#maybe the trauma was too fresh for me to be able to focus on anything else | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

uvobreakmylegs · 3 years

Text

Importunity

a lot of people wanted a Shalnark fic so here ya go~

💕Happy Valentine’s Day💕

Warnings: kidnapping, graphic depictions of violence, mentions of death, threats of violence

You'd gotten out.

Your brain was a little too high on the adrenaline of a successful escape for you to think over how exactly you had managed it, but you'd gotten out. The months of living with the man named Shalnark had been slowly wearing you down, exhausting you and at times you considered giving in to him. To 'let him love you', as he put it. Things would've been easier if you could just resign yourself to him and try to live that sweet lie that this relationship was normal and also one that you were still willingly part of.

But resilience held strong, and after many, many attempts at escape, you finally managed to make it to the outside while he was away.

Of course, you were only done with the first part of this plan.

For the second half, you needed to get out of the area before Shalnark came back. And so you were speed-walking through the busy streets of the city, keeping your head down for fear of Shalnark coming back and spotting you. You had never gotten this far before; if he caught you, whatever punishment you would receive for this attempt would be much worse than what he'd done to you previously. And whatever he did to you, he would have that same sickeningly-sweet smile on his face the entire time.

How could a person look so cheerful while they hurt someone else?

At one point you did like Shalnark. You would have gone as far as to say that you loved him. He was nice, if a little bit odd, but after your bad breakup with your ex, Shalnark felt like a breath of fresh air. He was happy to give you attention and eager to go out with you. When the two of you were together, his focus was 100% on you. And the sex was actually good. Shalnark was everything your ex wasn't, and you were happy that you had met such a man.

But after a little while of dating, once the exhilarating feeling of entering a new relationship had died down, red flags started popping up. Like how obsessive Shalnark was when it came to you. How he'd regularly go through your phone to delete contacts of yours, or how he had downloaded weird apps to your phone and computer so he could “keep an eye on you”. The phone made a little bit of sense, maybe, but the computer? You'd questioned him and tried to get him to uninstall those apps off your devices, but he refused.

“Shalnark, do you not trust me?”

At the time, you assumed that this behavior came from a fear that you would cheat on him, and that hurt you more than you had anticipated.

He sensed that as well, as it was one of the few times his cheerful expression vanished, watching you as tears began to well up in your eyes at the thought that he believed you to be a cheater.

Shalnark grabbed you then, holding you against his chest.

“It isn't that at all,” he assured you, stroking your hair.

“I really do want to make sure that you're safe. This is all just in case of a worst-case scenario. If something bad happens and I need to find you immediately.”

He pulled away from you slightly, cupping your face with both hands as he smiled at you again.

“So don't cry, okay?”

“.... What are you worried about exactly?” you asked.

“Lots of things.”

He didn't give you any answers beyond that.

You tried overlooking it. Tried to keep your mind on the positives, but more red flags kept popping up. How he would leave for long periods of time with no explanation, how when he came back, he was sometimes covered in cuts and bruises, and how he would always brush away your concerns and cheerfully refuse to tell you anything. Whenever he was back, he wouldn't let you be around any of your friends, insisting on taking up every second of free time that you had. But when it came to his private life he was willing to drop everything and leave you without explanation.

You felt like you were being used. And you reached your breaking point when he had tried to insist that you not spend any time with your friends when he was out of town.

“I can't do this anymore,” you said, head in your hands as the two of you stood in the kitchen.

“What do you mean?”

“I want to break up.”

Seconds passed by, and Shalnark said nothing. When you moved your hands aside to look at him, he was still smiling at you.

“I see,” he said.

He didn't sound angry, and for a second you wondered if he had been treating you badly to make you break up with him.

Without another word, he pulled out a strange looking needle.

You didn't remember anything after that.

All you knew was when you awoke next, you were in a completely different room in a completely different apartment with Shalnark standing over you.

“I guess I should have seen it coming,” he said to you, “it seems I pushed you a little too hard. But that's all right. We can start over now.”

You were at a loss for words for a few moments as you struggled to understand the situation.

“Start over?” you finally asked.

“Yep.”

“Shalnark, no. I broke up with you.”

“I don't care. I'm keeping you here,” he answered.

“No. I-I don't want to be here,” you said, shaking your head.

“Please Shalnark. Let me go home.”

He grinned, sitting down on the bed with you and grabbing you when you tried to pull away, leaning in until your foreheads were touching.

“Not a chance,” he whispered.

From there the nightmare worsened. You couldn't leave the apartment, and any time you tried, he would catch you and hurt you. Every time, he told you that he didn't want to do it. That it was your fault because you kept misbehaving.

“Things would be easier if you stopped lying to yourself. I know you still have feelings for me.”

You refused to think about that fact. Even though the way he had been treating you before the kidnapping had hurt you, part of you did still care about him. One part of your stupid brain still cared about this incredibly callous man even after everything he had done had you wanting to give in, and you hated yourself for it. It had to have been an act, right? The way he had been when you first met, and how he claimed that he loved you. There was no way he was capable of it. He just wanted to hurt you for his own sick pleasure, and you vowed to never give in to him. You would get away from him and tell the whole world just how much of a sick fuck he was.

You told him that. In the heat of the moment, you had said it right to his face.

He just smiled, and you blacked out again.

The next morning you had awoken to your whole body aching; your muscles were sore and you could barely move your arms and legs. When you stumbled into the bathroom to inspect yourself you found that there were also several cuts and bruises over your entire body.

“Something the matter?”

Shalnark was standing in the doorway, looking pleased with himself as he looked you over.

“.... Shalnark, what did you do?”

He ignored the question, giving you a closed-eyed smile and asking if you wanted breakfast.

You shook those thoughts from your head. Right now, you needed to concentrate on getting away. Once you were safe and had made certain that Shalnark wouldn't be able to touch you again, you'd find a therapist who could help you deal with your trauma and hopefully then you'd be able to go back to being a regular member of society. But right now, you needed to leave before Shalnark came back from his errand and found you missing.

You followed signs pointing in the direction of the subway, which was most likely the fastest way out and the only form of fast transportation that you could really afford, as the meager pile of change you had managed to collect behind his back was all that you had in terms of cash. Just enough to get you to a station on the outskirts of the city and then you'd figure it out from there. You just needed to get as much distance from him as you possibly could.

The streets were fairly crowded, and you needed to dip and weave your way through several groups of people that were walking far too slow and hindering your escape. You'd bumped into a few people, all of who were asking what your problem was as you hurried away. With all of the time that had passed since you were taken, you were certain that you'd been listed as a missing person, but being recognized as that right now wouldn't do you any good.

You spotted the steps that lead down to the underground subway, and against your better judgment, you felt a wave of relief wash over you as you cut through the crowded street to make it down those steps. Things could still go wrong. You knew that. But you were so close and if you could just get onto that train you'd finally be able to get help.

When you were just a few feet away from the top step, a hand grabbed you by the upper arm.

Your mind instantly told you that it was Shalnark, but when you looked to your side, you found an older man with graying hair holding you in place. You didn't recognize him, but he was yelling at you in a language you didn't understand. What you did to earn this reaction, you weren't sure, but it was costing you time and drawing attention as people around you turned to look at the commotion.

“I'm sorry, but I don't know what you're saying,” you said, trying to pull your arm away from him. Instead his grip became tighter and he grew red in the face, virtually screaming at you.

You didn't need this. And you needed to go now.

“Please let me go,” you tried, but it got you nowhere. The old man was still screaming and the crowd around you had stepped back, creating a circle around the two of you. There were murmurings all around you that slowly grew louder, and at one point you swore you heard someone say your name, but all you could really focus on was the old man and the way your heart was beating in your ears as your panic grew at a rapid pace. This was already a scene and with how unstable the man was acting, it could easily become violent.

You were scared. Scared that this man would hurt you, but more so you were scared that Shalnark would somehow manage to catch wind of this and track you down.

No one helped you as you tried to pull away again, the old man responding by jerking your arm harder, making you cry out. Why was no one helping you?

You kicked him in the groin. Hard.

The old man's screaming finally stopped as he stumbled backwards, releasing his grip on you.

You sprinted away, pushing past the people who had gathered in front of the subway stairs.

Someone grabbed you by the wrist, and you were spun around as you yanked your hand back.

You didn't actually see how close you were to the top step, but the momentum of pulling your wrist away sent you flying back.

You were aware of how your heel slipped over the edge of the top step.

And then you were falling.

Down into the darkened space of the subway station, and away from the crowd of people that stared at you, making no move to stop your fall.

Why was no one helping?

Your head hit the bottom of the stairs.

You probably hit a few other places on your body before you reached the bottom, but it was impossible to tell once you'd hit your head. You were too disoriented to tell what else was hurting; you could only focus on the pain in the back of your skull.

God, it hurt.

The world around you began to blur and you could only make out shapes and colors. At a certain point everything began spinning and you needed to close your eyes to keep from throwing up. You threw up anyway. At least, you thought you did. Trying to move was a mistake, and you were forced to keep still while you heard people talking around you. Hands that were grabbing you, hoisting you up at one point.

When you heard sirens you cracked your eyes open slightly and you were immediately punished by bright white lights above you that forced you to shut your eyes again.

A hand grabbed your face and pulled it to the side, making the pain in your skull shoot through you. Someone was prodding at spot where your head had hit the ground, brushing your hair aside to look at the injury. They weren't being gentle, either.

You were pretty sure you threw up again.

Time passed in bits and pieces.

A lot of talking, though you couldn't make out what was said.

A lot of faces you didn't recognize, looking down at you. They didn't seem happy, and you wondered why.

A lot of different machines, that you were either put into or were placed around you. Needles, tubes and fresh white sheets.

You tried talking a few times. You weren't always sure if there was anyone around when you did, but you always tried when you felt like you had the strength.

It'd be nice to know why you couldn't smell anything.

If you were able to get out any coherent sentences, no one ever answered you.

A sterile white ceiling greeted you when you opened your eyes next. There were noises, too. A dull chatter of voices from beyond the room and a constant beeping that sounded from the machines next to you. The amount of time it took you to realize that the plain white room was a hospital room was embarrassing, really. It should have been the medical equipment that tipped you off, but it was only when you got a look at the plastic barriers around the bed that you were able to deduce where you were.

Your head was still aching. How far had you fallen? Would there be permanent damage? In your haziness you managed to remember that most hospital rooms had a button to call for a nurse. Best to find that and try to get some answers.

But when you tried moving your arm, you found that your wrist was stuck on something.

Looking down, you saw that your wrists and ankles had been strapped to the bed and you were barely able to move them a few inches.

They only strapped people down when they were acting violent, right? Why would they do this to you? You couldn't remember a lot, so maybe you had acted out at one point before you got here? What other reason would they have to tie you down?

Shalnark.

In the midst of your confusion over your current situation, you remembered the man you were trying to get away from. The fact that you were in a situation where you were tied down and completely vulnerable sent a rush of adrenaline through you and you struggled at your restraints. He'd be coming for you, and you did not want to still be here once he found this hospital.

One of the machines next to you began to beep rapidly, signifying your increased heart rate and echoing in the small room.

You hadn't made any progress on freeing yourself when the door burst open, a woman in a white nurse's dress standing in the doorway. She took only a second to assess the situation before she came at you with a needle in hand.

“Please, I can't stay here. He'll find me!” you begged her.

She didn't acknowledge you and only held one of your arms as she injected whatever substance was in the needle into your veins. Whatever it was, it worked fast as you felt yourself beginning to drift back off into sleep.

“He'll hurt me,” you whispered.

The nurse above you scoffed.

“If only.”

Days passed by, and you felt like you were getting better. Not completely better, but your bouts of slipping back into unconsciousness seemed to stop after a point, and the ache in your skull had dulled a bit.

The treatment from the few that were around you didn't get any better. As you slowly recovered from your fall, you were able to see the way in which the nurses regarded you: disgust, mostly, and a fair amount of resentment whenever they needed to come in to take care of you. The one you saw most often was the nurse you had seen when you had first woken up. She was an older woman, and refused to give you any painkillers.

“I knew Regina's mother,” she hissed at you one morning, “what you did to those people was monstrous.”

“.... Who's Regina?”

Your question had earned you a harsh slap to the face, and your evening meal that day came later than usual and tasted worse than the regular hospital meal.

Detectives came in sometimes. Strangely enough they would ask you questions about your relationship with your ex and the last time you had seen him, but they left pretty fast whenever you tried bringing up the fact that you'd been kidnapped. You would only ever get as far as telling them Shalnark's name before they were heading back out the door.

“We'll get the truth when you're well enough to be brought in to the station,” they had said on their last visit.

Based off how you had been doing, it probably wouldn't be long before you were moved to a more secure location.

With no tv or books to occupy your time and the fact that you remained with your hands and legs tied down, there was little else you could do during your time in that room besides think. No one was telling you anything, and you were left to try and figure things out on your own. You had been blamed for something, that was certain, and based off of the reactions of those around you and the fact that you had seen various cops sitting outside your door whenever a nurse came in, it was something serious.

It was Shalnark's doing. It had to have been. Had he framed you for a crime?

Those blackouts you would occasionally have came to mind, along with that morning you had awoken to your entire body feeling sore and overworked. It had been reasonable to suspect that he had done something to you during those times, but you had assumed he was fucking you in your sleep or something. It had never occurred to you that he was using you to do something more.

But aside from that, it was strange he was taking so long to come and get you.

Moving fast was the only way you potentially had any chance of getting away from him, and for you to have not seen him once since your very public apprehending didn't feel right. Once he had figured out where you were, surely he would have been fast in taking you back. It would have been easier than ever if he had come immediately after your fall. The fact that you had remained her for so long could only mean that he was planning something.

You remembered the detectives' words, on how they would be moving you to the police station once you got better. If Shalnark wasn't planning on coming into the hospital to get you, was he waiting for your relocation in order to make his move?

You needed to get out of the hospital before it came to that, you decided.

A frenzied escape attempt with no thought put into it was bound to get you caught. You had learned that much during your time trapped with Shalnark. You needed to keep calm and not draw any attention to yourself. If you freaked out too much and made too much noise, that nurse would come back in, inject you with those drugs and you would lose valuable hours that you needed to get away.

Slowly, and with a great deal of effort, you wiggled the wrist of your dominant hand around in an attempt to get it out of the restraint. Though the straps were made of fabric, it was a stiffer material, and after a fair amount of wiggling, the skin around your wrist was raw and bloody as you tried to loosen it while making your hand as small as possible.

Somehow, after hours of pulling as hard as you could, you finally freed your hand, gasping out a sigh of relief as you took a moment to rest. Luckily, no one had come to check on you yet, but it would be impossible to hide the fact that your hand was no longer tied down if they came too close. At least the remaining restraints were easier to get off, but now you were faced with your next problem: getting out of the room.

It was getting close to evening, around the time when someone would come in to feed you. Whoever came in always came with the sedatives, but you had noticed that most of the staff had been growing somewhat lax during your time here, and you would use that to your advantage.

When the next nurse came in, you were back in your usual spot on the bed, having arranged the sheets in a way so she couldn't see that you weren't tied down. She was a younger, quieter woman who avoided looking at you if she could. And as expected, a needle full of sedatives were on the tray she brought in with your meal.

When she set the tray down, you told her “someone slipped something under the door earlier.”

“What?”

You motioned with your head.

“Earlier, somebody slipped something under the door. I'm not sure what it was, but it looked like paper?”

“I don't see anything.”

“I think it went flying when you opened the door,” you explained.

She sighed, turning away from you to look at the area around the door. When she began to walk forward, you jumped off the bed as quietly as you could and reached for the needle.

“I still don't see anythi-”

Your hand covered her mouth as you stuck the needle into her neck, pushing its contents into her. She struggled briefly and went as far as to bite your hand, but within moments she was out, falling out of your grasp and onto the floor.

You felt terrible as you dragged the nurse across the floor and hid her behind the bed. There was no way you had the strength to lift her up and place her in the bed; you hadn't moved for weeks now and your muscles felt strained just from dragging her. Her neck was bleeding a bit, and you sincerely hoped you had just knocked her out and hadn't managed to do anything that would damage her permanently. If only it had been the nurse who had slapped you that you had come across, then at least you wouldn't have felt as bad.

You felt even worse when you forced yourself to remove her clothing. She was a bit wider than you were and her clothes didn't fit all that well, but it would hopefully work as a disguise so you could get out of the building. At least the long-sleeved sweater she had been wearing would cover the wound around your wrist. In an effort to give her some sort of apology, you placed a blanket over her.

“Everything all right in there?” a voice from outside suddenly called.

…. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. You'd forgotten about the officer outside the room.

“Yeah, everything's fine,” you answered, trying to imitate the nurse's voice as best you could.

“Okay,” was the answer. You didn't think that you sounded much like her, but evidently it was good enough.

“Do you mind waiting in there for a little bit?” the officer asked through the door, “I need to use the restroom.”

“Y-yeah, go ahead.”

“Thanks.”

At least there was a little bit of luck on your side, it seemed. You couldn't believe that you'd managed to forget that there was someone on the outside watching over you, but that problem seemed to have taken care of itself. Best not to try and rely on getting so lucky every time, though.

After a few moments, you peeked your head outside the door, and when you found the coast to be clear, you began to hurry down the hallway.

There weren't many people in the halls, and the ones that were there didn't seem to notice you in your slightly over-sized clothes and shoes. Still, you kept your head down and moved as fast as you could, not willing to risk someone recognizing you again. A staff-only stairway caught your attention, and you pushed on the heavy door and entered the dimly-lit stairwell.

You traveled down several flights of stairs to get to the ground floor. It would probably be a bad idea to try to leave through the front entrance. Finding some kind of side or back door would be best; something like that shouldn't be too hard to find.

A directory caught your attention, and you noted the arrow that pointed the way to a loading bay. It wouldn't be an area that would be open to visitors or regular patients, but there was the chance that hospital workers could be in there. But you didn't know how much time you had left before that nurse was discovered and you were found to be missing, and you didn't want to waste time wandering the halls trying to find an exit. Right now you needed to hope you would just be lucky.

Your luck held as you made it to the loading bay, as the others roaming the hospital halls were too absorbed in their own tasks to pay attention to you. And to your delight, no one was in the loading area either. This was perfect. Just a few more steps and you'd be free. You stumbled a bit down the steps of the platform before you decided to cast off the ill-fitting shoes. It was dumb to run around a city barefoot, but hopefully you could find a change of clothes somewhere and get rid of the whole nurse getup completely.

The cement was cold against your feet as you ran across it. You'd be out of here and then you could focus on getting out of this goddamned city.

As you came up to a pillar, a figure jumped out in front of you. You were too slow to react, and you ran right into it.

“Found you~”

It was a voice that you knew well, and you found that you recognized the shirt that your face was currently pressed up against. Not a lot of men wore purple pastel.

Shalnark was beaming down at you as he wrapped his arms around your back and kept you pressed against him.

“I missed you so much!” he continued, “Really, words can't describe how miserable I was without you around.”

“L-let me go!” you cried, trying to get out of his grasp. He only pulled you in closer.

“But we just found each other again. How could I let you go after we've been apart for so long?” Shalnark said.

You continued to struggle, trying to slip out of his arms that held you in whatever way you could. Shalnark seemed content to watch you writhe in his grasp, but he seemed to tire of it as he let out a quiet sigh and released you. You immediately pushed off from him and ran back to the stairs.

“Who's going to help you in there?”

You had only reached the foot of the stairs when he asked that, and you stopped in your tracks. He had a point. Everyone hated you, to put it lightly. It was unlikely that anyone would come to help you even if you begged them to. Turning back to Shalnark, you found him holding his phone out. He had pulled something up on the screen but it was too far away for you to read.

“Don't you want to know what's going on?” he asked, “come back over and you can find out.”

You shook your head.

“Oh? I thought you would have had questions. You sure you don't want to know?”

“I do,” you admitted, “but I also don't want to be anywhere near you. You'll make me black out again.”

“I won't do that,” he said, “there'd be no point in doing that right now. I promise, I won't do anything. Just come back to me.”

Your hand gripped the railing of the stairs and you looked back to the hospital's back entrance. Every fiber of your being wanted to run back inside, even if you would just be restrained and knocked out again.

“C'mon,” Shalnark tried again, “I'm literally holding all of the answers. All you need to do is walk back over.”

This was some kind of trick. It had to be. Shalnark wasn't forthcoming in anything and his promises meant nothing. All this was some sort of way to entrap you.

But if that was the case, then you were trapped anyway. You had no chance of being able to outrun or outsmart him. Once he caught sight of you, you were caught even before he had held you in his arms. He was letting you move around for now. If you made another break for the door, you'd be knocked out again.

Your hand released itself from the railing, and you slowly walked back to him, every step hesitant as you waited for him to pull something.

For once, Shalnark stayed true to his word as he didn't move when you got closer. He even tossed the phone over to you when you got close enough. You caught it with shaking hands, looking back up at him while he held his hands up in mock surrender.

“See? Nothing bad. I just want you to read it.”

There was no way that was all he wanted, and though it was a stupid idea to take your eyes off of him, with how insistent he was being on this you complied with his demands and looking at the article he had pulled up on his phone.

You had guessed at what he had made you do. In your time stuck in that room, running through in your head the ways that people had treated you, how they had reacted to just seeing you, and you knew that he had made you do something horrific.

But it was still hard to read those words that proclaimed you to be a murderer.

Your ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend, a woman you'd never met named Regina, had been found outside of his car, beaten to death. That same night, the house where Regina's family lived had been set on fire, her mother, father and siblings having all been trapped upstairs and succumbing to the smoke and flames. DNA evidence at both crime scenes pointed to you.

There was a photo, too. Grainy and probably taken from a surveillance camera, but the details were clear enough: you, walking outside, stone-faced and covered in blood.

“Shalnark,” you said slowly, “what did you do?”

“Me? I didn't do anything,” he said, laughing, “it's pretty clear that you're the one who killed your ex and his girlfriend in a jealous rage.”

“No,” you protested, “I-I didn't. It was you. You controlled me. Made me do it.”

“Yeah,” Shalnark admitted. He stepped towards you to take the phone back, adding “but how are you going to prove something like that in court?”

“.... Why?”

The answer to that question was obvious, but you couldn't think of anything else to say.

“Because of that thing you said: that you'd expose me to the world or something. After all we've been through, it made me really sad that you still feel like that,” he explained, “I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere with you. So I decided that some drastic measures were in order.

“You've been really desperate to get away from me, but I wondered: would you still be like that if you knew there was no chance of going back to the way things were?”

“.... What are you saying?” you asked.

“I'll let you choose,” Shalnark answered, “if you really don't want to be with me, I'll let you go. But with all of the evidence there is against you, you'll probably be looking at a life sentence in prison.”

He hummed, hand on his chin as he thought to himself.

“I don't see you doing too well in a prison, personally. And with how bad your crimes were, you'd be sent to the worst one they can find.”

“A-and if I go back with you?” you asked after a moment.

“Then we'll go back to normal!” he said cheerfully, “you'll keep living with me and loving me, and I'll keep you safe. Doesn't that sound nicer than being locked up in some prison?”

“I.....” you began, trailing off. Shalnark waited patiently for you to continue.

“I-I could run away. Go to Meteor City....?”

The sentence came out more like a question.

“You could,” said Shalnark, “but Meteor City won't take you. In fact, if you were to step one foot inside you'd be dead in an instant.”

All of this was becoming too much, and you began to hyperventilate at the thought of what he had made you do to cut off an escape to Meteor City.

“Oh, don't worry. It wasn't nearly as dramatic as the other murders; you just stabbed a guy,” Shalnark explained, “but Meteor City doesn't like it when one of theirs is killed for no reason, so if they find you, they'll retaliate in kind. You're pretty lucky the police here kept your location under wraps; I can't imagine how many attempts on your life there would have been if they'd managed to find out.

“But more importantly, what's your decision? Am I taking you back with me or are you going to reject me one final time?”

Seconds turned into minutes as the two of you stood in in that loading bay, Shalnark waiting for your answer while your brain scrambled to figure out what to do. You couldn't go back with Shalnark. Not after all he had done and all you had tried to get away from him. But he was right that you wouldn't survive in a prison. Not that you would have very long to live if you did go to one, as someone from Meteor City would be fast to find and kill you for the man you murdered.

Oh god, what were your parents going through? To have your name be blasted on the headlines as a serial killer. How many friends had they lost? How were they handling the inevitable ostracization they were going through? How many people were trying to hurt them because they couldn't get to you? And did your parents believe you had done all those things? Did they hate you? Was it the same case for your friends and other family? Or would they be able to distance themselves enough that the court of public opinion wouldn't judge them? All of that didn't even go into what you would go through if you were brought to trial. Your entire character would be picked apart and you would go down in the records as a crazed ex-girlfriend who couldn't stand the thought of the guy she liked being with another woman. And that would last until Meteor City came for you.

A potentially longer life stuck with Shalnark, or one that would definitely be much shorter as you were tried for crimes you didn't commit?

It had started to rain as the two of you stood there, and the cold rainwater ran down the slanted entrance of the loading bay and past your bare feet, making you shiver.

Then you heard police sirens in the distance.

“I think they've found out that you escaped,” said Shalnark, “it's now or never.”

You stood still, staring at him dumbly.

He hummed to himself.

“I see,” he said. Then Shalnark turned, and began to walk away.

True panic hit you at the sight of him leaving you behind. Without Shalnark, you would be at the mercy of the police. You'd be at the mercy of a whole world that thought you were a murderer and wouldn't care if you died. Shalnark at least cared a bit, in his own selfish way that didn't regard your feelings in the slightest.

If you didn't go with Shalnark, you would die.

That thought forced your legs to move you forward, and you reached out to grasp the back of his shirt in a desperate bid to keep him from leaving.

He stopped, and for a moment, the two of you stayed there like that.

Shalnark spun around suddenly, grabbing your shoulders to pull you into a kiss.

It was hard to not resist, and after a few seconds, you pushed forward to make yourself kiss him back.

He was grinning ear to ear when he pulled away.

“I knew you'd make the right choice. I knew you couldn't hate me so much to choose death over me.”

He pulled you into a hug, stroking your back as he told you “don't worry; I wouldn't have actually let you go. There's nothing in this world that could ever make me abandon you.”

You weren't sure if you should believe him or not.

“We'd better get out of here. This place'll be infested with cops pretty soon.”

You wordlessly accepted the hand he held out to you after he pulled away, and you let him lead you out into the rain and the street beyond. He immediately walked you to an awaiting taxi cab, ushering you into the back before he slid in behind you. The taxi driver didn't acknowledge when the two of you entered, and when you looked over to him, you saw a familiar-looking bat shaped needle sticking in his arm.

The car drove off with the two of you inside after Shalnark typed in a few commands on his phone, and he set it aside to focus on you.

“I didn't mention it earlier, but I actually really like that nurse look,” he said, leaning forward to pull down the sweater so he could get a better look at the nurse's dress you had stolen.

“Hmm. It's a little big on you, though,” he commented as he pulled at the fabric a bit to prove his point, “if I buy you one that fits, will you wear it for me?”

You nodded.

Shalnark, grinned, bringing you into another hug.

You wanted to push him away like you had done before, but things were different now. You had chosen to stay with him. Now you needed to accept his advances. Even though he had said that he would never abandon you, how much could you really trust him?

Shalnark speaking your name brought you out of your thoughts, and he whispered to you “if you try to escape again after this, I'll cut off your legs.”

You couldn't see his expression, but his voice was serious, and you jumped when he pulled away once more.

That smile was back on his face, and he cheerfully said “just kidding.”

#yandere #yandere hxh #yandere hunter x hunter #shalnark #yandere shalnark #shalnark x reader #yandere x reader #reader insert

620 notes · View notes

bingoluka · 3 years

Text

Need You

Summary: After a case gone wrong, and an injury left unattended, Loki realizes that even Gods need somebody.

Notes: Includes wound depiction and good ole' angst! Also a lil' Wowki but I'm a little bitch baby.

...

When he said it hurt like hell, it hurt like hell.

Each case tended to go wrong in its own unique and terrible way. Whether one of them leaves with a torn shirt and headache, or a deep gash and a broken spirit, one thing was certain; that Mobius and Loki looked out for each other.

Though, Loki would hardly admit he had grown quite fond of the man he called his partner.

Beyond that, he would hardly admit when he really, truly needed his help. He was independent, he knew this, and sometimes asking for the help or pity of another more than once seemed too much mental strain- for both him and whoever had the bad fortune of being alongside him. He hadn't realized the severity of the injury at the time, as a large piece of metal tore away at his abdomen while swimming from an impending tsunami. His magic had already begun to heal him, fixing the initial trauma while the freezing water numbed him.

He has assumed the blood in the water hadn't been his.

Now there he was, wandering aimlessly along the TVA corridors, wishing desperately he could lay his inhibitions to rest all the while sparing his friend the worry. Though, he knew it was unlikely.

The air felt cold against his skin, each step sending a fiery blast of pain across his stomach and up to his back. He grimaced. Pathetic, he thought to himself weakly. Who are you without your power?

"Loki? Loki!"

His voice sounded distant at first, so much he grew concerned he had never heard it at all. A sharp exhale left Loki's mouth as another pang sent shockwaves through his body.

"Oh no- oh no-!"

He stumbled, his legs crossing wildly over each other and he fell into the wall next to him. He began to sink to his knees, the pain becoming overpowering as he fought to stay present. How was it getting worse?

He realized then the wound no longer felt cold. It felt hot, burning as fresh blood spilled from the wound. Loki realized then how little healing had taken place.

"Loki? Hey, hey look at me."

Mobius's voice was soft, calming as it was fearful. Loki wanted to melt into the other, hide from the agony.

"I-I'm sorry," he gasped. "I thought it had healed- I thought- I thought it wasn't this bad-"

"Shh," he whispered, keeping a steady hand on Loki's back. "Loki, can you walk?"

Loki stopped for a moment, his eyes falling to the ground in shame. His breathing was already erratic, jumbling his thoughts and rationality to the point he wasn't sure of anything. He looked up at Mobius now, his eyes scanning his for a sign.

"Come on."

Loki hadn't realized how many people were there with them. Maybe it was adrenaline, or his partial loss of vision from the wound, either way, the voices began to filter in at that moment. Agents and hunters, some workers he had never seen all gathered around them. Mobius had taken one side, while a hunter had him on the other, leading him out of the hall when his body began to go limp. He fought against it, begging himself to stay upright just long enough to prove he was capable. But he wasn't, and they knew this. His knees buckled beneath him, sending both him and the other two staggering forward with an "oh-!"

He could feel them ease him to the ground, pain shooting through him again as he made contact with the floor- causing him to cry out.

"We need to address the wounds here," Mobius said, his voice sharp and heavy. "He's deteriorating, either we let him use magic or we heal him ourselves."

"We can't just let that happen, we have to be outside of the TVA," someone said. "We need to take him somewhere else."

As they spoke, others had taken to pressing against his wound to suppress the bleeding. At first, it was agony. But after a while, he felt a warmth come over his body, a peace he had never felt as the pain melted away. He knew it wasn't supposed to happen, Mobius frantically calling his name being a sure sign, but the relief was something he couldn't deny.

"Loki! Stay with us, come on-"

Before he slipped into sleep, the last thing he saw was Mobius over him, eyes wide and brimming with tears. God, he was tired. But he regretting falling asleep all the same.

...

"If I would've known he was hurt, I wouldn't have taken my eyes off him, what more is there to understand?"

Mobius looked at Renslayer for a moment. Defiance wasn't typically in his nature, though he'll admit his actions spoke otherwise. He was more a calm deviant, not driven by a harsh nature but rather a calm and collected one. She sighed, resting her pointer and thumb on the bridge of her nose.

"I know, I know. But we can't have events like that happen, Mobius. Half our team was distracted, imagine if the variant had struck then?"

"You know I respect you, Renslayer. I really do, I admire you and you know that. But this just seems wrong, he's still a person," Mobius said, frowning. "I know in the grander scheme of things we have a lot to worry about but I saw humanity out there. A collective force of good working toward an unspoken goal."

"Which is?"

"Making sure variant or not, we're taking care of each other."

...

Loki woke on the couch that night.

Wait, couch?

He had expected to still be on the floor. Though he knew Mobius would never, it wasn't out of the picture that another agent might let him stay on the ground. After all, they weren't too fond of him. He went to stretch, the sharp pains from his stomach stopping him in his tracks as he remembered why he was there.

The room was dark, dark enough that beyond his fixed point on the couch, Loki could hardly see a thing. A voice pierced the air, causing him to jump.

"Hey, how are you feeling?"

As Loki realized who it was, he sank back into the couch.

"Fine," he mumbled. Mobius raised an eyebrow.

"Really? You didn't seem too fine back there when you were bleeding out in the halls of the TVA."

"Well, I was," Loki snapped, staring up at the ceiling. He realized how foolish he sounded, but at that point, he didn't care.

"Loki, what happened on that mission?" Mobius asked gently, ignoring the other's outburst. Loki sighed a bit, trying to shift his position.

"I didn't-" he cut himself off with a wince as he moved wrong, the pain burning at first, then turning into a dull ache. Mobius looked down at him worriedly.

"I didn't think it was that bad," he said hurriedly. "I was so cold from the water I didn't feel it. I just assumed the blood hadn't been mine."

It was grim. The idea of the blood in the water was so common for that moment, so anticipated that he had nearly bled out yet speculated it was from somebody else. It brought into focus the severity of even human apocalypses.

"But the blood," Mobius said, frowning. "I should have been able to see it on your shirt when we got back. I didn't see any."

"My magic had healed it for the most part," Loki said. "Just not enough. Once I returned it must've begun to reverse."

As Loki spoke, he noticed Mobius reaching for the hem of his shirt. He quickly blocked his hand with an offended "Hey." Mobius chuckled, shaking his head.

"I'm just trying to see it, come on."

"You don't need to," Loki glared. But of course his efforts didn't deter Mobius, who kept his steady gaze.

"Loki," he said gently. "Come on, let me see."

Loki sighed, wordlessly lifting the hem of his shirt to reveal the array of wounds, accented by the much larger wound that ran across the bottom of his abdomen. He heard Mobius's breath catch.

"Geez..." He murmured, gently brushing a finger across the uninjured skin, which even then was sore.

"Why didn't you say anything?" He asked sadly. Loki cast his eyes to the side.

"An unspoken rule amongst warriors in Asgard was to each their own. It wasn't uncommon to receive wounds in battle, it was seen as noble to keep them to yourself."

"Well, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard," Mobius said with raised eyebrows. He added a hasty, "No offense."

"No, I agree. They were all morons," he said lightheartedly.

Mobius laughed now, bowing his head as he did so. Loki smiled a bit, still somewhat troubled by the pain but not enough to mention it.

"This is your apartment, then?" He said, trying to initiate conversation so Mobius wouldn't see as he began to sit up.

"Hey, not so fast," Mobius said, placing a hand on the small of Loki's back. "Your powers may be back, but you have a ways to go."

"I'm alright, really."

"I'm beginning to think that phrase holds less ethos each time I hear it."

Loki huffed, barely managing to sit all the way up. He looked around the room as his eyes adjusted. It was a small apartment, most of his items being placed in the living area. Books, dusty empty bottles, wooden furniture accented with water stains and loose change. The carpet was plush, he noticed, like something you would see from the nineties. It was all very cozy and welcoming.

"Sorry about the mess," he said, assuming that's what Loki had been looking at. "I didn't really have time to clean."

"Mess?" Loki frowned. "Mobius, you bring me into your home and you really assume I'm going to judge the state of it?"

"Well, to be fair, I don't get a lot of visitors," he smiled. "Now you need some rest, alright?"

If Loki had just an ounce more strength, he would've shot back some snarky response. This time, however, he found himself too tired to think of one, so instead, he flashed a quick smile.

"I'll be here if you need me."

If you need me.

Loki pondered on the words for a while. Maybe it was the way he said it, or the weariness finally catching up with him. Before he never would have admitted he need someone, much less someone with no relation to him. But in that darkened room he gathered he had a change of heart. As he felt himself slowly fading into the warm embrace of sleep, he felt a hand run across his head, gently brushing his unkempt hair back in a stroking motion. He wanted to open his eyes, to see Mobius, but he stayed still just long enough to hear the words,

"Glad you're alright, Lokes."

Before contently falling asleep.

#self indulgent fic #loki #loki series #loki show #angst #loki angst #wowki #lokius #wowki fluff #wowki angst #i wrote this on my phone #in my notes app #hurt comfort #whump

94 notes · View notes

writingsbychlo · 3 years

Text

smoke and fire (13)

word count; 14,463

summary; in the aftermath of an unusual rescue, some big revelations come to pass.

notes; y’all are gonna hate me but love me.

warnings; descriptive gore, gun use, reference to death, violence, gang activity, reference to drug use, reference to arson, reference to house fires, main character injury.

