy cried, tears streaming down his face.

Drew huffed a laugh. “Now, now, little bro. It isn’t the time for tears. I’ve taught you everything you need to know. You need to get your girl from that Doctor remember?”

“How am I supposed to do this without you?” The Boy asked, fear filled his voice.

“Your time will come. You have to be a man about this. You have the skills now and you have our little videos to watch. Your own little tutorial to pluck that girl right out of Dr. Reid’s hands. You need to hide those and hide them well. Promise me you won’t fuck up your chance.” Drew growled.

The Boy whimpered and Drew smacked him. “Promise me!” He yelled.

“I promise.” The Boy sobbed, grabbing at his pained cheek.

Drew’s face softened and he gave the boy a smile. “Good, now get out of here legacy and make me proud. I expect to see you on the news someday.” He winked. “You remember our code right?”

The boy nodded.

“Then this isn’t the last time we will speak to each other. Now get the fuck out of here, I already fucked with the security footage, so they won’t even know you were here.” Drew explained, pushing the boy out towards the parking lot.

The Boy’s heart broke as he rushed from his mentor, not only because he knew he would never be able to see Drew in person after this, but because he knew that he would never be able to ruin the 6th victim. The sixth whore that was tied up in the trunk of Drew’s car.

________________________________________________________________

The girl sobs were muffled by her gag. Drew pulled on her hair harder as he dragged her to the storage unit. He knew he didn’t have much time left, so he might as well let every moment count huh?

The girl’s sobs turned into terrified screams as she beheld the bloodied storage room and the various knives and devices within it.

“Shut up you stupid bitch.” He growled in her ear.

The girl whimpered something and Drew ripped away her gag.

“Please.” She begged and Drew simply laughed as he lugged her limp body towards the table in the center of the room.

“Please, just let me go. I won’t tell anyone, I promise. I have a family who cares about me-” She pleaded.

“Whores don’t have families. Whores have nothing. They just cheat and lie and move onto the next guy. Huh Madelyn?” He growled as he threw her up onto the table.

“My name isn’t Madelyn, please it’s Emily-” The girl sobbed.

“Enough of your lies Madelyn. You stupid slut. You couldn’t stay loyal could you?” Drew snarled, hitting the girl’s head hard against the table.

She sobbed harder. “My name is Emily, my name isn’t Madelyn, please it’s Emily.” She babbled.

“SHUT UP.” He said, hitting her again.

Suddenly a shout rose up from outside the storage unit door. “Andrew Curtis, this is the FBI, come out with your hands raised.”

The smile that crept across Drew’s face was wicked. He grabbed a knife and pulled Emily against him. “Let’s have some fun, shall we?” He whispered in her ear.

“Andrew Curtis, this is your last warning. We will come in armed and ready.” Hotch’s voice shouted again.

Drew remained where he was, the sick smile on his face, as tears streamed down Emily’s face.

When the door burst open and several agents poured in, he did not flinch or cower away.

“Drop the weapon.” Hotch boomed, his voice echoing in the space.

“Now, now, now, where would the fun be in that?” Drew mocked.

“Put down the weapon, Curtis and let the girl go.” Rossi ordered.

Drew’s eyes looked past all of them and fell on Spencer, he bit back a smile.

“Come any closer and I’ll slice her throat.” Drew threatened, pressing the knife harder to Emily’s throat, a few drops of crimson blossomed and crept down her neck.

“If you don’t let Miss Bloise go, then we will be forced to take action Mr. Curtis.” Rossi explained.

Drew’s hand shook, god he wanted them to come at him, but then he thought of his mentee, how lost he would be without him.

He lowered the knife and let the girl go. She ran towards one of the agents, tears mixing with the blood that ran down her neck. JJ wrapped an arm around the girl and guided her out.

Morgan rushed to Curtis, pinning him down against the floor and putting cuffs around his wrists.

Though they had caught him, Hotch felt uneasy. Curtis had given in too quickly. The greasy smile across Curtis’s face as Morgan led him away only heightened his suspicions.

________________________________________________________________

The team sat outside the interrogation room, watching as Hotch tried to get a rise out of Andrew Curtis. He and JJ had gone in; Hotch to be the intimidator, JJ to be the trigger as she looked a bit similar to the victims. So far the man had just sat in the chair, his arms crossed, silent and smirking. It had been almost an hour and they had gotten nothing out of him.

Spencer felt as though Curtis could see him through the two-way mirror.

“You know Agent,” Curtis began. “I know you’re trying to be the big bad wolf, but it’s not going to work, I’ve dealt with worse than you.”

Morgan looked about ready to kick in the door and beat the confession out of Andrew.

“Send me in, I’ll get an answer out of him” Morgan growled, cracking his knuckles.

