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slasherrabbitmadness · 3 years

Text

Bo Sinclair x Female Reader

Sinclair College AU Part 3

Part 1 Part 2

Woo, NONCON ELEMENTS! This was written by demand. Seriously, bug me to write the AUs if you want to read them lol

Underthecut - NSFW, NONCON do not read if you do not like noncon, Dark fic, Vaginal sex, brief mention of anal, Bruises, creampie and Brief mentions of pregnancy

You shivered as Bo brought the blankets over you, cooing at how tired you must be, how you'll need all the rest you can get.

The dull ache throbbed throughout your body. Your toes hurt from curling them repeatedly, your hips hurt, from Bo's near incessant pounding and nails digging into your hips. Your breasts were sore, nipples teased and played with so long, his stubble scratched along your valley. Your neck was bruised, a feint handprint along the front mixed in with hickeys. Your lips sore and dry, lip gloss smeared around your mouth.

Dried tears over your cheeks, into your hair, onto the pillow.

"Hey, c'mon Sweets." Bo leaned in to kiss your cheek, making you squeeze your stomach in response, "Hey, you're good." He sat next to you, lightly patting your cheek, "Y'did so good for me, hm? So perfect." He leaned in, lips inches from your cheek, "Just like you've always been."

Bo looked down at you, bit his lower lip as your eyes remained vacant, body reacting out of an impulse to his touch, but emotionally wrought.

"You can rest for a lil while but then we gotta clean ya up, Sweets."

You cringed at the nickname, what was once a cute endearing term made your stomach turn.

"Rest for a bit, then we shower." Bo leaned in to kiss your temple, kissed your cheek ad a chaste kiss over your sore lips.

You curled into yourself, letting the motel blanket, stale smell, and lull you into a weak state of slumber.

Bo walked over to the chair, grabbing his crotch as he sat down, letting his chub rest against his thigh. He tapped his foot on the cheap carpeted floor. He leaned back to rummage through his stuff on the table, grabbing a joint and lighting it up.

He took a hit, leaned back. He listened, listened as the cars outside drove by, tires hissing along the wet pavement. A random dog barking, its deep thundering barks upsetting another tenant enough he heard a woman shouting for the thing to shut up.

The rain hit along the window, repeated taps along it felt commoning to Bo. The dull noise helped with his racing thoughts.

Bo wanted to curl into you, wrap his arms around you, kiss along your shoulder, laugh as you playfully reprimand him "Bo, stop! Your stubble is tickling me!" He smiled, "Bo, least you could do is just kiss me."

He coughed, smoke sputtered out through his lips. A deep hum rumbled from his chest, the image of you and him on the bed, curled into each other came so easily. Just like that one Valentine's day...

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Bo held you in his arms, hand running up and down your back. He kissed your lips, groaning as you let him slip your tongue in.

He cupped your cheek, tilted his head to deepen the kiss. Your moans spurred him on, his thigh pushed in between your legs, spreading you out for him.

"Bo...again?" You asked in a whisper.

"You know you got another round in ya." He kissed you again as he angled his cock at your entrance, grunted as his cock head was met with your warmth. "Ah, sure feels like you're ready." He pushed in, his hands grabbing your wrists to pin them above your head.

Deep intimate strokes have you cantering into him, "Bo..."

"Daddy, c'mon you know how we do this."

"Daddy, please, I want more."

Bo pulled out all the way and bucked forward, a quiet laugh as you squirmed under him.

He picked up speed, huffing and moaning above you. Placed sloppy kisses along your neck, sucking and biting, groaning at the fresh bruises forming along the skin.

"Daddy, ah, more." You freed your wrists from his grasp and ran your hands down his back, resting your hands on his ass. You pushed him further into you, "Daddy please, deeper in me."

His cock twitched in response, "You like when Daddy fucks you? You just need me fuckin' you always."

He kissed you as you moaned in response, hands traveled to the back of his hair, fingers threading through his brown hair.

Bo's hips grew sloppy, your pussy clenched around him as he pushed in deeper and deeper. He wanted to scream out his release, get another call from the front desk. Telling him that there have been noise complaints coming from his room.

You wrapped your legs around his waist, pulling him in, his movements became shallow, you felt his cock throb within you.

Bo moaned into the kiss, his hips stuttering as he emptied himself into you. He grinned as you sobbed under him, mewling out praises, whimpering how full he was making you feel.

"Daddy, you keep coming in me, and it might just take." He wheezed, running a hand over his forehead to brush away the sweat.

"Would that be such a bad thing?" His smile fell as you gave him a mortified look.

Reality hit him, "Bo, I can't get pregnant. I'm only in my second year of University! I need my degree first. How in the hell can I have a baby? I can't afford it, I can barely afford my classes."