It was a known fact that it took three whole seconds in the morning before you could process where you were, and remember anything other than your own name.

That first second was spent in a quickly disseminated state of serenity. Your head wasn’t yet hurting, and you eased back into consciousness with a slow start, the darkness surrounding you oddly reminiscent, but the chilling cold and the damp was less so.

The second was when panic rushed through your system. Your throat felt blocked as you came back to consciousness, the pain in your head came crashing back over you like a crushing tidal wave, the blood rushing on your head as coughs racked your body, trying to take a deeper breath, and panic filled you.

The third second made you roll onto your side, spluttering a little as pain throbbed behind your eyes and your head was spinning, making you feel like you were falling for just a second, before your nails were scraping at the material underneath you as you tried to sit up, everything along your body screaming out in agony and almost giving out with your weakness. It wasn’t soft cotton like your sheets, it was gritty like stone, tearing at your nails.

And then, you remembered.

You remembered exactly where you were, and what had happened, and why you were here. Well, that part was still a little fuzzy, you’d never really been given a reason. The pain in your body made sense, the dull throbbing in one eardrum more than the other and the shock of residual adrenaline left in your sore body that was beginning to make a resurgence in your fear, and you forced yourself to take a deep breath.

The familiar burn of tears in your throat as a lump formed and the stinging of salt in your eyes as they threatened to fall, and then you found the strength to sit up, to blink and clear dust-filled eyes a little more, before wiping a hand over your face to get rid of it all. There wasn’t much light where you were, but there was a clear spot of musty-yellow lighting in the centre of the room, your body curled in the corner, dumped in uncomfortable positions that made your legs ache, and there was a figure you recognised leaning over the table.

Covered in blood, frantic, brown eyes fixed on you that glittered under the low light, you swallowed thickly.

“Nice of you to join us, sleeping beauty. Think ya’ can come give me a hand over here?” Your brows furrowed, still trying to piece the puzzle together, but then there was a clicking that made you jump unnecessarily violently in fear, the memory of the last time you’d heard it flashing behind your eyes like a scene from a movie. Newt was panicked, but clearly trying to stay calm, his eyes widening just a fraction in a messaged for only you to hear, and despite the pain you felt, you forced yourself to your feet.

Your bag was weighing you down, medical supplies rattling, and you stumbled on feet that you could barely feel until your hands were braced on the edge of the table, and you could see what was going on a little better.

A gunshot victim, at least four bullet wounds, two packed with gauze that was rapidly soaking through as Newt had pressure on two others; swapping between them frantically if the pile of blood-sodden gauze on the floor was anything to go by. You assumed from the recognisable tattoo on the other half of this mans face too that he was a part of whatever gang this was, and clearly, an important member if they were willing to commit these kinds of crimes to save his life.

“You got more gauze, ‘cus I’m running out, and I could use your help getting him fixed up before we both end up looking like him.”

His words were low and whispered, and you gaped as you stared at the man. “This guy needs a hospital, and a team of professional medical surgeons. Like, Derek! Or, Dr Lahey! We aren’t trained for this!”

“Yeah, well, we’re all he's got.” Newt huffed, a spit of blood leaving the unnamed man’s body between Newt’s gloved fingers as he tried to shift his weight, a whispered curse from his lips as he tried to stop the flow again.

You nodded, swallowing thickly and squeezing your eyes shut in a desperate attempt to quell the pain bouncing around the inside of your skull. You assessment the scene, noting the Newt really hadn't been able to do much, and thankfully, if the change in the daylight outside was anything to go by then you had only been out for an hour or so, maybe a little longer, light still coming in between the cracks in the boarded-up windows.

The man in the corner was slumped in his chair, gun sitting beside him on the table, and your heart was racing so fast that the headache you sported was only getting worse. Your voice felt raw and hoarse as you tried to speak on it, squeaking and cracking the first time you tried to speak in anything above a whisper.

“We’re gonna’ need some water over here, boiled if you can to stop an infection, but even just bottled water would do at this point.” The man sitting on the chair stopped his rocking, the groaning of the seat against the concrete pausing, and you jumped as the front two legs slammed back down onto the floor. He stared at you for a moment, analysing you, before giving in, wandering over to the door and undoing a heavy deadbolt to open it up, never turning his back to the two of you and keeping his gaze locked with yours before throwing a demand for bottled water over his shoulder.

There was scuffling, various sounds of movement on the other side and you assumed there would be multiple people, before the door was closing once again, and the grating sound of metal was making itself knowing again in such a piercing scream along the lock that you shivered, wincing at the chill it gave you, stomach twisting.

“All right, this is a fucking mess.”

“You don’t say, love.” Newt grunted, a soft laugh falling from him as you opened up your bag, hands shaking as you tore it roughly, the zip ricocheting along its tracks to expose the contents to you. A fresh pair of gloves, and two of the strongest painkillers you could find that you forced yourself to choke down dry, and then you were attempting to focus.

Your scissors came first, chopping around Newt’s hands as best you could to remove the sodden clothing that covered his body to expose blood-smeared and frayed skin, torn from bullet wounds and bruised from the bleeding under the skin. Pushing the fabric aside, Newt pressed down a piece of gauze that was turning redder from pink by the moment, no white left on it, and the colour of his skin was beginning to turn sickly pale.

Grabbing for your flashlight, you noticed it was gone, left nowhere on your bag and missing from your person, patting down every pocket, before your partner simply huffed. “I wanted to do a trauma exam, except my torch is on my keys, too, and they took those a while ago because they have things that could be used as a weapon on them.”

“What, like my star-shaped plushie keyring?”

“Apparently.” You rolled your eyes, reaching a hand up to the lamp overhead, and tapping your fingers against the metal, hissing at the heat building up along the cover of the lamp, but deciding it would have to do. It wasn’t ideal, and it wouldn't give results all that accurate, but if there wasn’t any functioning or reaction at all, then there was no point in doing this at all, because the bleeding in his torso wouldn’t be the bleeding that would kill him.

Grabbing onto the stem instead, you covered his eyes with one hand, adjusting the lamp to sit a little differently, holding it over his head. Moving your hand back quickly, you lifted his eyelid, his pupil sluggish in his movements, but there was definitely a reaction, and you let out a little breath of relief. One more thing you could deal with. Checking the other eye, just to be certain, you got much the same reaction, not a speed you were overall happy with, but certainly better than nothing. This guy really had seen the worst of it, there was swelling along his jaw, cut and battered, a blackish bruise forming above his cheekbone and burst blood vessels in the same eye, and that was just his face.

He was coated in blood, and you couldn't tell whether it was his or someone else’s, some dried and other patches still oozing, body marred with bruises and cuts, both old and fresh, most of which were unrelated to the gunshot wounds he had. A fist came banging on the door, just in time, water bottles being handed through when it was cracked open a fraction, and there was only six of them by your count, eyes flittering over the sealed packets of water that hadn't even been opened, and you’d have to stretch it to make it last.

“How’s your leg?”

“Better than this guy, he has a bullet in his thigh.” The joke was to brush off his own pain, but for the past couple of minutes, he’d been shuffling his weight from one foot to another, and you glanced around, noting the box that was sitting only a few feet away. The unidentified man set to guard the two of you was coming over, the door sealed up tight once again and the packet of water in his hands.

“Can you put them down on the box? We could use the extra surface?”

He paused, glancing at it, considering the request, before agreeing. Silently, albeit, he accepted your request, dropping the bottles down onto it and kicking the crate across the floor to you, wooden container scraping over the stonework and bumping against your leg roughly, and you tried not to glare at him as your leg buckled.

A coppery taste filled your mouth as you licked over your bottom lip, wincing at the slight pain of the cut, swollen and sore, but not as much as the pain along your forehead, a cut you assumed you gained on the drive here. “So, first up, we need to try and stitch up those holes.”

“If I let go of these cuts, he’ll lose a lot of blood.”

“I know. We can work fast, but I need you to do the stitching, because I’m not sure I’m up to it right now.” You held your hands up, the uncontrollable trembling taking you over was far too violent to be able to do sutures, but you could definitely hold down pressure. Newt nodded, your hands closing over his, the squeeze of cold blood between your fingers from the gauze making you gag slightly, choking down that feeling of nausea.

His hands slipped out from underneath your own, and you pressed down the second they were gone, the man underneath you groaning under his breath as he constantly walked the border between conscious and unconscious. As you held down, Newt reached across his body, snatching up the first of the water bottles. Unscrewing the lid and placing it down, he left the cap beside it, before he was shuffling through his bag.

Pulling out the kit with needles and thread in, your emergency stitches kit that you’d ever actually to use in the field, and you were having flashbacks and pinpricks of pain along the tips of your fingers as you remembered practising the stitches in the academy, constantly poking your fingers with the metal thread.

The strongest antiseptic followed, dark brown liquid in a half-empty container sloshing against the sides, and it dripped across the edges, spilling a little in his haste, before he was diluting it in the first bottle. Lid back on, shaking it to mix, the once drinkable water turned a murky brown colour, and your eyes were stinging a little front he still open bottle letting strong fumes out into the air.

“I’m thinking chest, stomach, stomach, thigh.”

“Should probably elevate his legs if you wanna’ go thigh last, it’s pretty close to his femoral.” Newt nodded, glancing around, before realising there wasn’t much for the two of you to work with.

“Alright, chest, thigh, stomach?”

“I guess.” You mumbled, none of the odds being in either of your favours, and you watched as your partner pressed his fingers down against the pulse in the man’s neck, frowning at what he found and holding the position down for longer than what was good, the results silently given to you simply by the actions. “Do you need me to push the cut shut so you can stitch?”

“I do, but if you let go of those other ones, he’ll bleed out.”

You gnawed a little on your lower lip, fear and panic building once again, because every slip this man made closer to death, he was dragging both you and Newt with him. The words hadn't been specifically spoken, nothing was clear, but you could read between the lines, and if this man didn’t survive the day, then neither would you and Newt.

You didn’t know what had happened to him, you didn’t want to. Whatever kind of illegal activities, gang territory fight or simply men wreaking havoc upon one another had caused this, you wanted no more part of it than keeping him alive long enough to hope that you and your friend might get out of this situation. The hand under your heart thudded a little more violently as he surfaced back into total consciousness once again, a gasping breath followed by sputtering, fresh red bubbling in his spit as he tried to clear the blood that was pooling in his throat, before an agonising sound was leaving him.

“What the hell are you doing to him?”

You jumped at the loud voice, yelling from across the room and the gun clicked again, the sound a threat that made your entire body stiffen painfully, nails digging into the mains chest as your hands tried to ball themselves into fists.

“We’re trying to save his bloody life!” Newt yelled back, and you gasped, eyes widening a little, because if the two of you had already learned anything from talking back to these people it was the risk of a ruptured eardrum and a killer headache. Clearly, this wasn’t the same man who’d taken you hostage, the rasp in his voice a little different and this man simply grunted at the pair of you disdainfully, rolling his eyes and shuffling in his seat beside the door.

“Alright, what if we use the bags for weight? It’s not ideal, but if we work quickly, I can hold one shut while the bags put some pressure on the other two, and I can hold it shut.”

The blond before you flicked his eyes over everything, fiddling with the tools as he toyed with the tweezers he had retrieved, wiping them down as best he could with some tissue dipped in the antiseptic water. “This guy is so gonna’ fucking die.” He whispered, and you couldn't help the chuckle that left you, swaying on your feet a little as you did, the rush of a chemical other than adrenaline being overwhelming.

“Well, we’re all he’s got.” You repeated his words back to him, a cheeky flash of white teeth in a smile that was gone as fast as it came, before you were shaking your head and refocusing on the task at hand, chasing away anything else you might be feeling in the moment. Daring to free one hand from his thigh, you watched the rapid spurts of blood that came free, trickling over his trousers to the table below, before you were putting your bag down on top. You couldn't see much, whether or not it was even working, but it was the best chance the two of you had.

Newt copied your action, placing his bag down over the wounds on his stomach, much like you had done, giving the two of you the chance to focus on the wound on his chest.

Taking the disinfectant from his hand and pressing down a cotton pad over the end, you soaked the small white ball in the liquid, packing it into the wound as Newt tried to clear the area to see what he was doing, but really, it was only smearing the blood around further. You could clean him up and do a better job of it later, but the first thing you needed to do was get the blood flow under control and wash off the antiseptic once it was clean.

You pinched the hole shut, temporarily stopping the floor, beads of red pooling at the corners, and Newt spilt water over the tops of your fingers, the cold feeling making you shiver, because despite the freezing temperatures in whatever kind of warehouse you are trapped inside of, the layer of clammy sweat coating your skin was hiding you from the chill. Once you could see what you were doing, Newt sighed, taking the tweezers in one hand, and nodding his head.

“Push up around the edges to stop the bullet slipping, I should be able to get it pretty quick. I was good at this part.”

“You scare me a little, why the fuck were you a bullet removal prodigy?” He shrugged, winking a little and holding the metal tongs over the wound, before nodding his head once. Slipping your fingers out of the way, you pressed down around the edges, blood spurting up again but you pressed down, stopping the bullets from shifting as Newt pushed into the man's chest through the hole already made. There was a scarcely audible sound, one deaf to the untrained ear but like sirens to a paramedic, the cling of the tips of the needle against the tip of the bullet, and newt shifted his fingers a little.

Letting the metal open back up from where he’d squeezed them closed like a bullet, the edges of the hole stretched around the expanding metal, and an intense look of concentration took over Newt’s face, not even looking at the wound but staring at the wall behind you, looking right through it as he operated purely on instinct and the touch as he felt his way through it. He let out a victorious little noise, pulling back, and as he did, he brought out the shell of a bullet, one that looked to be homemade, though that didn’t exactly surprise you, and it let out a much louder clanging as he dropped it back down onto a metal tray beside the victim’s head.

You moved instantly, the second that it was pulled back you were pushing your thumb and forefinger back up against the edges of the cut to contain the bleeding. Holding it tightly, Newt picked up the next set of his equipment, an atraumatic needle, one of ten and you hoped he was as good as he boasted being because you only had ten between you both, and you’d need two per wound with the length of these wires to seal them up tight enough.

You watched, carefully, as Newt threaded the first of the holes through the wound, pulling it out of the other side with the tweezers, and beginning to tie a series of surgical knots to keep them closed. He gave it a test tug, the skin pulling as he did, but it didn’t rip or tear, neither the wire nor the flesh, a solid base with which he could work. Beginning to sow him up further, Newt moved in steady motions, each gap only two millimetres apart at the maximum, pulling them tightly enough to stop the blood flow and allow tissue repair to began, but not enough that it would tear at the inevitable strain it would undergo when it was done up.

As soon as she was halfway through, attaching a new thread to continue with, and the wound was getting closer to being shut, allowing you to move your fingers out of his way, a slight breath escaping you as your breathing hitched each time the needle or thread came too close to you, because the last thing you needed right now was to get an infection from someone else’s blood and a dingy warehouse, or to lose time on this man’s life by having to start disinfecting everything all over again.

As he sealed it up, he pulled all of the threads a little tighter, working his way along to make sure the thread was evenly distributed, before fastening up the thread. He pulled back, the both of you waiting with bated breath to see whether blood would come free or whether they would bust open once your fingers moved, and while they pulled tautly, they never broke or tore.

You flooded with relief, Newt letting out a mix between a chuckle and a sigh, relief overlaying it all, and you took just a second of reprieve to know that you were just one step closer to this all being over. Opening your mouth, you weren’t sure what was coming, words of gratitude and accomplishment sitting on your tongue, aimed at any kind of higher power that might be watching over the two of you right now, but your partner beat you to it.;

“Let’s check the bag wounds.”

You nodded your head, swallowing back whatever you were going to say, beginning to feel a little dizzy as your head spun, and you squeezed your eyes shut for a second, containing the way you were feeling. Lifting away the bag that was sitting over his thigh, you were both surprised and impressed that the bag method had held reasonably well. There was more blood than there would be if you’d held it yourself, but you could work with what you had, and as your eyes flicked to where Newt was checking his stomach, you found similar results. Your gut was twisting again, bile rising in your throat at the sight of the blood in various places, an unusual phenomenon as blood had never bothered you before, and you turned away, gagging as vomit threatened to make itself known, and you tried not to clap a blood-soaked hand over your mouth, the thought only sickening you further.

“Woah, you alright?” You gagged, dry heaving a few more times as you tried to keep back the vomit that was on the verge of making itself known, tears lining your eyes and heat flooding over your cheeks as everything within you threatened to let go, but you managed to keep a lid on it. “The fuck was that?”

“I don’t know. I’m fine. Just aftershock, I think. Hunger, too, maybe, been a long time since I had anything real to eat, I think my body is just all fucked up right now.” His eyes narrowed on you, but he nodded, accepting the answer because the two of you needed to focus on things that were more important.

Once you had suppressed your nausea, you were picking the scissors back up, Newt resetting and disinfecting the equipment once again as you cut away at a patch of the ruined jeans the man was wearing. The denim was stiff while wet, and you struggled to cut it, your fingers aching as the metal of the handles pressed into the edges of your fingers, and you released a breath as you were holding as it was finished. Wiping down the area and packing the hole with disinfectant to make sure it was clean.

The procedure between the two of you started up again, only a second later you were pinching the wound shut, waiting for Newt to extract the bullet before moving to knot the thread and begin to fasten the stitches. It felt like time was coming to a stop while also speeding along, your fingers moving to the pulse point on his neck to monitor how it was going, counting the beats you could feel and trying to remember how light it felt so each period check would reveal whether it grew stronger or weaker.

You felt like the clock was ticking by too fast, every time you glanced up to the musty glass barrier hanging over the door seemed like it was spinning by at double speed, the hand constantly moving in starling jumps around the clock, the shadows in the room growing more pronounced and sharp as the sun moved across the sky, the light becoming duller as the one hanging over you both seemed to become brighter, and you watched Newt work.

As a team, you stitched him up, making sure that each wound was sealed up tightly and that they wouldn't burst, the pair of you physically exhausted. You could see the ache in Newt’s leg, he’d given up on even trying to hide it a while ago, as the two of you had moved onto the third bullet hole, all of his weight sitting on his good leg as he balanced barely anything on the bad one. Four bullets were sitting in a row, lined up neatly beside his head, and you let out a sigh, scrubbing over his skin carefully to wipe up the traces of blood.

Once he’d been stable enough, you checked his vision again, his reaction times having increased by a fraction of a second, but it was enough to mark an improvement, and his pulse was picking up with both strength and speed. You could see the bruises and cuts along his skin more clearly once you’d wiped him down of excess blood, littered with marks that would fade, only the bullet holes to turn pinkish-purple with scar tissue eventually, to join all of the other battle wounds along his flesh. Various tattoos to match the symbols on his face were across his body, and you made sure to treat every single cut, not wanting to leave anything up to chance, your body screaming out in protest as your adrenaline died down, and exhaustion was crawling in.

You were overwhelmed, tears building in your eyes, and Newt mentioned nothing as a few fell free, because you were sure that at some point - perhaps before you’d surfaced back to consciousness all that time ago - that he would have done the same. The situation was terrifying and you were struggling to process it all, every thought you had was like a swirling hurricane, melded with every other thought and emotion you were feeling, leaving you hopeless to process your thoughts but just lay rampant to them.

Anxiety was spiking through your system, choking it down by focusing on the methodical cleaning of the man, but eventually, there was nothing left to do. Fresh gauze and bandages were stark in comparison to his sickly-coloured skin, wrapped neatly and tightly and finally staying crisp and clean as you had everything under control, and your legs were threatening to buckle. You packed away slowly, stepping back from the table, and removing your gloves to join the scattered piles of medical waste that covered the floor and the edges of the workspace.

Newt didn’t even bother to put things back properly, to look after the equipment, he simply dropped it all inside, doing the zip up enough to hold it shut, before it was dangling from his fingers by the straps, and you followed suit.

Noting the movements, the man in the chair stood, his movements slightly wobbly from how long he’d been sat down, and you realised how long must have passed. As he approached, he kicked one of the empty bottles aside, all six used to the last drop for cleaning and disinfecting, and he pulled the gun from his waistband, making sure his finger was over the trigger in case either you or Newt made an attempt to pull something.

Not that you had any chance, there was a pile of everything that could possibly be used as a weapon over on the table beside where he had been guarding.

“He’ll live?”

You raised your hands, folding them behind your head in a symbol of your cooperation as he turned to you, and you tried not to sway too much in your weakness, simply nodding your head to him, and swallowing thickly. “He’ll need to keep those wounds clean, you can take the stitches out in about a month, or longer, wait until they start to form flesh for a scar but take them out before the skin gets too puffy.”

He nodded his head before lifting the gun up a little higher, motioning to the bag you held, and you trembled, his finger flexing a little on the trigger. “Whatever we’re going to need to keep it clean. Get it out. Put it on the table here, and then walk over to the wall until your back is pressed to it.”

You lifted the bag slowly, the dragging of the zip over the metal was all that field the room, tense silence taking over before you were reaching inside, daring to take your eyes off of the man and quell your fear to be able to reach inside. Pulling out both the diluted and undiluted bottles, you hoped he didn’t notice the lack of canister spray you’d left at the scene, your mind suddenly becoming aware of the life you’d left hanging in the balance, and wondering whether he’d survived.

By now, the shift at the firehouse would have been over, and you did not doubt that a missing persons case would have been filed for you and Newt, the abandoned ambulance after over an hour of no check-in would lead them to know something had happened, but you didn’t know how long it would take to find you, or if they even could.

Placing the bottles, spare bandages and wraps, as well as some painkillers down on the table, you stepped back, fastening your bag up.

“He’ll be in a fair amount of pain for a while, they should last two weeks, he can’t take any more than two a day, or else he’ll OD.”

The man nodded, motioning backwards toward the shadowed walls, and you stepped back slowly, Newt following when his command was given, and his hands were held up into the air too, both of you proceeding with caution.

While one danger had dissipated, another was making itself known, the purpose of being brought here was over, you and Newt had served your purpose, and if the man asking for supplies and advice was anything to go on, it meant that either they planned to let you go or planned to kill you, because you clearly wouldn't be sticking around to follow through on a treatment plan.

Once your back hit the wall, you stilled, Newt coming to stand beside you. The door was unlocked, several more men coming in, and the four of them all lifted their comrade carefully, carrying him out, and the door slammed shut behind them, leaving you both in cold silence. This area of the room seemed even colder than that of your impromptu operating theatre had, the shadows creating a drop in temperature, but you were simply too tired to care anymore.

Your head was still throbbing, your eyes felt heavy each time you tried to hold them open, the adrenaline and fear in the situation had been all that had helped to even keep you awake, and you rolled your head from side to side, trying to ease the pain in your neck.

Newt followed beside you, your legs pulled up before you as his stretched out, your bags abandoned together between your bodies, and your head came to rest on his shoulder, a heavy sigh let out.

“I think you have a concussion.”

You chuckled, but it was dry and humourless, simply a sound made to fill the silence and bush him off, but he wasn’t accepting that answer. His hand closed over yours, lacing your fingers together comfortingly and squeezing tightly, and you did your best to squeeze him back just as firmly. “I don’t have a concussion, I just have a headache.”

“Yeah.” He hummed, and you thought for a second, you may actually have won an argument with him. “But you also have nausea, you passed out, you’re a little confused, you’re weak on your feet and you can barely stand up straight.”

“It’s a-”

“You say aftershock and I’ll slap you.” He teased, a genuine laugh leaving you this time, and your shoulders rose and fell with a shrug. “When we get out of here, w-”

“If.”

“When we get out of here,” His voice was a little firmer, commanding you to have as much faith as he did, “Will you please just get it checked out? Just to make me feel better.”

You sighed, rolling your eyes behind closed lids, and groaning when he jostled his shoulder to wake you back up to the fullest alertness you could muster. “Fine! Fine, when we get out of here, I’ll get it checked out.”

Silence encased you both, darkness taking over, and the man who’d been tasked with guarding you both returned, taking his seat again and setting up to play on his phone from the second that he was comfortable, and you waited. He said nothing, not noticing the stare both you and Newt had fixed on him, your heart sinking as he remained quiet. The longer his lack of information dragged on, the more you felt doom beginning to sweep over.

The fact that he had nothing to say to you both screamed volumes into the void. There were no threats to keep your mouths shut, or looming promises of what would happen if you exposed the group’s location, or even any information on when you’d be leaving, and it seemed that they had no intention to let you go at all.

As you wiggled a little against the concrete, butt becoming numb from the stone underneath you, your legs stretched out to match your partners, and your eyes closed. You were fading away again, drifting towards sleep as it called out to you, the spinning of the room, the dizziness that was bordering on vertigo and the nausea with the headache, it all seemed to lessen as you slipped from consciousness.

Newt was talking to you, forcing you to stay just enough awake that you didn’t drift completely, but you weren’t processing what he was saying, the words just becoming background noise that disturbed you from being able to slumber, but you suspected that was the whole point. He wasn’t talking about anything important, he was telling you his mother’s recipes and the time he once went to buy new work shoes but almost walked out of the store while wearing an un-purchased pair because he was so tired from a double shift.

You missed the banging in the other rooms, you missed the actions taking place, barely roused by the sudden shaking your body felt, and you only snapped back to consciousness when you felt hands on your body. You kicked roughly, Newt barely avoiding the blow as all the pain you’d felt came flooding back over you in shockwaves, making you shudder violently at the surge of pain and nausea, before you were blinking at the dull lighting in the room.

“Stick with me, love. Tommy would kill me if we had to take you to the hospital after the final hurdle because I couldn’t keep you awake.”

“Oh, shut up.” Your words were slurred, and you shook your head, eyes squeezing closed at the throbbing taking place behind them. “You’d love that, I’m surprised you haven’t sacrificed me for a trip to the ER yet, anything to see Dr Derek in his lab coat, right?”

Pink flushed his cheeks, his eyes flickering over to the door, and he leaned in a little, hugging you tightly and shaking you enough to jolt energy through your body, a groan on your lips as he did. “Something is going on outside, and I never pass up a chance for an I-told-you-so!”

“A what?” You questioned, confusion still washing over you, but you never got a chance for an answer. The sound of a bullet pinging against metal was so sharp that it left another ringing in your ears as you cupped your hands over the sides of your head just a second too late. Newt did the same, falling away from shock with a grunt, and the man beside the door was in a little more agony at his close proximity to the sound.

You blinked blurry vision clear, watching smoke curl up from the lock, before the heavy metal door was falling open. It was a uniform you recognised, one of the police members you’d already seen much of over the last few cases, your brows raising a little as you watched them enter. You kept your hands over your ears, at least two more shots reverberating through the air and you felt them more than you heard them, body feeling the impact and breath feeling knocked from your lungs at the vibrations over the airwaves.

It was all like a dream, detached from reality as you were pulled to your feet by an officer, Newt’s hand dropping away from yours and you stumbled, feelings as though your movements weren’t your own. As you were guided through the halls, you tried to remember some of it, any of it, but everything you saw and heard seemed to be going in one ear and out the other.

Flashing blue lights outside with wailing sirens signalled the police cars, and several men around you were all being arrested, pinned down face first and snarling as they were cuffed, but you didn’t have enough energy to feel intimidated right now.

The fresh air was a shock, like plunging into water below the freezing point, and you took a sudden and gasping inhale, coming to a full stop, and everything out of focus suddenly went into overdrive. As you stepped out of the building the haze seemed to drop away, and you took another lungful of the air, panting breaths as you tried to fill your lungs with the source of oxygen, a panic attack building as you finally let everything cup back through, and gentle hands were guiding you to an ambulance.

You recognised the paramedics waiting inside, they were friendly as they greeted you by name and you recognised them from another case, perhaps the one on the bridge or at the chemical plant, you weren’t too sure, but it didn’t matter. An oxygen mask was placed over your face, fresh breaths of air racing through your lungs on a steady distribution that forced your breathing to even out, and you were grateful for it, not wanting to break down until you were curled up in your own bed tonight.

You winced at the flashlight that flickered over your eyes, stars in your eyes flashing for a second as you blinked to clear them, and while the paramedic around you shuffled within their own devices, you shifted yourself slightly on the stretcher, turning to stare out at the collections of cars instead, trying to see more than just the inside of the ambulance.

You searched for Newt, unable to find his blond hair for a good few minutes, before finally, you spotted him. Messy mop head in a far corner, beside a collection of cars that didn't belong to the public services, but instead to the members of the public services.

He was wrapped up tightly in his best friend's arms, Thomas patting his back comfortingly, as Minho all but bounced with excitement at his side. Brenda was leaning on her car, and Gally was standing beside them, hands tucked into the pocket of his hoodie. They were all in casual clothing, clearly having changed since the end of their shift had rocked around so long ago, the night sky closing in overhead as the day was being chased away, and you took another deep breath through the mask, smiling again.

Just the sight of your team was reassuring, to know they’d found you, they’d come to collect you, to make sure you were okay, and your heart thumped steadily and surely in confirmation that you needed their comfort right now. They were talking, Newt using a lot of hand gestures and while you couldn't tell much about their features, you knew they’d all be flickering from amusement to confusion to horror. Newt was quite the storyteller, at any time, no matter the trauma.

They turned, Newt pointing over to the ambulance you were within, and you raised a hand to wave to your friend as you watched all of their attentions move to you, before the paramedic before you was summoning your attention once again. You turned to her, the call of your name snapping you to the moment, and as much as you didn't want to look away from them all, you knew you’d be reunited with them soon enough.

“Well, you definitely have a concussion.” She confirmed, and you pouted, taking a final deep breath from the oxygen mask, and then taking it off.

“Newt is going to live for the ‘I-told-you-so’.” You scowled, and she seemed to come into more focus within your memory now. You remembered her, she had been there at the chemical plant, she’d been new at the time, a trainee, fresh out of the academy and on one of her first cases, and you’d tried to comfort her about the card system, making sure to navigate as many red cards away from her as you could to make a hard day just a little easier.

She grinned, handing you a plastic cup with some tablets inside, and a bottle of water, with the lid already unscrewed. “I’ll spare you the medical analysis, I’m sure you know what to do.” You only nodded, taking both from her gratefully and tipping the pills onto your tongue, before following them with a gulp of water, and taking them down eagerly. “Two painkillers to keep the headaches and muscle soreness at bay, as well as the nausea.”

“As much as I’d love to chat, I’m going to have to rain-check. Am I good to go? I’m desperate to just get home.”

She chuckled, nodding, and you stood up, still feeling a little unsteady and lightheaded, but it was beginning to get easier. Giving her a final thanks, and climbing down from the van, you closed the doors up for her, banging on the back when they were sealed up, and she gave a thumbs up from inside of the window, before sorting everything out and preparing for their journey back.

Turning around, there was a body directly behind you, and you cursed loudly while jumping, eyes trailing up from a familiar chest to his face and raising a brow as warm honey-coloured eyes stared at you. “Fuck, Tommy, hasn’t anyone ever told you not to sneak up on someone who’d been freshly rescued after an abduction? We tend to be jumpy.”

He grinned, shaking his head a little at your words, before your own smile was following. His hands came up, cupping your cheeks, and you leaned into the warmth that his palms brought over the cold skin of your face, sagging a little at his touch. “I have a lot of questions, but the main one is; are you okay? I just need to know you’re alright, and everything else can wait.”

“I’m okay, Tommy, I promise. A little battered and bruised, but hey, what’s new?” He rolled his eyes softly, a yawn following on your lips as you covered it, not missing the fond look he held as he continued to stare, eyes sweeping over your features. You waited for a second longer, before nudging one of your feet forward to bump your toes against his, your brows raising a little. “What’s wrong?”

“I was just really fucking worried about you.” He whispered, eyes dropping down a little, fixing on your lips, and licked over his own. His hands fell further down, sitting over your jaw and he dragged a thumb across your lips a little, your mouth pouting instinctually as he did, and his lips flicked up at the edges, never taking his gaze from where his finger was resting. “Chasing after you is like being on a damn rollercoaster.”

“How’s that?” You mumbled, breath clouding in the cold air slightly but the words were whispered, and his lashes tickled against your cheek as he shifted to bump his nose against yours, dragging them together slowly, his lips pressing to his own finger on the other side.

“Exciting, addictive, a total rush, but a little scary right at the big drop.”

You brought a hand up, sitting over his cheek, his head tipping into your hand, and his thumb slipped away, leaving nothing between you to stop you from being able to taste the overly sweetened coffee on his breath that he drank whenever he got worried. “Don’t kiss me yet.”

“Why not? It’s me and you, and now I know you’re okay, and I just really want to.” He teased you, pushing in enough to trace his lips very gently against your own, sparks of electricity shooting along you at the fleeting brush that you could still feel but wasn’t enough to be a kiss, but already left you wanting more. “If you don’t give me a reason soon, I’m gonna’ kiss you breathless, and they’ll need to put you back on that oxygen mask.”

You let out a soft breath, an airy laugh, before finding the strength to pull back by a fraction. “I have a concussion.”

He snapped back, eyes wide and brows furrowing so tightly you thought he'd get permanent perry lines, his jaw dropping in disbelief. “You said you were fine! You little liar!”

“I am fine!” You took his hands, pulling them away from your face and weaving your fingers with his on both sides, before rocking up on your tiptoes, and pressing your lips to his lower cheek, hearing him whine a little at the near-miss kiss. “I’m just a little woozy, and tired, and shaken up.”

“You promise that’s all?”

“I swear.” You offered, and he smiled, leaning in to press a kiss to your own cheek in return as he respected your boundaries. “If you can set rules for our first kiss, then so can I. I want to be at my peak when we do, I don’t want anything to spoil it, I want to remember it perfectly, and not have such a killer headache, preferably.”

“I can live with that. We’ll wait. For now.” You nodded your head, foreheads resting together once again, and your eyes closed, simply soaking in how it felt to be surrounded by him, before a loud and exaggerated clearing of the throat was breaking you apart, and Brenda stood with her hands on her hips, a wicked smirk on her face as she stared at you both.

“Do we get any greetings, or do we not matter anymore? Because I was kinda’ worried about you too.”

You grinned, the woman who you were proud to call your best friend was holding her arms out for you, and you dropped Thomas’ hands, feeling him let you go and step back just as quickly now that everyone else had come over, and you wrapped her up in your arms as she squeezed you tightly, rocking you from side to side. Another pair of arms wrapped around you, and you grinned as the familiar smell of your partner’s aftershave overwhelmed your senses, the man clinging to you from the back as he wrapped his arms around the both of you.

Minho followed, a wicked grin on his face as he draped himself across Brenda’s back, squeezing all of you even tighter, and Thomas followed beside Newt, Gally and Fry coming next, until you couldn’t see out past the mass of bodies that had joined, feeling as though you were in the middle of a rugby scrummage and you could barely breathe, the laughter you were letting out doing nothing to help.

Eventually, Brenda was elbowing the men back, letting you slip free when they all backed away, and you missed all of their body heats, wrapping your arms a little tighter around yourself to keep warm All you had was the thin material of your uniform shirt, soaked in blood and clammy sweat, as well as various medicines and chemicals, with a vest underneath. It was doing little against the cold of the night closing in, twilight well past as stars started to make themselves known.

You shivered, rubbing your hands up and down your arms, wondering how Newt wasn’t feeling the cold, but he was excitedly retelling the tale already of the surgery the two of you had been forced to perform, a story that would last him for ages, no doubt, but it was his way of processing the trauma; to turn it into something he was proud to remember instead of something he was scared to think about, something that made him feel bold instead of terrified, and you wanted to support that, so you kept your mouth shut.

Stepping back over to Thomas, his gaze left his best friend, flicking down to you, his hands tucked into the front pocket of his hoodie, and raising a brow when you tugged his arm out of his pocket. He let you, his arm limp in your hold as he let you guide him, a soft pink flushing his cheeks as you tucked yourself under his arm, your cheek moving to rest on his shoulder, your hands tucking into his pocket and one set of fingers weaving with the fingers of his that were still inside. He leaned down, pressing a kiss to the top of your head, before turning to look up at him as his arm squeezed around you a little more tightly.

There was a grin on his face, one with a hidden meaning as he bit at the inside of his cheek to contain it. “You know, Newt is gonna’ give us shit for cuddling.” His fingers were moving over your back in slow patterns, large palm rubbing slowly and transferring warmth back to you where you were chilled to the bone.

“I don’t care. I’m fucking cold, and you’re nice and warm.” You moved, face pressing into him a little further, the rest of your words becoming muffled, and he chuckled.

“Well, in that case,” He simply rested his chin on the top of your head, freeing up his other arm to hold you more securely, and letting out a slow breath that became a slight yelp as you pressed cold hands under the edge of his hoodie to sit on warm skin, grinning cheekily at the scowl that formed as you did. “Is any of the story Newt is telling actually true?”