“Unfortunately, the confession won’t stand up in court if they found out you beat the shit out of Curtis to get it” Emily smirked, trying to lighten the mood.

“The Court doesn’t have to know” Morgan argued, making Emily scoff.

“Focus kids.” Rossi ordered sternly, but Spencer could tell he was fighting back a small smile.

Hotch and JJ came out of the room. Hotch looked to Spencer, his expression grim. “He wants to talk with you.”

Spencer looked at Hotch confused, “Why me?”

“He’s ‘fascinated by you’” Hotch explained. “I know it’s not ideal and you don’t have to go in their Reid, but-”

“But, we could get the confession out of him. We have the charges for Miss Bloise, but we want to pin him for the other girls he attacked. I understand and I will do it.” Spencer said.

“I’ll stick with you Spence” JJ reassured, putting a hand on his arm. “You won’t be alone.”

Spencer nodded, sending a grateful look JJ’s way as they made their way into the interrogation room.

“Ah the elusive doctor. So glad you could join us.” Drew purred.

Spencer said nothing as he moved to sit down across from Curtis.

“-your wife left you Mr. Curtis, is that correct?” JJ asked.

“Please doll, a pretty thing like you can call me Drew” Drew said, looking JJ up and down.

Spencer’s fists clenched in anger as he felt JJ tense next to him.

“The file says she left you after she cheated on you. Did you have medical issues Mr. Curtis?” Reid asked, drawing Curtis’s attention to him. “Did you struggle to please your own wife?”

Curtis growled. “That stupid whore has nothing to do with this.”

“Ah so you couldn’t and when she left you for a man that could, you projected your anger for her onto these women. You were angry at them for being confident and independent, much like your wife who knew what she wanted.” Spencer said, sitting back in his chair with a faint smirk.

“These women were nothing but whores, willing to let men in like me. They wanted someone so badly they let a stranger into their house.” Curtis hissed.

“Mr. Curtis, you were a delivery man. They didn’t let you in, you forced your way into their homes didn’t you?”

“If a man needs a glass of water, can’t he let himself in?” Curtis purred. “They turned their backs on a predator and got what was coming to them.”

“Did you attack them in their homes?” JJ asked.

“Only to make them quiet, couldn’t have the neighbors hear them scream.” Curtis laughed and Spencer resisted the urge to choke out the man across from him.

They placed images of all of his supposed victim’s before him. “Do you recognize these women?” JJ asked, her voice harsh and cold.

Curtis looked over all of them, silent for a couple minutes. Spencer’s patience thinned. “Well?”

Curtis pointed to an image of Lila Jennings, the third victim of this case. “She screamed the loudest.” He pointed to another image. “She was a hot piece of ass, it was fun breaking her.”

“Enough.” Spencer hissed.

“In short Doctor, yes I do recognize these women. Every single one of them and no I do not regret a single one.”

Without saying another word, JJ and Spencer got up, taking the files with them. Curtis’s laughter rang out behind them as they shut the door.

________________________________________________________________

TAGLIST

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#spencer reid #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid smut #spencer x y/n #spencer reid x reader #Criminal Minds #Criminal Minds Fanfiction #criminal minds x reader #Come and Find Me #anightflowerwrites #anightflower writes

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local80smotel · 4 years

Text

Tears and kisses

pairing; V x reader

summary; V & the reader's friendship started on him being injured and their relationship would start with that too.

requested by; @peachesandbb

rating; T

warnings; mention of blood (but never described)

word count; 2,663

A/N; I'm so sorry this took so long but I had a lot of fun with this! Thank you for requesting!

Y/N's lungs burned as they ran deeper into the alleyways of London, holding their heels in their hands. How were they supposed to know the creep they punched was a member of the Fingermen? Maybe wearing heels tonight was a bad idea but hey, no one thinks that they're going to be chased by madmen who were drunk with power at 8:30 pm. 'Shit' they thought, glancing at the street clocks '30 minutes untile curfew'. If they didn't get home soon that would just be another nail in the coffin for this English citizen.

The fleeing criminal didn't look back until they heard a loud, panic-filled scream followed with a thud. When they did, they were shocked by the scene in front– well behind them. There, taking out the Fingermen with such ease, was a pure black figure wearing a mask and an outdated hat. The hat or the mask wasn't the thing that confused Y/N, it was the fact this street vigilante was flinging these six-foot men like they were rag dolls. As embarrassing as it sounds, Y/N just stood there, stuck in some kind of awestruck daze until the ringing of a gun blast drew them out of it.

All they could cry out was a "No!" As they were still glued to the alley street. The masked figure only let out a pained grunt before taking out the shooter with one of his many knives. He stood there for a moment, their back only facing Y/N. They could tell even in the dark that this vigilante was seeing if the bullet was an exit wound or not.