He groaned at your rambling, he knew you were right, knew that realistically you could never afford a baby, that a degree gave you and your children together with a better shot.

He hummed in agreement, pulled you back into him, "Shh, we'll figure it out later." He kissed your forehead, growled as you nipped at his neck.

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

Bo sat up and walked over to you on the bed, "C'mon, we need to shower now."

You remained still, eyes closed, face turning into the pillow.

Bo pulled off the blankets, a hard breath through his nose as he took you in. He lifted you into his arms, pressed kisses to the top of your head, mumbling at how sweaty you smelled and tasted.

He walked into the shitty motel bathroom, a far cry from the last time you ever shared on together on Valentine's day.

The yellow light and avocado green sink, toilet, and tub held a nasty hue.

Bo looked at himself in the mirror as he held you, his eyes held a light pink hue (the weed), bags under his eyes, his hair sticking to his forehead. He grinned taking in the bruises along his shoulders and chest. A mixture of teeth marks and fists.

He set you down, an arm around your waist to steady you.

"Okay, Sweets, gonna get you clean. How many days has it been?"

You swayed in your spot, eyes downcast.

"About five days, best to get you clean." He leaned in to place a sloppy kiss on your cheek.

He turned on the water, the steam rising up to the ceiling. "Let's step in."

The water felt euphoric on your skin, washing away the last five days of bodily fluids. Bo's dried saliva, the dried semen on your front, the bits you couldn't fully wipe off your face. The hot water kissed your bruises, a pleasant ache from the hot touch.

You stared at the yellow shower tile, steadying a breath as Bo rubbed his hands over your body. You let your mind race, let it fall into a day more pleasant thoughts.

You thought of Vincent, his arms around you, holding you close, outside the library. Tears spilled as you cursed yourself, wishing you blew off Dan to accompany Vincent. Wanted to sleep in Vincent's arms like you had been almost every night since you started dating.

"Sweets?" Bo patted your cheek, "You good?"

You snapped your attention to Bo, his thumb whipping away your tears, "Might be in the shower but your red eyes are giving you away." He kissed you, tongue running along your lips.

Bo retched back, hand raised up to his cheek, he looked at his fingers, the blood trailing down.

You held a feral look, your eyes hed a feral glare, your nails with blood being cleaned by the running hot water.

"I. Want. Vincent!" You punctuated each word. Teeth bared to the tall man in front of you. You looked through him, not taking in his baby blues, his confused expression.

Bo gave you a booming laugh, you jumped as he grabbed your wrist, "Five days of this and you still want him. I thought I could get you cock drunk on me."

Be spun you around as he pushed you against the tile. Your front pressed into the slimy uncleaned surface had you gagging.

You steadied a breath again, letting your mind race to Vincent. Not Bo poking his cock along your entrance.

"Y'know, you should be pregnant by now, I think the other whole is a little lonely." You fought back a scream.

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Vincent ran through the campus, running up to the Flamingo dorms. He had no time to think about how silly it was that the campus dorms have animal mascots.

Brahms burst through the dorm's door. Pulling on his jacket as he scratched his stubble.

Vincent ran up to him, knowing his girlfriend was a friend of his own, "Hey, Brahms, you seen Y/n? Has your girl seen her?"

"No, Princess hasn't seen her."

Vincent would normally smirk at Brahm's nickname for his girl. It was fitting, Brahms did treat her like a Princess. The gifts, the lavish vacation he took her on, she was even invited to a family wedding.

"She did mention that she has yet to get ahold of her though, apparently Dan is upset that they missed their study dates."

Vincent slapped his leg in frustration.

"I haven't seen her in five days. I've talked with my brother but I haven't seen him either." Vincent breathed in heavily, he staggered back.

Brahms reached for him, steadying his friend, "Bo probably took her."

Vincent's eye went wide.

"I mean, think about it, is it that hard to get to that conclusion. You fuck her, start dating her, flaunt how good you've both been to each other. Bo's always been, Bo. Masking his insecurity with macho bravado, hitting on pretty girls, and when they take the low-hanging fruit it fuels his ego. For a day, at least. And the one girl who managed to escape his low-level bullshit falls into his brother's arms, of course, he's pissed."

Vincent clenched his fist, "You justifying my brother?"

"No," Brahms stood up straight, arms over his chest, "Remember when I punched him for bugging my Princess? He tried to jump me a week later. For me," Brahms gave Vincent a cocky smile, "Was nothing. I can only imagine if he had anger towards a female."

Vincent's blood went cold at Brahms words. "Y'sure?"

"Hm, I am an actor! I observe people constantly, I am not known as the best method actor this school has ever had for nothing!" Brahms puffed up his chest, his cocky smile faded as he watched Vincent's shakes become near tremors.