“Surprisingly, most of it.”

“Well, which p-” He was cut off, the gruff clearing of a throat making him fall silent, and you pulled back, slightly embarrassed as heat made itself known along your cheeks when you found the police officer to be looking for you, the rest of the squad falling silent too and all turning to look at you, following the officer’s gaze, and you untangled yourself from Thomas.

“Sorry to interrupt you all. I just need your statement, ma’am, it’ll only take a moment.”

“You haven’t given your statement yet?” Newt quizzed, clicking his tongue in a tutting fashion, and you stuck your tongue out a little bit at him.

“You still haven’t been checked out by a paramedic yet?” You mocked, his amused face falling as he mock-glared at you, Minho pinching his arm as he tried to insist he was perfectly fine, his friend telling him otherwise.

“I’ll meet you over by that car in a moment, it’ll only take a few minutes to get your statement.” You nodded, the policeman giving you a polite smile, before tapping his pen against the pad in his hand and wandering away to the vehicle.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Lips brushed against your ear, making you jump a little, and you turned back to face the man behind you, your lieutenant standing back up to his full height as you did, and raising his brows.

“No, I want you to take Newt over to an ambulance and force him to get a check-up. He’s more than happy to diagnose me, but he won’t do a self-diagnosis.” Thomas laughed, a hearty and full sound, and you assumed there were memories flashing behind his eyes of a childhood full of similar circumstances. “I’ll come and meet you over by the cars afterwards. I’m going to need a lift home, y’know..”

His hand came up, tucking away stray hairs behind your ear, and nodding his head. “I was already planning on that, don’t worry.” You smiled, head ducking a little, and you tensed up a little at the clenching in your gut again, fearing it was another bout of nausea rising, but instead, your stomach rumbled, loudly. There was a snicker, hidden in your hairline, and your lips pursed, a shy feeling growing within you once again. “I’ll take you to get some food, too.”

“Shut up.” You mumbled, a finger hooking under your chin, pulling your face up, and there was a smirk there that only made you flush further. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like you’re adorable? Because, you are.” You scowled, blush only growing stronger, and he smoothed a thumb over your cheek as did, glancing away over your shoulder for a second. “Go give your statement, I’ll wrestle Newt into an ambulance.”

“Mhm, ‘kay.” You twisted your head, nuzzling a little into his palm for a second, before pulling it away from your face and squeezing his hand. “I want McNuggets. McDonald’s drive-thru.”

“Whatever you want, angel.”

You raised a brow, hand smoothing down over his chest to sit just above his stomach, and his eyes dropped, following your hand, a slightly more vulnerable look on his face when he turned back to you; wide eyes, swallowing thickly. “Whatever I want?”

“Anything.”

You tugged on the front of his clothing. “Can I wear your hoodie?”

He froze for a second, before a rush of a breath was leaving him like a punch, and he smiled, reaching behind his head with one hand and tugging it up, stripping the garment off and shucking it down his arm, the long-sleeved shirt underneath rising up a bit as he did, and you forced your eyes away from the happy trail revealed or the flex of his biceps, taking the warm garment from him. He held it out, soft green material looking warm and inviting, flooded with his body heat and the smell of him, your fingers twitching to take it.

Undoing the buttons on the front of your shirt, you cursed under your breath at the cold while taking it off, just a tank top left underneath, before taking the hoodie. It caught on your ponytail, Thomas helping you to adjust it over your head before taking the ruining uniform from you and draping it over his arm like a waiter’s towel, nodding his hair and lifting your hair free from the collar.

He leaned in, lips pressing to your forehead, a soft kiss given to you, before he was pushing you backwards. “Go. Go give your statement, the sooner it’s over, the sooner we get you those nuggets. I’ll meet you at the cars.” Tucking your hands into warm pockets, you wandered away, bumping your hip against Brenda’s as you did and she stumbled a little from where she’d been balancing mid-yawn, flipping you off as you laughed while walking away, and making your way over to the officer.

He stood up straighter from where he’d been leaning against his car as you approached, offering you his hand and introducing himself politely, and you freed up a hand to shake, giving him your name for the record, before your hands were once again clenched with the oversized hoodie’s pockets.

It was a simple case, there wasn’t much to tell. In all honestly, you didn’t know much. You wouldn't be much help, you’d been unconscious for the first half of the journey and in the midst of your concussion symptoms the second time, and you’d never seen the man pull up. You did tell him what you could, about the unusual call, you and Newt splitting up to check the area, before finding the man under the bridge. You tried your best to patch him up, before the two of you had been taken at gunpoint, and you’d lost consciousness when you’d been put in the car.

You asked about the fate of the man under the bridge, your heart sinking a little at the answer you got. He hadn't made it, he’d tried to use the equipment you’d left him but had passed away before the hour mark had passed, and you gripped onto yourself tightly to contain how you felt. He attempted to comfort you about it, to tell you that it was the gang activity you and Newt had speculated it to be, and that the man who’d been stabbed was a criminal, but it did little to ease your suffering.

You were a big believer in second chances; if you didn’t you wouldn't be in the place you were now, with the family you’d found.

Once he had you sign off on the confidentiality forms and disclosures, your name signed next to Newt’s chicken scratch signature, you were free to go, more than ready to just go home. Everything ached, you were still sore and covered with pain, your muscles all tensed up and torn from the strain of the day, your hunger making you feel like you were being eaten from the inside out by your own stomach and the headache that came with it wasn’t a highlight of your day, and your bed was calling out for you.

As promised, the teams were over by the cars, music playing on the radio from within Brenda’s as the door was open, letting her lean against it, and Newt was sucking happily on one of the lollipops reserved for little children that some of the ambulances carried, his tongue turning purple from the false-grape flavour of it.

He saw you coming, a little bounce in his step as you approached, before he was coming to stand before you, a smacking sound making itself known as he pulled the sweet treat away from his mouth. “You okay? Did he tell you about the guy?”

“Yeah.” You sighed, and he frowned, shrugging a little, but holding his arms open.

“He was a bad guy, you can’t save everyone, but you tried, okay? You gave it your best.” His words were true and you knew they were, you didn’t want to wallow in self-pity, you’d done everything you could without losing your one life, in which he would have died too, and you were trying not to risk your own life as much these days. “You’re okay, right?”

“Yeah.” You huffed, and he squeezed you a little tighter, clearly not accepting that answer, and waiting for me. “God, I hate this job sometimes, but I love it too. We save more lives than we lose, we change more lives for the good than bad, but every job has its bad sides.” It felt like you’d been having an awful lot of the bad side lately, but that only meant there was a lot of good to come to balance out the scales. “Have you texted Derek, yet, I bet he’s pretty worried.”

Newt let out a breathy sound at the mention of his crush, sagging in your arms a little before pulling back, and pale cheeks were flushed with warmth, the men avoiding your gaze and scratching at the back of his neck. “Not yet. Bren had my bag in the car, I got a lot of missed texts and a missed call, but I don’t really know what to say. It’s late, he finishes shift soon, I figure I’ll just wait until I get home.”

“Maybe you should go and see him.” You teased, poking at his shoulder, and your friend’s flush only deepened, shaking his head a little.

“I want to take a hot bath, and watch embarrassing rom-coms and eat an ungodly amount of food in a very unattractive way, and I don’t think me and Derek are quite at that stage. Yet.” He added the last word on, smirking as that cheeky attitude came flooding back, and you felt a presence coming to stand behind you. You knew who it was without having to turn, feeling it instinctively as a slight thrill raced through you, before a kiss was being pressed to the back of your head, an arm slipping around your waist, and a chin hooking over your shoulder.

Newt smirked, eyes moving over the pair of you slowly, and you ignored the look as he busied himself by moving to the backseat of Brenda’s car to retrieve your bag as well, and rifling through his own for his phone.

“Is this okay?”

“Why wouldn't it be?” You relaxed a little further into his hold, his fingers toying with the stitching underneath the pocket of the jumper idly as you sagged into him, feeling the movement of the muscles in his chest as he shrugged.

“Whole teams here, and you’re kinda’ the centre of attention right now. You and Newt. I didn’t really wanna’ push my boundaries, but I’m kinda’ afraid that if I let you go again, you’re going to get into some more stupid shit and get me all riled up again, and I’m still all full of adrenaline form these last few hours worrying about you.”

You moved to the side a little, twisting your head to be able to look up at him, eyes scanning over his face as you analysed his words, nothing but honesty and vulnerability shown to you. “Hey, I didn’t get myself into this one, it just happened. For once, I have no blame! I was cooperative with the criminal, kept my mouth shut, for the most part, you would have been proud of me.” His lips twitched with a soft form of amusement at your joke. “Besides, they all know how I feel about you, anyway. I’m not exactly subtle about it, and neither are you. I don’t think whatever this is, is exactly a state secret.”

He beamed at that, you weren’t sure why, but his face lit up with pure joy, and he nodded his head sucking down to peck the tip of your nose with a sweet kiss, one that made you feel ticklish, your face screwing up slightly. Turning back to your friends, you watched Newt stare at his phone for a second, considering accepting a call as his finger hovered over the accept button, the vibrating device with Derek’s name flashing along the top going off after a second, and you frowned.

“You sure you don’t want company tonight, Newt?”

“Yeah, I don’t really think either of you should be alone. Especially not with your concussion.” She pointed at you, but her attention quickly moved back to Newt, and the lanky blond shrugged. “How about a girl’s night? You can join in, Newt, because you can talk guys, so you’re acceptable.”

“Wow, thanks, Bren.” His tone was sarcastic but his face lit up a little, and he chuckled. Brenda turned back to you, raising her brows.

“Girl’s night?”

“How about a girls day tomorrow?” She pouted, and you grinned. “You’re right, I really shouldn’t be alone for forty-eight hours with severe concussion symptoms, but I think I can monitor them myself by tomorrow night.”

“Exactly, tomorrow night! Who’s gonna’ look after you tonight, huh? Girls. Night.” She punctuated her words with emphasis, and you tried to hide your giggling at her confusion behind your hand as even Minho groaned, both Fry and Gally snickered. “What?”

“Brenda..” Minho sighed, nodding his head towards you, where Thomas was squeezing you a little tighter, pressing a series of kisses along your hairline, and she studied you both for a second, before scoffing.

“Really? You’re taking Thomas home instead of me? Boo, you whore.”

You gaped, not sure whether to be offended or amused, and Thomas made the decision for you, protesting in offence on both of your behalves as he questioned why he was deemed as a ‘bad’ choice. “He’s bigger. He gives good cuddles. He promised me McNuggets. He smells good. Those are compelling arguments.”

Thomas’ chest puffed out a little against you and the compliments. “Uh, I smell excellent, I give great cuddles, I’d buy you a share box of nuggets that you wouldn't have to share, and I could put on tall boots.” She raised her hands, her voice teasing now, and your head tipped to the side as you stared at your best friend. “But, fine, girl’s day tomorrow it is.”

“I’ll come to that!” Newt chirped, sticking his hand up, and you nodded your head, Brenda taking the opportunity to high-five him.

“If Newt gets to go, then I’m staying.” You huffed, Thomas squeezing you a little tighter, and you lowered a hand to rest over his, soothing as his intense affections were based on the need for his comfort as well as your own.

“Uh, no.” Brenda deadpanned, her bluntness making you laugh. “You’re one of the main topics we’re going to be talking about. Newt gets to come because he can talk boys, and he tells me about hot doctors.”

“So I can’t come?” Minho chipped in, pouting a little for effect as he stared at Brenda, and her words went silent, no arguments to offer as her eyes narrowed on him, a silent argument between two colleagues that only you knew to be between two lovers, and you chuckled to yourself. He knew he’d won that battle, a smirk taking up on his face, and she huffed.

“If Min gets to go, can I come then?” Gally took a more polite approach, and you nodded your head.

“Sure you can.”

“You’re gonna’ fit all these people into your living room? On your two-seater couch?” Thomas teased, a couple of smirks being thrown in his direction at his reference to knowing your apartment so intimately, and you hadn't even realised that you’d been so freely inviting people to your home until now. You felt a little winded by the realisation, by the idea that it would be so simple to accept someone into the place that was so private to you, the place you’d retreat to after a long day to get away from work, but now, work was your family, and you wanted to share it with them.

“Well, Tommy-boy here can drive himself and you over to my place instead?”

“Team day at Minho’s!” Newt cheered, throwing his hands up in the air, and you laughed, the sound fading into a yawn as you covered your mouth.

“Okay, but late afternoon, because I’m exhausted, and I want a lot of sleep.”

“Late afternoon.” Brenda teased, rolling her eyes. “Midday. You better be there.” She barely gave Newt the chance to get the bags from the backseat before she was slamming the door closed, Gally twirling his keys on his finger and Fry already leaning against the car, half-asleep as his head was popped up on his hand.

You took your bag from Newt, who was catching a ride with Gally, the member of the firehouse who lived the closest to him. Brenda’s car was leaving first, spinning dangerously on mud-tracks as she left, and you were impressed with how recklessly she dared to drive surrounded by cops, but that was probably playing it safe for her. The rest of the team slowly followed, Thomas’ arm still wrapped loosely around your waist as he guided you over to his car, fresh mud spattered up along the polished paintwork, and your bag was placed on the backseat.

He was holding open the passenger door for you when you were ready, and you sank into the seat, offering him just a smile in acknowledgement, before he was rounding the vehicle to get in too, car starting up smoothly, and his hand on the back of your seat as he reversed out of the spot.

Switching gears, he inched forward slowly, pulling up the track carefully, and glancing back in the mirrors, before both hands were sitting on the wheel, and he was flicking on the indicator for the highway.

“You still want to go to the drive-thru?”

You considered it for a second, watching the road as he pulled out, before giving in to your craving. “Yes.”

“Okay.” He hummed, a hand reaching down to find one of your own where it was sitting in your lap, linking his fingers together loosely with your own. The radio was playing softly, the cars were flying past you on the highway as you weaved between lanes, an area you didn’t recognise, and clearly, Thomas wasn’t all that familiar with it either because he didn’t talk much, instead, focusing on the signage along the road for a long time.

It was a longer journey than you’d expected it to be, almost thirty minutes passing before you were entering an area of town that you began to recognise, the very edges of your territory as far as you’d expanded so far, and you squeezed Thomas’ hand a little tighter, letting him go every so often when he needed it to change gears or to drive, but his hand always seemed to find it’s way back to being pressed up delicately with your own.

Your mind slipped a little bit, wondering just how it was that you found yourself here.

It had been a long time since you’d allowed yourself to trust anyone, to really let anyone in, and now you found yourself surrounded. Your entire team had shown up to collect you tonight, all of them wanting to make sure you were okay; honest and true with nothing to gain from it themselves except for knowing that you were safe, and the man beside you had let himself dig in a little closer.

Instead of just holding your heart, he’d managed to let himself inside, residing there and making it his own with everything he did. The moment you’d laid your eyes on him, you’d hated him, hearing him already hate you felt like a bittersweet mouthful, making it easier not to get attached but hard as it always made you one step further from home. You’d spent so much of your life forcing people away while dreaming about one day finding your home that you’d never stopped to watch the time slipping away around you as the chances seemed to get further and further away, until Newt had forced you to.

You had your own history that made you the way you were, but you’d never stopped to give Thomas the benefit of the doubt that he did, too, and you’d taken out your anger on him when it was unwarranted. He’d clearly forgiven you for it and moved on, but you’d never really apologised.

“I’m sorry, Tommy.”

He frowned, the neutral expression he’d held switching to a frown as he began to slow the car down, navigating through the car park as a surprising number of cars still milled around, shopping at the mall in the stores with later hours into the night and various fast-food joints, the illuminated letter ‘M’ calling out to you, and Thomas joined the queue of cars.

“I never said sorry for the way I treated you. I had stuff going on, I had a lot of issues, but I didn’t stop to think that maybe you had stuff going on too, and I’m sorry.”

He seemed stuck for a second, like a deer caught in the headlights, before he sank into his seat a little bit. “That’s okay, I forgive you. You didn’t know I had stuff going on at the time, I shouldn't have been mad at you, either. I took it out on you, but really, I had issues with someone else.”

The name was on the tip of your tongue, but before you could speak your next words, the static of the intercom requesting your order made the both of you jump, and Thomas rolled down the window. It took a moment, deciding as quickly as you could and putting in an order for what it was that you were craving as your stomach rumbled again, that typical greasy smell of fast-food drifting through the open window.

You stayed quiet for the rest of the transaction, reaching out to turn the music up a little bit as you switched over to a classical station, finding the latest chart-toppers to be a little overwhelming in the moment, but late-hour classical piano and violin notes were much more comfortable. The bags were hot in your lap as Thomas handed them over clutching his McFluffy in your hand carefully and staring down longingly at the chunks of chocolate candy and caramel sauce through the lid, somewhat regretting your decision not to get one when he’d offered you one.

Parking up at the back, a little bit away from where everyone else was, and you unclipped your seatbelt, watching him do the same, before he was pushing his chair a little further back and getting comfortable. You handed him over his cheeseburger, and the fries that followed, stealing one from his portion and watching as he grinned, sitting them on his lap and unwrapping the burger, while you opened up a box of nuggets, offering one to him.

You sprinkled some salt over the box, shaking the nuggets after he’d taken one to mix the seasoning, but you couldn't eat one, couldn't focus, not when a certain question was still hanging on the tip of your tongue.

“What’s up? They make it wrong? It’s pretty hard to mess up chicken nuggets.” He teased, leaning over to inspect them and winking cheekily as he plucked another from the large box, popping it into his mouth and chewing happily, a sound made as if to confirm to you that they were okay, but the food wasn’t what was bothering you.

“Can I ask you a question, and you promise you’ll answer honestly?” his brows furrowed, but he nodded, taking another large bite of his burger. You hesitated, picking at the edges of the bag, ripping the brown paper slowly, and you sighed. “That woman in the bar, that was Teresa, wasn’t it?”

He stiffened at the mention of her name, his face falling, and he was stiff as his head turned away from you to stare out of the dashboard, and your lips pursed, anxiety coursing through you at the time that it took him to reply. He chewed slowly, eventually swallowing his mouthful, and you took a cautious bite out of a chicken nugget as you waited. “Yes.”

You nodded, keeping it to yourself and looking through the bag for a packet of ketchup, opening up the small tub and dunking the savoury treat inside, swirling it around, and eating the other half. You licked salt from your lips as you finished, and turned back to look at him, where he was staring down at his food, a confused look on his features. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

He took a breath, seeming to have an answer ready to go, as though he’d anticipated your words, before his jaw snapped shut, and he put his burger down, sighing a little and nibbling on his lower lip, before giving in. “I didn’t want you to know.” You raised your brows, not the answer you were expecting, and he turned to look at you, taking in your expression, and shrugging a little. “You said you wanted honesty.”

“But why?”

“Why didn’t I want you to know that was her?” You nodded, and he took a bite of his food, prolonging the suspense as he procrastinated on his answer. “I guess,” He spoke through his food, grimacing a little upon realising, and you couldn't help your smile, eating another one of your chicken nuggets. “Because you’re nothing like her, and what we have isn’t the same, and I didn’t want you to have to cross with her.”

“Did you love her?”

“Yes.” He didn’t pause this time, stiff once again as he gave you the truth without even considering lying, and you felt conflicted. You weren’t sure whether you wanted to reach out and comfort him, or comfort yourself and put your walls back up; in the end, the person best at comforting you was Thomas, and so you needed to be that for him. Reaching a hand out, you placed it on his arm, and he jumped at the contact, seeming shocked by it. He turned to look at you, eyes dropping to where your hand was sitting on his arm. “Are you mad at me?”

“I don’t have anything to be mad at you for, Tommy. I’m just sorry you got hurt.” You whispered, and he let out a shaky breath, his hand coming up to sit on your cheek, his face dropping to bump his nose with your own, sharing a breath and nudging into you.

“Just so you know, this is one of those moments that I would kiss you, if we’d already had our first kiss.”

“I’ll remember that.” You grinned, bumping back against him, before pulling away, and eating a chicken nugget as he whined slightly at the loss of intimacy.

“She, uh, she was a paramedic. You reminded me of her, at first.” You turned, realising that in the interest of honesty, he was going to tell you it all; the information that other members of the team skirted around and answered vaguely, a mystery that had been locked up tight to keep you out of, all of them having gotten hurt in some way. “She had the same attitude you did, she didn’t really let people in; a lot of walls. We were.. something. She didn’t want to put a label on it, she wanted me behind closed doors but never wanted me near her in front of the rest of the team. She had boundaries, she wanted me to come over late but never wanted me to stay the night, she wanted to have dinner and drinks but never in public. It felt exciting, but wrong. But I couldn't stop.”

“Thomas, you don’t have to tell me this.” He sniffed a little, eating his fries quietly and shaking his head a little as he relived the memories.

“I want you to know.” You felt touched that he wanted to share one of his deepest pains with you, but it was scary, because it meant you had to do the same. “I should have seen the signs, she always wanted more, and she never wanted to settle down, kind of like you.” His words cut a little, stinging, despite knowing them to be true. “She said she was leaving one day, out of the blue, and I blamed myself for it. We got into an argument, she didn’t even tell me she was moving house until she asked me to sign her transfer papers. We yelled a lot, and I was upset, so I signed them and told her to just leave. She did.”

“Is, uh, is that the day that-”

“Newt got hurt? Yeah.” His voice cracked slightly as he spoke. “She left, and I was upset, and about an hour later, we got a call. I’d been too busy pacing my office and seething over it that I didn’t call in for a substitute. Newt told me it was okay, he’d been comforting me. He went alone on that call, got stuck under material that had fallen on his leg. Minho found him and carried him out after he passed out.”

He crushed the empty cardboard carton in his hand, the sudden sound making you twitch at the shock, and he whispered an apology upon sensing the environment he’d created.

“Newt’s been my best friend since I was a kid, and because of my feelings, he got hurt. I shouldn't have taken it out on you, but there were just so many similarities, it was overwhelming. I didn't want you to meet her, because you're nothing like her.”

“I’m not? Kinda’ sounds like we’re the same.” You finished your food, packing the wrapped back into the bag, and facing him more confidently as you turned in your chair, and he chuckled.

“You’re nothing like her. She may have been what I loved once, but you’re something entirely different.” He picked up his ice-cream, peeling back the lid on it and poking at the contents with a smile on his face now as he mixed the toppings in. “You’re sweet, you get along with everyone and you want to be with us, I can tell, even if you were going to leave at first. You.. you want me, you don’t hide it. I like that. You’ve spared my best friend a lot of pain instead of causing it, and you make Brenda feel like a woman again when she’s surrounded by men, and you cook with Fry. You’re a real part of our family, I don’t think she ever was.”

Once he deemed it thoroughly mixed, he took a large spoonful of it, holding it up and poking it against your smile lightly.

“Take a bite, I know you want some. You can share mine.”

You did as told, accepting the ice-cream he was offering to you, and relishing in the sweet flavour. He took his own bite, and despite how happy you were, there was still a pang of lingering guilt as you kept back your secrets from him after he’d told you his. “You’re not the first firemen I’ve been involved with.”

“I figured as much.” You were a little surprised, pausing in your words as he looked at you like it was no big deal, and he shrugged, offering you another spoonful. “I mean, I figured you had to have some kind of history in a firehouse, with your transfer record, more switches than a lightbulb sees.”

You rolled your eyes, grinning at his joke a little. “Well, you were right. In my first house, I was straight out of the academy and young, and there was a fireman. He was charming, and very attractive, and he had this way that made my heart race.” You reached up, wiping a stray piece of ice-cream for the edge of Thomas’ lip. “Like you do.”

“I make your heart race?” He was smirking, liking knowing he had such an effect on you, and you redirected your attention to the dessert, turning the spoon he was bringing to his mouth and stealing the spoonful, the chill helping to calm your flushing features.

“You know you do.” You swallowed the treat, licking the sugary taste from your lips. “He had a previous injury, and a drug problem. I was young and naïve, and he wanted the ambulance stock for the pain so he could avoid surgery. When the truth came out, I took the fall and lost my job, while he got off with a reprimand and being put on probation. I had to move to a whole new state to escape it and find a new firehouse. When someone tried to get close to me there, I panicked and thought they would use me again. I moved, and I moved, and I moved. Whenever someone got close, I panicked. I got confused. I wanted family, and I was so set on finding that perfect family that I never stopped to let anyone in, until I came to ‘21, and encountered a moody lieutenant.”

Thomas grinned, cold lips pressing to your cheek as he ducked down, and you squirmed at the slightly sticky feeling of melted ice-cream, the cardboard cup empty as it had been shared between you both.

“My real family, there’s not much to say about them. I don’t have much, my mother hasn’t spoken to me in a while, she sends a birthday card every year, and that's about all there is for me. Until I found all of you.”

“It was just me and my mom when I was a kid, and there was a house fire. She’s never been quite right since, I grew up looking after her, and Newt was the kid across the road who brought me trays of food his mom made for us, and who brought me the homework sheets when I had to leave school early. He’s my family, too. This whole squad is.”

You felt like a weight had been lifted off of your chest from the confessions, from finally trusting someone enough to tell them your story, feeling the burn of tears in the back of your throat, but you were too tired to cry, having no tears left to give. “Tommy?”

“Yeah, angel?”

“Can we go home now?” He nodded, starting the car back up, and you leaned over the centre console a little to rest your head on his shoulder, feeling him turn to press a kiss to the top of your head. “When we get there, I want to go to bed, and I want you to stay the night, and then I want to spend the whole day with you tomorrow, in front of our family, without hiding anything.”

He took a second to reply, letting out an unsteady laugh, before starting up the car and nodding for you as you pulled back. “I would fucking love that.”

#thomas #the maze runner #ff!tommy #firefighter!tommy #smoke and fire #SAF #thomas x reader #thomas/reader #dylan o'brien #dylan obrien #dylan obrien x reader #dylan obrien/reader #dylan obrien thomas #dylan obrien the maze runner

215 notes · View notes

marjansmarwani · 3 years

Text

tender-hearted sadness pulls me through the day

7.9k || ao3

Carlos is hurt, badly, and TK is faced both with the awful possibility of losing him and the fact that his parents still don't know about them. He promised Carlos he could tell them in his own time though, and he doesn't intend to break that promise for anything. Even if it means he can't be there, even if it means he has to hope from a distance. He would do anything for Carlos, after all.

aka that Carlos’s parent’s fic I’ve been working on for what feels like forever. It’s finally done and since @officereyes was the one who insisted I write it in the first place and it is her birthday, it feels only right to offer it as a part 2/on the actual correct day gift (surprise). I hope you enjoy it Jamie!

This idea was also requested by @noxsoulmate after I had already started writing it so I also hope you enjoy, and that it was worth the wait! This was started around the same time that 2x04 aired so it is definitely no longer canon compliant, though I did tweak a few things as the season progressed. Thanks to @justaswampdemon for reading through it last night to tell me if any of it actually made sense or not because I wasn’t sure after working on it for so long!

--------------------

TK couldn’t stop staring at his hands.

They were shaking and though he had nearly scrubbed them raw he could still feel the memory of the blood that had coated them only a half-hour before. It was Carlos’s blood and the reminder sent his hands trembling all over again. The sight of the accident was still so fresh in his mind. It was everywhere, trapped in all of his senses — the fear of realizing just who it was trapped in the crushed vehicle, the overwhelming scent of the blood stuck in his head, the sound of the heart monitor flatlining and his own desperate pleas for Carlos to stay with them, the helplessness of Carlos’s life leaking away under his fingers — he couldn't shake it. He knew he wasn’t likely to until he saw Carlos, until he had proof that he was okay.

But he was also a medic and he knew that the alternative, the thing he was trying so hard not to think about, to not put any energy into, was just as likely an outcome as any.

His anxiety spiral is interrupted by the sound of frantic footsteps that pause as they grow closer to his seat.

“TJ?”

He sat bolt upright at the sight of Carlos’s parents, expressions tense and eyes full of fear, before him.

“Mr. and Mrs. Reyes,” he stammered, standing up and shoving his shaking hands into the pockets of his pants, “hi. Uh, have they told you anything yet?”

“No,” Mrs. Reyes said fearfully, “we just got here.”

TK nodded, anxiously twisting at the interior of his pockets, “I’m sure someone will be by soon,” he assured her, “he’s only been here for about an hour.”

“And how long have you been here?” Carlos’s father asked him, studying him with a piercing gaze.

“About an hour,” TK repeated, “I was on shift, we responded to the accident. I rode in on the ambulance with him and since it was the end of my shift anyways and my Captain knows Carlos and I are...close, she told me just to stay.”

He met Mr. Reyes’s gaze, refusing to look away and hoping desperately that he hadn’t noticed his falter. It wasn’t a lie, but the omission weighed on him. Never once since their start had he denied his feelings for Carlos. He had made that mistake once, in the very beginning, and it had nearly prevented what they had become. But he had no other choice; he had made Carlos a promise. And he wouldn’t break it, not for anything.

The other man’s father nodded, eyes zeroing in on the paramedic badge on his shirt. “I thought you said you were a firefighter?”

“I was, the paramedic thing is pretty new. We lost one at our station, during the volcano, and I was already dual certified from New York so…” he trailed off with a shrug, his gaze drifting from the parents before him to the doors of the trauma wing Carlos had been wheeled into upon their arrival.

“You treated him?”

TK snapped his gaze back to find Mrs. Reyes looking at him with wide eyes. He swallowed, and nodded, “I did, ma’am,” he confirmed, voice soft with repressed emotion.

“And?” she asked him desperately, eyes shining with unshed tears, “How is he? How is my boy?”

How did he tell them? How did you tell your boyfriend’s parents that not even an hour ago you had been scared out of your mind that he was going to die in your arms even as you and your team worked desperately to save him? How did you do all of that without showing the emotion, how did you do that when they don’t know — when they can’t know — that his presence is what allows you to sleep soundly each night, that his smile is the thing you most look forward to seeing each and every day?

They were both looking at him as if he held all the answers and to be fair, he did. In terms of what had happened, at least. He was just as clueless as anyone else as to what would come next.

“He was involved in a very serious accident,” he settled on. “He lost a lot of blood but we managed to get him stabilized in the field. That’s all I know though. If I knew more…”

He trailed off but Carlos’s mother shook her head, reaching out to place a warm and trembling hand on his arm, “Thank you,” she told him, “for telling us, and for saving him. Carlitos is so lucky to have such a wonderful friend.”

“Of course,” he said without hesitation, even though her well-intentioned words stung, even though he had to swallow what would have come next: he would do anything for Carlos.

------------

It’s another few hours before his dad and the rest of the 126 show up. He may have been exaggerating when he had told Mrs. Reyes that his shift was ending when they arrived at the hospital. The reality was that Tommy had told him to stay. She had said that she and Nancy could handle the last few hours without him and that he would be too distracted to focus for the remainder of the shift so he may as well just stay. She had been right, but that meant there had still been a shift to be finished before anyone else was available to join his vigil.

A doctor had come by, a short while ago to give them an update. The surgery had gone well and while they had repaired the damage, they cautioned them that he was not out of danger yet, that the next several hours would be key. The knowledge had settled like a lead weight in TK’s stomach, the dread seeping through his veins. He saw his own fear clearly reflected in the eyes of Carlos’s parents and knows that they are all connected by it, even if they don’t know it.

When the doctor told them that Carlos was being moved to a recovery room where he would be closely monitored and that a nurse would be by when he was settled to let them know, TK realized a whole other layer to this nightmare. He won’t be able to be there. There is no way he can justify sitting by Carlos’s bedside to his parents as a “friend from work.” In order to be there for Carlos, he would have to tell them the truth, and he can’t do that. Not when he made Carlos a promise.

That’s how his team finds him: alone in the waiting room, leg anxiously bouncing against the floor as he stares in the direction of the recovery rooms, wanting nothing more than to be able to be beside Carlos, to have concrete evidence that he hadn’t lost him.

He allowed himself to be pulled into hugs and subjected to comforting pats before anyone asks the question he’s been dreading. It’s Marjan that does, her unwavering and empathetic gaze studying him as she speaks the words: “Is he still in surgery?”

“No, he’s in recovery now.” TK assured them, allowing them a moment to take a breath of relief before he continued, “The doctors said that the next few hours will be crucial, that those will be what really makes the difference. So we’re just...hoping for the best.”

They all nodded, but Paul’s piercing gaze studied him, “If he’s in recovery, why are you out here and not in there?”

TK bit his lip, turning his gaze downwards. He and Carlos hadn’t exactly shared their conflict about his parents with their friends. If TK was being honest, he had been hoping they wouldn’t ever have to, that they would cross that bridge before it ever became an issue. Clearly, the universe had other plans.

“His parents are in there,” he replied, hoping that maybe they wouldn’t push, that maybe they could just leave it there.

But these were their friends, and they wouldn't be so easily satisfied.

“Is he not out to them?” Marjan asked gently, taking the seat beside him.

“No, he’s out to them it’s just...complicated.”

“How complicated can it be?” Judd asked as he settled into a seat across from them, “he’s out and you two are solid. Seems pretty uncomplicated to me.”

TK didn’t know how to explain it, exactly. “They don’t know he’s in a relationship,” he settled on, “and he’s not ready to tell them. We...talked about it a few months ago, and I told him that was fine. That we could move at his pace. I mean,” he broke off here with a shrug, meeting the eyes of his teammates, “it’s the least I can do for him, right? Extend him the same understanding he gave me?”

The others exchanged glances that TK couldn’t read. Judd looked in the direction of the recovery rooms, “This ain’t right kid,” he said softly, “Carlos would want you there. You should be there.”

TK shook his head firmly, “I promised him he could tell them on his own terms, Judd. I told him I would wait as long as he needed. I can’t make that choice for him, and I won’t. I made him a promise.”

There was silence in the wake of his words. The others exchanged glances and TK looked away, not wanting to see their pity. He knew he was making the right choice, but that didn’t make the reality of it any easier to face. Carlos had nearly died in his arms just a few hours ago. The cold fear of losing him was still fresh in his mind, he still hadn’t been able to shake the chill from his bones. And now he was in a room just down the hall and TK couldn’t be there. Of all the challenges they had faced, this might just be the worst one yet.

Paul let out a low breath and shook his head, “I hear you man, and it’s admirable. I get you wanting to respect Carlos’s wishes, but you’ve got to think about yourself too. Maybe it would be easier for you to not be here? Sitting here and not being able to be with him has to be hard. You could go home, wait there instead. We’ll let you know if there are any updates.”

TK gave him a tight smile, “I appreciate it, but no. Even though I can’t be with him, I can’t imagine not being as close to him as possible. I’m not going anywhere.”

------------

His friends come and go, but TK simply waits. He assures them that he’s fine when asked, but otherwise, he is not great company. All he can manage to do is sit quietly and wait. And hope. He takes a turn around the waiting room, he bounces his leg anxiously at his seat, he fiddles with his necklace. He does everything he can to keep his body busy while his mind is fully occupied.

He knows that right down the hall his boyfriend, the person who he might just love more than anyone else on this planet, is in a medically induced coma. He knows that he can’t be there, and he knows why.

That doesn’t mean he hates it any less.

That also doesn’t mean that the last image he has of Carlos — bloody and crashing on a gurney being rushed to a trauma room — is going to leave his mind any time soon. He needs to see him. He needs visual confirmation to cancel out the nightmare image running through his head. He knows that he can’t, not right now, but he won’t leave until he can.

The waiting room empties and fills again several times during his vigil. The daylight he had entered in had faded long ago and the dark night sky was visible each time the hospital doors slid open. It was still a few hours before he saw Mr. and Mrs. Reyes leave from his corner of the waiting room. They stepped through the hospital doors hand in hand, Mr. Reyes rubbing comforting circles on his wife’s back as they headed back to their car, presumably to go home and get a few hours of sleep.

TK, who had been coming close to dozing off in his seat, was suddenly wide awake. Carlos’s parents were gone, he could go see him. He was out of his seat in an instant, his feet carrying him towards the door he had been staring at all day before his head could properly catch up. It wasn’t until he neared the door that he slowed, that he processed.

It felt almost wrong to be sneaking in. He felt almost guilty for waiting for Carlos’s parents to leave, for jumping on the opportunity the moment it presented itself. But he needed to see Carlos. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to settle until he did. He could not have the last image of him in his mind be what he had looked like when they exited the ambulance. He may have gotten the same updates from the doctor but that did nothing to ease his fear. He had nearly felt Carlos die under his hands all those hours ago. He needed to feel him breathing too.