“Hello?” they stepped closer to the caped hero “Are you hurt badly?”

Y/N's hero turned to them, obviously flustered as they tripped on their words as they tried to answer back.

“Uh-” He tried to bow but only winced in pain which stopped him from doing so “I would say so, but," he chuckled softly under his breath “as you can barely tell, I'm bleeding.”

Y/N rushed over to them ignoring common sense which yelled for them not to go to the man who had just taken out four men all by himself.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” they asked as they searched for the wound and see if there was an exit wound as well

“I know I haven't introduced you as I have to others, but could you be as kind as to let me into your home?” It was easy to tell the awkwardness and anxiousness in his voice. He shook his head before trying to continue his sentence, probably to backtrack and apologize but Y/N stopped them as they nodded before looking back at the street clock.

“We have sixteen minutes till curfew, we have to hurry. Can you run?”

The man nodded as he placed a hand on his wound before saying "Lead the way".

Luckily, it seemed that the secret police had vanished as they made way back to their apartment. They couldn't help but feel responsible for this poor civilian's injury. 'I could have outrun them. He didn't need to intervene like that.' They thought as they looked over at him. Now that they were closer to the street they should see where the wound truly was, his left shoulder. Y/N couldn't help but sigh in relief which rewarded them a confused head tilt from their guest. Hopefully, it hadn't hit any important nerves, muscle, or bone and they'd feel safe putting their hero on the street once a more.

Things between them things were quiet until they got to their apartment building's door. There, right on the porch of the brick establishment, he muttered a word as he was noticeably starting to get lightheaded due to blood loss.

“V...”

“V? Is that the name of the street you liv-”

“Name. That's my name.

All they could say was "oh" as they opened the door and started up the stairs. It was easy to tell he was getting grumpy as well. Who knew that was also a symptom of blood loss. When they both were greeted with their apartment door Y/N wasted no time opening said door and pulling this masked hero into it, making sure not to pull the injured side, and made a b-line to the bathroom. There, like most normal people they kept their medical supplies stored.

V stepped into the room first and before the host could follow he closed the door.

“Hey!” they yelled as they lightly slammed their hand into the bathroom door “What gives?”

“I- uh, please forgive me but I can take it from here!”

Y/N huffed as he spoke, feeling slightly insulted that they couldn't go into the bathroom they paid for. They were taken away from their irritated thoughts when V spoke again around three minutes later.

“Could you stay? Sit by the door I mean.”

“Why?” they shot back as they somewhat snapped. V waited for a moment before answering.

“Just... Nervous that's all.” His soothing British accent made the hair on Y/N's neck stand up “I can understand if you say no– I did lock you out of your own bathroom.”

“No! No, no it's okay.” They began to slide down the wall so they could sit. The quietness sneaked in as Y/N brought their knees to their chin. Small sounds like him hissing at the pain from rubbing alcohol and him rummaging for more supplies were the only things that broke said silence until he mumbled out four words;

“Would you help me...?”

The apartment's owner sighed as they got up, jittering the doorknob “Sure if you can unlock it.”

Again, it took him a few moments before a small click happened but they weren't annoyed or upset at the wait as they knew he was probably in more pain. When they opened the door they were greeted to V who now was shirtless with their back facing them. The wound wasn't the thing that caught Y/N's eye, but instead, it was the fact his body was so heavily burned. It made sense why he wanted to patch himself up now! They couldn't help but place their fingertips gently on his back which caused him the tense up.

“Need help wrapping the bandages?”

He nodded, still not looking at them which made it easier to tell that he was truly embarrassed.

Y/N looked closely at the wound, sighing in relief as it seemed that the bullet hadn't lodged itself inside any of the muscle and started wrapping the medical bandages, trying to make sure that it wasn't too tight. In an attempt to relax V they tried to make conversation about his burns. He was quick to say that he "didn't remember" how he got them which Y/N couldn't believe but dropped the subject and onto a new one; why he saved them.

“I watched you– just to make sure you got him safe– and I saw them. Harass you I mean.” he looked back at the bandage work, seemingly pleased with their work before talking once more “You threw a good punch though.”

Y/N couldn't help but blush at the compliment as they stood up “Thank you, V. Come back if you ever need help.”

When V left they couldn't help but feel that their apartment was, well, empty. That night as they laid in bed they secretly hoped he'd come back again and oh boy, would he do exactly that.

Almost three months into their budding friendship they were woken up in the middle of the night to pounding at their door. Fear washed over them like a wave as they opened the door, scared the police had come to take them away for some petty thing.

“Oh! V!” they smiled in relief along with joy as they got to see their good friend after waiting for almost one and a half months to see him again. “Come in!” they moved out of the doorframe, still smiling like a goof until they looked at the floor. Blood. Once again their dear friend had gotten himself hurt. Their heart sank as they looked back at him who was already in the bathroom except for this time he didn't lock the door like he did the first time he came here.