"Look, Vincent, Have you been to the police, her parents, sibling? or whatever?" Brahms leaned closer to Vincent, a sympathetic hand remained on his shoulder.

"Yeah...her parents said...she sounded a little shaken up but fine. They said it was stress. The police are useless."

Brahms laughed, "When are they useful?" He frowned when Vincent shot him a glare.

"Okay, no joking, though not a joke, Look, I'll get Princess later and us three can go around asking for her, okay. I'll even ask my drama teacher to put pressure on the campus police."

Vincent nodded a weak defeated nod.

His hope had been diminishing day by day. He missed class and called into work. The past five days were spent on you, finding you, wanting you back in his arms. The sick feeling in his gut knew you were being held by him...the other half of him.

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You sat on the bed, your clothes back over your, the warmth they offered little comfort.

"Okay, Sweets, we're gonna get going, alright?" He nudged your shoulder.

"I need to get back to class, Bo. I need to finish my degree." You said lifelessly as if on autopilot.

"You will don't worry." He kissed the crown of your head, inhaling your scent. "Sweets you smell so damn good. So clean for her Daddy."

Your throat felt tight, the urge to barf suppressed as you pinched yourself.

"Why did you cheat on me?"

Bo looked down at you, head cocked, "Cheat on you?"

"Yes."

"I never cheated on you."

"Don't fucking lie to me, Bo!"

He stepped back, hand running over his bandaged cheek. He composed himself, leaning over you, "You better watch your tone." He growled.

The past five days had gotten to you, a resentment, and anger bubbled to the surface, "You date me, Cheat on me, on valentine's day. And you expect me to never be angry, never be upset. And you get mad when I cheat on you. fuck you, Bo. I meant nothing to you. You're nothing to me."

You screamed as Bo shoved you down onto the bed, his large hands pressed hard into your arms, he huffed above you, "Nothing to me? Did I not just spend the last five days lovin' you? Being intimate with you? Shared the most wonderful experience two people together could experience together?"

He shook you as you failed to answer, "Hm? That Valentine's day meant everything to you. This meant everything to you." Bo kissed your tears, gritted his teeth and he shook your head under him.

Bo cheated, he knew this. Knew why he cheated. Self-sabotage as always.

How could someone so sweet, caring, friendly, and loving as you fall for him, why would you? Bo was awful, downright awful, his own parents even said so.

"You'll see, Sweets, you'll see our love grow within you."

You sobbed under him, you murmured Vincent's name, repeating it over and over, as if you said it enough he'd burst through the door, saving you from Bo's hell.

#Bo sinclair #Bo Sinclair x reader #Bo sinclair x you #Bo sinclair imagine #Vincent sinclair #brahms heelshire #house of wax 2005 #smut #Lemon #Dark fic

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bright-eyes-strawberry-lies · 3 years

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I can always tell when people haven't read the books and are just parroting shit they hear thinking it’s so hot when it’s icy cold so welcome to another segment of Robin Educates Ya'll With Quotes From The Series: Nico and Percy edition!

“I won’t tell on you,” he said. “But you have to promise to keep my sister safe.”

“I...that’s a big thing to promise, Nico, on a trip like this. Besides, she’s got Zoe, Grover, and Thalia -”

“Promise,” he insisted.

“I’ll do my best. I promise that.”

[Titan’s Curse, pg 119]

Bianca’s jaw tightened. “No. I’ll go.”

“You can’t! You’re new at this! You’ll die.”

“It’s my fault the monster came after us,” she said. “It’s my responsibility. Here.” She picked up the little god statue and pressed it into my hand. “If anything happens, give that to Nico. Tell him...tell him I’m sorry.”

“Bianca!” But she wasn’t waiting for me. She charged at the monster’s left foot.

[Titan’s Curse, pg 196]

Awestruck, I looked to Nico. “How did you-”

“Go away!” he yelled. “I hate you! I wish you were dead!”

The ground didn’t swallow me up, but Nico ran down the steps, heading toward the woods. I started to follow but slipped and fell onto the icy steps. When I got up, I noticed what I’d slipped on.

[Titan’s Curse, pg 308]

Annabeth and Grover helped me search the woods for hours, but there was no sign of Nico di Angelo. [Titan’s Curse, pg 309]

“I can’t let Nico be in any more danger,” I said. “I owe that much to his sister. I...I let them both down. I’m not going to let that poor kid suffer anymore.”

“The poor kid who hates you and wants to see you dead,” Grover reminded me.

“Maybe we can find him,” I said. “We can convince him it’s okay, hide him someplace safe.”

[Titan’s Curse, pg 310]

“So the Nico boy is gone now?”

“I-I guess. I tried to search for him this spring. So did Annabeth. But we didn’t have any luck. This is secret, Tyson, okay? If anyone found out he was a son of Hades, he would be in danger. You can’t even tell Chiron.”