He stepped in quietly, though he knew there was no danger of waking him. He had barely made it over the threshold before he froze, nearly toppled by the wrongness of seeing Carlos so still. To the casual observer, he probably looked like he was sleeping. But TK knew Carlos Reyes. The man was an energetic sleeper. He moved constantly in the night, always shifting and reaching out to pull TK closer when he felt he had strayed too far away. Always striving to press his body against his, always keeping them close; even in sleep. But it was more than that. His face was all wrong. Carlos’s face was expressive, even in sleep. Whatever he was thinking or feeling or dreaming was always laid out in full display for TK to read but now his face was blank. That more than anything struck TK as so foreign, so unusual.

He took a deep, wavering breath as he crossed the room, running his eyes over him as he drew closer. From the outside, he didn’t look too badly injured, but TK knew with a cold certainty that most of the damage was hidden by bandages under the blankets. He knew that there was so much more to this than met the eye, that as wrong as Carlos looked in this bed it was a far sight better than the alternative — than what he had feared from the moment they arrived on the scene.

“Hey babe,” he said softly as he reached the side of the bed, reaching out to run a hand through Carlos’s curls, “you look better than you did earlier. I hope you’re feeling better too.”

He paused here, taking another moment to study him up close now. He bit his lip against the tears that wanted to come. He didn’t know how much time he would have here, he wasn’t going to waste any of it crying.

“I know it’s going to take some time,” he said instead when he managed to steady his voice, “and I want you to know you should take all the time you need. We’ll be fine until you’re ready. I’ll be fine. I just,” he broke off, took a steadying breath, and started again, “I just want you to know that I probably won’t be here a lot, just in case you ever wonder why you can’t hear me, if you can hear any of us. I need you to know it’s not because I don’t want to be here or that I don’t love you. Because I do, so much. And there is nowhere I would rather be than right here with you at all times. But I made you a promise, and I intend to keep it. It’s…” he trailed off, taking another breath as he leaned forward, taking Carlos’s hand in his own, “it’s the least I can do,” he finished softly.

He lapsed into silence then, savoring in the sight of his chest lightly rising and falling with each breath. Not so long ago he thought he might never see that again. He had never realized just how much he had taken the concept for granted. He vowed that he never would again.

He leaned forward now, resting his head on the arm not intertwined with Carlos’s. “I just need you to come back to us,” he said quietly. “I need you to come back to me. I don’t want to face life without you. Don’t make me, please.”

Even though he knew there would be no reaction, even though he knew the other man was heavily sedated, he studied his face for any hint of recognition, any glimmer of hope he could sustain himself with. There was none and it was that truth and the weight of Carlos’s hand in his that saw him off into a fitful sleep.

------------

The sound of footsteps woke TK, causing him to sit bolt upright and glance around frantically, heart thudding in his chest.

“Relax,” an unfamiliar voice instructed, “we definitely don’t need a cardiac patient on our hands, on top of everything else.”

It took several tries to blink the sleep out his eyes before he could make out the scene in front of him. He was in Carlos’s room. He must have fallen asleep here. He pulled himself fully upright, stretching and rubbing at the back of his neck with a grimace as he studied the nurse checking Carlos’s vitals. She glanced over at him with a raised eyebrow, “Good morning.”

“What time is it?” he croaked out.

“Just past 6, so I’d imagine if anyone were to come back after going home to sleep for the night they’d likely be back soon.”

“How’d you…”

She shrugged as she checked Carlos’s IV, “Call it an educated guess. I mean, I know you paramedics are pretty dedicated but I have yet to see any of you spend an entire day in the waiting room for a patient. Figured there had to be a bit more to it than meets the eye. That, or I have to call security on you.”

“He’s my boyfriend,” TK said softly, reaching out to take Carlos’s limp hand in his own, tenderly rubbing his thumb across it, “but his parents don’t really know. It’s...complicated.”

The nurse’s eyes softened as she studied him, “You probably have almost an hour before anyone else shows up, visiting hours don’t officially start until 7 anyways. After that, you should try to get some sleep. You’re starting to look like you should have a bed of your own.”

TK shook his head, “I’m fine, thanks.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, sounding wholly unconvinced. “Well if you are around later and want an update feel free to ask for me at the nurses’ station. My name’s Becky.”

“Thank you, Becky,” he said with a small smile, “you have no idea how much I appreciate that.”

She waved off his thanks as she headed towards the door. She paused on the threshold, turning back to study him again, “Hey, Paramedic?”

“TK,” he provided.

“TK, then. If I find out you’re lying to me and that I should have called security…”

He gave her a grin and a tired laugh, “Then you know where I work,” he reminded her, gesturing towards his uniform, “pretty sure you’ll be able to track me down.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I hope everything works out for you two and for what it’s worth, he’s doing okay.”

“Thanks, Becky,” he said softly, turning his gaze back to Carlos’s still form before Becky smiled at them from the doorway and stepped quietly out of the room, shutting the door behind her.

--------------------

“This is an intervention,” Paul announced.

TK looked up sharply to see his team gathered around him several hours later. He had slipped back into the waiting room around 6:30, heedful of Becky’s warning. It was now just past 10 and he was currently being stared down by his team. He furrowed his brow in confusion and was just about to ask exactly what the hell Paul meant by that when Marjan continued.

“You’ve been here for over 24 hours now, TK. You’re still wearing yesterday’s uniform, you haven’t eaten and I doubt you’ve slept much.”

“I got a few hours!” he interjected but faltered when he was met with 4 equally unimpressed looks.

“And while I’m sure that was adequate sleep,” she continued in a tone that made it clear she did not in fact believe that, “you need more than that. Preferably in a bed. Preferably in your own bed.”

TK looked down and Judd continued, voice gentle, “You need to take care of yourself, kid. You can’t be there for him if you keel over. Let us help you out.”

TK bit at his lip. He knew they were right, logically. There was only so long he could keep this up. Soon enough his body would start protesting. He could already feel the effects of little sleep and no food in his sluggish thoughts. Realistically he knew they were right, but he couldn’t stand the thought of leaving Carlos. He wasn’t out of the woods yet. The thought that something might happen when he wasn’t there was enough to keep him rooted to his spot in the waiting room, consequences be damned. “I can’t leave him,” he choked out, “if something were to happen…”

He trailed off, but Paul simply shook his head, “Nope, you’re coming with us. Judd and I are going to take you home. You’re going to shower, change, eat something and get at least 4 hours of sleep. Then - and only then - we’ll bring you back. Marjan and Mateo will stay here and let us know if anything changes. If it does we’ll bring you right back, promise.”

TK scanned the faces of his friends. They wore matching looks of determination, and he knew that this was not an argument he was going to win. He nodded, pulling himself out of his seat and throwing another glance in the direction of Carlos’s room. He felt a hand on his arm and looked over to see Marjan giving him a sad smile, “Don’t worry, we won’t let you miss anything.”

“Yeah dude, we’ve got this!” Mateo assured him as he plopped into an empty seat.

TK gave them both a grateful smile. He wished he could have offered more, but he couldn’t find the words. Nothing his mind produced seemed adequate enough to express the level of gratitude he felt for each and every one of them. He hoped they knew.

He allowed himself to be led to Judd’s truck and as they pulled away from the hospital, his mind began to wander. Logically, he knew Carlos was in good hands, that leaving the hospital did nothing to hurt his chances. But not being there just felt wrong, as if he was tempting fate. As if his desperate hope could only have an effect from within the same building.

TK was so lost in his thoughts he didn’t notice how close they were to their destination until the truck came to a halt outside of the condo. He froze as he looked at it, the thought of stepping foot inside their shared home without Carlos washing over him. He knew he was being too quiet, he knew that the other two had noticed that something was wrong. Judd eyed him in the rearview mirror.

“Is this okay?” he asked. “I can bring you to your dad’s if you’d rather, but I figured all your stuff is here so…”

“No,” TK said, voice too soft. “No,” he tried again, voice a little more sure this time, “you’re right Judd, all my stuff is here. It’s fine, really. Thanks for driving me.”

“Yeah, we’re not just going to leave you,” Paul told him, pushing open the passenger side door and climbing out, “we’re staying with you to make sure you actually do the things covered in our bargain. Plus,” he added in a gentler tone as he opened TK’s door and met his eyes, “you don’t need to be alone right now.”

TK swallowed and nodded. He slid out of the truck without a word, crossing to the front door and pulling his keys out of his pocket. He inserted his key into the door with trembling hands and pushed it open, holding it open behind him for Judd and Paul. Once they were all inside he shut it behind them, the sound of the lock clicking into place the only sound. They stood in silence as TK looked around, trying to take in the once familiar surroundings that now felt so foreign. The clutter of day to day life was scattered throughout the living space, left waiting for them to return home and resume their lives. It was a cruel reminder of just how sudden this had been; of how much they stood to lose.

Paul gave him a gentle shove towards the stairs, interrupting his reverie, “Go and get showered and changed, we’ll work on the food. Come back down when you’re ready.”

TK nodded and ascended the stairs without a word. He entered their bedroom without really looking at anything, making a beeline for the dresser so as to avoid the sight of the haphazardly made bed; left rumpled when they had both decided on a late start the previous morning, abandoning their usual morning routine in favor of other pursuits. He grabbed the first pants and hoodie he found, pulling them out and heading to the bathroom without even a glance at the garments in his hand.

Several minutes later he was forced to admit that the hot water felt good. It revived him in a way the restless sleep at Carlos’s bedside hadn’t, and it allowed him to peel back the layers of everything to find some of the positives. Namely that Carlos had survived surgery, that while he wasn’t out of the woods there had been no changes for the worst (or for the better, but a hot shower was a place for optimism.)

He stepped out feeling renewed. As he reached for his towel he reminded himself that it hadn’t even been 36 hours. In the grand scheme of things, that was practically nothing. For injuries like those, it was perfectly normal. There was no reason to expect the worst, not yet.

He pulled on the clothes he had grabbed, soft joggers and one of Carlos’s APD hoodies that he had claimed as his own months ago and tried to keep focusing on the positives, but his optimism faded along with the lingering warmth of the shower. Maybe the worst hadn’t happened and he was certainly grateful for that, but where they were was a world away from “good.”

He made his way down the stairs, turning the corner to find Judd and Paul in quiet conversation in the kitchen. They looked up when he appeared, Judd answering the question on his lips before he could even ask it: “No, no updates from the other two. Seems like all’s quiet there.”

TK nodded gratefully and slid into the seat across from them. Judd slid a bowl of something that TK knew objectively should smell amazing in front of him, but all he could do was stare at it.

“Thank you, but…”

“No,” Judd cut him off firmly, “you need to eat. Unless you want to be the one to tell my wife that you wouldn’t eat the food she sent over for you?”

TK sighed and picked up the fork pointedly taking a bite, and Judd huffed out a laugh, “Smart choice.”

The other two returned to their own bowls and they ate in companionable silence. TK appreciated their understanding. He was beyond grateful to his friends for everything, but even the thought of any conversation right in this moment felt like torture. The only thoughts he could manage right now were of Carlos, and the checklist of tasks required by his team before he would be allowed to return.

He finished his food in silence, getting up and crossing to the sink to rinse it out and place it in the dishwasher. He had just reached the sink when a hand stopped him, taking the bowl from his grasp.

“I’ve got this,” Judd told him, “you need sleep.”

“4 hours,” Paul reminded him from the counter, “in a bed.”

“If there are any updates…”

“We’ll let you know,” Paul assured him.

TK swallowed and nodded, turning and heading back upstairs with a soft thanks. He entered their bedroom again, this time unable to ignore the queen-sized elephant in the room. He lowered himself onto his side of the bed, muscle memory guiding him to lay on his left side, giving him a full view of Carlos’s empty pillow.

The sight of him hit him harder than anything else and suddenly he felt as if walls were closing in around him. All the feelings he had been pushing back, holding at bay so he didn’t fall apart at the wrong moment breached his tenuous barriers. The catalyst grew harder to see as his vision was clouded with tears. He rolled over, turning his back to the reminder as his body shook with sobs too long repressed. He let 36 hours of pain and fear and panic out as he lay in their bed, hoping desperately that the aching emptiness beside him did not become his new reality.

Eventually, he drifted off into a fitful sleep; head resting on his tear-soaked pillow and clinging to the desperate hope that when he woke up, things would look better.

————-

Things didn’t look much better when he woke up, but his head did feel a little clearer.

He woke with a jolt at the sensation of someone lightly shaking him. He sat up quickly to find Paul standing next to him, hands raised in a placating manner, “Easy man, it’s just me.”

TK could feel fear creeping through his mind. If Paul was waking him up then…

“What happened?” he choked out. He knew he shouldn’t have left. He should have fought them more, he should have insisted on staying, no matter what.

“Nothing,” Paul assured him, voice even and soothing, “everything’s fine. It’s just been a bit over 4 hours and while personally, I would love to let you sleep longer I figured it was only fair to wake you up and let you decide. There are no new updates and no one is going to judge you for taking the time to get a little more sleep.”

TK took a shuddering breath, willing his heart rate to go back to normal. He shook his head and pulled himself out of the bed, “No, I should be getting back. Thank you though,” he added to Paul, “for waking me up, for everything, really.”

“Of course man. We meant what we said: we’re here for you. I can’t imagine how hard this is, especially given everything, but you’re not alone in this. Don’t forget that. We all care about Carlos too, and we care about you.”

TK looked down, not sure quite how to respond to that. Thankfully, Paul knew him well. His friend put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze. TK looked up and gave him a smile that Paul returned, “Take some time to get ready, Judd and I will be ready to leave when you are.”

He nodded again and watched as Paul stepped out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him. He then took a breath to steady himself before he surveyed the room, actually thinking about what he might need this time around. He grabbed his phone charger and shoved it into his pocket but couldn’t think of anything else he might need. All he could think about was getting back to the hospital as soon as possible. He met the other two downstairs and at his nod they head out without a word, TK only pausing on the threshold for a moment as he glanced back at the empty condo. Soon he would be coming back here, with Carlos. He was sure of it; no other option was acceptable.

He shut the door behind him, turning his key in the lock until he heard the telltale click, and climbed into Judd’s truck for a silent ride to the hospital. When they arrived, he went to climb out but was stopped by Judd’s voice as the older man turned to look at him from the driver’s seat.

“I know you’re worried about him brother,” he said softly. “I can’t even imagine what it must feel like and what a mess I would be if it were Grace, but you still need to take care of yourself, remember that.”

TK swallowed down the emotions that rose up as he met Judd’s eyes.There was so much understanding in them and he knew that the other man knew what he was going through more than most. He gave him a nod, and a promise: “I’ll try.”

Judd nodded in satisfaction and TK climbed the rest of the way out of the backseat, giving his two friends a wave before he stepped out and headed back inside. He immediately headed to the nurses’ station and was about to ask for Becky when a familiar voice sounded behind him.

“TJ? What are you doing back here.”

TK froze at the sound of Mrs. Reyes’s voice. “Hi, Mrs. Reyes,” he began, “I was just checking in to see how Carlos was doing.”

The older woman’s expression softened and she reached out a hand to lay on his arm, “You are such a good person, my son is so lucky to have you as a friend.”

TK swallowed down the bile at the word, at the reminder of why he couldn’t be in there with Carlos. “How is he?” he managed to ask in a normal tone, “Has there been any change?”

Mrs. Reyes shook her head sadly, “No, but the doctors say that is to be expected right now. They say that if things remain as they are they will likely start weaning him off the sedation soon, so I guess that’s a good sign.”

“It is, he assured her, because despite everything she looked worried and he didn’t want her to suffer. “It’s a very good sign. Normal means that nothing is wrong, that things are healing. Paramedic,” he reminded her with a shrug when she shot him a curious glance, “I’m no doctor but I do know a decent amount about traumatic injuries.”

She smiled at him and squeezed his arm, “And I am so glad my Carlitos had someone like you working on him. I know it couldn’t have been easy to see someone you care about hurt like that but you helped to give him a fighting chance. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for that.”

“No thanks needed,” he told her softly, “it’s my job.”

“Still,” she insisted, pulling him into a hug. “I am so glad you are my son’s friend. He deserves wonderful people like you in his life.”

TK stiffened in the hug, her words hitting wounds she didn’t even know existed. He cleared his throat as he gently pulled away. “Thank you for the update,” he told her, “I appreciate it.”

She nodded, “Would you like to come sit with him for a bit? We don’t mind, there is plenty of room.”

The thought of being so close to Carlos but not being able to hold him, of having to stay distant so as not to blow their secret in front of his parents was too much. He was certain he wasn’t strong enough for that.

“Thank you,” he told her, “but I should get going. I don’t want to intrude and I just wanted to see how he was doing.”

“Of course,” she told him warmly, “but if you change your mind, feel free to stop by.”

He nodded and with one last hug she let him go and he stepped away, heading towards the doors. He didn’t know where he was going, there was nowhere else for him to go. He needed to be here, but he couldn’t be in there with them. He couldn’t be so close without revealing their relationship and he refused to do that to Carlos.

He stepped outside into the late afternoon sunlight, trying to decide what to do next. Trying to tamp down on the tears threatening to rise. It was too much. He had thought he was strong enough to handle this but he wasn’t. He couldn’t do this.

“TK?”

His name, said like a question from a familiar voice, caused him to turn to see Marjan heading towards him, a tray of coffees in her hand and a frown on her face.

“Hey Marj,” he said, hoping his voice sounded normal. Judging by the look on her face, he failed.

“What happened? Paul said you just got back. Is there any news? Mateo and I have been keeping an eye out but we didn’t see…”

“No,” he assured her, “no, you didn’t miss anything. Things are still fine. I just…” he trailed off, took a breath and started again. “I just ran into Carlos’s mother. She was very pleasant; offered to let me sit in the room with them. Told me what a good friend I was to her son.”

Marjan’s face dropped, “TK,” she said softly, but any response he could have given was swallowed by the tears he couldn’t stop. He thought he had gotten them all out a few hours ago as he lay in their bed, but clearly he was wrong. There were still plenty more. He felt arms wrap around him as Marjan pulled him into a hug, simply holding him as he cried.

--------------

TK was thumbing through the book Paul left him when Becky approached him. His heart was immediately in his throat and he was about to ask her what was wrong when he noticed that she was grinning.

“He’s awake,” she informed him, “has been for a little bit now. The doctors are running some tests right now so his parents have stepped out, but they should be done shortly, if you want to go see him.”

“Yes,” TK said immediately, “of course. Thank you.”

Becky gave him a warm smile, “It’s the least I could do. I do love a happy ending, after all. Give it about 5 minutes and then the doctors should be done.”

TK nodded, hardly daring to believe that this was real. Carlos was awake. He was okay. “Thank you,” he called out to Becky again as she walked away, “really.”

She gave him another smile before she disappeared around the corner and he was left to wait. He pulled out his phone to send a quick update in the group chat: Carlos was awake and he’d give them more details when he had them. There was a flurry of enthusiastic responses and well wishes before TK realized the 5 minutes were almost up and pulled himself out of his seat, heading towards Carlos.

He crossed to the door almost hesitantly, not quite able to shake the fear that maybe Becky had been wrong, that maybe he was somehow imagining this whole thing. But when he stepped inside and was met with a warm, exhausted gaze from familiar brown eyes, he almost staggered in relief.

“Carlos,” TK breathed and the weak, tired smile he received in return was without a doubt the best sight he had seen in days.

“What are you doing way over there?” Carlos asked him and TK was across the room in an instant, skidding to a halt at Carlos’s beside and placing a tender kiss to the top of his head. He blinked away the tears threatening to fall as he studied Carlos. There was so much he wanted to say to him, so much he needed to say. He just wasn’t sure where to start.

“Hi,” he settled on, and winced. As bedside greetings after a traumatic injury went, it wasn’t a good one.

Thankfully, Carlos chuckled, “Hi to you too. How are you doing?”

“Me?” TK asked incredulously, “Carlos, I’m not the one who nearly died.”

“No,” Carlos agreed, voice growing more serious as he studied him, “but my mom spent some time going on about how my friend ‘TJ’ saved my life. If that had been me and it had been you, I don’t think I would be okay.”

TK shook his head, “Can’t you just worry about yourself for once like a normal person,” he gripped, but there was no heat in his words. Carlos raised an eyebrow at him before he sighed. “It’s been rough,” he admitted, “it wasn’t easy and definitely not an experience I am ever looking to relive, but if it meant saving you I would do it a thousand more times.” He held Carlos’s gaze for several long moments in the wake of his words, making sure that his boyfriend understood just how much he meant it. Any amount of pain or suffering on his own part was acceptable long as Carlos was alive and well at the end of it all.

“But you’re awake now and you’re going to be okay,” he concluded after some time, “nothing else matters.”

“From what I’ve heard, there might be one more thing that matters.” At TK’s questioning look he explained, “My parents. They referred to you as my friend. Did you…?”

He trailed off but TK shook his head vigorously, “No,” he said firmly, “of course not. I promised you you could tell them on your own terms, that I was fine with being the friend as long as it took. I meant that.”

“Ty,” Carlos said softly, squeezing their linked hands and giving him a sad look, “babe. You could have said something. I wouldn’t have been mad. Thinking about you going through this by yourself is worse than any possibility of my parents’ reaction.”

“I wasn’t by myself,” he reminded Carlos, “I had my team. Our friends. I was never alone in this.”

“Remind me to thank them.”

“Oh don’t worry,” TK quipped lightly, leaning into this new topic in an effort to leave talk of his parents and the endless waiting behind, “I am sure they will be here the moment you are allowed more visitors.”

Carlos laughed lightly until he broke off with a grimace of pain. TK leaned forward anxiously, “Are you okay? Does it hurt too badly? Should I get a nurse? Do you--”

“Ty,” Carlos said firmly, “it’s okay. I’m okay. I just jostled things a bit, stop worrying.”

“I don’t think you are ever going to make that possible, Carlos Reyes.”

“Look who’s talking.”

TK opened his mouth to fire a response back but any retort he may have made was interrupted by the arrival of Andrea and Gabriel Reyes in the doorway. TK froze and went to pull his hand out of Carlos’s grasp, but Carlos held tight.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Uh, out of here?” TK answered, though it came out more like a question, “To give you some time with your parents?”

Carlos shook his head, “You’re not going anywhere. You belong here.” He turned to his parents, who were watching with curious gazes from the doorway, “Mom, Dad, there’s something I need to tell you.”

TK leaned in closer, voice low in Carlos’s ear, “Maybe waking up from a medically induced coma is not the time for major life decisions, babe. You don’t have to do this now.”

Carlos turned his head to meet TK’s dubious expression with his own, “If not now, when? You said it yourself: nothing ever stays the same.”

“Are you sure?”

Carlos smiled at him and squeezed their still intertwined hands, “Yeah, I am.”

He turned his gaze back to his parents, who were watching the proceedings curiously, “I know you’ve already met TK,” he told them, “and I told you he was a friend from work. But I lied to you, he is so much more than that. I’d like you to formally meet my boyfriend, TK Strand.”

TK anxiously watched their reactions only to see that while there were many emotions playing out on the Reyes’ faces, surprise was not amongst them.

“You knew,” he blurts out, unable to help himself.

Gabriel Reyes shrugged, “We were pretty sure after we met y’all at the market, but when you didn’t say anything when we got here we weren’t so sure and we didn’t want to press,” he began. “But seeing how worried you were, and how often you were here, I figured there was something we didn’t know. Plus, you’re wearing his shirt.”

TK looked down at the old APD sweatshirt he barely remembered grabbing on his trip home sheepishly and he could feel Carlos laughing light beside him.

“Why didn’t you say something?” Andrea asked him, eyes wide with sympathy, “All that time you spent waiting by yourself…”

“I made Carlos a promise,” he said simply, squeezing his boyfriend’s hand even as he spoke to his parents. “I promised him he could tell you on his own terms in his own time, and I would never break a promise I made to him for anything.”

The next thing he knew Andrea’s arms were around him again, squeezing him in a bone crushing hug. He nearly staggered back from the force of it, shooting a bewildered look over her shoulder to Carlos, who is smiling fondly at them.

“I was hoping we were right,” she told him softly, “all that time you were, how deeply you cared for him. I am so glad we were, and so happy that my son has someone to love him as much as you do.”

She pulled away to give him a teary smile that he returned. Gabriel stepped forward to wrap an arm around his wife’s shoulder and lean forward to offer TK an outstretched hand.

“It’s a pleasure to properly meet you, TK,” he said warmly. TK smiled at him before taking the offered hand.

“Likewise, sir.”

They ended the handshake and TK looked back to Carlos to see him beaming at him. He shifted over in his bed to make room for TK to perch on the edge beside him. TK did, happily, readjusting the grip of their joined hands so they could rest comfortably in Carlos’s lap.

“I always knew they would like you,” Carlos told him with a grin, raising an eyebrow at his parents, “but I didn’t know what detectives they were.”

“I am a Texas Ranger son,” Gabriel deadpanned, “in case you have forgotten.”

Carlos rolled his eyes at his father, earning him a lackluster admonishment from his mother and TK let the warmth of this moment settle around him. He could tell Carlos’s parents still had questions, he knew there would be some hard conversations to be had in the coming days. But for now they were all here together, and Carlos was okay. Their secret was out and TK didn’t have to hide the love he felt for this man for anyone ever again. He leaned over to press a soft kiss to the top of Carlos’s head, savoring the ability to do so and the way Carlos leaned into him in turn.

Things weren’t perfect but at this moment they were pretty close, and that was more than enough.

#911 lone star #911 lone star fic #tarlos #tarlos fic #my writing #userkimmy #userjilly #userac #usermaximus #userbones #tuserpaige #laeipoo #maizsnex #buckybarnesalways #immortalstrand #reyeslonestartag #hierophvnts

121 notes · View notes

cxsmicmyeon · 3 years

Text

NEW THINGS ; DKS [M]

do kyungsoo x fem! reader

IN WHICH your new boyfriend tries something different in bed, which ends up causing you to panic slightly. and when you tell him to stop, you start to worry that he won’t like you anymore.

genre: non-idol & new relationship au! smut, angst that turns into comfort & fluff. word count: 1.2k warnings: oral sex (male receiving), dirty talk, degradation, swearing, mentions of anxiety, mention of past trauma, panic attack. please take these warning seriously, as some portray serious topics. if you are triggered by any of these, please read with caution.

DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE UNDER THE AGE OF 18.

author’s note: omg hey there i cannot be degraded in bed for the life of me (: honestly i get why people like it but every time i read a fic where the reader gets called a “whore” or a “slut” i start to get sad woohoo (maybe i’m too sensitive i dunno). i struggle to love myself and i self doubt a LOT and while i would know that he doesn’t actually mean it, my mind may not be able to comprehend it in the heat of the moment. writing this helped me get out some feelings on this. communication is so so important in a relationship, especially discussing sexual things with them!!! feedback and notes are greatly appreciated <3

"Get on your knees.”

You complied in an instant, dropping down onto the floor so you were eye-level with Kyungsoo’s erect cock. Looking up at him with innocent eyes, you gripped his base and awaited his next command.

“Suck.”

You wrapped your lips around his tip, giving it a few kitten licks before taking more of him in. He took a deep breath as you began sucking slowly, as if you were licking a cherry lollipop.

“Just like that.”

You took more of him in, coating his throbbing cock with your saliva as you swirled your tongue around the head. He fisted your hair into his hands and tugged harshly as his tip grazed the back of your throat. You moaned loudly at the contact, the sound and vibration of your voice elicting a loud moan from your boyfriend.

“You take my cock so well, don’t you, you slut?”

You felt yourself tense at the word. Pushing away any intrusive thoughts, you continued to go down on Kyungsoo. You told yourself to focus on how hot he sounded when he let out another groan from your ministrations.

You and Kyungsoo have been dating for two months. You were still in that fresh stage of getting to know each other (socially and sexually), and you had no complaints. He was always quite the gentleman and very sweet to you. And the past couple of times where you had sex, he blew your mind every time.

Kyungsoo brought up the idea of being more rough with you and trying out dirty talk one night. You were familiar with both ideas, having read loads of erotica in your life and even dabbling in it yourself with past partners. Despite a few doubts, you still remained open-minded. You accepted his offer, which brought you to this very situation.

“You like that? Having your filthy lips wrapped around my cock, whore?”

At those words, you felt yourself begin to panic. You released Kyungsoo’s cock from your mouth with a soft pop, uttered a soft ‘I’m sorry,’ and stood up. You ran inside of Kyungsoo’s bathroom and locked yourself inside. You felt your eyes well up with tears and started to cry softly, burying your face into your hands.

You knew he didn’t actually think you were any of those things, and you knew that those names were all a part of trying out dirty talk with a partner. But, in the heat of the moment, hearing him call you those names made you think of times where you were called them by someone who actually meant it. Bullies in school, perverts on the bus, drunkards at the club. Obviously he wasn’t any of those people, quite the opposite, actually. But still, your mind went back to those hard times, and you did not want any of that to be associated with Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo, the kindest man you ever had the pleasure of knowing. Kyungsoo, the man with the loudest laughter hidden behind his stoic façade. Kyungsoo, the man whose cooking you absolutely adored. He was the textbook definition of an amazing boyfriend, and you wanted nothing bad to remind you of him.

You heard a soft knock on the bathroom door. You wiped your eyes with some spare toilet paper before walking to the locked door.

“Are you okay?” Kyungsoo asked, worry laced in his voice. You didn’t answer, looking down at your hands in shame. You were ashamed that you could not handle the simple act of sexual degradation, you could not handle being called a small, little insult that Kyungsoo did not even mean. If characters in the erotica you read could handle it, why couldn’t you? That’s what you told yourself, at least.

“(Y/N), please open the door. I need to know if you’re okay.” Kyungsoo pleaded, jiggling the handle. As if a dam were to break, you sunk down onto the floor and began sobbing uncontrollably. Kyungsoo jiggled the handle once more before leaving to get the key.

A pair of arms wrapped themselves around you as soon as you heard the door open. Your sobs only intensified as you heard soft reassurances come from your boyfriend. He sat you up and began running a hand up and down your back soothingly.

“I’m so sorry,” you cried, throwing your arms around Kyungsoo’s neck. You felt yourself hold him tighter, burying your face in the crook of his neck.

“Why are you saying sorry, baby?” Kyungsoo asked, kissing the top of your head.

“I... I...”

You struggled to get your words out. Your heart raced inside of your chest as you felt yourself start to shake. Kyungsoo let you go and moved himself in front of you.

“Breathe with me, (Y/N),” You looked around the bathroom for a bit before meeting Kyungsoo’s eyes. He took a deep breath, motioning for you to do the same. You inhaled deeply, holding your breath for a moment before exhaling. “There you go, one more...” You mirrored Kyungsoo’s breathing a few more times, feeling yourself calm down. Just to be safe, you took one more deep breath, feeling your heartrate slow to its normal speed. You looked at your boyfriend and gave him a weak smile, taking his hand into yours.

“Do you feel calmer now?” you nodded, squeezing his hand. “Good. Do you want to talk about it? You don’t have to, whenever you’re ready to talk, I’m here.”

You thanked him before standing and leading him back to his bedroom. He sat on the foot of his bed, patting the area next to him for you to sit with him. You took his hands into yours again, taking a deep breath.

“I’m sorry for before. I should have told you before we started, but I’m really uncomfortable with degradation. I know you brought up the rough stuff and dirty talk, and I’m mostly okay with that, but the whole degradation thing slipped my mind and I should have brought it up earlier. I know that’s probably something you’re into and I’m sorry that I can’t really provide that for you. P... Please don’t be mad at me.” You avoided Kyungsoo’s gaze in fear he would reject your apology.

“You don’t have to apologize. And I’m not mad at you. I should have asked you if you liked that stuff. But thank you so much for telling me, (Y/N). Please don’t think that I’d be mad for something that makes you uncomfortable, especially in bed. I want you to be comfortable with me always, (Y/N).” Kyungsoo wrapped his arms around you, kissing your temple softly. You returned his affections, cuddling close to him.

“Thank you, so so much.”

Never have you felt so safe, so valid, so appreciated. Never have you felt so heard, so seen by a partner. You curled closer to Kyungsoo, peppering his bare shoulder with kisses.

“We don’t have to do anything else today, do you wanna watch a movie or something?” Kyungsoo asked.

“Can we just... cuddle?” you responded, looking up at him.

“Of course.” Kyungsoo stood and led you to the front of the bed, moving the blankets so you can get underneath. He laid next to you and covered both of you with the blankets. He held you close as you laid your head on his bare chest, the sound of his heartbeat lulling you to sleep.

And for the first time in a long time, you felt as if you were home.

Home was now with Kyungsoo.

Forevermore with Do Kyungsoo.

#exowritersnet #d.o x reader #d.o x you #kyungsoo x reader #kyungsoo x you #kyungsoo imagine #kyungsoo smut #exo smut #exo imagine #exo imagines #exo scenario #exo scenarios #exo fanfiction #exo fluff

140 notes · View notes

wallwriterstuff · 3 years

Note

Hi! Can I please request a Demetri x mate!fem!reader where he finds her (when she’s still human) severely injured, and he can sense she’s his mate, and decides to immediately turn her because he doesn’t want to lose her (I’m sure he wouldn’t take the chance of taking her to the hospital) and when she wakes up, she’s in the Volturi castle. I’m sure it’d be really shocking for her because she didn’t know about the vampires (she thought they were fiction), and now she’s a vampire and has a mate,Demetri. He would be so sweet when he’s helping her adjust!! Ooo what if she woke up as a vampire near Christmas time,and she’s really sad because she was going to spend Christmas with family, but now she’s a vampire, so she can’t, so Dem finds out everything he can about this “human custom” (I feel like he’d call Christmas this lol), and he sets up their room all Christmas like and gets her presents, mistletoe 😘, a tree, etc, and ahhh he would be so sweet, if she could cry, she’d be bawling omg... Also she would so somehow convince him to wear matching Christmas pajamas... And then Felix would walk in to see this LOL

This Thing You Call Christmas ||Demetri Volturi x Female Reader||

Warnings: Graphic descriptions of injury, violence and trauma.

Words: 5391

Summary: When a wrong turn down a dreary alleyway spells disaster for the reader, she finds that Chrismas miracles come in all forms. (I swear despite the warning tags there are some fluffy bits in this.)

It wasn’t really clear to you what had happened for several moments after the event. One moment you had simply been jogging to reach the end of an alleyway that had creepier vibes than an abandoned psychiatric ward, and the next you were…hot. Too hot. Just for a moment. So hot in fact you could feel how cool the breeze was on your skin. Everything in that one brief moment was so heightened and yet so confusing, your blood roaring in your ears and your mouth spouting protest after protest with some not so lady-like words at the man that had shoved you against the wall.

Then an explosion of pain in your side had ricocheted through each and everyone one of your ribs, bursting outward like a small, red hot explosion, the lava leaking out and soaking your shirt, your hip bone. It wasn’t until you looked down and saw the knife embedded in your gut that you understood what had happened. In that brief, infinitesimal moment, the world just stopped. Your jaw dropped, disbelief flooding your system as your eyes met your attackers. He was a scrawny little boy, dirt smudged on his face and clothes utterly ruined, homeless most likely and in desperate enough need of cash he’d stuck you with whatever he could find to get it.

“Please…take the bag just don’t pull out the-“

“Shit!” he swore, yanking the knife free of your abdomen to cut through the leather of your bag handle and steal it away. You cried out, knees giving way beneath you the moment he let you go. Just like that, he’d drastically reduced your chances of escaping this alleyway alive. The ground was cold and wet beneath your knees, typical British weather not on your side to make anything better in this shitty scenario.

“Fuck…f-fuck,” you whimpered, hand pressed to your side as you rapidly lost blood, “H-help! Someone help me! Help me please!” you called out. The wound in your side throbbed, a fiery kind of ache that radiated outward from the focal point and shot through every nerve ending your body possessed purely to torment you as you tried to stand up straight. Blood was seeping through the gaps in your fingers, your shirt soaked with it as you collapsed sideways into the wall. Gritting your teeth, you used your other arm to try and lever yourself up, hobbling forward a few steps. Every step was agony and you could feel the colour draining form your face, your heart beating hard in your chest as adrenaline pounded through your veins.

No matter how loud you cried out nobody seemed to hear your desperation. No matter how many steps you took the mouth of the alleyway seemed to get further away, or maybe it was your vision starting to tunnel, who knew? Your legs gave out and you hit the floor hard, face crunching into the cement and nose shattering upon impact. More blood burst over your face, hot and fresh, and your vision began to blacken at the edges. Gasping for air, tears stung your eyes. This was not how your life was supposed to end. You were young, only 22, you had so much to live for yet that you hadn’t been able to achieve or see or do. Bleeding out in an alleyway because of a mugging gone wrong? Not your idea of a good way to go out. Christmas was just around the corner, you were supposed to go back home and spend it with family, instead they would have to come to London and peer inside a body bag to identify their daughter.