“Really V? This is the third time in a year,” they said with concern in their voice as they walked in the bathroom, undressing him to see the wound which turned out to be a stab wound in his upper abdomen. Luckily it didn't hit anything vital.

“Maybe you just get yourself hurt to see me..” they mumbled as they pressed a cold washcloth on him. Sure they said it was a joke but somewhere, deep down inside them, they wished it was true. V grunted as a response once rubbing alcohol was introduced to the stab injury, turning their head away from them before actually speaking.

“Come with me. Back to my place.”

Y/N turned red when they finally processed his words. Why? How? Where does he even live? Truly they wanted to say "yes" right then and there but they just couldn't.

What about their apartment? Their plants and mail? Sure, they didn't have anything important in their home like a pet but still, moving (especially when they've never seen the place) is both scary and draining.

“Why? V you know you're always welcomed in my home.”

He took Y/N hand's and placed it on his face so his "cheek" was cupped before answering their question

“One day Y/N they'll follow me back here and because you're helping me, ” he coughed “they'll take you away too. I want to make sure you're completely safe. You're important to me.”

Y/N's ears felt hot once V was done talking. They thought for a moment as they inspected the wound to see if it needed stitches. Maybe he was right and living with him would be a good idea. Hell even it wasn't like he only came to their place for safety as well as they couldn't count how many times they opened their door just to see items like water bottles or bags of fresh bread (with a V drawn on them of course) and due to that, it was clear that he did care for them.

Y/N sighed as they locked eyes with V “Ill go with you, V. Let me pack up first.”

They could tell he was happy as he rubbed his face a bit deeper into their hand.

A few hours later at one AM the two of them hurried out of the building, carrying a few duffle bags as they did so. Y/N as they walked couldn't help but glance down at the man's hands as he carried both bags.

“I can carry them V...”

“Nonsense! I'm just doing what a gentleman would do.”

They couldn't help but roll their eyes at this. For being an absolute tank he still tried to act all soft, guess that was another reason they liked them.

As they walked they teased one another, trying not to laugh so they wouldn't alert the police as they were very much out against curfew. That night Y/N learned that V loved stars which just added on to the cuteness factor of him.

“What is this?” they asked in confusion once they stopped in front of Victorian Station “V this place has been abandoned for years.”

“Exactly my comrade!” He smiled as he placed the bags on the sidewalk and opened the doors to Y/N's surprise “A secret treasure I like to call it, now come along you're probably exhausted.”

The two descended into the dark depths which V seemed to be used to. Y/N finally got to carry a bag but it was only so V could use his free hand to guide them in the dark as he had a hand on their shoulder.

As the door opened they were shocked to see the inside completely decorated. It was easy to see V was a big art nerd as classic paintings hung from the ceiling and loved literature once they saw their new room as books were piled all the way to the ceiling.

“I'm sorry if it isn't to your liking.” He said as he placed down the bag in his hand

“No no, it's amazing. Thank you, V.”

Before he left the room Y/N placed a kiss on the metal mask's cheek. V didn't stop to ask why but merely turned his head to look at Y/N who was busy unpacking their clothes now.

For the next two years, V came home with no injuries to Y/N's happiness. It was easy when it came to them bonded as V showed them his favorite movies and how to cook. Their relationship also deepened when the talk of politics came up. Sure, it was slightly concerning for them how V loved the idea of anarchy. But one thing was for certain; they both hated Sutler with a burning passion. Nothing outright romantic happened between them, BUT the night that marked their two years of friendship while having a movie marathon, Y/N laid their head somewhat near his shoulder as they began to fall asleep. V, even though he felt slightly awkward due to this situation, played with the tips of their friend's hair until the movie ended. He didn't move them back to their room, instead, to make sure V didn't wake Y/N, laid their head on a pillow and gave them a blanket before leaving the gallery. Like two years ago Y/N was startled wake around four AM to V slamming the door shut while grunting and mumbling to himself.

“V?” their voice was almost a whisper as they got up slowly and followed him

“Ah Y/N, I'm sorry for waking you.” he turned to them as he held his left side. It was easy to tell that he was nervous. When they finally got to see what was wrong their blood felt like it was being boiled. He had gotten himself hurt again! There was no blood but it was easy to tell he had broken something. He was always being reckless, didn't he know they cared for him? It just wasn't fair!

“Do I not matter to you?!” they snapped as tears threatened to fail as they grabbed the home's first aid.