After that, time became a blur. You had no way of honestly telling what happened next, the world going dark as you descended further and further into the pits of hell. It had to be hell, didn’t it? That was where the pits of flame swallowed you whole to torture you for eternity, right? You hadn’t stopped burning since you closed your eyes, a red hot poker too big for your veins being forced through them at an agonisingly slow speed, splitting nerve endings and peeling away your flesh inch by inch. The screams in your own head were deafening and you were sure the devil must have enjoyed watching you writhe on his table. The raging inferno just didn’t go away either. You weren’t sure what was worse, the intensity of the burn or the fact you actually started to get used to it.

That relief was never going to last, not when the devil liked to torture his victims. The fire began receding from extremities first, the tips of your fingers going blissfully cool, tingling with numbness as the flames dissipated and feeling began to return. It was like being submerged in cold water and you welcomed the blissful feeling, but even that was accompanied by a worse kind of pine, a searing, blistering agony in your chest that was eating away at your rabbiting heart. It was gone as quickly as it came, and for a second you forgot how to breathe, the air stolen from your lungs at the sudden, intense relief. No more fire, no more burning. With a sigh you finally unscrewed your eyes, or at least, it felt like you had kept them clenched shut for a thousand years at that point. There was no ache in your jaw though you were sure you had screamed, no pain in your body lingering from the torment it had gone through.

The only problem was how sensitive you felt. After burning for so long your body was reacting to everything, senses heightened to the point the world seemed surreal. The air was ripe with a thousand smells, your tongue tingling with the taste of each one and your eyes were so laser-focused on everything all at once it was difficult to focus on any one thing. Beneath your fingers you could feel every strand of cotton that made up the dark sheets you were lying on. Where even were you? This was…it wasn’t a hospital bed, too plush and the colours to deep for the neutral tones of a sickroom. There was expensive looking wooden furniture with rich, dark tones and photographs and a fireplace made of stone.

“It is a relief to see you awake.”

One moment you were relishing in the softness of sheets and sinking into a heavenly mattress, and the next you were flat against the wall across from you, your spine crunching through the stone even though it should have been the other way around. Your wide eyes looked down at the chunks of stone near your feet, the dust settling on your shoulders, and then you tried to estimate the distance between you and the bed. It was easily four meters. How had you crossed four meters in such a short time span? Don’t even start on your posture right now. Since when did you crouch and bare your teeth at people like that? It was like a deep, animalistic urge had taken over, your senses still screaming danger as you tried to take in all the new information, the new man.

He was tall, broad-shouldered, with the sharpest jawline you had ever seen on a man. The crystalline quality of his skin was equally as distracting, it was almost pearlescent he was so pale, and it distracted you just long enough that you didn’t notice the redness of his irises till after you had already become fascinated with starring at him. Chestnut brown hair looked soft enough to run your fingers through, golden strands interwoven and reflecting the minimal light coming in from the window. He wore a suit, the very definition of elegance as he sat back in a leather armchair and watched you carefully, like he was a talent-show judge maybe trying to decide if you were worth his time.

“Who are – oh.” You blinked, pulled out of your defensive stance by the sound of your voice. It was you but it…wasn’t. How could you sound so soprano sweet? It was almost like you had swallowed sugar and it was now sprinkled throughout your words. His head tilted, a smile pulling at full, pink lips to reveal the briefest flash of pearl white teeth.

“A man who means you no harm, I assure you. There are a lot of changes you need to be made aware of, things I do not expect you to fully believe right away but need you to know are true. Will you give me the time to explain once we have gotten you fed?” he asked. Fed? You wanted to ask what he meant because you weren’t honestly all that hungry, but his words reignited the fire in your body. Your throat was absolutely parched, ripping itself apart for any sort of relief. With a gasp you doubled over, hand flying to your throat like you might just be able to rip the pain out.

“I – w-what d-did you – gah!” you rasped. A large, warm hand found your shoulder, and though the touch of a stranger should have felt foreign and wrong it was relieving, soothing.

“You will focus much better once you have fed. Wait right here, I promise you it will be over soon.” He reassured you with a gentle rubbing motion on your shoulder. You weren’t too sure you could have moved even if you wanted to, your mind going haywire as the intense fire burned brighter, blazing through your throat. Water, you needed water. Stumbling towards the bright white porcelain of a bathroom, you threw the door open wider and gasped when the wood shattered against the tiles. It was difficult to think beyond the burning in your throat though as you forced the tap to turn on, trying to gulp down water in the hopes it might soothe your throat some. Gallons must have washed down your throat by the time the handsome stranger returned, and what came next was…a blur.

Everything was euphoric, and hazy, a fog slowly lifting from your mind. The sound of dripping water leaked into your consciousness, your nose smelling something incredibly rich and sweet that made your throat ache – the burn was thankfully gone. Though your ears and nose seemed to be working your eyes were not. All you could see was red, dark crimson coating the walls and, if your reflection was to be believed, you. It dripped from your chin, coating your lips a ruby red and staining the pretty black dress you had been wearing in large swatches. The handsome stranger was stood in the doorway, watching you with a hint of amusement in his irises. It took you a fraction of a second to understand where the red drenching had come from. A woman who might once have been pretty lay in your arms limp as a ragdoll, drained of all colour with her throat ripped out and trailing along her collarbone.

Her blood was quite literally on your hands.

With a gasp, you dropped her shattered body and almost slipped on the water blanketing the floor, your body righting itself at unnatural speed. You twisted, the horror on your face obvious as a sob ripped its way free of your chest, hands flying up to your mouth as a flurry of terror and guilt and horror washed through you. The tap had been warped, your fingerprints indented into the metal and the top twisted off. Water had flooded the entire bathroom, and as your panic grew more intense your eyes stung as though you wanted to cry, but no tears would come. You could barely breathe, yet you couldn’t feel your heart rabbiting in your chest as you knew it should. The tile shattered beneath your knees as you fell, not a scratch on you as you spotted the second body over the tips of your fingers. Splinters of wood had been soaked by the overflowing tap, the door almost as broken as the bodies at your knees.

“No. N- no, what happened to me?” you cried out, chest heaving as you buried your head in your hands. Within seconds you were enveloped by strong arms, a warm body moving in behind you until you were cradled close, shielded from the damage around you.

“Shhhh sh sh sh, everything is fine cara mia, you did well,” the smooth whisper was like the voice of the devil tempting you to sin further, “This is normal for our kind, this is how we survive, you have done no wrong.” He promised, whispering quiet reassurances while you struggled to calm. Whoever this man was, you should have been afraid of him. He had somehow made you blackout and murder two people, you’d cannibalised them actually, and whatever else he had done to you you were now abnormally strong to. He had made you into some sort of monster, and yet…

“Wh-why?” you sniffled. Why had this happened to you? Why had these two unfortunate souls had to die? Why had you burned so badly for so long? There was lots of questions and so little time to ask them, so many answers you weren’t actually sure you wanted. He was stroking your hair now, his embrace feeling safe and warm; while you were in his arms, you could almost forget about the scene surrounding you.

“Forgive me, I know this is overwhelming, but I could think of no other way to save you. I had to change you my love.” He whispered. Your sobbing had died to sniffles now, and you lifted your head to look up at him, feeling lost and desperate for anything that might make sense. It was all so confusing and the only thing grounding you right now was him, because you could just sense that he was the same as you, only he was much more sure of what he was and his place in the world.

“Change?”

“Yes, change. I had to change you from human, to vampire. The burning you felt was my venom. Please understand I had no choice,” His hand moved from your hair to your cheek, eyes scrutinising your face. “Come, let’s get you cleaned up and we can talk some more, yes?” The word vampire was ricocheting around your brain, your body moving whichever way he wanted to lead it. It was like you had blacked out again, suddenly standing in a much cleaner bathroom as the handsome stranger turned knobs to adjust water that came tumbling out of a luxurious looking waterfall spout above your head. You blinked, shocked to realise that despite not paying attention you could distinctly recall the way he had carefully moved you from room to room with the promise of a hot shower and fresh clothes.

For his part, Demetri was incredibly worried about you. At first he had simply feared his venom wouldn’t take, that he was too late when he found you that awful night, surrounded by your blood and struggling to use the last of the air in your lungs. He’d been attracted by the smell of your blood, not having smelt something quite that strong and alluring in a while. He thought it was his lucky day, a bloodsinger perhaps, but he found you instead, broken and abused, twitching in a pool of crimson – the scent was strong because so much of it had spilled onto the concrete.

Demetri had known from the moment he saw you that you were meant to be his, everything about you screaming to every instinct he had. Your scent teased his nose as one of the best he’d ever come across, your tenor irresistibly bright and warm, the curves of your broken body looking like they were physically molded for his hands to hold. He had never turned anyone before, but it was really the only option he had once he realised he couldn’t rouse you to so much as ask your name. His next worry had been trying to stop. Once his teeth had sunk into your flesh and the sublime taste of you hit his tongue it had been a race against time to hold his position long enough so enough venom could infiltrate your system, all while not draining anymore of the precious little blood you had left. He had almost lost it when he tried to seal your stab wound with his tongue.

You had taken four, agonisingly long days to open those vivid red eyes. He hadn’t been able to focus on anything else, so distracted that Aro had been forced to give him time off so he could sit by your side – and do a bit of hunting on your behalf. Now you were nearly comatose in Felix’s shower, his best friend busy cleaning up his bathroom as best he could so you wouldn’t return to that horror scene. Demetri had known you would be shocked, that it would be a lot to adjust to, you had been ripped from a safe world where monsters like him didn’t exist after all, forced to become one yourself without consent. How was he supposed to explain it all to you? How did he even begin to make you understand the bond that was set between you? You had calmed so quickly in his embrace, a sure sign you felt it to.

“Vampires aren’t real. I know they’re not, but the things I did…you can’t even tell I was stabbed. It shouldn’t be possible, none of it should be.” Your voice was as soft and melodic as windchimes, an addicting song he could listen to on repeat for hours. Demetri had sat as a silent sentry on Felix’s bed, listening for any sign you might be distressed again so he could swoop in and save you. Every little sob had torn at his heart, his arms aching to hold you until it all went away. He gave you a slow nod, patting the space beside him in a silent invitation, one he was glad you accepted. Your scent was unique, comforting, intoxicating. From the moment you sat beside him, it was all he could focus on.

“We are very real love. You are faster and stronger in this body, your senses keener. My venom has immortalised you as you are, unchanging from this day for the rest of eternity.” He informed you, his voice soft so as not to startle you. Newborns were unpredictable, driven by animalistic instinct. Vibrantly red eyes stared back at his for a brief moment before your gaze dipped to your hands. You were wearing one of his shirts, the premium cotton almost swamping you and landing at mid-thigh. The sleeves had covered your hands, and he moved to kneel in front of you to roll them up.

“Your venom?” you asked, eyes watching his every move. Demetri nodded.

“Yes, you have venom to. It coats our teeth to immobilise our prey, and our joints to allow us to move faster than anything else on earth.” He answered honestly. A slow exhale was the only response he got from you as he carefully brushed his fingertips against your arm, desperate for even the smallest amount of contact with you. Every time he touched you he felt his nerve-endings sing with relief, like he had been suffering for a thousand years without ever knowing he was till he had found you.

“So…vampires are fast…and strong.” You mumbled, pulling your hands back subconsciously. Demetri nodded, moving back to sit beside you.

“Some of us are gifted also. I, for example, can track anyone anywhere in the world. There is much to learn still, try not to overwhelm yourself learning it all in one go,” he advised, head tilting slightly, “Since I am answering so many of your questions perhaps you can answer one of mine?” You looked somewhat bewildered, as if you hadn’t actually considered he might have things he wanted to know to.

“Like what?” you sounded cautious and Demetri couldn’t help but laugh.

“Nothing too sinister I promise, but I was hoping I might learn your name.” he hinted. He was sure you would be blushing if you could, but you turned your body towards him and held out a hand anyway.

“Y/N, Y/N L/N.” your hand was small in his own, delicate, and yet when you gripped you gripped too tight. He winced slightly as the skin cracked and you withdrew immediately, looking horrified by what you’d done. Demetri cradled his broken hand to him with a light laugh.

“My apologies, I should have known better than to ask a newborn to shake my hand,” he dismissed it with ease even as the skin stung and knitted itself back together, “I am Demetri, Demetri Volturi. Welcome to our coven, tesoro.” You swallowed, looking nervous again.

“When can I go home? I…you’ve been really kind but I have to get back, my parents, they’re expecting me to come for Christmas.” Your teeth worried your lower lip and his heart ached a little, knowing you wouldn’t like the news he had to give you.

“Given the damage you have unwittingly caused today, would you think it wise of me to let you return home?” he asked gently. He watched your breathing pick up slightly, your expression twisting into disappointment and upset.

“But it’s Christmas, I have to get back, I always go home for Christmas.” You insisted, voice wavering. Christmas? Demetri couldn’t honestly comprehend what was so important about it that you had to go back for it every year. It was a time of year for human greed to rear its ugly head and nothing else, wasn’t it? He couldn’t very well say that to you, however.

“It will not be possible anymore Y/N. Please understand, to the rest of the world vampires do not exist for good reason, we remain hidden, from this moment forth, you no longer exist either, not as you used to.” He wished he’d never said anything when you began to cry once more, and even though he was sure part of you was angry at him for doing this to you, you still curled into his side to accept the comfort he offered. The days that followed were some of the strangest of his life, his mate so near and yet so far. He understood that everything was overwhelming, not at all what you were used to, but you were much shyer and more withdrawn than he had expected. There was little he could do to coax you out of your shell except give you time, though his saving grace was you seemed willing to be in his presence more so than anyone else’s.

It was a pattern he found he rather liked. You came to him when you had questions you wanted answers for, and curious little thing that you were you had lots of them to; only he was ever allowed to get close enough to touch you, and only he got to be near when you fed, you still needing the guidance and his grounding influence to move past the initial guilt till it was almost negligible. Once, when Felix had tried to hand you some spare clothes’ he had collected rather thoughtfully from town for you, he had accidentally brushed your hand with his own and you had flinched straight into Demetri, like you subconsciously were seeking his protection. Another time (he wasn’t quite sure you had known you were doing it) but one night, as he trawled the internet for more information on Christmas traditions in Britain on his tablet, you had simply been watching the flames dance in the hearth beside him when you scooted a little closer and rested your head on his shoulder. His hand had reached for your own and you hadn’t hesitated to slip your fingers between his own, squeezing lightly.

His favourite memory by far had to be the day you found out you glowed. At first you’d been utterly startled, flitting past his window so fast to show him something you hadn’t fully seen anything, but the glimpse of glitter was enough to slow you down, leaving you looking bewildered as you struggled to see exactly what had happened. With a chuckle, he’d pulled you back towards the window, keeping your hand in his and gently rolling up the sleeve of your jumper before slowly moving your arm into the light. The awe on your face was an expression he wouldn’t soon forget, wide red eyes looking between him and the diamonds encrusted in your skin before a laugh so sweet it could have been a baby’s coo rent the air.

“We sparkle?”

“We do. You are as precious as any rare gem love, the proof is in your skin.”

You had tilted your head just enough that he could have kissed you, if you’d both so desired it in that moment, but you’d barely known him a week and it didn’t seem appropriate. He’d let you pull away from him, averting your gaze in that shy way you had that he found so endearing. He wouldn’t let you pull away next time.

“Demetri? Where can I put this?” Felix brought him out of his reverie, and he turned his head from the fireplace to see what exactly he was holding. He had ordered a lot of things after all. His tree was currently a little lopsided, lacking ornaments on the right-hand side, so he hoped it was another box of baubles. You were currently in the training room with Alec and Jane, the twins agreeing to distract you while he set up his room with everything he had brought. He couldn’t do much about your general need to acclimate to the new life you had discovered, but he could soothe your grief by bringing Christmas to you, right?

It had taken him a few minutes to figure out how the stupid tree was supposed to go up and he was admittedly irritated with how many specks of glitter he could see in his carpet, but he figured it would all be worth it when everything was ready.

“Those are for the fireplace.” He informed the giant. Felix glanced about the place, much different to Demetri’s usual decoration. The Masters’ had been generous at first, giving you our own space to allow you to acclimate to your new senses in some peace and quiet, but since you were mated to him it was expected you would eventually share a room, and the Masters’ patience was running very thin. Demetri hoped you would accept the proposition soon given you spent most of your time in his room with him anyway. Felix knew better than to stick around, knowing he would get irritated by his friends fussing eventually. Demetri didn’t mind, he had a tree to trim after all, though it was quickly becoming more arduous by the minute as he tried to ensure a balance between tinsel and ornaments. With his speed, he had transformed his room in a little under two hours, and from the look on your face when you walked into the room it had well been worth it.

Your mouth parted, eyes alight with wonder and confusion, you took in an array of lights adorning the bookshelves, fireplace and tree. There was tinsel on almost every flat surface, and fake snowmen and santa’s sitting along a mantlepiece dripping with fake icicles.

“Metri…” you breathed. He hoped your lack of words was a good sign. Hesitant steps carried you about the room, your fingertips dancing over the ornaments scattered about.

“Are they to your liking?” he asked. His eyes dipped to the package in your grip but you seemingly had forgotten it. Your eyes were sparkling as you turned to face him.

“I – these are – we…their perfect.” You whispered, voice raw with unshed emotion. Demetri watched you come closer towards him, meeting you halfway to prevent you from going any further with a smile. His eyes flickered upward to the white berries of mistletoe he’d carefully hung from the chandelier – his plan was in motion. Your eyes followed his gaze, breath hitching slightly. Demetri had never wanted to kiss anyone more than he did in that moment, you and your wide-eyed stare was too tempting, the soft glow of multicoloured lights illuminating the planes of your face making you as picture perfect as any hallmark Christmas movie character he had forced himself to watch.

“I tried to read up on some Christmas traditions for you. Most seem to be very subjective but I chose a few I knew I could bring to Volterra,” He murmured, “I admit, this was one of my favourites…I was rather hoping you would indulge me, love.” He placed his hand on your waist as gently as possible, hoping not to scare you away. Timid thing that you were, he wasn’t sure you would agree, but he wanted to give you plenty of chance to choose for yourself. You didn’t need to know that your decision here could make or break him, that he wasn’t just asking you for permission to kiss you. What he really wanted to know was whether or not you accepted him as your mate. You bit your lip, eyes flickering away briefly.

“Only if you indulge me to,” you bargained, pulling your package up between you pair. Demetri raised his eyebrows slightly, curious to know what was in the squishy looking plastic envelope. “I…I didn’t know you were going to do all this for me but I was going to ask that…well, you see my family always get matching pyjamas to spend Christmas Day in and I just…since we both are free on Christmas day…you don’t have to but-“

“I would be honoured, love,” Demetri cut you off, “There is little I would not do for you.” Your grip on your pyjama package tightened, your breathing a little shaky now and eyes filled with trepidation. Demetri searched your expression, looking for anything that might warrant some hope, but your deer in the headlights expression remained and he was truly uncertain as to where you stood.

“I don’t understand,” You admitted quietly, “I’m nothing special. I don’t understand why you did all of this for me.” Demetri sighed, absent-mindedly brushing your hair back from your face. It would have been endearing if it wasn’t so bloody frustrating. Why couldn’t you see how much you meant to him? He made himself readily available to your every whim and desire, never rejected you when you sought physical comfort from him despite quite obviously denying it to everyone else. Had you truly not noticed and understood you were everything to him? He quite literally couldn’t live without you.

“Truthfully? I care little for the tinsel and lights and all of the frivolity this holiday gives humans an excuse for, but I care for your enjoyment of it. This is important to you, and if I have not made it abundantly clear by now you are important to me.” Demetri said, moving the package from your grip so he could take your hands and squeeze them lightly.

“But-“

“But nothing, Y/N. I have known since the day I was forced to change you there was only one person meant for me. I would rather endure the change for the rest of eternity, drown over and over in the deepest and darkest parts of the ocean, have the devil himself rip whatever is left of my soul in two, than spend a day without my mate,” He swore, bringing your hands up to rest on his chest, “It may not beat, but if you will accept it, this heart is yours and yours only.” A small squeak of surprise escaped you and you almost seemed to flounder for a moment, clearly shocked by the bold declaration. He had said nothing he didn’t know deep in his heart to be true, and surrounded by the glow of Christmas lights, nestled in his arms beneath the mistletoe, you answered him the only way you knew how.

So long as you kept up a tradition of kissing him like this, Demetri could get used to celebrating Christmas.

#twilight #twilight fanfiction #volturi #demetri volturi #demetri volturi x reader #felix volturi #you know he is helping his homeboy win you over #x reader #request #christmas

142 notes · View notes

thoughtfullyyoungduck · 3 years

Text

water rippling

A/N: I’m so sorry this took so long, please let me know what you think!

Summary: could you do a young losers x reader where the reader can’t swim but richie convinced her to come w them to the quarry bc he’ll teach her. but while he is pennywise comes underwater and tries to drown her so they have to save her

warnings: this whole chapter is basically about drowning and the fear of it so please don’t read it if that triggers you.

‘I’m not getting in.’

‘If you don’t get in than I can’t teach you anything either. Fuck, just get in already.’

‘I told you I didn’t want to go swimming Richie, this is all your stupid idea so at the very least be fucking patient with me’, you bite as you dip in foot into the water, then lift it up higher again so the water can’t reach you. The scowl on your face deepens.

You never understood why people swim as a hobby. You’d get why everyone has to learn how to swim - even if you didn’t and never learned-, but actually enjoying swimming? No, those people must be out of their minds.

Richie laughs, mocking you, but all in good fun. ‘Start with one step. Just until the water reaches your ancles. You can’t drown from that Y/N.’

‘I could trip and drown.’

‘Literally how? I’m right here, the losers are further up keeping an eye on us, and all you would have to do is stand up. It’s not deep here.’

You sigh, but know that ultimately, Richie has a point.

Most people don’t automatically back away from water as soon as they catch a glimpse of it, but people hadn’t had a trauma related to it either.

Swimming always reminds you of the day you nearly drowned. It was on vacation, in the same resort your parents took you every year, and then left you in the Mini club while they went off and had a relaxing day. The animators who were supposed to be watching you, spoke a language you, at that time, hadn’t been able to disaffirm, and that’s where an almost deadly mistake was made.

The leaders lured you away from the club house, and you, like every other little kid present, followed them along unfearingly. They were older, and you trusted that they would keep you safe. Until one of them picked you up near a pool, and threw you in without any warning.

At the time, you hadn’t been able to swim by yourself without help, and so the second your feet left solid ground, you panicked. It didn’t seem to matter how many times you tried to wave your arms for help, none of the animators were glancing your way.

You can’t figure out how you somehow managed to reach the edge of the pool, but you did, only to get thrown right back in after by the animator, who thought you were having the time of your live.

Of course, you didn’t blame them. It’s not like you could tell them you couldn’t swim, so they had no way of knowing that, but it still scared the life out of you. For the rest of the trip, and after, you refused to go anywhere near the water. Not even your parents trying to persuade you with promises of ice cream and candy if you were brave, made you take another change in the thing that nearly killed you.

You never tried to swim again, and that meant you had no knowledge of how to do it. It was embarrassing, to decline going to swim during P.E and being forced to explain why. Your peers often ridiculed you for it, and it made you feel like a losers for being such a coward.

But, cowardness is easy, especially when compared to facing your fears, and you never tried to learn how to swim, even after all the mockery. Only your new best friends hang out in the quarry all the time now, and you’re sick of being the one who has to watch from the shore as the others have fun.

Nothing bad has occurred to them in the water, -you’ve seen them go in about six times in three weeks now, and no one has come close to trouble - and Eddie, who is the most cautious person you’ve ever met, told you that statistically, there’s very little chance of you drowning. At your wits end, the only person you can think of asking for help, is Richie.

Richie might be an add choice, but he’s the only one who wouldn’t turn the lessons entirely boring and practical, like the others might. Richie jokes around a lot, brings humor into any situation, and you need that. You can’t get in your hard about the rippling water, or you’ll back out again.

‘Fine, I’ll go in, I’ll even sit down, but if I freak out and want to get out you’ll let me okay?’

‘Yeah I’m not gonna force you to stay. I’m not Eddie’s mom.’

Maybe you’ll be embarrassed by the motion later, but in the moment, you reach for Richie’s wrist, just to have some sort of support. Richie doesn’t mention it, just careful takes the same steps you do and lets you pick the pace at which you’re going.

It goes slow, but not at any point does Richie try to speed the process along. He does drop down in the water, on his ass, choosing a spot that just covers both of your torsos but is close to the shore.

You copy his every move, breathe deeply when you feel the water ripple around you and adjust to the new intrusion, until your closely packed to Richie’s side, in the water.

It takes a second to set in, that you’re sitting in the water and nothing is happening, but then you let out a breath of disbelief.

‘See, told you you could fucking do it. Repeat after me, you’re a woman who don’t need no man.’

‘You’ve been watching to many soap operas rich’, you tell him when you feel like you’re not on the verge of panicking anymore.

Inside the water, something pokes your leg, but you try to ignore it. You focus on breathing through the initial panic, remembering that nothing bad had happened to the losers despite being in the lake for a long time, and that pretty much ensures nothing would happen to you either.

‘Oh gross’, you utter as your try to force the slimy thing away from your feet. ‘You didn’t tell me there would be fish in here.’

Richie snorts, rolling his eyes as he grabs a handful of water and aims it at your face. He misses -Richie’s aim is always horrible whether you’re playing dodgeball or he’s trying to pass something on-, but he doesn’t care.

‘This is your fear Y/N/N, don’t try to scare me now. Besides, I’m not afraid of fish, Eddie’s mom vagina’s smells like a few died down there.’

You can’t focus on how disgustingly distasteful that joke is, because all you concentrate on is the slimy sensation, slowly sliding up your leg higher and higher.

‘Richie’, you beg, your voice reduced to that of a scared toddler. ‘Then what the fuck is touching me right now?’

A louder, slightly strained chuckle is produced by Richie, like he too is getting worried but is trying hard to convince himself everything is alright.

‘Stop fucking with me Y/N.’

Richie pushes the boundaries a lot, keeps going until somebody gets really annoyed and about ready to shut him up for a longer time, but the sincerity in his vox is so present that you’re instantly convinced he’s not messing around now.

‘I’m not fucking with you’, you raise your voice to a shrilled scream, so loud that the other losers, engaged in a game of chicken in the middle of quarry, also become aware of the situation. ‘Something is down there.’

It’s too late for them to help. The slimy blob, muddled by the water but visually a hand, tightens around your ancle, and snatches, hard.

Richie’s scrawny arms can’t resist against the strong haul, but he tries to hold on for as long as possible. His nails dig into your flesh, and the more you get pulled inside the water, the more marks his nails dig as you slide forward.

You shriek, arms flailing around now that the water is still too shallow for you to not be able to touch the bottom.

Plunges of water drip onto your face, both from your doing and Richie’s, and the others are advancing rapidly to come too your aid. Unfortunately nothing else can be done. Richie has no other options but to let you go, and the hand drags you to the middle of the lake.

Once you’re far enough away that you can’t touch the bottom with your feet anymore, the hand lets go, and you’re left to flounder on your own. Your legs slap around, trying with all your might to stay afloat and give the losers an opportunity to save you. A haunting chuckle breezes over the shell of your ear, and then the hand returns, satisfied with watching you struggle and panic for a while, but now ready to increase the terror.

You get one more chance to scream and suck in a handful of fresh air, and then your sinking down, under the surface.

The water douses your ears, muffles your ability to hear and see, and suffocates you with her insistence. You open your mouth, but it can’t produce a scream anymore, and you realize that you are completely as utterly doomed.

The hand has yet to free you, and it continues to pull you down. With each second that ticks by the fire in your chest spreads, and is unable to be ignored. After barely a few seconds, your movements turn sluggish, and you stop fighting against the hand. It’s at that time that it finally loosens his hold, but the fire has dilated up so much you can’t focus on anything other than the pain. Without ever learning how to swim, you wouldn’t be able to make it to shore anyway.

You read somewhere once that as soon as you swallow in water and it fills your lungs, you’ll die, and the pain will stop.

Your life plan hadn’t included dying this young in your life, but if you must go, you’d rather have it be quick. Losing the strength to hold out any longer, you open your mouth, and feel two separate pair of hands unclasps around your arms. The anxiety inside of you spikes, but you lack the energy to struggle against the grip, so you allow yourself to be guided. It’s not until your head breaks up from the water, and o2 greets you in plenty, that you see that the hands have brought you back up, instead of down.

You gasp, coughing up water, feeling as any minute you could pass out on the spot.

‘Jesus Y/N, stop struggling. We’re going to get you out.’

The two pairs of hands that saved you from drowning turn out to be Mike and Bill, and the float with you to the side of quarry where Eddie is gearing up to perform cpr if needed. If you had some breath back in your body, you would laugh at the sight.

Bev and Richie help drag you onto the dry rocks, away from the water, but still too close for your liking.

‘Get away’, you retches, crawling back in your arms. Eddie, who has been checking you over, tuts, but you don’t let it stop you.

‘It grabbed me. It fucking grabbed me. Get away from the water.’ You think you begin to cry, out of relief and alarm, but you can’t disentangle the water with your fluid.

‘There was nothing out there Y/N’, Ben tries to sooth, approaching you like a frightened animal. Eddie is less cautious, and stamps towards your with a frown on his face. He turns you on your side, his instruction not too brazen but still firm.

‘There was though guys. I swear on Eddie’s mom that something pulled her away.’

‘I saw it too,’ Eddie conforms, not looking away from your body, checking for any permanent damage.

‘Guys,’ Bev interject with a head shake. Her eyes gesture to you, shivering with wet clothes and crying hysterically. ‘Not now.’

‘Yeah. We’ll t-t-talk about it l-l-later.’

It’s Bev that gently ushers Eddie’s prodding hands away, as she opens her arms and awaits to see you reaction. You, once you pick up on what’s happening, accept gratefully, your tears subsiding only slightly once your wrapped up. The others join the cuddle pile soon enough, until there’s a shield of people protecting you and obstructing your view of the water.

‘Promise me we won’t ever go in there again. Not any of you. Please,’ you beg, afraid not solely for your life but for theirs as well.

‘Okay, okay Y/N. We promise.’

#My writing #the losers x reader #the losers club imagines #richie x reader #eddie x reader #stan x reader #bill x reader #mike hanlon x reader #ben hansom x reader #beverly march x reader #please let me know what you think #I could really use some uplifting words lol #richie tozier x reader

88 notes · View notes

kuroshitsuji-scenarios · 4 years

Text

[ Abyss ]

Pairing: Undertaker x Reader

Words: 1,031

Prompt: 13. “I believed you were different, guess that goes to show monsters are all the same!”

[ taglist ] [ commissions ]

Silence fell upon you like a fresh snow—light yet cold. At first you could not comprehend why there was no answer from the other side, why did Undertaker become so quiet all of a sudden, when barely a moment ago he was defending his rights so vigorously. It was rare for you to fight, but when it happened, you could sense the divide growing wider between you with every next word spoken. The ones which left your mouth just now were strong enough to move the mountains and caused an avalanche.

“I believed you were different, guess that goes to show monsters are all the same!”

Undertaker said nothing.

You watched him blink at you slowly, as if he was in some kind of torpor, and then turn his head back to the table and all the tools spread on it. He has just finished his work on another unfortunate mortal who happened to get run over by the carriage and he was the one who managed to fix him good enough so the family could see the body one last time without a trauma. Spending whole days and long parts of the nights with the dead bodies was apparently draining for him, for you could realize that he was becoming more and more lost in thoughts those days. He would repeat the same excuses about being busy and having a lot of work but you knew that something was worrying him.

There was a weight upon his shoulders which he decided to carry all alone and it certainly was not what you agreed to when you confessed your love to him.

It took you a lot of time and persuading to hear the real reason for his odd behaviour and the result did not satisfy you in the slightest. Dreaming about bringing people back to life was one thing but sacrificing and killing hundreds of others like a laboratory rats in a vain hope of achieving that goal one day was something completely different.

“Why did you do that?” You were not going to apologize for your words. Not yet. “You killed all those people for the sake of your experiment. Is that how less do they mean to you? Does their lives hold no worth? Not an ounce?”

You approached him slowly, aware that although he was now focused on cleaning the scalpels and scissors, he was listening to you very carefully. Perhaps noticing the slightest changes in your tone even.

Or maybe thinking that now, after what you have told him, he could simply stab you in the eye with the shining blade. You saw the monster in him and so the monster you would get.

“Does my life mean nothing to you also?”

“You know the answer to that question.” For once, Undertaker sounded indifferent.

“No,” you disagreed. “Now I am not so sure anymore.”

It has been a long time since anyone called him a monster. He did not remember that day nor could really recall the person who said it to him, but he knew that the impact of those words was not as strong as now. Strange; one could think that he would get used to it with time, but the reality decided to surprise him. Perhaps it was the fact that the word ‘monster’ rolled off your tongue so freely and confidently that you must have been aware of what are you saying, that you chose the insult carefully and aimed perfectly before giving a blow.

You were able to hurt him and the thought itself made him almost nostalgic.

“That is why I was cautious of sharing any details with you, poppet,” Undertaker started, his voice gravelly and distant. “First, with my real name. Second, with my identity. And then, with my plans. Do not get me wrong, I was not hoping for you to understand—I did not understand it either, not until I crossed the border of life and death. Expecting you to be understanding of such a thing would be a mistake.”

He stood up and turned to you, and although you could clearly see his face and remembered it from the countless of times when you were caressing and kissing his lips, nose, forehead, cheeks and jaw, trailing the scars, you could barely recognize him now. The look on his face was not pitiful, as you imagined, but rather presented a complete and utter betrayal.

“Your life means more than anyone ever did to me,” he continued. “You are the reason why I want to wake up everyday yet again, you are the reason for my genuine smile and you make me feel so alive. But if my crimes disgust you, and they have the very right to do so, then you are free to leave now. We won’t see each other again, I can guarantee you that. Just say a word.”

More than anything, he seemed tired. Exhausted. Long strands of white hair were dirty with dust and spider web he must have accidentally brushed onto, shadows under his eyes darker in the dim light of the shop, lips chapped after biting them too much for the sake of focus and shoulders limp by his sides. It was hard to believe that such a miserable image could contain enough wrath and spite to send the innocent lives for slaughter with a bright smile on his face.

The punishment set upon him was more than he could handle but the perspective of falling into dust, ceasing from existence still managed to send the shivers down his spine. He wanted to hold you in his arms, to kiss you, to hear your heartbeat and your laugh, to feel your warmth, to love and protect you—and he was afraid of ever losing it, of never being able to experience this kind of personal heaven anymore.

Undertaker was terrified of death.

“I am a monster, that is true,” he sighed. “But whatever you will decide to do from now on, you can be sure that this monster loved you more than anything in this pathetic excuse of a world. And will still love you long after turning into abyss.”

#kuroshitsuji #black butler #undertaker #undertaker x reader #scenarios #shinigami #queue

188 notes · View notes

mydriases · 4 years

Text

Silent cry

Jamil Viper x Reader Warnings: Spoilers for episode 4, Hurt/Comfort Word Count: 3 600 Summary: In the aftermath, you wonder if his love for you was nothing more than another lie.

Winter break was a bit too long for you. You loved holidays but being away from your love for so long weighed on you. You remembered how warm his lips were when he kissed you goodbye before you went through the mirror. You wished you could have went along with him in the Country of Hot Sands but your family wanted deservedly to have you home. It didn’t ease your longing for him though. The desire to be reunited with him increasing the more you thought about him and the last smile he had given you.

You had finished your homework in a short time, putting in practice every study tips Jamil had gave you. Passing the time while getting lost in the colorful world of Magicam, the notification that rang in your ears easily caught your attention to inform you that Azul Ashengrotto had started a live stream on his account. With nothing better to do and wanting to avoid continuing to drown yourself in the gloom of this endless day, you pressed the screen without thinking.

You were surprised when the face of your love appeared in your field of vision. As far as you knew, Azul and Jamil were only classmates, so to see the latter on Azul's account was odd to say the least. The focus of the camera became a little blurred, highlighting the scenery instead of your beloved. You recognized the walls as those from the Scarabia Dorm. What were they doing there? Jamil didn't tell you anything about staying at Night Raven for the holidays. Had he received orders from his parents telling him to stay with Kalim in Scarabia?

The camera stabilized again and you were able to see Jamil more clearly. You expected to see his usually serene look, but what left you speechless was that Jamil’s expression showed a confusing wickedness. A sneer deformed his mouth while his arms made grand gestures as he spoke to someone in front of him. You found a look of resemblance with the face he did after winning against you at your favorite game. Nonetheless, you never had witnessed Jamil having on his face such a frightening contempt. Did they decided to organize a friendly competition in Scarabia’s dorm ? No, Jamil would have invited you if so, he always did.

The person who was filming zoomed out and you saw Azul, blank stare and dangling arms, direct opposite of Jamil's threatening aura. You immediately figured out the situation and prayed that you were mistaken. He wouldn't dare, would he? There was no more friendliness in the air, everything indicated a confrontation that took a turn for the worst. That was the only logical reason Jamil would have used his unique magic on someone, especially Azul with who he had a polite relation. But none of them had a hot temper so it didn’t make any sense in your eyes.

And then Jamil spoke.

What scared you, even more than the hatred that seemed to consume your beloved on every side were the words Jamil articulated without trembling. Revealing his desire to bring Kalim down from his position of dorm leader, he seemed drowned in joy as it was clear that his plan was working.

He had spoken without shame, his voice betraying that he believed in every word he said. You didn't understand, you didn't want to understand. In the hope of finding a logical explanation, your gaze slipped on the title of the live: "The dark side of a certain famous magic school". There was no information on the nature of the current events. So was it not a joke? Jamil was not the type to participate in this kind of thing. But maybe if Kalim had asked him he would have accepted ? But you were certain he used his unique magic and he had always been so secretive about it, there’s no way he would have used it in front of thousands of people. You didn’t know what to think anymore.

Jamil kept talking, spitting his venom on Kalim and on his position as vice dorm leader which he seemed to hate with all his heart. As hard as his words were, you couldn't help but feel your heart clench at the sight of the triumph that lit up his face. He had suffered so much that he felt liberated by the simple thought that Kalim would soon no longer be a part of his life. All this sick euphoria was the result of a pain you never knew anything about.

He used the word ‘free’, as if he'd been imprisoned in his role and his sentence was about to be served. He believed that the downfall of Kalim would be his ascension. Suffocating under the most negative emotions he saw only his own hatred, reason disappearing little by little.

Before you knew it, tears had begun to wet the corners of your eyes. Comments from other users were all expressing their shock at this student's behaviour. They were talking about how unacceptable his attitude was and that he was the one who should expelled from this school. Horrible. Everything you saw was horrible: Jamil's expression and words as well as the comments from people who didn't even know him, who didn't know anything about how he felt. Then, you wondered.

Did you know him as well as you wanted to believe?

One of Octavinelle's twins entered the camera field, accompanied by Kalim and Ramshackle Dorm's student. Jamil's face decomposed as he realized he had been tricked, in front of more than five thousand spectators.

You listened carefully to their conversation, their voices muffled by the rapid beat of your pulse. You saw Azul break out of his false hypnosis and Kalim ask, on the verge of a breakdown, if Jamil was really betraying him.

Jamil laughed. He laughed and it seemed to be liberating for him. He had lost, but there was no more pretending anymore. His laughter became a cry of hatred towards Kalim and, as it was apparently still possible, his face sank deeper into this malevolent expression as he conjured up his unique magic: Snake Whisper.

His unique magic was a secret for everyone in school, except for you and Kalim. When you took your relationship to the next level, he had accepted to entrust you with the real nature of his magic. Because you were equals, because you loved each other. And now, while witnessing his actions, you wondered what was left of this mutual trust.

A flash flooded your screen and you heard a voice uttering the beginning of the word "overblot". Then the broadcast was over and you were left shaken in the solitude of your bedroom.

Your brain filled with thoughts, each one more heartbreaking than the last. Your boyfriend was a manipulator (was he ? or it’s because you didn’t manage to see through him ?), he has just overblotted (thanks to someone who failed to alleviate his suffering) and was going to hurt loads of people (and to think that you could have avoided all of this). Did you fall in love with this person? Did you have any responsibility for his actions? (yes and yes).

Your conscience was being torn apart. Split between guilt and fear and incomprehension. You needed to do something, anything. You needed to go there so as to reason with him, so as to get explanations. Time suddenly seemed to accelerate as you hurried to put on your shoes and get your coat on.

You left a note on the kitchen table, summarizing the situation in a handwriting that betrayed a nervous tremor of the hand. You came out of your house -gasping for breath before you even started to run- and headed towards the nearest public transport.

Everything was long over by the time you got here.

You’ve asked everyone you encountered, pleading for someone who knew where Jamil was. The student from the Rhamshackle Dorm was your savior. Explaining along with their weird cat what happened in details and telling you that he was now resting in his room. You thanked the two of them and started to run to where you knew he was.

You stopped to hurry halfway through.

Loads of the damage he’s made was because of the fact he overblotted but that didn’t explain his disturbing scheme. If during all this time he had only been forging a perfect image of himself, hiding all his bad attentions, what was left of the sincerity you had sworn to each other? Jamil has just been unsmasked but you don’t change in the twinkling of an eye. It took time for Jamil to put up with his plan and it will take time to make a fresh start. Was everything before that a lie?

As far as you can remember, your relationship with Jamil was one-sided in therm of confidence. You told him your insecurities, your traumas and most of your philosophy on life. He told you loved you. Being evasive at the slightest question because when I’m with you I don’t want to think about bad things, you make me happy and I want this relationship to be about the love between you and me. Not my problems. I can be your confident of course, but don’t expect to me to share everything. It’s just how I am, it doesn’t mean I don’t love you, because I really do.

That was the first time he confessed to you. You didn’t answer, because you were too busy embracing him and nuzzling the crook of his neck. It was also because you were feeling a bit disappointed. You didn’t want to be clingy if that’s not what he wanted, it was fine, really. But it made you feel like you were not as close to him as you wished. His arguments were justified : when you’re with your loved ones it’s normal to want to have fun and not think about all the depressing stuff that happened in your life. But now that Jamil has overblotted nothing is the same.

You sincerely wanted to believe him, to leave behind his bad deeds and start all over again. But a part of you pointed its finger at him while murmuring in you ear that he was a liar, a hypocrite that used you to appear less suspicious. Kalim choose to forgive him, obviously, despite all the suffering he endured. He has always been very lenient after all. You still haven’t seen him, nevertheless the chances are high that he would tell you that Jamil has always been at his side. Helping him through the hardest times, having been raised with him. That’s wasn’t your case.

If you wanted to leave him you’re sure he would understand. You could find another person to love and build a relationship not based on lies. But first and foremost, Jamil deserved the right to explain himself.

In front of his bedroom, as feeble as the first time you knocked on his door, except that this time it was because your relationship with Jamil was about to take a turn, not because you were excited to see him ; you waited for an answer that never came. You couldn’t be patient anymore. You pushed one of the handles and were surprised to discover that the door latch was unlocked.

Jamil was sitting on his bed, his gaze not lingering on you as he fastly looked away. It destroyed you. You thought you were ready to face him. To accept that he despised you, rejected you or begged you to forgive him, but not that he ignored you. Your voice came out hoarse, as wounded as you were :

" I came as soon as I could "

You wanted to cry at his feet and plead him to forgive you for not understanding him, you wanted him to cry for hurting you and Kalim, you wanted to leave him, you wanted him to tell you he loved you.

With his head down, one hand firmly clutching the sheet underneath him, he gave no answer. For the time being you were still lovers, but within the four walls of this room you were strangers. Because of him, perhaps because of you. You took a breath and knew what to say.

" I’m sorry "

For not being there when you needed me, for letting myself get attached to an illusion, for what you’re about to say, for everything that will be left untold.

" For what ? You did nothing wrong. "

He sighed and let himself fall backwards on the bed. He gazed at the ceiling, eyelids fluttering soflty as his hand was still grabbing the sheet under him. You walked towards him, he looked up to you and you found mixed emotions in his eyes. He seemed glad you were here but also like he would prefer for you to be anywhere else. You sat on the bed in a way that Jamil could not see your face, you didn’t need your voice to become tearful and trembling. The silence invaded the room as you were pondering over what to say. You tightened and loosened your grip on your coat, which you had been forced to remove due to the heat, and decided to cut to the chase.

" Jamil, I know I’ve never told you before but I love you. "

In spite of everything that happened, it was true. You knew that your endearment for him really had evolved in something stronger a long time ago. It's a shame it's only now that you're telling him.

You had to question him about his actions, make him spill whether or not he used you. But you didn't have the strength. Your spirits had never been so low, your self-confidence so damaged. Every answer to your questions would turn out to be a knife stuck a little deeper into your wounds and you couldn't take it. He knew either way, didn't he? He was observant, you were an open book to him so there was no need to ask questions he already knew.

You remember when you kissed for the first time and that the two of you became a couple. Everything was so easy, so simple. Never you would have thought that one day things would change, that you would want to run away from him. In the span of a few minutes, your whole life had changed. Anyone could be a traitor, from the most reserved friend to the one that couldn’t stop talking. Somewhere among these people was a liar. You had hoped it would not be Jamil, that it was just a misunderstanding and a bad joke from Octavinelle’s trio, but the facts were there.

You heard the rustle of the sheets, hitting that Jamil sat up again, and felt the warm contact of skin against your shoulder. Hesitantly, you turned your head towards him and he clutch to you a bit more as a sign of encouragement. His gaze was now overwhelmed by sorrow, mirroring your own expression. He sighed once again and reached into his pocket in order to pull out a bracelet decorated with a small red stone, similar to the one that adorned the ribbon in his hair.

" Here " he said, his voice trailing off as he was finishing his sentence " I wanted to give this to you to celebrate my rise as Dorm Leader but it won’t happen. I don't think I could give you things like this again after our talk, so take it. "

He handed you the bracelet, his fingertips brushing against the palm of your hand while doing so, you started observing the red gem so as to benefit from a pause in the conversation. He seemed sincere which illuminated a beacon of hope in you : Jamil meant to give you this after his accomplishment which signified that you were not a mere piece in his plan. That was one less thing to worry about, remained his disturbing attitude.

You played with piece of jewelry, observing the delicacy of the gemstone and the golden color of the bracelet. Giving you such an expensive item as a present was symbolic, surely it wasn’t just a piece of the richness of the Asim family. Jamil would have prefered to offer you something more personal, not showy but simple. He was like that.

Your heart sank.

" I’m sorry, because I didn’t see how you felt and also, maybe, because I feel uspset to habe been deceive by the person I trusted the most. I’m sorry for myself. "

Out of the corner of your eye, you caught sight of Jamil straightening his posture.

" In a way, you’re both similar and different to Kalim " confied Jamil, " How could have you changed anything when I was the one keeping everything to myself ? " He crossed his arms, one of his thumbs circling on his skin. " That’s why I’m the who needs to apologize. Not because I regret my actions, but because I’ve abused your trust. If I had told you, there are chances that you would have tried to stop me. Now that I overblotted I guess that it wouldn’t have been a bad thing. " His hand almost went to hold yours, but he suddenly changed his mind. " Forgive me. You were the one person I didn't want to hurt no matter what. "

Although it was what you came for, his apology didn't lighten the load on your heart. You wipped away a tear you didn’t feel coming, silently hoping that Jamil saw nothing.

The light of the room was getting dimmer as the sun began to disappear into the horizon. In the silence and darkness of the place, the gravity of the situation was crushing you. Here we are, the time to choose to forgive or not. You would be a liar if you said that you didn’t still want to be with him. To hug him and run your hand through his hair like before, to work beside him -paying more attention to him than to your homework- to talk to him about whatever interests you at the moment. But it would also be a lie to say something hadn't been broken in you. If he’s lied to you once, there was no proof he wouldn’t do it twice.

" I wished there was a way I could make it up to you " Jamil mumbled and you authorized yourself to turn to him. His eyes were glistening lightly, half hidden under his locks. That was a odd thing to see him moved, as well as a huge step forward.

" It will take long before I can trust you again, Jamil " you sobbed unable to restrain yourself any longer. The back of Jamil’s hand came to wipe away the tears that escaped you. Your gazes met. His expression was worried, his movements were uncertain and his voice wavered when he whispered your name.

" Do you want anything ? Maybe a handkerchief? "

The tears multiplied, but it didn't matter when the man in front of you wore the same expression.

" Hug me. "

More of an order than a request, but Jamil complied without hesitation. His arms wrapped around your form, you leaned into his touch and the two of you sank into the bed. One of his hand caressed you head as you nuzzled his neck, still sobbing, maybe a bit less loudly. From the start, his warmth was what you were looking for, finding his embrace again and spending your time by his side. Little did you know that the moment of your reunion was going to have the bitter aftertaste of tears.

" Can I stay with you for the night ? "

" Yes, you can. Of course. " he whispered, "Does your family know you’re here ?"

" I left a note, they’ll understand. "

There was still several thing you needed to discuss but for now you let yourself fall asleep in the soothing embrace of your love. You had been deceived and hurt, Jamil had been belittled and probably just as hurt. Maybe it was necessary to pass through all of this in order to better your relationship. Regardless, that was all in the past now. You weren’t sure wether or not you forgave him, the scars being still opened and far from being healed, but you were ready to try again. And hopefully, your couple wasn’t going to be as one-sided as before.

Underneath you, Jamil reflected on the consequences of his actions. In spite of all his bad deeds, Kalim, you and so many others have decided to forgive him. He felt good, he felt awful. Mainly he felt grateful for all the kindness he received and that he didn't deserve. Things will be different from now on, he’ll be Kalim’s servant no more, at least not as much as before. All his plans had been revealed, there was nothing left to hide.

He synchronized his breathing with yours and realized you had fallen asleep. There was still a long way to go before the damage he's done can be repaired but he’ll try. Because you, and even Kalim, deserved to be happy. His arm wrapped a bit more around you as he waited for sleep to take him.

It was strange but the darkness of his room didn’t feel lonely anymore.

Hey, it’s been a while. I’m still a silent lurker who doesn’t want to bother at heart that’s why I don’t post updates, hope you didn’t forget about me. I’m still working on requests but I struggle a bit to convey what I want sometimes and end up deleting what I’ve done because I don’t think it’s good enough :’) I hope all of you are safe, my inbox is open to anon again if you want to talk.

#twisted wonderland x reader #twisted wonderland #jamil viper #jamil viper x reader

305 notes · View notes

katahnisharma · 4 years

Text

gone (3) | t.h.

Summary: tom is back from shooting cherry, but he’s not okay.

Warnings: this started as my entry to the lovely b’s writing challenge @worldoftom, but you guys were so amazing and wanted a second part. this is a very emotional chapter and there are mentions of anxiety, depression, and overall intense emotions so please be careful loveys ♡

A/N: for this chapter i’ve been listening to a lot of sun airway (mostly all in) but I hope you guys like it!! also Tumblr apparently won’t let me link certain things so if you’re looking for my masterlist, playlist, taglist (please send an ask or fill out the form!), or writing challenge it’s in my bio ♡

gif by @hllands

“It’s a good thing you brought her in when you did. From what it looks like, that metal piece had a chip of mercury in it and she was at risk of poisoning. That should account for the nausea and weakness, but she’ll pull through with the medicine.” The doctor said, handing Harrison the report. He gave it a once over, and then turned back to your bed. You were finally asleep, the sedatives knocking you out so you could sleep properly.

“Thanks, doctor. I’ll let her family know, hopefully she’ll just sleep for a while.” Harrison said, moving to sit down next to you. You looked so peaceful now, completely unbothered by anything. Truthfully, Harrison hadn’t seen you like this since Tom came back from shooting. You’d been killing yourself trying to spend time with him and do things for him, only to have Tom brush you off or avoid you all together.

It was eating away at you, and Harrison knew it was just a matter of time before you broke apart.

A ping from his phone drew his attention away from you, and he took a deep breath when he read the text message.

I just got to Tom’s, Haz.

He’s a wreck.

“Tom, you have to let me in!” Harry shouted, banging on the bathroom door. He’d been outside the door for fifteen minutes, listening to his brother cry on the other side. Occasionally there would be silence and the sound of something shattering, and Harry knew something was very wrong. When he heard Tom’s voice break softly, Harry grew more desperate.

“Alright, if you don’t open this door in the next minute I’m breaking it down!” Harry said, feeling his resolve crumbling. He was trying to be strong for his older brother, but he’d never seen Tom like this before. Of course there had girlfriends and break ups before, but he knew you and Tom would be different from the first time you met. You two were soulmates, everyone was convinced of that. Nobody knew Tom the way you knew him, and nobody made him happy the way you did.

It was like a perfect equation, because you and Tom equated to that kind of everlasting love you read about in books.

But now it felt like someone had come in and ripped out the happy ending, and Harry was struggling to piece the story back together.

“Tom...please…” Harry whispered, a sinking feeling taking over his body, “I don’t know what happened with you and Y/N, but I know one thing. You love her, Tom. You’ve loved her ever since you met her, and I know she loves you too. Just please, let me in.”

Harry fell against the door, finally spent with emotion. A tear escaped fom his eye as his head hit the door, sliding down to sit on the floor. He’d texted Harrison a couple minutes ago, but hadn’t gotten a response back. Truthfully, Harry wasn’t even sure where he was or if you were with him. But the situation must have been bad if Harrison wasn’t responding and you were nowhere to be seen.

“Shit.” Harry’s phone flashed with a low battery warning, and he was about to get up to find a charger when he heard the lock to the bathroom door unclick. It was so soft that he would have missed it, if not for the fact that he was sitting with his back to it. Harry’s breath hitched and he dropped his phone near the wall, slowly turning the handle.

The bathroom was so dark, Harry almost stumbled over his own feet. But a sliver of light from the window illuminated his brother’s body, slumped against the cold tile walls of the shower. Tom wasn’t moving, just breathing quietly and staring at the wall behind him. The light shone on his face, and Harry could make out dried tears and the start of fresh ones. His eyes were sunken and lifeless, like he’d been dead and propped up against the wall. Tom barely stirred when Harry walked over, just glancing at the space in his direction.

“Tom...what happened?” Harry breathed, crouching down to look at his older brother. At close proximity, Harry could see Tom better. He looked completely exhausted, the life drained from his face and his eyes glossy. His hair was hopelessly disheveled, and Harry knew he must have paced for hours running his hands through it in anxiety. He’d clearly been crying for a long time because his shirt was still wet, clinging to his chest like a worn out rag.

For a moment, Tom looked at Harry and it seemed like there was something right behind his eyes that was trying to get out. That look of fear and anguish melded together, wanting someone to help him because he could no longer help himself. It was like another person inside him, the real Tom that had been trapped for so long. The person he had been before the trauma, before shooting Cherry, the man Harry was proud to call his brother.

And then Harry knew what to do.

“Come here, come on.” Harry breathed, holding out his arms. Tom made a broken sound, and finally fell in. The weight of his brother felt right, after months of being pushed away and locked out of his mind. It had never been like that, the feeling of an intangible barrier blocking Harry from Tom. But now it was gone, and the only thing Harry could think of was how long his role model had suffered in silence.

All that pain, to carry it alone.

Tom sobbed harder than Harry had ever seen in his life. It was shuddering and full of hurt, like some dam had broken inside of him. Maybe that was what Harry had seen, the beginning trickle of a flood that needed to wash everything away. Tom was barely breathing, just crying into Harry’s chest with such emotion that the bathroom felt heavy. Every few seconds Tom would only be able to make guttural sounds, and to Harry it sounded like pure torture.

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” Harry whispered, clutching Tom and rocking him back and forth. The action must have calmed him, because Tom’s sobbing was slowing down. The tears began to lessen and Harry could now hear Tom’s breathing return to a steady pace. There were still some sobs in between, but it all had to come out. It had been locked away for far too long, and Harry knew that he would stay with Tom until he was okay again.

“I...I’m so sorry.” Tom gasped, taking a deep breath before another wave of tears emerged. Harry held him tighter, waiting for him to feel safe with his own words. He didn’t push him, or even tell him to take his time. Harry knew that wasn’t what Tom needed right now.

Sometimes, people just need someone to hold them so they can feel whole again.

“You shouldn’t be here...picking me up off the floor like some kind of child.” Tom finally spoke, his voice coming out strangled. He balled his right hand into a fist, and Harry recognized the action from set. While shooting Cherry, Tom would do that if he was stressed or feeling overwhelmed by everything. Harry had never brought it up, but he knew now that it should have warned him this was coming.

This was no ordinary mood swing.

“Hey, don’t say that. I’m your brother and I care about you. I’m always gonna be here, whenever you need me.” Harry said, giving Tom a reassuring hand. He noticed his brother flinch slightly, but after a few seconds Tom relaxed again. And this time, Harry knew it was because he was finally ready to talk.

So he held Tom’s hand, like he knew Tom would do for him.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Harry. I-I’m scared of myself…” Tom whispered, his hand gripping Harry’s tighter.

“What do you mean? There’s nothing wrong with you, Tom I-”

“Yes there is!” Tom suddenly drops Harry’s hand, immediately bringing his hands to his face. He balled his fists again, almost like he’s beating himself. Harry sits still, wanting to reach out but he knows this is part of the process. Tom needed to let it out.

“I-I don’t recognize myself anymore...it’s like looking into a window or a painting. I see myself and I hear myself, but it’s not me. I became someone else...and I hate who I am.” Tom breathed, getting up and leaning against the sink. Harry stayed silent, watching Tom’s eyes focus on the ceiling.

“When we first started shooting Cherry, I was so excited. I had finally gotten a role where I felt I could really grow, push myself out of my comfort zone. That was what I had trained to do, and I was so happy that I never stopped to think about if I could really handle it.”

“Honestly….I don’t think I wanted to think about it. I just wanted a chance to prove myself as a serious actor, and I thought ‘fuck it, I’ll do whatever it takes’. I’ll do the late hours, the reshoots, the mind games, the method acting shit…..I can take whatever they throw at me. And I did it, Harry. I did it all.”

“I threw myself into that movie one hundred and ten percent. I went harder than I ever have in my life, even more than I did for Spiderman. I just kept telling myself ‘No breaks, keep going. You don’t get to stop until it’s perfect’. So I didn’t stop, and I kept pushing myself.”

“Nobody warns you about what it will do to you. How it starts to feel real, all of it. Like...like it wasn’t a movie anymore...I felt so alone. You were there, I had the whole crew too...but it didn’t matter. There wasn’t anyone who would understand how depressed you start to feel. Because it became a part of my mind, the drugs and the pain and the emotion. I couldn’t separate myself from the role anymore.”

“I never told anyone what was happening, I just told myself to get over it. I was ashamed that I allowed it to affect me. You know, h-how could I be so weak? But filming every day, reshooting takes that drained me completely, it was really bad. I keptfalling into this dark place and I thought I was going to drown alive.”

“At the end of the day, when you were out with the cast, I stayed in that trailer and cried myself to sleep. I was so tired and I felt sick to my stomach every day. It fucking messes with your mind, doing that every day. It feels like someone is punching you in the gut until you throw up, like you want to just drown to keep out the pain...I never want to feel that again.”

“But all I wanted was to prove something to the people that didn’t believe I was good enough. I just wanted the respect, the recognition that I could be something more. I pushed myself until I was so far gone because I wanted it to be perfect. Because what if…… what if I was really just a fluke? What if I was only good enough to play Spiderman?”

Tom’s shaking again, and Harry knows he’s ready to break. It takes only a second for his knees to give out, and Harry’s right there to catch him. The two of them collapse against the cabinets, and now it’s Harry’s turn to cry too.

“God, it hurts so much...it hurts so much, Harry. Why does it hurt so much?” Tom sobbed into Harry’s shirt, and Harry felt tears of his own hit his cheek. He had no idea Tom had been harboring all this for so long, and it had been happening right under his nose.

“I’m sorry, Tom. I’m so sorry.” Harry cried, holding onto Tom like he was afraid he would slip from his fingers. Tom didn’t move either, and maybe he was afraid of that too.

“I pushed her away...Harry what the fuck do I do? I love her so much, she’s my entire world and I broke her heart. I told her to leave and now I’ve lost the one person I don’t ever want to live without. I can face anything with her, but I can’t face knowing I drove her away. Not when I know s-she’s the one…” Tom sniffled, and he felt his heart ache again. The way it had without her, the way it had when he wished she was there to hold him while he cried.

“It’s okay, Tom. We’ll figure this out. It’ll be okay, I promise.” Harry whispered. Tom wiped his eyes and looked up at the wall. It was a picture of you and him, the first wedding you ever attended together. You looked so happy, glowing in your flowy lavender dress. That smile made Tom’s knees weak every time, and he had kissed you speechless right after the picture was taken.

And that’s when Tom knew that he couldn’t be himself again without you. Because you were his second half, the only one who he’d ever loved unconditionally.

“I love her, Harry. And I have to prove it.”

TAGLIST (PLEASE ONLY SEND AN ASK OR FILL OUT MY FORM!!): @tommyparkerr @grandmascottlang @toms-order @darling-marvel @spiderboythomas @cutiehollands @peeterparkr @jupiterparker @inlovewithmob-tom @veronicas-littleworld @da5haexowin @sergeantbxrnxs @hazsterfield @itsholyholland @underoosstark @stormyholland @let-me-luve-you @musicgirl234 @its-livelovelife @steve-thotgers @tiny-friggin-human @lovelyh0lland @lucille-lovely @yeahbutmarvel @lokiislowkeyhot @spideymood @yoharryyouawizard @tomhollanders2013 @celestialparker @jnej @spiderman-n @positiveparker @winterssoldierrs @heycreehere @galaxy-parker @sdrecsfics @doimakeitthroughthenight @wronglanemendes @brokensimpson @spnsoap @ninetypoundsofasthma @quitetommy @voltronshepard @marvelismylifffe @iluvmesomemarvelndc @annathesillyfriend @tiredfeels @scarlet-spiderr @hedwigthelegend @renesniajazza @bibliophile-grasshopp @tomhollandswhore @yeeterbenjaminparker @juliabuenooo @paradoxparker @pokeloisfk @machomango13 @nobledoritoman @cosmicdaya @hey-its-grey @toms-gf @cutesparker @whypeterparkerwhy @blissfulparker @xxtomxo @pastelpeter @hilllsnholland @hopespym @peterstrainingwheels @stuckonspidey @jacobsbatalon @prkerspeter @spideypeach @spxderbarnes @stealth-spiderr @uglypastels @darlingtholland @spideyflicker @cloudyparkers @out-of-my-way-extras @trustfundparker @clockblobber @asmilinghopelessromantic @zaynjawy @sholla4-314 @lemondropirwin @angelbabymed @in-the-corner-coffee-please @peterbparkcr @william-stanley @greenarrowhead @squishyhyunjin @starz-23 @spoopy-spooderman @whatevsholland @aestheticstom @tomzfrog @bebegomie @embrace-themagic @peterparkersbodyguard @strangertingle @dancingoncrackedhearts @mlt2000 @cordiebirdy @headsup-itsmostlypeter @sspideytom @kisses-holland @hardestbattles-strongestsoldiers @infamousmany @theefactorygirl @aelinashryvver @sarah-moss2015 @honeybucks @fandomdarlings @yourwonderbelle @rexorangecouny @deni-gonzalez @mylifeasafangirlforever @random-writer06 @stretchkingblog97 @sweetlyth @notethereal @pachuh @fandoms-stuff @petesrparker @yavinmoon @sweet-baby-cakes @noswagswag @peteunderoos @jackiehollanderr @yadekms @practicallylivesonline @i-tried21 @stasye @unorganizedasf @tomshufflepuff @mejustbeingme @fanboy-tom @mimaligrl @theimpossiblehologramtree @diamonddia-mond @qrangr @parkeroffline @peterpumpkinparker @rosieredcheeks @delicately-important-trash @zabdisamor @peterbrokenparker @the-lost-fairy-tale @everestluke @gigilame @youllbemineandillbeyours @cherryblossomcharlotte @paintingbellarke @teawithbucky @miraclesoflove @tomhaz @multi-worlds @clara-licht @ppkrtingle @laurxn-robinson @lulueliott @lostinspidey @starlightparker @ddaeing @sincerelymlg @officiallygeek @maybemona @learning-howto-be-myselfx3 @lowkey-holland @particularsof @saturn-aka-six @elysianparker @fangirlingisajob @hypnotized-so-mesmerized @deathofthrones @th0ttie4tommy @orowit @lauras-collection @itseightbeats @thomasholyholland @h-oneyholland @softboyparkerr @darlingxholland @marshyrebelcloud @kristinathecarat @florencxs @definitely-not-black-cat @spdys @wazzupmrstark @clqudsparker @farfromhaz @plushparker @princepeteys @afterglowparker @screamholland @softspiderling @iv-nyc @w-jhxk-yj @doctor-spence-reidd @spacebitch2 @geeksareunique @sltwins @belladonichaze39 @emmmybear @melrosaeparker @crazymexicanfangirl @spacebitch2 @herondaleslucies @himynameishooman @temptingholland @miraclesoflove @marvelobsessedteenager @hollandosterfieldfanfic @beequeen8020 @escapetheshackles @siriuslyslyslytherin

Gone Taglist: @tshdarling @hessirius @ana-cxst @aeciru @pachuh @bobo-bush @itsjusttor @iam-thevillain-of-thisstory @autty0314 @name-me-regret @prfctdayas @youngblood199456 @fab-notfat @technolilly @hollandinq @theetherealbloom @littlebookbengal @spideyyeet @midnightbarnes @3prettyinpink3 @lulueliott24 @spxder-bxcky @spiderbibby @ietss @winterseba @sehunights blahhhhhhhaaa @shootingstarsaretearsofheaven @sixwyrxstuff @noelleivy @madeinthemidnightmemories @tryn25 @iriaaarb @marvelobsessedteenager @eleanornicolelocke @breakingnasa @iwishitwasthe-80s @imwesley @ihopethatwemeetinanotherlife @1dstark-blog @totesem @itstomhollands @thespiderdweeb @stxfxniexreads @astrobxbeee @magicianraging @reveluvspecial @be-cautious-around-bri @audreylovespidey706 @whereverigoimightstay @natasha-stark-parker @jacksnoodlez99 @lifeisabitchandsoareyou @stabbyhat @blackeighteen @itisjustpaula @caitsymichelle13 @herondalism @ameliathackray @pluckypete @rachaeldonnaspiteri1 @farfromjustordinary @cosmicmndes @molkel @giveme-gaskarth @likeit-or-leaveit @captured-firelight @spnsquirrel @some-random-stranger-007 @classwithstas @sarcasticsagittarius1998 @silver-bubbles

Moots tag (let me know if you want me to take you off :) ) @angelic-holland @fairytaleparker @honeymoonparker @hollandraul @hey-its-grey @joshuaparker @neverletyoufall @neverlandparker @nnatasha @parkerpuff @the-claire-bitch-project @angelhaz11 @blushypetey @hazinhoodies @imagine-lovebug @amsterdam-parker @spiderrpcrker

#tom holland #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland angst #peter parker x reader #harrison osterfield #harrison osterfield x reader

695 notes · View notes

lotusthekat · 3 years

Text

The spies hide out in every corner

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Rating: G

Relationships: Edward & Alphonse

Characters: Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric; MENTIONED - Pride

Summary: His little brother has gone through so much.

Word count: 1.120

AO3

A/N: I can’t stop writinggggggggg

TRIGGER WARNINGS - nightmare, panic attack and trauma

His little brother is fast asleep.

Al has been having trouble sleeping these days, obviously because he hasn’t done so in years. He seems to relax when Ed makes him company, though it always takes him a little while to fall asleep. Tonight, Al didn’t take too long and in just a few minutes, he was breathing soundly.

Ed holds him in the meantime, pretty much awake. He hasn’t been tired, not with his little brother back home, always needing assistance and reassurance. Sometimes Ed himself needs the physical reminder that Al isn’t a giant armor anymore; that Al is fragile and yet solid on his lap.

Ed strokes his back and his long, uncut hair every now and then, Al breathing in and out. He doesn’t think Al has had such a deep sleep since coming back, and for that he’s grateful. The younger Elric needs all the rest he can get, all the time he needs to readjust.

Ed looks beside them, glasses of water, medicine and flowers decorating the bedside table. He smiles at all the love and attention their friends have given them lately, but he also appreciates the privacy the brothers have now.

Everything is okay.

…

Al shivers.

But Ed knows it’s not from the cold.

He looks at his little brother’s face, finding a frown and muscles twitching. Al is mumbling something, most of it nonsensical except…

“… n… no…” Al starts shaking his head and his eyes are forced shut.

Ed’s heart suffers for him once he realizes it must be a bad dream.

“Al,” he whispers, still getting a hold of him, “Al, wake up.”

The starved boy only makes more noises, each more tense than the other.

“No… don’t!” He gasps.

“Al,” Ed says louder, trying to soothe him repeatedly. “Al, you’re okay.”

Except it does very little to calm him down.

If anything, Al starts panting and he moves back and forth as if trying to break away from Ed’s hold.

“S-Stop!” Al yells.

“Al, wake up—”

“Let me go!” He shakes his arms to break free.

“Wait, Al-!” Ed subconsciously tries to hold him back but—

“LET ME GO!!”

Maybe due to Ed’s shock, Al is able to push him away.

And then Ed hears something hit the ground.

And everything goes cold.

“AL! ”

The scream that follows is worse than anything he’s ever heard.

Al is crying out in pain, heaving so violently that Ed panics and yet he remains there, unable to do anything.

Next thing he knows, the nurses have rushed to their rescue, and they put Al back in his bed, trying to calm him down. Al is still yelling and desperately trying to escape, begging them to let go of him.

Ed is forced to watch everything from afar, without going to his little brother’s aid. He struggles not to cry.

He feels nothing but guilt.

It takes maybe twenty minutes or so for Al to stop, and even then, it’s all thanks to sedatives.

Thankfully – thank goodness –, Al did not break any bones nor did his condition worsen. The nurses still emphasized he should stay in bed and not make any physical effort. And they also made a very harsh reminder that Ed should stay on his own bed.

Yet the older Elric remains seated beside his little brother, though respecting the latter’s boundaries. Al is nowhere near alarmed right now – he sleeps as if he hasn’t begun panicking in the first place –, but Ed is swallowed by questions. He wonders what could have scared Al this badly. Ed has had nightmares of his own, but he doesn’t remember Al ever having them when they were younger.

Regardless, he’s helpless as he’s unable to comfort his brother without making things worse again. Ed hates seeing Al suffer and he hates that he can’t protect him from whatever horrified him.

Suddenly, a tiny, sedated voice talks to him.

“Brother…?”

In less than a second, Ed looks back and finds Al already staring at him.

“Al? Weren’t you sleeping?” He asks.

“Not really…” Al looks down. “I’m… I’m sorry for scaring you, brother.”

“No- No, Al, you don’t need to apologize for anything, I’m the one who—” Ed exasperatedly grabs one of his own unkept bangs. He decides that’s not the focus. “Are you okay?”

“… Not really.”

“Did you have a nightmare?”

Al hesitates yet he nods either way.

“Do you remember anything?” Ed insists.

“I-I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Al…”

“It was really bad.”

“I know it must’ve been, that’s why I wanna know,” Ed tells him. “I’ve never seen you so scared like that.”

Al is looking somewhere in the dark, away from Ed; he looks at something unknown to everyone.

“… Pride was controlling me.”

Pride… that damn homunculus. He was a real pain to defeat. Now he remembers when Pride controlled his brother’s armor, pretending to be him, using him as hostage.

“I c-could… I could feel his shadows taking over me,” Al continues, still not facing Ed. “But I was in a human body… h-he was going to kill me.” Fresh tears glow in his tired eyes. “I couldn’t escape.”

Ed gazes at him with sympathy, unable to imagine the horror Al must have been in. Pride was perhaps the most horrifying of the homunculi, his shadows easily eliminating anything in his way. Pride took advantage of his little brother, he controlled Al and could have easily killed him if he had the chance. Al could very easily take care of himself and Ed believes that, but at the same time all Ed wants is to find Pride and kick his ass again.

“Al, he’s not coming after you ever again,” Ed says with certainty. “No one is getting their hands on you again, okay? I’ll make sure of that.”

His little brother looks up at him, unsure. Al… raises his thin arm, hand reaching out to him. Ed does not hesitate to take it in his.

“I don’t want to sleep again,” Al whispers.

“I know… but you need rest. I’ll be right here with you.”

“I don’t want to hurt you again, brother.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m your big brother.”

Al smiles sadly, eyes slowly closing. “You’re always looking after me and not yourself…”

“I’ll be okay, Al.”

“Sure, I believe you.”

Ed rolls his eyes. Only Al is this sassy when he’s almost asleep.

“I mean it, though,” he whispers, “you can trust me.”

Al yawns, “I know…”

“You can go to sleep. I’m right here.”

“Mmm… g’night…”

“Good night, Al.”

“Love you…”

Ed is grateful Al can’t see the stupid grin on his face now. He touches his brother’s face carefully.

“I love you, too.”