“You haven't done this in so long V! Why now? Have I done something wrong? V–”

Before the could finish their rant V slammed his "lips" unto Y/N's whose eyes widen. They felt frozen for a few seconds until they wrapped their arms around them, running their fingers through his hair as they closed their eyes. To Y/N's sadness, they couldn't deepen the kiss due to his mask so holding him close was all they could do but it made them just as happy. When the two broke the kiss Y/N laid their head in the crook of his neck as they stayed silent for a few moments before they broke the silence.

“Can I say something?”

“Of course love.”

“I love you...” They held V's hand as they spoke in a whisper “I have for a while.”

V moved their head out of his crook and lifted their chin to look them in his eye before kissing them on the forehead

“And so have I.”

#imagine #imagine requests #v for vendetta #v for vendetta imagine #v for vendetta x reader

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maatryoshkaa · 4 years

Text

young god | chapter 13

chapters: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | epilogue |

word count: 3.5k

warnings: foul language, implied sexual assault, mentions of trauma and mental illness

description: Yang Jeongin, the only living witness of the Miroh Heights Murders, is finally awake, casting a new shadow of possibilities onto the entire investigation. Han Jisung knows deep down there’s only one place left to go, and takes his chances with a familiar blond detective -- but they find that where chances are given, lives may be taken away.

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13| give and take.

They say when you have a close brush with death, you see your life flash before your eyes.

Jeongin supposed there was some truth to that. One moment he had been squinting at the golden-haired boy in the darkness; the next he had found himself collapsed against the forest floor. The sky had spun above him like a broken kaleidoscope, until the unbearably hot throbbing in his head had finally forced his eyes shut. He had felt the strength seeping from his limbs, like blood being drained from livestock, and had let the numbness wash over him like an icy tidal wave.

That was when Jeongin’s life had flashed behind his closed eyelids — choppy flashes of memories and people’s voices, warped and dizzying.

“Life in prison?” Jeongin’s own voice sounded tinny in his ears, and his father gave him a sad smile on the other side of the plexiglass. “B-but all you did was—”

“A man lost his life because of me,” his father spoke slowly, eyes steady on Jeongin’s distraught face. Slow, steady, careful. Kind. That was how Jeongin had always known his father — a gentle man who wouldn’t hurt a fly — yet now he was sitting across from him in an inmate’s uniform, handcuffs locked tight around his wrists.

“But he—he hurt Mum first,” Jeongin whispered, barely able to push the words out of his throat. “He—you said he—”

“He did.” His father’s face had darkened, his normally soft jaw clenched. “I...lost it, and what happened to him was what that bastard deserved — but nothing changes the fact that I...killed him.” He let out a deep, weary sigh, and Jeongin was suddenly struck by how much older his father looked. “He got his punishment for his sins one way, and now I’m paying for mine. It’s as simple as that, my boy.”

The buzzer sounded and the door behind him clicked open, a stone-faced officer stepping into the room as his father stood. “Take good care of your mother, would you?”

“Dad, if—” Jeongin’s shaking voice made his father turn back around. The question was odd, but it had been burning at the back of his mind since the beginning of the visit. “If you—had the chance to go back. Would you still have...done it?”

Silence fell between father and son like a curtain. His father inhaled deeply, raising his eyebrows before meeting his son’s eyes again. “I don’t doubt it,” he finally replied, voice soft. “What could I do? It was for someone I loved.”

From then on, Jeongin’s mother had spent the better years of her life working whatever job she could find, and the two of them lived off minimum wage and money sent by estranged relatives — until the poor woman had finally fallen ill. No one would hire a sickly old woman — especially not one that had been involved in a sexual assault case, all those years ago.

That was why Jeongin worked with four different delivery companies at a time; that was what he could never bring himself to tell Hyunjin or you. Work four jobs, graduate, and make proper money to pay his mother’s hospital bills, to dig himself out of the poverty he’d known his entire life. Yang Jeongin’s one-way, masterplan. Until…

The coma.

He had become almost comfortably numb, like a body submerged in the middle of a pond — yet occasionally, something would pull him above the surface, even if just for a brief moment. A voice, a pressure, a light. It was almost always Hyunjin, the soft-hearted barista talking to him about his day as if Jeongin had simply sat down to chat in Glow Cafe, not rendered immobile and unresponsive by a concussion. Sometimes, though, the older boy would be crying, silent sobs shaking his lean frame until he was so exhausted he’d fall asleep by Jeongin’s side. And Jeongin wanted nothing more than to reach out to reassure him, to pull his friend into a hug, but he couldn’t will his body to move no matter how hard he tried.

Until now.

An incessant high-pitched beeping was growing louder and louder, the tips of his fingers prickling. Jeongin’s heartbeat surged into his temples, pounding against his eardrums like fists demanding entry. The darkness behind his eyelids was shifting, pinpricks of light poking their way in — and like a breath of air had been knocked straight into his lungs, Jeongin felt his entire body lurch forward and his eyes shot open.