#fullmetal alchemist #edward elric #alphonse elric #panic attack tw #nightmare tw #trauma tw #fanfiction

5 notes · View notes

heartofsnark · 3 years

Text

Can You Feel The Sun? (Chapter Eleven): I'll float through death, haunting you

Notes: This chapter had a slight impact on me emotionally, do with that what you will. Please, please listen to the content/trigger warnings. This chapter is essentially being stuck in a severely depressed, traumatized, and suicidal person's head for 16k words. If you are not in a place to handle that right now, come back another time, or give it a skip, or after you read it go frolic with puppies for a few hours. I cannot provide those puppies, but I wish you luck in finding them.

Word Count: 16232

Chapter Warnings: Depression, Trauma, Angst, Blood, Alcohol Use, Violence, Gore, Suicidal Ideation, Suicide Attempt/Aborted Suicide Attempt, Motor Vehicle Accident, Human Trafficking, Implication of Child Abduction/Abuse (possibly overt), I think that's everything.... is that everything....

If you haven’t yet, you can read the previous chapter here!~

V isn’t quite sure how long she lays on the ground, crying out the last of her tears. Then she feels the warmth of sunlight spilling through her window. She needs to get up, needs to move, but for what? The merc wishes so much to just lay down and die, to just let it all go. She’s going to die anyway, isn’t she? She wishes it could at least be a peaceful one, to melt into the earth and never be seen again. But instead this is what she gets; a violent end for a violent life. Years of seeking control over her own existence, of searching for a place in this world; only to be taken over and replaced by another.

Her eyes land on her window, following the warm glow of sunlight, too warm on her skin. And her stomach clenches. Sun shining through the fractured glass, her blood staining it. A physical symbol of him, of what he did, how he hurt her. She doesn’t want to see it; doesn't want to think about it. Her body moves on instinct across the room, closing the shutters. The room feels instantly darker, only the harshness of unnatural light glowing within it. And it feels right, better. To close it all out.

V scrambles to think of what to do next, her brain still mush. She scratches at the back of her neck, touching her chipslot where that monster hides and immediately shuts out the thought, if she thinks, she’ll cry. She knows it. She’ll climb into a pit and never climb out. Spend all her six months crying in a dark apartment.

Her hair is greasy with blood still sticking to pieces of it, though her skin feels cleaner. The idea that Vik and Misty had to bathe her while she was out of it flickers through her mind, making her want to die. A shower may help, clean herself up something proper and feel human again, at any rate. Its something she can actually deal with, something she can take care of when everything else is out of her control.

The merc goes to her bathroom and sets to taking off the bandages that cover her upper half. Vik knows well enough not to send her home in bandages and expect them to last. If they were still holding her together, she’d still be sitting in his clinic. She unties all the bandages, leaving blood smeared gauze across her bathroom sink. Nothing falls apart or starts gushing crimson, so she’ll take it as a win.

There’s a fresh scar running down her right forearm. She tests her fingers and hand, spelling star names to see if her fingers move without pain. The nerves seem fine, muscles a little weak, but she can still sign easily and should still be able to wield a gun or a knife. Much more may prove difficult, maybe she can work on rebuilding the strength in it. Not that it will matter much… in the long run…

She shakes her head, trying to displace the somber thoughts, trying to just focus on getting from A to B. And while it’s not a grand goal, right now B is just the shower. Ther merc notices some more new scars across her chest and stomach, but focuses instead on pulling off the sweatpants.

V runs the hottest water she can stand and sits on her shower floor, pressing her back to the wall and holding her knees for a moment. Hot water pouring down on her and flushing her skin pink. Her throat tightens and her eyes sting, the desire to cry again, but she stops herself, holds it in. This isn’t what she wants, six months of crying and choking back pills.

She rubs at her eyes, trying to focus on cleaning herself. Feeling her scalp as she washes her hair, there’s a faint trace of scars underneath the strands, but nothing she thinks would be noticeable to the naked eye. Vik’s worked his magic, yet again, or perhaps that’s just the magic of modern medicine. Her hair was left untouched, no bald spots, or places that had to be shaved down. The average person would never know she was shot in the head and died.

When she touches her forehead blood clings to her finger tips, where Johnny bashed her head into the window. Not far from the cut is a scar on her temple, where the bullet entered. She finishes up her shower, standing and shutting the water off. V dries off and out of admittedly laziness, she pulls on the same sweatpants Vik sent her home in, they’re still mostly clean and she doesn’t want to throw on real ones.

The reflection in her mirror pulls up and she’s just as lucky as she thought. V as she knows herself is staring back; bleached hair and gray eyes. But they’re not her eyes now, are they?

The one thing given to her by her father that she didn’t completely hate, they shared the same gray eyes. Yet somehow his always reminded her more of gunmetal, colder. She’s never seen the same chill in her own eye, despite the shared color. Not the prettiest or most interesting color, as a kid she’d pout that she didn’t have the same green eyes as her mother and sister, but she learned to appreciate them. And now they’re gone. The eyes looking back at her are not her own, corp made and manufactured. Kiroshi tech created in a plant. Not the eyes she was born with, not the eyes that last looked at her mother, not the eyes that’d squint under the Badlands sun as a child.

She stares deep into the color, they automatically match to the user’s natural eye color, unless chosen otherwise. It may just be psychological but she finds herself scrutinizing it, a part of her thinking the color may be off. They’re the same gray, she knows it logically. But a part of her screams they’re darker, or lighter, have more blue to them. That something is off. But maybe the only thing off is that they’re not her’s.

They’re top of the line too. She’s lucky… really, getting high end tech she didn’t want, never has to fear her autoimmune disease will blind her. Anyone else would feel blessed, this is just a part of life in Night City. Kids begging for optics as soon as they hit eighteen, some trying to convince their parents to install it before. Not that long ago, some story broke of a kid gouging their own eyes out just to get optics before they turned eighteen.

She’s lucky, so lucky, she reminds herself as she presses at her eyelids and feels the metal beneath the flesh. Lucky she survived a shot to the head, that’s lucky, right? Lucky that skin grafts and synth flesh tech means she looks like herself after. Lucky that when Johnny pummeled her head in, he didn’t do any serious damage or reopen a wound. Lucky she doesn’t even have bruises on her throat from his choking. Lucky that she’s somehow the only person who walked out of this shit show.

So fucking lucky, that she came back from the dead to die again, to go from dead to dying, to be nothing but a walking corpse with the one person who gave a shit about her dead… So lucky…

She’s trying not to cry again. Because of course she is. She slams her hands on her bathroom counter, kicking it with a bare foot, and screams into her hands. Deep breathes as she tries to gather herself again, she needs a new B. Something to focus on, something to do.

Close the blinds. Take a shower, what now? She needs something, anything that isn’t thinking. The pills are still scattered across her apartment floor, her chest cold without a shirt. So, those become her new B’s, for just a moment. Her focus solely on picking up pills and pressing them back into the blue bottle, popping another, just in case. Then she’s rummaging through her closet, finding a shirt. Her eyes land on Ava’s old shirt, Samurai, that fucker’s band. She crams it in the furthest corner of her closet, not wanting to think of him, but her attachment to Ava keeps her from throwing the whole thing out. V throws on a plain black top and then she needs another B, another goal, no matter how small.

V plops herself down on the floor in front of her bed, tapping her foot to the vibrations in her apartment. The radio must be on, a rhythm and beat bouncing through the apartment. Barry is probably annoyed at her, again, It's not the loudest she’s ever had it, but she’s learned quickly that for her to feel the thrum of it, the music ends up loud. Sometimes she’s been able to swear she feels her whole apartment shaking.

She shoves her hands in her sweatpants pockets, as she wracks her brain for something to do, anything to keep her mind off her grief. A wrapper in her pocket crinkles, these aren’t her actual pants, ones from Vik’s clinic for patients trapped there for a long recovery. They don’t even fit her properly, too long fabric pooling around her feet. She tugs it out and smiles, her first since she woke up in the clinic.

A little sucker, synthetic honey flavored, shaped like a little bear. Candy for being a good patient, slipped into her pocket, she wouldn’t know when. She tears the wrapper off and pops it into her mouth, soft sweet taste clinging to her tongue. What she did to deserve Vik is a mystery, how he could ever deem her worthy of his kindness is… mind boggling. Fixed her up a billion times, pieced her skull back together. Top tier Kiroshi’s, mantis blades, and a projectile arm launcher. All thousands upon thousands of dollars. Given to her for nothing. She owes him, majorly. If she’s going to die, at the very least she can settle her debts, Vik deserves at least that much.

She’s got a new B and as expensive as cyberware is, this one may take her longer than five minutes. V needs to figure out exactly how much she owes him, Vik would lowball it and let her off cheap, and then she needs to get herself working again. And god, does she like the idea of that. To be doing something, a slice of normalcy, even if she’s solo now.

V is on her feet and turns off her radio, tucks in her hearing aids, and then goes rummaging through her things. Her choker translator from the box of her clothes from before the heist, she goes ahead and throws it on, then gets her holophone from the bag of her stuff Vik sent with her. There are notifications across her phone; emails, texts, and missed calls. An email from her building administration catches her eye, checking it first.

‘Dear Sir/Madam,

Our records show we have not received this month’s rent payment for your unit in Megabuilding H10. In accordance with the tenancy agreement VD-233015722/2077, any subsequent payment delay will result in forced eviction from the property.’

She checks the date, it's September. Nearly two weeks into it, she must have been unconscious for a while, a few weeks at least. She starts sorting through texts and calls. Jake messaging about Jackie, asking her to call him, asking where she is and if she’s okay. A few missed calls from him. Cece wondering why V is ghosting her after weeks of no replies. Fixers texting her about cars. Misty and Vik missed calls from before she showed up in the clinic, a few texts. Her fingers hover a text Misty had sent, the last one, sent while V was laying in a dumpster.

Misty: v?! konpeki is on the news. is something wrong? jackie won’t answer my calls…

Misty: he’s gone… isn’t he?

There’s a shake in V’s hand as she moves on from it, not letting herself linger, not letting herself explore the grief and pain. She needs to get a job, she quickly links her phone with her new optics, not letting herself think of how much she hates that. That finished she goes to call Regina, the local fixer, but before she can tap the contact her holo begins to buzz in her hand, light flashing as a call comes through.

Takemura the contact tells her, the little red avatar shows a familiar face, Saburo Arasaka’s former body guard. The long haired man who pulled her from a landfill. She’s still not sure what exactly his deal is; how he went from dragging her to Yorinobu to taking her to Vik’s clinic. Or why he’d be calling her. But she answers, with a heavy feeling in her stomach.

“Takemura here,” he says, facing showing up in her optic and on her phone, “we must meet. Come to Tom’s Diner.”

The immediate demand takes her off guard and she doesn’t want to do that. He may have taken her to Vik’s clinic, but he also slapped and choked her. She doesn’t know how he got from one point to the other, but she knows she doesn’t trust an Arasaka corpo. He could have a billion different hidden agendas.

“No can do, surprising as it may be, I’m not in a great place right now,” she signs in return, not directly telling him her paranoia.

“You may recall I saved your life. I need you to return the favor.”

“I’m serious, I haven’t managed to get my head straight yet, its all been a lot… ”

“That will not happen anytime soon and so what? If you intend to live, you must reenter the ring. The bell has already tolled. Tom’s Diner. I’m waiting.”

“Look, I-” he hangs up, “fucker.”

He can wait until the cow come home, she’s not interested in whatever bullshit he’s going to try and sell her. She remembers the assasin who attacked them, reading his lips. He called Takemura a traitor. But why would a man so highly regarded by Arasaka, enough to be Saburo’s bodyguard, suddenly turn on them? At best, this is some scheme to get her to do something, acting like he can potentially help her just to use her for something or pull some shit. He’s using it as a carrot on a stick and probably plans on beating her with the stick when he gets the chance.

Instead, she calls Regina, a few rings before the eyepatched fixer answers. But looking at the little avatar of her face, she doesn’t seem too thrilled to hear from V, which is… odd.

“V…”

“Hey, know it’s been a while, but rent’s due and I’m swimming in debt. So, what you got for me?”

“For you, V? Nothing.”

Regina always has jobs, hell every fixer does, Night City is a festering cesspool of crime and bullshit. And V has been one of Regina’s top mercs ever since she moved into Watson. The eyepatched fixer has only ever had praise for the young mercenary.

“My hearing aids busted? No jobs on the table, seriously?”

“Not for you.”

“The hell is that supposed to mean? I’ve been you go to merc for fucking months, you use to have me doing five or more jobs a day. What’s the problem?”

“Look, V, everyone’s heard what went down at Konpeki. You can’t botch a job like that and people not talk.”

“I didn’t botch shit!” Her lips move as she signs but she stops herself from yelling. Everything went to shit because of Yorinobu, right? Sure, she could have done more to save Jackie and Bug, sure she should have just not taken the job. But she didn’t fuck this up, just wrong place, wrong time.

“Maybe you didn’t okay. But when you’re the only one who walks away; it doesn’t look good. Everyone’s saying you're the kiss of death, no ‘runner, merc, or fixer wants to end like Bug, Jackie, and Dex.”

“You seriously think I’d betray you? You trust me that little, think I’d get you or anyone else killed on purpose?”

Her throat tightens, eyes sting. Does Regina really think that little of V? Is that what the world thinks of her now? Just the merc that fucked up Konpeki and got her entire crew killed? Six months of consistent and quality merc work, thrown away because of one bungled job?

“Of course not, V. You’re a solid merc, but what am I supposed to do? Any client finds out I put you on their job, they’ll think I lost my mind. Can’t put you on a crew, either.”

“Client’s don’t have to know it’s me, I-”

“They’ll know, V. Can’t do it.”

“So, what the hell am I supposed to do!?” V signs and kicks her couch, starting to pull at her hair, the sting of her scalp reminding her of him.

“Look, earn some rep back, show everyone Konpeki was a one off, a bad day. And then we can talk about getting you some jobs.”

“And how am I supposed to earn rep back without jobs?”

“Fucks sake V, want me to do your job for you?! NCPD always has scanner gigs and subcon work.”

“So what, I’m supposed to earn a rep back by working with pigs!”

“The streets talk, show you can do the jobs and do them well, remind people what you’re capable of. Then we can start talking about some jobs.”

“I don’t… I don’t want to do jobs for the cops.”

“Then don’t. Starve, go broke and lose your apartment, not my problem, V. Earn your rep back and we’ll talk gigs, until then, forget it.”

And with that Regina hangs up and V groans, kicking her wall, its bullshit. Konpeki blew up spectacularly so and she gets that. But, she didn’t tell Yorinobu to kill his dad. She didn’t give the corpo brat daddy issues. And she doesn’t want to lower herself to police sub-contract jobs. Doing the cop’s job for them is the bottom of the fucking barrel, helping out pigs that are half the reason this fucking city is such a mess.

Padre, she decides, he gave her a job when she just came to the city. He’s always had a soft spot for her, took a chance on her when she first got here. But, a voice in the back of her mind nags, the only thing worse than no reputation is a bad one. She hasn’t just gone back to square one, she’s in the negatives. The merc doesn’t let herself think about it for too long, calling the Heywood fixer’s number.

His age spotted face pops up in her optics and she can feel a little dash of hope rooting itself in her chest. Surely he has work for her. Even if it’s something small, there’s got to be something.

"V… it's been a while, my child. How have you been?"

"I, I'm here… More importantly, I could use some work."

"V…you ask me for work, to damage my own reputation for your sake, and so soon after Jackie’s passing? Have you no respect for me, yourself, or Jackie?"

The question feels like a punch in the gut. Padre knew Jackie since birth, knew Senora Welles while she was pregnant with him. He’s seen Jackie grow up and ultimately even brought the two mercs together. She knows he must be grieving, mourning, and here V is...trying to move on so soon after, trying to shut it all out. And she knows it must look bad, knows she may look heartless. But if she lets herself settle into that pit, she’ll never climb back out.

“Padre I-”

“Have you even spoken with his mother?”

“No, I just-”

“You should. Avoiding grief is bad for the soul, yours and hers. As far as work goes, I cannot sully my hands to help you, not this time.”

“I understand…”

“May God be with you, V.”

He hangs up and V’s sure he must be sick of her shit, not that she can’t blame him. She knows he’s right. That she’s shutting everything out. But between Jackie’s death and her own; she doesn’t know what the fuck else to do. And facing his mom… there’s a tightness in V’s chest at the thought, looking her in eyes and knowing V couldn’t save him. Why would Mama Welles even want to see V after this?

Maybe it's not the right or best way to deal with this, but it's all she has right now. V pulls up Dino’s contact next. He’s an alright guy, seems not to mind V at the very least. Though, he may just be trying to imagine what’s under her clothes each time they meet, probably not aware he’s already seen it. But hey, if it earns her a job, she’ll take it. She calls him.

She gets his voicemail, hangs up without leaving a message and shoots him a text instead. Hoping he’ll read it when he gets a chance and sends some jobs her way. She tries Wakako next, the phone answers then hangs up before V can get a word out; making the Westbrook fixer’s stance clear. El Capitan the mulleted fixer of Santo Domingo sends her straight to voicemail, not even letting it finish ringing. She’s given Mr. Hand’s voicemail as well. After all the calls, she checks to see if Dino has responded to her text, groaning when she sees she’s been left on seen. Dino seeing the text but not responding. Not a single fixer is willing to work with her after Konpeki.

V clenches her hands around her holophone, device threatening to crack under her grasp. Regina’s advice of NCPD jobs coming to mind. It’s no secret that the cops suck at doing their job, corrupted and incompetent. So much so that they’ll pay merc for intervening and taking down crime, shooting down gangers before they can shoot civilians. But it’s never something she’s wanted to do. Aligning herself with cops feels scummy. But her rent is due and when she adds together the prices of top shelf kiroshi optics, mantis blades, and projectile arm launcher… she owes Vik around seventy-thousand eurodollars. Savings can cover her rent with some left over, but not nearly enough to pay back Vik.

She calls the NCPD and asks about getting set up for sub contract work, half swallowed pride in her throat as she forces herself through the conversation. The rather bored sounding officer getting her set up to do the work, fairly simple. Listen to police scanners, find crimes to intervene in, drop any evidence off at a drop box, and get paid. Evidence is a lose term, they’re most interested in anything with proof of who was involved, shards or docs. And while the officer doesn’t say she can keep any loot or stolen stuff she wants, the implication is clear that they won’t stop her. Most interested in getting violent gangers put down.

V quickly throws on some clothes, throwing a baggy black hoodie over it all, then grabbing her mask. In rifling through the bag of her things taken from Vik, the sight of her blood stained Konpeki clothes makes her stomach churn but she finds the little beaded bracelet that Misty gave her before the heist. The blue beads now carry little flecks of blood, lapis lazuli meant for spiritual protection. She slides it on over her leather cuffed bracelet, she needs all the help she can get. With that she puts the bag aside, not wanting to ruminate on the blood soaked clothes for any longer.

She finds the bullet pendant still under the pillow, another good luck charm, to hear Misty. There’s something morbid in wearing the bullet that killed her. But, she likes it, and if Misty’s right… Again, she desperately needs as much luck as she can gather. The merc pulls it on. She keeps her mask in her usual bag, throwing the pill bottles from last night in there too, pops her regular med, makes sure she has her weapons, and leaves her apartment.

It feels surreal, walking through the halls of her apartment complex again. Moving through people and seeing the lights around her. Feeling like a zombie walking amongst them. To hear the chatter again, hundreds of people in this building, moving along with their lives. While she’s stuck with a terrorist in her skull. While she’s come back from the dead. While she’s lost the most important person to her. While she can still feels his hands on her throat, though her left her with no bruises. Only the mark on her forehead and the crack in her window are a reminder of his existence.

“Hey, V!” A voice calls out, stopping her in her tracks as she turns to see Wilson outside the Second Amendment store.

“Hey,” she signs in turn, walking up to meet him.

“Haven’t seen you in a good one, two… few weeks, heheh. Figured you’d skipped town.”

“Just trouble… the usual,” she signs, hoping her face won’t give away her unease.

“A-ha, got just the thing for you, then.”

“I don’t know about that, I got rent to pay and debts to clean up, don’t need to be spending my money on a new toy.”

“C’mon, V, got a beauty that practically has your name on her.”

And despite her better judgement she finds herself following Wilson into the gun shop, she can cover rent, so maybe spending what’s left over on a gun isn’t so bad. Wilson hefts up a case and undoes it, V’s breath catches in her throat because Wilson really has her number. A beauty of a sniper rifle in a brilliant metallic blue, not too bright to keep some stealth, but still within her favorite cyan hues. It's already outfitted with a silencer and what looks to be a digital scope.

Her desert eagle is her go to when it comes to guns, but the powerful little .50 caliber can’t fit a silencer, at least not without a lot of tricky fucking around. Her knife is silent, but distance is a struggle, her knife throwing skills only making up so much for it. The launcher is far from silent. A sniper rifle might be the perfect addition. Her father taught her how to fire them as a kid, looking down the sight, feeling the recoil as the butt slammed into her shoulder. She had decent aim, but it’s been years since she touched one.

“.50 BMG, bolt action sniper rifle. Your color, your caliber, what more could you want?”

“You really do know me too well, don’t you?”

“Told ya, got your name on it.”

“Mind if I try her out first?”

“C’mon”

Wilson lets her pick up the rifle, feeling the weight of it in her hands as she trails after him into the shooting range. Its a heavy made rifle, which is good, since that will help keep recoil from hitting as hard. V’s a small thing, so the bigger caliber guns she loves can kick back like a pissed off mule. Even her favorite handgun has a heavy kickback, the Desert Eagle not a gun to fuss with, but she’s learned to take the recoil over the years, shooting guns since she was a kid.

Memories of another gun, even more powerful than her own go to, the Malorian withe Last True Friend scratched into its barrel. Wielded in silver fingers, the force of it would have shattered anyone else's arm, and would have destroyed her own.

She shakes those memories from her head; they don’t belong to her after all. V plays with the sniper rifle in Wilson’s gun range, liking the feel of it in her hands. The accuracy of the scope. She ends up leaving with it on a holster on her back alongside her bag, paying Wilson for the new gun and some extra ammo.

In the elevator she tunes her hearing aids to a police scanner frequency, picking up the nearest potential jobs first. And in moments she hears the chatter of Tyger Claws attacking a ripperdoc clinic, not one she knows, but they’re not far from her apartment. She takes her mask from her bag and slides it on as she leaves the megabuilding.

She calls her car through her phone. And receives a notification that it was towed and can’t be dropped off for another day. So, she’s walking, until she finds something to steal. At least the first job isn’t far. Wandering through the Night City streets and through a tunnel, she drops a few stray Eurodollars in a man’s cup and lets him know he may want to scram. He gets the message and gets some distance from the area.

The tunnel opens to a square yard and she can see the gangers just from the edge of it, unaware of her. V crouches and pulls her rifle from her back, taking aim at the Tyger Claws over a cement staircase. One dead with a headshot as soon as she lines up the scope and pulls a trigger. Others yell out, run to investigate, walking right into her sights. Three more dead in a moment. A fifth runs behind a green and red car for cover, she fires her first round through her projectile launcher, blowing the car to ash and dust, killing the ganger. And they’re all dead, not a shot fired off at the merc. Picks through bloody corpses, pocketing what she can. She finds the doc dead in his clinic, shard saying the Claws attacked because he was pulling chrome from dead Claws. She drops it off at a drop box and gets eight hundred eddies sent to her account.

The scanner picks up another job, crime filled Night City streets always having something to offer. There’s a Kusanagi motorcycle, bright red with stickers across, belonging to one of the gangers. She grabs it and makes her way back through the streets.

Four Tyger Claws on the rooftop of a building, less clean. She nearly catches a grenade, barely dodging it as memories of gunpowder and Mexico heat flash through her mind, a phantom pain in her arm and the weight of fallen friend on her back. But at the end of it, she’s the only one standing. Some fuss about an antenna and she’s another eight hundred dollars richer.

Larger job at the corner of Drake and Cartwright, at least twelve Claws having taken over a market space. The merc takes advantage of her new rifle and the concrete jungle landscape, climbing up steps and perching herself on an air conditioner unit, shooting around the corner of the building. With time and patience, five Tygers dead from sniper bullets, brains splattered on the market stalls they were robbing. The rest won’t enter her sight line, ther merc slinking down to meet them, picking them off with her sidearm and knife, chasing them through the lantern strewn market. A slightly surreal feeling to it, walking through blood stained market stall, corpses thrown across it, brains leaking into cracks of the cement while she grabs a Nicola and a bike with more gas in it.

And that's what she does, not letting herself stop to think, just moving from job to job. Three Maelstrommers in a fire fight with cops after trying to klep some shit and setting off an alarm. There’s a gross feeling in her chest when the cops thank her, wondering how many skeletons hang in the officer’s closet. But her bank account is fatter and that’s all she can focus on in the moment.

She rides past a tv screen in a building showing the news, talking about Saburo Arasaka’s death and races through traffic before she can hear anything more. That night still haunting her like a ghost, its been weeks, can’t the story be over. Can’t it be enough…

Sniped Maelstrommers from the ledge of a building, peeking around the corner into the alley to a warehouse, finding an extra three thousand tucked away in it. Three Tyger Claws shot down after killing a snitch. It's all instinct, all muscle memory, ending lives as easily as she breathes. It’s not pretty or good work, but she’s a natural at it.

She has to park across the street from Lizzie’s for the next one, a group of Claws, one of the main gangs in Watson. Her stomach churns and biles burn thinking of the prep work, thinking of the warning signs, thinking of why she should have turned around and left. Pushing it aside she kills a handful of Tyger Claws, before moving to the next job further up the road.

Animals shaking someone down in an alleyway, she hands behind the table of an abandoned vendor’s table, piled high with goods. She throws a knife over it, watching the blade sink into one ganger before sniping the rest. Her stomach drops when she raises and sees the records that cover the abandoned table.

Black and red labels; Samurai and Silverhand etched across the graphics in white. His records amongst the oldies. Its like the world is mocking her, haunting her with that man, with that night. She throws them off the table, crushing them underfoot as she goes to collect her knife and finish the job.

The radio announcer hypes up the Arasaka health insurance plan on her way to next job and she shuts her hearing aids off for a moment, just the sound of the corps name making her want to scream. She changes the radio when she climbs off and flicks them back on before she clears a gang of Scavenger out from under an overpass.

Five Malestrommers get killed near the Med Center, gangsters managing a deal to steal chrome off of comatose patients. She can feel the bruise her new rifle has caused, still some recoil to it, but the ache doesn’t stop her. The ache she gets just helps to keep her mind away from other things. Somehow it’s nearly four pm and she doesn’t know when that happened.

Near Goldsmith street she’s tasked with taking out another Scavenger nest. A large messy one, armed with illegal shit stolen from Trauma Team. Spotted weaving through them, a full gun fight across the rooftops. Dodging and chasing Scavs through it, dodging behind crates and transformers. And she can nearly hear Jackie, can hear him laugh, can hear him yelling, because this is the kind of shit they did. But she knows it's just a memory; she’s alone with adrenaline in her veins, sweat on her skin, and a timebomb in her head.

She drops the last Scav, breathing labored, a few new injuries bleeding steadily. An hour spent battling the vultures, blood heavy under her fingernails, and she picks up on the scanner another job nearby. The merc already moving to get to it, not let her body rest for a minute, because as long as it’s moving her brain slow down just a little.

Clears out Tyger Claws from a construction site in the Northside of Watson. The sun setting just as she drives up and shoots down a cluster of Maelstrommers doing business behind a diner, having killed a drug dealer who stopped supplying. Another group of the chromed out gang taken down for attacking a shipment yard who they felt wasn’t cutting them a good enough discount.

Cleaning up another nest of them in a shipyard full of crates, picking through Maelstrom corpses and cop bodies there before she arrived shows a commissioner sent his boys in blue to die, for poking around where he didn’t want them to, for doing their job. She can’t even pretend to be surprised.

Northside is mostly Maelstrom territory, so it’s no shock it’s another group of the mini borgs she’s taking down as she pulls up to Offshore Street, an ad across the way promising to knock the devil out of her, she’s not sure what the ad is even for, but the message reminds her of her passenger. The proverbial devil she’d love to have knocked out. The gangoons are in a trainyard, stealing running gear from a convoy they jacked. There’s a high enough building for her to perch and take care of them easy, before dropping back in amongst their corpses to pick through for what she needs. Same thing she’s done time and time again.

Samurai written across the back of a now dead gang member's shirt, because of course. She kicks his corpse, as if she were striking the monster in her head. Shoots an already dead body twice, tears threatening to rush out, a scream on the tip of her tongue. And she swallows it back down.

Two more clusters of Tyger Claws are taken care of, the thanks of a plant worker held at gun point by a bridge makes her smile, even if just a little. Knowing she did manage to hopefully help someone, they were trying to klep chemical to make their newest drug; Glitter. At least he didn’t have to die for something so stupid.

Her holophone buzzes in her pocket, missed calls and text messages across it. The first text from Bartmoss Collective, which seems to be some strange spam, talking to her about capitalism. The missed calls and other text from Senora Welles. V scratches at her face, checking the message.

Mama Welles: V?

Mama Welles: V, we need to talk, please pick up

V chews on her lip, stomach twisted in knots. What the hell does she say, what the hell can she say? How can she even look Mama Welles in the fucking eye after this? Her fingers shake over the keys as she types the only thing she can think to send.

V: I’m sorry.

Sorry for Jackie, sorry for evading her, sorry for being such a coward. Sorry is all she can think to be…

Two more jobs, both Maelstom again and she decides to head home for the night. Her body is exhausted, mind fuzzy as she drives the stolen bike down the city streets. It's nearly midnight, all she’s ran on the entire time is a honey sucker and stolen Nicola. But, that means she’s tired, worn out and may be able to find sleep easily.

She steps into the elevator; eyes already threatening to drift shut. V pushes her mask up off her face and thumps her head back against the wall; immediately regretting it, the gesture too similar to Johnny's, the thunking of his head against her wall. She hates this, all she wants is to shut it all out, to forget it all if only for a day and just focus on work. But it’s haunting her.

“Night City is still in a state of mourning,” a newscaster prattles off, “following the death of Arasaka CEO, Saburo Arasaka. Flag on all city buildings are lowered to half mast and all major public events have been postponed until further notice. Daughter and heriress Hanako Arasaka arrived in the city, in the wake of the tragedy.”

“Fuck you!”

She screams at the screen, nearly frothing at the mouth as she puts a voice to her anger, feeling eyes on her as soon as she has. The elevator has come to a stop, someone just trying to enter it, staring at her wide eyed at having seen and heard the outburst. She pushes past them, tugging at her hair and ready to explode or cry or scream or something. Because its bullshit, it’s all bullshit and she fucking hates it.

The world is mourning Saburo; fuck Saburo! He was a piece of shit, a corpo sleaze who’d do anything to make a dollar, to get more power. Yet the world is meant to mourn him, meant to mourn a man who did everything he could to fuck it up. A man so awful his own child would strangle him just to be free of the monster.

Good people died that night, actually good fucking people, Bug and Jackie. And the world moves on without them. No flags fly half mast for them. No one has even contacted or spoke to her about Bug. Even she can’t bring herself to actually mourn, to take the time to feel her feelings. The world barely remembers them as soon as they’re gone.

And she doesn’t consider herself a good person, not like them. She’s nowhere as kind or welcoming as Jackie nor as talented as Bug. But damn it, she died too. And no one cares. The world just keeps on moving. And it hurts.

She screams when she closes her door, just screams and lets it out for a moment. V doesn’t want to cry again, is sick of crying. So, she just screams and punches her fist back against her wall. Her radio is playing music again, she notices as she starts to calm down, body leaning against the door as exhaustion settles back in her bones. She swore she turned it off, the shitty little thing must be acting up. She doesn’t have the energy to care. She haphazardly throws some of her clothes off, dropping her bag and weapons as she marches to her bed. She’ll sleep through it, sleep through the wellspring of anger and pain that’s started to burst out.

V puts her hearing aids on the side table and lays back against her pillows, feeling the plush of it welcoming her. She closes her eyes and takes deep breaths, trying to relax her body. Trying to find some calm, trying to find that serenity she’d had in silence for so long. Letting the exhaustion of her day send the world away.

Then she feels something pressing into the mattress beside her. The warmth of a presence looming over her, the smell of cigarettes and musk. And she’s shooting up in her bed, breath choking and clawing in her throat; heart trying to escape her rib cage. She expects him, expects to see him, is waiting for Johnny to be there with harsh hands and a sharp tongue.

But she’s alone.

She sits on the edge of her bed and just breathes, running her fingers through her hair, she has no idea how this all works. No one does. At least no one she can speak to. What if he comes back in the night? He got control of her last time, what if he finds a way to do it again? What if he takes over in her sleep? God only knows what he could or would do… She doesn’t even know how long the pills suppress him, he can flicker and control how he shows up, he could be active right now and just hiding… waiting for a moment to lash out. Waiting for her guard to fall.

And if it’s not him, it will be his memories.

V can’t sleep, she decides all at once, not now. Maybe never again. And she has no idea how long she’ll make it like this, but she knows she can’t give him that chance. Can’t live his memories again. Can’t deal with this. She grabs her hearing aids tucking them back in, rock music still drifting through her apartment, as she goes to her bathroom. V needs to get back out there, back to work. It's the only thing keeping her somewhat sane, though that thread gets close to snapping every second.

She washes dirt and blood from her hands, then splashes cold water into her face, trying to wake herself up. The cold shock of it disrupts some of the exhaustion, as she looks back up at herself. Still a little dirt on her face, bags already starting to form beneath her gray eyes. She grips the edge of the sink looking at herself, steadying her breaths, water dripping down her nose.

A blind man lost, in the streets

A pattern here I need to see

Keep returning, keep trying to leave

Got a bad feeling that I need to feel

Her knuckles whiten fingers digging into the sink, blood going cold and air catching in her throat. His voice, that fucking voice, playing through a radio. A song she’d never think anything of most days, maybe she’s heard it before and wrote it off. But now her heart hammers at the sound. She’d never even know who it was, but she now knows that voice like she knows her own name.

A black dog runs at my side

Down a road, no end in sight

The city sleeps but in my mind

Got a knot that won't unwind

She runs from her bathroom, tripping over herself as she rushes through the apartment. Her nails digging into the plastic as she frantically shuts off the music. Shutting out that damn voice for a moment, as she tries to get her bearings. She throws it down on the floor, a spike of satisfaction in the sound of it bouncing off the linoleum.

“Fuck!” V curses out loud, her head throbbing with the pain of it all. She holds her head in her hands for a moment before she’s moving again.

The merc is grabbing up a thermos, gifted to her by Misty and meant for relaxing teas, V fills the bottom half with a mix of Spunky Monkey and Chromanticore. Then brews a bot of coffee in the little maker she has stacked on her microwave. There’s a nearly caustic smell as she dumps black hot coffee in with the cold energy drinks; filling the thermos with a cocktail of energy that will either keep her awake or kill her. Either way she’ll be thrilled. It all burns like acid in her throat, a cloying tar taste stuck to her tongue, but after three swigs she can feel her energy picking up. She swallows another omega blocker with the fourth one.

Then she’s yanking her pants back on, getting all she needs to get back to work, marching back out her front door with her concoction in hand. She’s drinking it, cringing at the taste as she comes back down the stairs.

“NCPD open up!” A loud male voice yells out and she see two police officers outside of Barry’s door, her downstairs neighbor is a cop himself.

“Barry! We know you’re in there, we’re here to help!” The female officer yells

“You don’t got no fucking warrant!”

“Cut the bullshit! Just open up!”

“We came here as colleagues- nothin’ else. Haven’t heard from you in a while, we’re worried!”

“Noted. Now leave me alone!”

“Congrats, Mendez,” the female officer looks at her coworker, “way to be a prick.”

“Oh what? So I’m the bad guy? I’m not the one holed up playing the attention whore!”

“He lost a friend, can you blame him?”

“He’s not the first or the last. It’s called life.”

The two police officers leave Barry’s door and go to lean against the railing of the hallway, talking amongst themselves. V and Barry have made small talk a few times, he’s an alright guy, despite his job. And judging by the way his coworkers are talking, he’s been having a rough go of it. Losing a friend… she can certainly relate. She takes another swig of concoction and heads over, double checking her choker is on, mask still in her bag for now.

“Is something wrong? I live upstairs,” she signs to the police officers, indulging her curiosity.

“So keep on livin’ and stop minding other people’s biz.” The burly officer huffs, annoyed that the merc has dared bother them.

“Hold on, it’s his neighbor.”

“Any way I could help?”

“Maybe, you know Barry at all?”

“We’ve talked a handful of times.”

“He’s a friend from the precinct. Left the force not long ago. He broke down after his best friend died. We’re worried he’ll do something stupid. “

“Relax, Petrova,” Mendez scoffs, “Barry’s got nerves of steel- he’s just a spiteful old bastard”

“Mendez, I-,” she rolls her eyes, looks back to V, “could you check in on him when he’s chilled down?”