For several seconds he could only take deep, gasping breaths, obsessed with just the feeling of it all, vaguely registering the inhaler pressed against his mouth. His eyes were still adjusting, flashes of white light and black stars painting his blurry vision. There were shouts from all around him, a deep rumbling as everything seemed to shake.

It was as if the entire sky was falling above him, he thought vaguely.

He blinked, hard, and his vision finally focused, the incongruous voices and sounds growing clearer. The incessant beeping had been the heart monitor by his cot, keeping in time with his gasping breathing. And the yelling was coming from none other than Hwang Hyunjin, whose dark hazel eyes were wide with disbelief and already brimming with tears of shock.

“J-Jeongin? He’s — he’s awake,” the taller boy nearly tripped getting to his feet, yanking aside the curtains and disappearing from Jeongin’s sight. “He’s awake!”

Jeongin winced, a throbbing pressure beginning to press at his skull. His fingers twitched twice and he flexed them gingerly. Suddenly remembering, his hands weakly scrabbled for his pockets, desperately feeling for a familiar metal box but coming back empty.

His Walkman was gone.

The deep rumbling passed by him again and he realised it was the sound of carts full of medical equipment speeding across the halls — like there had been yet another emergency. Jeongin could only make out some of what the hospital staff were saying as they rushed past.

“Stab wound to the chest...brought her in...no sight of him.”

Jagged fragments of his memory were coming back to him, the empty feeling in his chest beginning to fill with a sinking sense of dread. The strange boy. A dismembered corpse.

What on earth happened while I was out?

━━━━━━━━

Run.

Jisung’s feet slammed into the pavement, puddles splashing cold rainwater onto his bloodstained jeans.

“He’s a runner, that’s what he is.”

His chest was burning, ribs feeling as if they were closing in on his lungs. He could still feel your warm body pressed against his, widened eyes fluttering shut as he could only watch in horror. With strength Jisung didn’t know he had left, he had carried you in his arms and bolted into the alley just as the police had turned into the diner’s back lot. The hospital was only a block away. He had burst into the lobby, nearly collapsing as he shouted for someone, anyone to help — and nearby, stunned doctors had loaded you onto an empty gurney before whisking you into the emergency room. Once they returned, Jisung was long gone.

“You ran away from her, too, yeah?”

The gang’s taunting voices echoed in his head, the sky rumbling above him — just like how his father’s voice had always rumbled, shaking the thin walls of his childhood home. And now, Jisung was ten years old all over again, clutching his camcorder in his bloodstained hands.

There had been a fine layer of dust coating the dented metal when Jisung had seized it from his dorm closet. Just touching the metal made his hands slippery with cold sweat, but he forced himself to grip it harder, counting the memory cards before he took off. Running, one last time.

“Try running now, Han.”

He wasn’t running away.

If he wanted to reverse the horrible things he’d done, there was only one place left to go.

“Han Jisung, always running away.”

“Not this time,” Jisung breathed through gritted teeth, almost welcoming the way the falling rain burned at his eyes and nostrils. “Not anymore.”

━━━━━━━━

Bang Chan didn’t realize how long he had been pacing the room until his feet began to ache in protest.

The detective hadn’t left the police precinct since Woojin had called him over, the pair pulling out files and chasing leads from dawn till dusk. Kim Seungmin had popped in for several hours before he had been called back to the law office. The moon had come and gone, until telltale sirens sounded not long after noon, and Woojin was called onto the scene of yet another emergency.

Another hour or so had passed since then, and Chan was replaying the same conversation with the police chief over and over in his head.

“I didn’t want to believe it, Chan, but from the beginning I had this—this feeling—”

“A hunch,” Chan finished, and when the police chief looked hesitant, Chan continued, “is almost always based on something more concrete, whether you know it or not. Something familiar, or strange. We’ve hit all the dead ends; a hunch is one of the better things we can hope for right now.”

Woojin exhaled, then spoke slowly. “The victims’ backgrounds, how they’ve all had pasts connected to abuse, or adultery. Not to mention the modus operandi that stood out the most — you remember the fire, and numerous counts of brute force.”

“I thought something was familiar, too,” Seungmin had interjected, his brow furrowing. “I studied this...case back in law school — a shotgun marriage, their young son growing up in an abusive household, until one day —”

“The house went up in flames,” Woojin finished, nodding. “It’s the same case, the most infamous amongst domestic abuse cases in Miroh Heights. The names were withheld for privacy reasons. Though the case was closed over a decade ago...the accuracy of the final verdict, and the true events that transpired that night, are still unknown.”

“Victims of cold cases often reappear as suspicious persons,” Chan muttered. “It’s a reach, but if you look at the similarities...”

“We’ve been blindsided this entire time,” Seungmin said slowly, his fingers raking through his hair. “Not a substance abuser, quite possibly not a cold-blooded killer.” He looked up at Woojin, whose brow was furrowed in deep thought. “So if your hunch is correct, then—”

“This is the aftereffect of a cold domestic violence case from over a decade ago,” the young police chief said firmly, eyes flickering up to Chan. “And we can’t afford to let it slip away again.”

Something had been pricking at the back of the detective’s head since Woojin had begun talking — no, far before he had even arrived at the police station. Chan had always been known for having a quick mind; it was one of the things that separated him from other, more mediocre detectives in his field — but this time, something was blocking him from reaching the final conclusion. He didn’t lack evidence; there were no flaws in his logic. It was the horrible feeling of familiarity that made him choke, that forced him to hesitate. Because he knew this case, he had seen it before.

“And it’s not a reach, Detective,” Woojin continued, voice gentle but eyes firm. “Because I believe you know the story yourself.”

Seungmin turned towards Chan, eyes questioning. The detective shook his empty coffee cup in his hands, eyes skirting over the countless case files and papers they had been sifting through for hours.

“The perpetrator is—”

A blond boy burst into the dimly lit room, breathing so hard Chan thought he was about to have a stroke. It didn’t take longer than a second for the detective to recognise him.

“Han Jisung,” Chan finished the flashback aloud, the name hanging in the tense air. His eyes scanned the shaking boy from head to toe, a cold feeling running down his spine. He wasn’t even trying to hide the blood soaking his clothes and skin, Chan thought numbly. This was his friend, someone he’d always looked at like a little brother—but he had seen, solved too many of these cases not to recognise the stricken look on Jisung’s pale face.

This was the shell of a man who had just lost everything.

“What brings you here?” Chan asked, watching him carefully. The same tousled golden hair, he noted, pushing down a pang in his chest; the same boyish round cheeks, although there was a smattering of bruises and cuts across them now.

“You told me I—I could talk to you or Woojin. Anytime.” Jisung’s voice faltered, wiping at his face as if to clear away some of the muck, but the dried blood on his palms only smeared more across his jaw. He looked like a lost dog, a stray that had turned up on the nearest warm doorstep and was watching him with almost apologetic, apprehensive eyes.

Chan set down his notebook, nodding slowly. “That I did,” he finally replied, glancing back up at the younger boy before pulling out two chairs. “Woojin got called to a scene, though. You okay if I listen for now?”

Jisung felt a flood of indescribable emotions wash over him. The same twist in his gut he had felt back at the 3rd Eye, when the Chan had pulled him close and asked if he was okay.

I’ll listen.

That was more than anyone had ever offered him since the incident thirteen years ago. The therapists, the police, the social workers — all they had ever wanted was for him to listen to them, to heed their advice and bury his past behind him.

Other than you, of course. The memory of your fading eyes burning into his own shook him back to the present.

“I think you know, Chan,” Jisung said softly, marking the way the detective was warily scanning the blood covering him from head to toe; the dishevelled look Jisung must have had on his face.

“I have a hunch,” was the detective’s reply. He sounded as if he were repeating someone else’s words, but his voice was steady as it had ever been. “But you’re going to need to help me on this one, kiddo.”

Jisung met the older boy’s eyes — Chan’s always tired but unfailingly kind eyes, always willing to give the benefit of the doubt. Maybe that was what made him such a meticulous detective, respected by criminals and citizens alike — never jumping to conclusions, always seeing a problem out till the end. The detective’s gaze dropped to the silver camcorder in Jisung’s hands.

“You used to carry that around everywhere you went, I remember. Never showed anyone what you’d film, though.”

“Do you have...anything that can play memory cards?” Jisung swallowed a painful lump in his throat. “I need to—show you. Now.”

Wordlessly, Chan moved his laptop over on the table, and made the younger boy take a seat next to him.

Jisung had always thought his past was something to be kept buried — below the ashes of his childhood home, or six feet under his mother’s grave, or bottled deep within his chest. That no one would ever truly know — would want to know — what had happened that day, let alone what had been happening for the years leading up to that day. And yet, for the second time in two days, he was sat next to someone who, to his surprise, didn’t make him want to run. Someone he was willing to take the risk of revealing the darkest parts of himself with.

For the next hour, Chan watched the footage in silence, from the very first Christmas to the day Jisung’s father’s mistress had pressed burning cigarettes into his bare skin. From the fateful day their entire home was brought to the ground with alcohol and fire at the hands of a ten year old boy, and to the choppy records from the years that followed. Jisung had taped his encounters with the incompetent officers and dismissive social workers at the police station, and the mandatory therapy sessions they had subjected him to. He had taped the kidnapping, and his years at the children’s home with Minho.

He had not taped any of the killings.