“Sure, not exactly far away.”

“Thanks, just be patient. Cops fallen on rough times can be… touchy.”

“I got you,” V signs with a nod, deciding to go ahead and test the waters. There’s something about getting herself caught up in someone else's troubles, it’s easier to worry about someone else. It’s a nice distraction.

She knocks against his door, knuckles scrapping the metal. No response, she knocks again. Nothing, so she knocks again.

“Hey, you home?”

No response again, he seemed heated when he was yelling at his coworkers and he probably likes them more than he likes the stranger from upstairs. She decides to let it go for now, she’ll check back in on him later. Another drink fo her death cocktail, her head ache growing worse and her heart rate picking up, but she feels wired enough to take on the world. Mask down as she leaves the building, she tunes to the scanner.

And each job bleeds into each other; Tyger Claws, Maelstrommers, Scavengers, Animals, and just petty criminals all blend together. All just bodies, sheep to her slaughter as she works her way through this, refusing to stop or breathe.

Bullets sniping through the air between swigs of her concoction. Blade thrown and retrieved, an abandoned energy drink guzzled. A gangoon gutted, a half drunk coffee stolen by grubby merc hands. Omega blockers swallowed down with caffeine every couple hours, as the night bleeds into the next morning. But the sun rises above her only to fall again, unable to keep track of the seconds, minutes, hours; all just a blur. Pick up a scanner job, get there, clear it, drink something with caffeine, drop off evidence, grab a vehicle and get to the next job. Then do it again, do it again, again, again, again….

New bruises on her skin with every job; new cuts, new scrapes, new aches. The migraine is constant, head pounding in tune with her racing caffeine soaked heart. But she welcomes it all, the bite of physical pain to keep her mind off the emotional.

The sun is just setting on a day other than the one she left her apartment. Maybe it’s been two, three, or more days of mindless grunt work across the city. Just stacking up her bank account and maybe, she hopes, earning a rep back across the streets. Though, what could is a rep to a dead woman walking? She can’t but wonder as she pulls up near Charter Street for the next scanner. Tyger Claws again, seen spending too much time near a shipyard behind the old buildings.

She walks swiftly through an abandoned parking lot, seeing the standard signs of the shipyard. Stacks and stacks of shipping containers, some rusted and broken open, others sealed tight. Pallets of concrete and building supplies, she doesn’t see signs of the gangoons yet. She walks crouched through a shipping container opened on both ends, moving closer to get a scope of the area. Peeking around the edge of it, she sees the first signs of life.

A Tyger Claw leaning against a car, mottled red and green. She’s far away and can’t get a clear picture through the crates of who else is with him. The merc moves up, slinking into another open rusted crate. She can see more bodies, more vehicles. But the glitch of a Scavenger mask catches her eye. Claws and Scavengers together…

With the cars around them, she opts to use her launcher, the smart aiming better than her sniping could ever be when it comes to getting around obstacles. The rocket launcher emerges from her forearm, locking onto her target, she fires off the incendiary round. It curves but can’t quite hit dead on at the angle, bursting into flames and barely catching a flame on the ganger. She curses as the boom of it gives her away.

Scavs and Claws scream, come running towards the crate she’s in. She readies her launcher again back up in the container, as a member of each gang run before her, catching a look at the merc just before she fires, It connects easily, both dying on impact, corpses going on in flames as V continues to back up through the crate and out of it, getting distance between herself and the swarming gang members. Another shot fired at the car, setting off a boom, that kills two more.

“This is bad, bad, bad!” A gang members yells, one of three still rushing her across the lot. He dies from another incendiary round a moment later, screaming as he’s engulfed in flames, another gang member dying with him.

One Scavenger woman is still running forwards towards V as she walks backwards, grabbing her knife from it’s holster. And V throws it, the final gang member unable to stop in time, running right into the thrown blade. It sinks into her throat, blood spurting forward as the woman collapses. V pulls the knife back out, wiping it across already stained jeans as she marches forth to survey the area without threat.

Tyger Claws and Scavenger now lie in burnt remains, the smell of melting flesh hot in the air. But other than cars and gangoons, nothing else is severely burned. The benefit of the smart targeting and rounds, the perfect amount of controlled chaos. She steps over corpses, collecting what she wants off of them as she moves to the hub of stacked shipping containers. The black remains of the car are still sputtering flames.

Its a little maze of containers as she picks up anything she wants, then she hears a steady thump, something banging against the metal. She twists her head around, searching for the source. It gets more frantic, the echo to the sound telling her it’s coming from one of the dozen or more crates.

“Is someone there?” She signs, mask translating as she tries to get an idea of which container it may be.

“Help, please, help!” A heavily accented and muffled voice yells out. And V finds the crate, unlocking it.

An awful stench pours out of it as the blue rusted door slide open, a huddled crowd of five or so people. Mostly women but a few men, skin caked in filth, bruises heavy on their skin. The one at the front of the container, who was beating on the door freezes, a woman with what looks like a broken nose stares at V wide eyed for a moment. The merc realizes why, quickly sliding the mask up to the top of her head.

“I’m not with them,” her choker translates and she can see the relief that flood the people, “lets get you all out of here.”

The people slowly leave the container, on shaky legs and V’s stomach lurches. There’s blood and filth, human waste, across the container. No telling how long these people were locked in here. But that’s only partly why the stench is so foul, she realizes, when a body at the back of the cargo crate doesn’t move. V walks through the crate turned prison, taking a closer look, hoping she’s wrong.

She isn’t.

A girl of maybe sixteen, the mottled bruises on her skin not just injury but validity, blood no longer pumping but instead stagnant. Her corpse just on the verge of decomposition, leopard spotted jeans stained with blood and her own waste. V tentatively searches through the young girls pockets, searching for something to help ID her, finding a holophone with the teenager’s final message sent.

Tracy: mom, i need help.

Tracy: i think ive been kidnapped

Tracy: mom please help

And V can’t read the rest, bile churning in her gut, but candy and caffeine is all she could hope to puke up. A young girl on her way to a party, snatched up and shipped off to Night City. Final typed out words, a desperate plea for her mother to help.

V leaves the crate before she gets sick, still five bruised and filthy people shivering in the open air. The orange glow of the burning car and setting sun settles over it all. She digs around the things the gangers left behind, finding a shard between Peter and Jotaro Shobo.

Jotaro Shobo, a well known piece of shit in Night City, a high ranking member of the Tyger Claws who scrolls X-BD’s of himself torturing people. The Scavs were bringing in people for the slaughter, judging from the message, Peter telling Jotaro they had just arrived in the city. These folks aren’t from the area.

“None of you are from Night City, are you?” She signs to ask, nods confirming the suspicion. And that wasn’t the only shipping container, many still around them. She hasn’t heard anymore thumping or yelling, but she still needs to check.

“What’s going to happen to us…?” A woman asks in a broken voice, the sound a scratch in her throat. And chews her lip, she can’t get these people back home. That’s a job for the NCPD, but will they do their job is the question. She surely can’t abandon them like this.

“I’m going to check the rest of the crates, see if there’s anyone else, and call the NCPD. Hopefully, we can get you all sorted and back home.”

She gives the best comforting squeeze that she can to their shoulder, feeling the skin and bone beneath her hand. V is suddenly so much more thankful that the fire from her launcher didn’t get out of hand, if so she could have cooked these people alive in the crates.

And who would have known or care?

There’s a pang in her heart as she starts opening crates, some filled with nothing but corpses. Others with drugs and supplies for the Claws’ X-BDs. She pulls two more people from a crate, just as bloody and beaten as the others. V can’t help but think of it, that young girl just gone, dead to the world. A mother left in terror, not knowing what’d happen to her baby. People thrown out and taken from the world. And if they all were gone, the world would just keep going.

Just like with her. Just like Jackie and Bug. And fuck, just like the people she’s killed in the past however many days. All just bodies to the rest of the world. A city that doesn’t care, that’ll forget them as soon as they’re gone. People who never really mattered to the world or had a place in it to begin with.

She opens the last of the shipping containers, heavy metal doors creaking and amongst corpses, she sees one moving body. A young girl, maybe eight, face fleck in blood and wide eyes looking at V. Sick fucks, grabbing whatever and whoever they could.

“Don’t worry, sweetie, you’re safe now.” V speaks, hoping the sound of a human voice will bring more comfort than her translator, even if the noise is rough. But the little girl comes walking slowly out. Her eyes welling with tears, choked half understood sobs as she asks where she is, where her mom is.

V scoops the girl up, doing her best to comfort the child as she brings her back to the group, out of all the bodies around ten are still alive altogether. Lost and now just sitting around as they wait for what comes next. The shard between Peter and Jotaro said they’ve been here for weeks. V sits against a shipping container, child still crying into her chest as she calls the NCPD, debating for a moment, before deciding to put her translator back on.

“Night City Police Department, how can I assist you?” A bored voice answers the line.

“My name is V, I’m a merc who does sub contract work for the department.”

“You forget how to shoot people?” The dispatch scoffs, like she’s wasting their time.

“No, asshole, I’m sitting here in a shipyard near Charter Street, Scavengers were trying to traffick in fresh bodies. Got ten or more folks from overseas, been crated up for weeks, no idea where they are or how to get home. So, I thought maybe, you’d all like to come down here and do your job.”

“Uh-understood, we’ll be dispatching someone to you right away.”

And with that the call ends, now all V can do is wait. Her momentum stopped in it’s tracks to take care of the strangers, One of them, a woman with dyed blue hair and overgrown black roots, looks to V.

“So, we’ll be getting out of here soon?”

“I’d like to say yes, but I’m afraid when the NCPD says ‘right away’ they mean give them three hours, so might as well settle in.”

“You’re… not… gonna leave, right?”

“Don’t worry, Night City isn’t the safest of beasts even if you’re in good shape. Wouldn’t leave you all out here alone.”

“Thank you… I… thank you.”

“Also,” V starts to speak as an idea pops in her head, feeling how thin the girl feels in her arms, “I know this probably sounds absolutely ridiculous, but I can order like, I don’t know, pizza or something?”

Something about it feels so strange and weird, after being kidnapped and taken abroad, a merc offering to buy you cheap pizza. But, it’s all she can think to offer in the time they’re waiting. She can’t help them get any cleaner; can’t hose them down or take them all back to her apartment for a shower. She can’t house them all, certainly. She can’t take them back home, or undo all they’ve been through. But… she can buy some pizza, help them fill their bellies after so long of going without.

“Please…”

And she does just that, ordering on an app through her phone, Buck-A-Slice is the cheapest and quickest option. Plus, the franchise now delivers their orders with drones, cheaper than having to pay human beings, which means she doesn’t have to explain literally any of this. A thousand times quicker than the NCPD, a drone drops off a stack of boxes with greasy cheap shitty pizza. But they tear into it like it's a feast and she finds herself eating too, not even realizing how hungry she was. Has she eaten since she started doing her little job bender?

Time ticks by as the people try to talk between eating, trying to fill the quiet night air with chatter. The little girl has fallen asleep in V’s lap, one of the merc’s hands rubbing circles on her back, the other fiddling with the bullet pendant that hangs around her neck. Stillness forced upon her, her mind starts to roam again.

Bug fried in a chair. Jackie bleeding out in the backseat of a Delamain. And V’s brains blown out over a hotel floor. All gone, though technically she’s still here, but she doesn’t feel like it. She feels like she’s already gone and she might as well be. Thrown away into a landfill and the world still spins. Still spins after all that’s happened. The only dead man mourned in the wake of Konpeki is Saburo, the only one rich or powerful enough for the world to give a shit.

And she’s dying again, this time, there won’t even be a body to burn. It will be like she was never here, overwritten like an unwanted file. Just a painful fade from existence as she loses herself, loses control, and is taken over.

There’s a rumble of car wheels across the lot. Flashes of lights, a few police NCPD cars as well as two unmarked vehicles, a car and a truck. There’s a handful of uniformed cops getting out of their cars. And two men outside of uniform, detectives, she thinks.

“We’re over here!” One of the women yells out, drawing the attention of the officers.

“Christ that smell,” one of the men out of uniform comments, an older man with gray hair.

But V’s eyes are drawn to the other plain-clothed man, if the clothes can really be called that. He himself stands out, around six foot five and muscular, his jacket a dark brown leather with fur across the collar. A shaved head of dark hair, one brown eye and a metal telescopic implant in place of the other. He’s attractive, a shallow little part of her notes.

“Detective Ward,” the mountain of a man introduces himself to V, “heard a merc called, something about a group of people locked in shipping crates. We’re gonna get you home safe, but first, can you tell me what happened?”

V has to try not to laugh. She honestly doesn’t blame him for assuming she was among the kidnapped folks. Her work has left her beaten, bruised; blood and grime on her skin. V’s clothes are still slightly damp from scanner jobs that made chase after evidence in a submerged van. She smells like sweat, murky water, and blood.

“I’m the merc who called, actually,” V signs and sees the realization dawn on the detective’s face.

“Sorry, I-”

“No worries, I get it, not exactly in my Sunday best.”

“What exactly happened here… ?” He prompts her to introduce herself.

“V. I was doing scanner jobs, cleared out some Claws and Scavengers, found myself some refugees, called you all, and ordered some pizza. But, I think this tells the story pretty well,” she explains then hands Detective Ward the shard between Peter and Jotaro.

He gives her a skeptical look for a moment, eye narrowed at the shard. But he seems to ultimately decide that the deaf five foot merc with a child in her lap isn’t that big of a threat. Taking it from her fingertips with metal fingers, a silver hand… And she hates how that little acknowledgement makes a cold sweat form at her hairline.

Detective Ward pushes the shard into his chip slot, his eye glowing blue for a moment as he reads it. His expression shifts a somber and cold look across his features.

“Jotaro fuckin’ Shobo.”

“Yep.”

“Appreciate the help, we’ll take it from here.”

“What’s going to happen to them?” V asks, looking down at the girl in her lap, NCPD isn’t known for going the extra mile. Who’s to say they won’t just throw these people onto the streets without any help or put them in a detention center to avoid dealing with it?

“Not your concern, merc,” the other detective, cuts in, looking down his nose at V.

“Excuse the fuck out of me for not trusting NCPD’s finest.”

“We’ll take care of them,” Detective Ward smooths it over, “figure out where they’re from and get ‘em back home.”

And maybe she’s naïve, maybe she’s exhausted, or maybe she’s a sucker for a pretty face. But, when he says that she believes him. His expression earnest and soft, Regardless, she knows the NCPD can help them more she can, more resources and pull. Just a matter of if they actually choose to use them. V gently shifts the child off her lap, who looks up at her with wide sleepy eyes.

“I gotta go now, honey, but the detectives are gonna help get you home now, okay?”

The little girl nods, still a hint of fear in her eyes as V stands up, as much as she’d love to stay with and protect her. V’s no guardian and can’t get the girl home safe. She watches as Detective Ward stoops down to a knee, getting as close as eye level with the girl as he can, though still nowhere close.

“Hey, kiddo, my name’s River, what’s yours?”

“Stephanie…”

V leaves on that, hearing the soft way the detective speaks to the child, the sound of it bringing the merc a bit of comfort. There’s another Kusanagi motorcycle, that clearly belongs to one of the now dead Tyger Claws, it has a full tank and she climbs on top of it. An old rock station blaring on it as she pulls away from the scene.

The wind whips around her as she rides through the Night City roads, there are more scanner jobs, always are. But she doesn’t take it, thoughts pinging around her skull. Shipping containers filled with corpses, all forgotten names and people, who the world will never mourn or stop for. Mercs drop like flies everyday, her and Jackie just a part of the numbers. But life moves on without them, will move on without her.

She guns the engine faster and faster.

A monster in her head, a psychopath who tried to put her head through a window. A timebob with a face and name. And one day, if she doesn’t stop it, she’ll be him. V… Aidan… will be nothing but a fading memory. A name that use to belong to the new body Johnny makes his fifty year comeback in. And he’ll do whatever he wants, hurt whoever he wants, because as much as Vik and Misty tell V she survived… she didn’t. Johnny survived. because short of a bullet in her brain, he’ll actually get a second chance. She won’t. All V did was get a time extension, a chance to postpone her date with death.

She pushes the bike to go faster, heavy on the throttle.

And she wishes she’d just met her end. Being dead is easier than dying. She wants it done, to just be gone, to not be afraid. To not be in terror of the ghost wreaking havoc in her skull. To not spend six months questioning if a headache is caffeine induced or her memories being erased. To not be stuck in this limbo of knowing she’s going to be gone and forgotten, to just be there by now.

She barely manages to take a curve in time, but doesn’t slow down.

Dead people don’t have to deal with their feelings. Don’t have to grieve. Don’t have to face the family left behind after their best friend dies. Don’t have to carry this pain. Don’t have to-

We lost everything

We had to pay the price

Yeah we lost everything

We had to pay the price

And his voice is like a bomb going off in her head, all at once trying to stop and turn, but she’s going too fast. Gnashing metal and crushing pain, she tastes blood as she’s sent flying forward. A thud of impact as her body hits the road; gravel and asphalt grinding across her skin as momentum carries her across the ground.

The world stops for a moment. V doesn’t know if she’s in the road, on a sidewalk. If she’ll be ran over. She doesn’t care. The merc lays there, bruised lungs aching with each breath, skin road rashed. Blood pours from her nose, iron clinging to her tongue. Her nose may be broken. She just stares up at the sky, the towering neon lights of the city buildings. And if she strains her exhaustion blurred vision, she thinks she can see a star or two pricking through the dark of night.

‘We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.'

It’s an old quote from someone she can’t remember and she’s not even sure where she ever heard it, is she even the one who heard it? How deep are his memories embedded in her own at this point?

She can hear traffic driving by, so she’s probably landed off the road, no one concerned for her. No one stopping or checking on her, just another corpse on the streets of Night City. A forgotten nobody, all she’ll ever be and all she ever was.

I see your eyes, i know you see me

You're like a ghost how you're everywhere

I am your demon never leaving

V groans, catching the sound of the stolen broken motorcycle still croaking out that asshole’s music. The lyrics of it taunting her; like over fifty years ago Johnny wrote those lyrics just as a fuck you to her right now. But something lurks in the back of her mind, the knowledge that that’s by no means true. Murky memories of a freckled blonde netrunner flickering through the merc’s mind.

She clambers back up on her feet, taking in the lights and vending machines around her. Blood still clinging to her lips and chin as she looks around her. On the street, a Kiroshi ad shining blue light on her, some blue haired model showing off her new optics. Across the road painted across the side of an old clothing store in red and blue; the Samurai band logo. The flaming oni demon with skin ripped off to show chrome beneath; just there, mocking her. She flips off the graffiti.

V’s out of her weird brewed concoction, even after so many times of topping it off. No more coffee or energy drinks on her. And she’s not sure she wants that anymore. Wants something stronger, that doesn’t keep her going, but just clouds her mind. The merc stumbles her way into the nearest liquor store and buys herself a bottle of bourbon. She barely catches the look of concern on the cashier’s face before she leaves with the booze in hand.

She takes heavy swigs of it as she meanders down the city streets, swallowing the burn of it and welcoming the fuzziness it puts in her mind. Avoiding it all and throwing herself into jobs has gotten her nowhere but exhausted, so she drowns the feelings in alcohol, the taste of blood and bourbon heavy on her tongue. She wanders down neon lit streets, not even sure where she’s going or why, steadily draining the bottle as she goes.

The lights become blurrier, a pleasant warmth buzzing under her skin as she walks, worries unable to find her through the cloud of alcohol. And she’s not sure how far she goes or where she’s ended up, stumbling down a street, bottle half drunk.

“V?!”

She turns, nearly tripping over her own feet, when someone calls her name. And through the blur of booze and lights dancing around her vision, she sees Cece. The older woman looking at her with something between horror and concern, wide brown eyes and furrowed brows.

“Holy shit, are you okay?”

Cece rushes towards the bloody drunk merc. A tender hand reaches out to cup V’s face, but she stops it, wrapping her fingers around the older woman’s wrist. She doesn’t want it, the gentle comforting touch. A kind gesture better suited for someone else, not meant for someone soaked in blood with alcohol and crimson on her tongue.

“Mmm...I, I’m fine,” V slurs her words, unable to sign with one hand on Cece and the other wrapped around her bottle.

The older woman pulls her hand from V’s grasp, the merc not missing the traces of blood she’s left on Cece’s skin. If she cares, if she minds the filthy touch, Cece says nothing about it just looking at V for a moment, like she’s looking at a wounded animal.

“You went quiet for a while, there’s some suit who keeps coming to the diner, asking about you, V… Did something happened? Ar-are you drunk?” She sputters for a moment when she notices the bottle in V’s hand, maybe catches a whiff of bourbon on the merc’s breath.

“No..not your concern,” V signs now, hands slow and messy, struggling to make the words she needs.

V turns to leave, this whole mess isn’t Cece’s problem. Cece and her barely even know each other outside of sex. The last thing V needs to do is dump trauma or bullshit on her, let alone drag her into the angry hornets nest that is Arasaka. V had only just thought of that, if Arasaka comes looking for her. She takes another swig of bourbon as she staggers across the grimey sidewalk, hoping to drown her newest anxiety.

“V, please,” Cece turns V around, grabbing the mercs arms and forcing eye contact, “I don’t know what’s going on but you can talk to me, I wanna help.”

Glassy gray eyes stare into gold, V just looking up at Cece for a moment. A distraction, that’s all V wants, all she’ll accept in the moment. Work, drinking, hell even helping Barry is all a grab for a distraction; anything to numb her and take her away from her pain. And maybe, her booze blurred brain suggests, Cecelia can distract V the way she always has before. Anything to not think.

V pushes forward, standing on her toes to meet Cece’s lips. She presses in, tries to shove her clumsy tongue into the older woman’s mouth. The once honeyed tongue now tastes of bourbon and blood. V is shoved back, nearly falling over in her drunken state, Cece pushing her away to break the kiss before it could truly begin.

The merc blinks, staring at the older woman. Cecelia’s face scrunched up in a grimace, V’s blood now on her lips, cringing at the cling of iron on her skin. The younger woman looks down, unable to meet Cecelia’s gaze now, ashamed to be so disgusting. To have left her filth and grime on another’s tongue.

V turns away and begins to rush off again, face hot with a drunken flush and embarrassment. What the fuck is wrong with her? Why did she do that? Despite it, she can hear the click of footsteps chasing after her. Cecelia would be better off leaving the merc alone, would be better off if V had never stumbled into her life, even if only for sex. Everyone would have been better off before V stepped into their lives, the thought makes her throat tighten.

“V, please, at least let me help you home, you can’t just stumble around drunk!”

“Why the fuck not!?” V turns around and screams, blood coated spit flying from her mouth. Why can’t Cecelia just walk away?

The two are left staring at each other for another moment. Cece’s eyes wide as she tries to work through her brain for a response, something to say.

“Tonight we return with breaking news, as more information is released in regards to the death of Arasaka CEO, Saburo Arasaka.”

A newscast catches the merc’s attention, tv screens facing out towards the street through a store front window. That stupid corporate sack of shit’s name drawing her in, a news anchor shuffles through his papers.

“Yorinobu Arasaka has come forward with more information regarding his father’s death at Konepki Plaza. The identities of two suspected perpetrators have been confirmed to be that of mercenary Jackie Welles and a netrunner known only as T-Bug.”

V’s breath is knocked from her lungs as the faces of her friends are flashed across the screen. Bug’s a crisp clear image of her face, expression stoic. Jackie’s is a mugshot where he has a bruised face and is grinning at the camera. The two exactly as she remembers them, her now gone crew shown on tv screen across the city, blamed for Saburo’s death.

“The two edgerunners are believed to have been hired by a corporation to carry out the assassination, but Yorinobu has yet to disclose or point any figures regarding which of Arasaka’s enemies may have carried out this plot. Both Welles and T-Bug were confirmed dead. But, there is an unidentified third accomplice believed to have been on the scene when Saburo Arasaka was assassinated. Yorinobu has yet to release this individual's identity or footage from Konpeki, choosing for Arasaka to handle the incident internally for the time being.”

A hand squeezes V’s shoulder, her own grip tightening around the bourbon bottle.

“That’s… your friend, Jackie, isn’t it?”

And she throws the bottle against the window. Unable to smash through the bulletproof glass, the bottle breaks first fragments scattering and bourbon streaking down the window. Cece instinctively jumps back, releasing V from her grasp.

“Jesus christ, what the fuck, V?!”

But the merc is already running down the street, slower than she’d be sober, but still faster than most. And she runs and she runs and she runs. She doesn’t know what for and to what, but she just needs to move, to go, to do something. V runs until her heart is hammering in her chest, pressing tight against her rib cage. Already bruised lungs struggling to take in steady breaths. Her feet ache, blisters forming in her boots as she finally slows down.

And when she catches her second wind, limb still heavy with both ache and booze, she looks around. On the side of the roadway, a main stretch through The Glen, something she knows from the column of red and pink lights across from her. She knows where she is, where she wanted to go, whether she even fully knew. Where it began six months ago.

She looks over the edge of the road way where the guard rail breaks off, overlooking the grimy little alley to Ember’s parking lot. The dumpster closed below, just like it was for her first job, stealing the high class car. V swings herself over, none too gracefully, hitting the dumpster and sliding off of it onto her back. She curses beneath her breath, blaming the alcohol, before she finally gets back up to her feet.

A man waiting under an awning barely looks up from his phone as she stumbles past him, world still shifting around her. She walks around and to that elevator, hitting the button then stepping inside before it begins to rumble. And it’s stupid, she knows. It won’t change anything, won’t get anything back. But she just wants to be there, to stand in the place she first met him, the moment that changed so much for her.

And the doors open before her and even after all this time, she knows the path by heart, walking down the halls to the double doors. The parking lot is empty tonight, only the glow of vending machines and the VIP parking spots.

Her footfalls echo through the closed parking garage, making her way to the neon spot where that car was parked. And she lays down there, bathed in blue light, cold of cement biting at her skin through her clothes.

The place where they met, where he put a gun to her head and they were forced down on the ground by police, where they broke away and took the car back to Padre. And he invited her back to his home, took her in like a stray, no concern or worry as he offered her food and shelter.

Maybe if he hadn’t, he’d still be here. Maybe if he’d just gone ahead and blown her brains out that night, they’d all be better off. Dex wouldn’t have shelled out the job to them, Jackie would still be minor leagues but he’d be alive. Mama Welles would have her son, Misty her soulmate, and Vik his friend. Everyone happier without the merc mucking up their lives. And she wouldn’t be here either, wouldn’t be dealing with it.

V takes out her phone, instinctively pulling up his number. She wants to talk to him, just one more time, she just wants to talk to him. It rings and rings and rings, she knows he won’t answer, knows he can’t. But… there’s no harm in wishful thinking, is there?

“Hey, this is Jackie.”

Her breath catches in her throat, his voice a shock to her system, a sound caught in her throat. Say something, say something.

“Can’t come to the holo right now, leave me a message and I’ll catch ya later.”

And the machine beeps, giving her the chance to leave a voicemail, because he’s gone. She knows that, she does, but she just…

“Jackie….I… this.. Is so stupid,” she chides herself and hangs up.

She’s half drunk in an abandoned parking lot, trying to talk to ghosts. Practically one herself. She sits for a few more moments, trying slowly to piece her mind back together, if only for a moment. It’s obviously not working, so she just gives up and stands back up. Already knowing where she plans to go back, tracing back pieces of their history, if only to find peace for a moment.

V stumbles her way back to the alley way, though her movements are a little steadier than before. Rather than dragging her aching feet all the way to Kabuki, she finds the nearest NCART station stop, thankful for the twenty-four hour transit.

The train car is mostly empty, a few people shooting her odd looks as she sits down, staring at the ground. Her eyelids heavy after days of constant activity and caffeine. The soft rumble of the transit starting to feel like she’s being rocked in a cradle, lulled into sleep.

A familiar click of boots make her eyes snap open, not even realizing they closed. Brown boots shuffling in front of her vision, glitching like an old tape. She digs her nails into the back of her head, refusing to look up as the figure sits down in the seat across from her. Legs spreading wide and shamelessly as he takes up as much space as he pleases. Both in the subway train and her head.

Heart pounding and breaths getting shorter, she tries to think through it, that the pills can’t be wearing off. When did she last take one? Might be seeing things, could be someone else, could be her mind playing tricks on her.

“If only you were so lucky, Samurai,” her head shoots up at the sound of his voice, looking at him finally, “drunk and bloody on a train, wondering if you lost your mind, be funny if you weren’t so damn pathetic.”

“No, no, no, no, no, fuck!”

People are staring as she tears through her pockets, hands shaking, the words garbled in her throat. Can’t breathe, she can’t even fucking breathe as she rips the bottle of pills from her pockets. Her heart is going to explode in her chest, her lungs going to shrivel up without a strong enough breath of air, her body on fire. Shaky hands rip the cap from the bottle.

“Wait a fuckin’ min-”

His yell is cut off as she chokes the pill down dry, jumping up from her seat, the train rolling to its next stop and she runs out, tripping down the last of the steps. She nearly pukes as she hits her knees, but forces herself to swallow the bile, she can’t afford to puke the blockers back up. She stays there on the ground, holding herself, reminding herself to breathe, sucking in the cold city air. It's filthy with smog but at the moment it feels godsent.

Eventually her breathing is better, her body feels cooler, the air chilling her sweaty skin, heart rate evening out. She slowly stands up, gravel and dirt still stuck in already blood stained hands. The merc finds her way to where she was going, the rockerboy in her head not ruining her goal. She needs to see it.

She reaches the Kabuki Central stop and sucks in a breath of air when she sees the bright red neon sight, lighting the street way around the door. The No-Tell Motel, the place where they died. Or maybe she didn’t die until she hit the landfill, but she thinks it was here, when Dex blew her brains out across the carpet. Where Jackie bled out in the back of a Delamain.

V goes around to the back gateway, where the Delamain pulled in. She sits at the top of the stairs for a moment, just looking at where the taxi had been parked. Where she lost him, next to the defaced Night City logo. All his dreams of reaching the major leagues, of having the money and street cred to keep his family safe, to be a success story who made it out of Heywood. Broken. Sent spiraling down when he got too close to the sun and the wax around his feathers melted, Icarus sent plummeting down to his end.

And she wishes so much she could have convinced him not to do it, could have kept him from getting to this point. But a part of her knows she probably couldn’t have. A part of her knows that if he were in her shoes, sent plummeting down but somehow still able to stand, he would have climbed back on his feet and tried it all over again. But she’s not as strong as him…

V gets back on her feet, ready to move on to the next part, where she died. Needs to see it, needs to face it. She slips into the motel and up the stairs, memories of that night flickering in her mind. Staggering through these neon lit halls and red stairs in bloody Jinguji clothes, face still wet with tears and rain, convinced she’d see her payday and live the major league life if only for Jackie.

She walks down that long stretch of hallway and reaches the room, 204, where Dex Deshawn shot her. It’s vacant, but she hasn’t paid for the room. Remembering even just bits of what Bug taught her, V’s able to hack the door, watching it slide open. Half expecting Dex’s bodyguard to be waiting behind the beaded curtain. Of course, he isn’t.

The room is just as she remembered, the standard sleazy No-Tell Motel room. Neon red light over a grimy bed, a dirty blanket thrown on a stained leather couch. And near the bed and bathroom, she sees it. Red now rusted and stained to a crusty brown, her blood. Where she was shot. Where she died, they haven’t even bothered to clean her blood from the floor. And that’s all she would have been. Another stain in a carpet. Another life snuffed out in Night City with no one to mourn her.

She opens the bathroom door and doesn’t even have to step in to see the mess she left is still there. Brown formerly crimson blood stained across the broken mirror, sink marked in rusted red brown handprints. V sits down on the bed, her blood stains in view, she holds her head and she cries again. She cries for Jackie, for Bug, for herself. She sobs and she lets out just a bit more of her pain. And the sobs die down, as they always do at some point. The tears run dry and the sob become more choked.

There’s one more place she needs to see, she decides, standing from the bed. It’s a longer way out, but she needs to see where she was left. Where her body would have rotted away with no one giving it a second thought. She leaves the hotel, no even bothering to shut the motel door behind her.

V doesn’t bother with the NCART again, as far away as the landfill is and scared of seeing him again. She knows the train didn’t trigger it, but she just, doesn’t want it. She’s sobered up, a fair amount, maybe still a bit tipsy. Its dumb, a bad move ayway, but she busts the window out of a parked MaiMai, little blue box of a car. Clears the glass off the driver’s seat and breaks into it.

The keys in it, she drives it and drives, careening through the traffic of Night City. Watching as the neon lights start to fade away as she hits the outskirts. Glowing billboards advertising become scarcer and scarcer, noise filtering away. Until there’s nothing but craggy rocks and stretches of desert land.

And the distance hills become made of trash as she comes closer and closer to her destination, driving past a little gas station. She parks where the little dirt pathways through the landfill meet the road. V climbs out of the driver’s seat and starts walking, boots sloshing through the mud puddles and crushing grass underfoot as she walks through mountains of trash.

An orange glow catches her eye as she starts to near a clearing, a trashcan fire still burning in the night. And as she reaches the clearing, she sees his body, Dex’s corpse still laid out where she shot him. Through the moonlight and the light of the fire, she can see bullet wound in his head, the purple in his skin where blood has settled.

No one’s come to find him. No one’s collected him. He blew her brains out and left her to rot in a landfill, now here he is. Karma or something, she thinks. One of the best fixers in Night City, major leagues, rich as hell and meant to be their ticket to success. But he was thrown out and forgotten just like anyone else.

She gently kicks his body, not even angry anymore, she’s not sure she has the energy to be. And what good would it do her, she already took the man’s life, what more can she do. He’s suffered the very fate he tried to damn her too, not even knowing what he did to her in the end. Dex was desperate, scared of what would happen if he was connected to her and the heist. He had no way of knowing the chip would do this.

His body shifts under the push of her boot, limp and useless. But she sees a glint, his gun. A gaudy little thing of black and gold, his name emblazoned across it. She picks it up, seeing the blood on it’s barrel and wonders if her brains splattered on Dex when he shot her.

She takes it with her as she goes to sit on a nearby rusty fridge, holding it in her hand, feeling the weight of it. V touches the bullet pendant around her neck, a bullet fired from this very gun. She wipes the crusted blood off it’s barrel, chipping it off with her fingernail. Maybe it was all fate, people aren’t meant to come back like that, not like this.

Her mind returns to what she told Misty, about blowing her brains out. The older woman telling her she’d kill two souls, if aimed right, it’d kill Johnny too. And maybe that’s not a bad thing… He showed his colors, when he attacked her. If that’s who he is, who he chooses to be. She’s killed people for less.

And isn’t it better than suffering? No dragging it out, no slowly losing control, no watching herself turn into him. She’d go out on her own terms, no one else's. No Arasaka’s, not Johnny’s, not her dad’s; her’s.

A quick shot, a jolt of pain, then she’d be gone like that. Her and Johnny. She wraps her lips around the barrel of the gun, the taste of metal and dirt on her tongue. Feels the weight of it in her mouth and clacks her teeth against it, biting down on it. Her finger on the trigger, one twitch of movement away from it all ending. From slipping away into the end and never dealing with this.

Do it.

Her finger doesn’t move.

Do it.

Nothing.

Do it.

And she’s crying, because it’s all she does, unable to make the final move. Unable to pull the trigger, she pulls the gun from her lips. And she holds her face as she cries again, she’s sick of this, sick of feeling this way. Sick of hurting, of being a nothing, of knowing she’s going to fade away and be forgotten like so many others. Of knowing she doesn’t matter and never will. That she’s going to become someone else, that she doesn’t and never will have place in this world, maybe was never meant to.

Only when the sun rises so does she, a notification on her optics that another payment from the NCPD has come in. Still a few grand short of paying off Vik without cutting her own throat in terms of cash, maybe she’d be better off killing herself that way, she wonders… But a part of her would prefer Dex’s gun, gone the way she was meant to, meeting her fate head on.

Head aching, foggy with exhaustion, but no longer buzzed with alcohol. She has a text about the fight in Kabuki and she still needs to get money from Wakako for the Dorsett gig; her last one with Jackie before the heist. She wipes the tears from her face and tucks Dex’s gun in her waistband, for later, meet her fate another day, she decides leaving the landfill.

Death will wait for her, it’s done just that for years, albeit not always patiently. They got a date set, according to Vik, six months out. She’ll jump to meet the end sooner, she thinks, find it on her own terms. But for now, she’s not quite ready.

#cyberpunk 2077 #cp2077 #johnny silverhand #silverv #female v #fem v

4 notes · View notes