Chan sat through it all, reliving Jisung’s nightmares the way the younger boy had every night for the past thirteen years, an ugly childhood told through the fisheye lens of an old camcorder. By the time the last tape had finished, the detective had not moved, but Jisung knew him well enough to catch the tension in his jaw, the shaken look in his normally bright eyes.

“You were the cold case,” Chan finally said, a long exhale leaving his now-dry lips. “From thirteen years ago. The one they couldn’t solve, and swept under the rug.”

Jisung didn’t respond, too busy forcing every inch of his body to remain still — to not stand and sprint out of the room, out of the police station he had been avoiding his entire life.

“Why are you telling me this?” The detective asked, turning his body to face the younger boy.

“Because I—I killed—all those people,” Jisung wove his hand towards the files Chan had splayed onto the desk, the headshots of victims lying at the very top. The words were heavier than weights in his mouth, and and the truth of it all tasted more bitter than poison. “And then I—I couldn’t stop. I sound insane, I know I do. I know I p-probably am. They were—flashes at first. Triggers, seizures that went too far. And soon it became like--like an impulse, until I started blacking out completely—” Jisung’s breathing caught up to him and he choked, but he managed to force the last words out. “And today, I...hurt...y/n.” He saw the alarm flash across Chan’s eyes. “The last person who made me hope...made me want to hope that life was worth living, after all.”

He sounded insane.

He sounded like a serial killer trying to make excuses for something inexcusable.

He sounded like a monster.

“You sound like you’ve been through a lot.” Chan’s voice made Jisung look up from his shoes. The soft look in his eyes was back, and though a bit of the blood had drained from his face, the warmth in his voice had never left. “Thank you. For telling me.”

That was the final blow.

“S-stop. Don’t—say that,” Jisung could feel his voice breaking, the tears burning at his throat. “Chan, you have to turn me in, make them give me the death penalty, I-I—”

“Han Jisung.” The detective’s voice was stern, his normally gentle eyes narrowed. “You turned yourself in. The case from thirteen years ago needs to be reopened, and all the factors reinvestigated to be fairly taken into account. You do not deserve the death penalty.”

Jisung was shaking his head numbly, lips unable to form protests as the detective continued, a blazing look in his eyes Jisung had never seen before. “You’re not gonna be a martyr now, you hear? Han Jisung, you’ve been hurt by everyone else your whole damn life. I’m not about to let you hurt yourself.”

There it was again. That feeling of unfamiliar warmth aching deep in his chest, like an old bruise being pressed into. Before Jisung could speak, a slow, sarcastic clapping echoing through the room made both of them raise their heads and turn in alarm.

Prosecutor Kang pushed the door aside, eyebrows raised in amusement and mock sympathy.

“What are—you can’t—” Chan leapt up from his seat, but Kang only looked more amused as he looked over his shoulder at the open doorway, where a huddle of prosecutors and police officers alike were gathered with expressions of horror. Seungmin was among them, his face white.

“You all heard him, didn’t you? Detain the murderer.” Kang smiled triumphantly as the officers surrounded Jisung, seizing his arms so roughly he felt like they were being pulled from their sockets.

Chan looked livid, eyes darting wildly between the officers and Prosecutor Kang. “Let him go. Keep him in the precinct until Woojin comes back, Kang,” he protested, but the older prosecutor only sneered.

“Detective Bang, aren’t you overstepping your boundaries? Wait for Kim Woojin? Don’t forget—” Kang took a step closer to Chan, eyes narrowing. “Personal relations with the perpetrator cannot participate in the investigation.”

Chan felt his gut twist, scanning the whitened expressions on the surrounding staff’s faces. How much had they seen, overheard? Kang watched the detective’s eyes flicker momentarily, and laughed.

“Besides,” he continued, “I’d say it’s time the prosecution did its part.” He shot a meaningful glance at Seungmin, who had been glaring between Jisung, Chan, and Kang with his fists clenched. Kang clicked his tongue, sighing. “Kim Seungmin, Kim Seungmin — I can’t believe I have to do your dirty work.”

Chan’s mind was reeling, all options coming back blank. This was the District 9 Precinct, and as a homicidal detective, he had no power over Woojin’s men. In fact, after what Kang had said, Chan wasn’t even sure if Woojin had power over Woojin’s men anymore. You fucked up, Bang. You fucked up bad.

Chan risked a glance at Jisung’s face and immediately regretted it. What he saw had no traces of anger, no more hate, no signs of struggle. His eyes were wide and dark, as if the boy had shut down completely. Kang scoffed at the detective’s sudden silence, turning on his heel and motioning towards the officers.

Chan could only watch helplessly as Jisung was dragged out of the room like a limp doll, his once-rounded cheeks still shining with blood and fresh tears.

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