[Battle of the Labyrinth, pg 38]

“Percy has been worried about you, Nico. He can help. I let him see what you were up to, hoping he would find you.”

[Battle of the Labyrinth, pg 167]

“We missed you at dinner,” I said. “You could’ve sat with me.”

“No.”

“Nico, you can’t miss every meal. If you don’t want to stay with Hermes, maybe they can make an exception and put you in the Big House. They’ve got plenty of rooms.”

“I’m not staying, Percy.”

“But...you can’t just leave. It’s too dangerous out there for a lone half-blood. You need to train.”

“I train with the dead,” he said flatly. “This camp isn’t for me. There’s a reason they didn’t put a cabin to Hades here, Percy. He’s not welcome, any more than he is on Olympus. I don’t belong. I have to go.”

I wanted to argue, but part of me knew he was right. I didn’t like it, but Nico would have to find his own, dark way.

[..]

“Makes sense,” I admitted. “But I hope we don’t have to be enemies.”

He lowered his gaze. “I’m sorry I was a brat. I should’ve listened to you about Bianca.”

[...]

I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I nodded. “Keep in touch, Nico.”

[Battle of the Labyrinth, pg 342-344]

He looked up at the Furies and took a deep breath. “I’ve done what my father asked. Take us to the palace.”

I tense. “Wait a second, Nico. What do you -”

“I’m afraid this is my new lead, Percy. My father promised me information about my family, but he wants to see you before we try the river. I’m sorry.”

“You tricked me?” I was so mad I couldn’t think. I lunged at him, but the Furies were fast. Two of them swooped down and plucked me up by the arms. [...] “All right, traitor,” I growled at Nico. “You’ve got your prize. Take me to the stupid palace.”

[The Last Olympian, pg 119/120]

The mountain of darkness loomed above me. A foot the size of Yankee Stadium was about to smash me when a voice hissed, “Percy!”

I lunged out blindly. Before I was fully awake, I had Nico pinned to the floor of the cell with the edge of my sword at his throat.

“Want...to...rescue,” he choked.

Anger woke me up fast. “Oh, yeah? And why should I trust you?”

“No...choice?” he gagged.

I wished he hadn’t said something logical like that. I let him go.

Nico curled into a ball and made retching sounds while his throat recovered. Finally he got to his feet, eyeing my sword warily. His own blade was sheathed. I suppose if he’d wanted to kill me, he could have done it while I slept. Still, I didn’t trust him.

[The Last Olympian, pg 129/130]

Nico slid off Mrs. O’Leary’s back and crumpled in a heap on the black sand.

I took out a square of ambrosia - part of the emergency god-food I always kept with me. It was a little bashed up, but Nico chewed it.

“Uh,” he mumbled. “Better.”

[...]

I caught him before he could pass out again.

[The Last Olympian, pg 132]

“Go back to your father,” I told Nico. “Tell him he owes me for letting him go. Find out what’s going to happen to Mount Olympus and convince him to help.”

Nico stared at me. “I...I can’t. He’ll hate me now. I mean...even more.”

“You have to,” I said. “You owe me too.”

His ears turned red. “Percy, I told you I was sorry. Please...let me come with you. I want to fight.”

“You’ll be more help down here.”

“You mean you don’t trust me anymore,” he said miserably.

I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what I meant. I was too stunned by what I’d just done in battle to think clearly.

“Just go back to your father,” I said, trying not to sound too harsh. “Work on him. You’re the only person who might be able to get him to listen.”

[The Last Olympian, pg 139/140]

Percy stared at his jelly donut. He had a rocky history with Nico di Angelo. The guy had once tricked him into visiting Hades’s palace, and Percy had ended up in a cell. But most of the time, Nico sided with the good guys. He certainly didn’t deserve slow suffocation in a bronze jar, and Percy couldn’t stand seeing Hazel in pain.

“We’ll rescue him,” he promised her. “We have to. The prophecy says he holds the key to endless death.”

[Mark of Athena, pg 172/173]

“Plans?” Hazel asked. “Nico has until sunset - at best. And this entire city is supposedly getting destroyed today.”

Percy shook himself out of his daze. “You’re right. Annabeth...did you zero in on that spot from your bronze map?”

[Mark of Athena, pg 384/385]

Otis trudged over to the dias, stopping occasionally to do a pile. He knocked over the jar, the lid popped off, and Nico di Angelo spilled out. The sight of his deathly pale face and too-skinny frame made Percy’s heart stop. Percy couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive. He wanted to rush over and check, but Ephialtes stood in his way.

[Mark of Athena, pg 508]

At Otis’s feet, Nico shuddered. Percy felt like a hellhound hamster wheel somewhere in his chest had started moving again. At least Nico was alive.

[Mark of Athena, pg 509]

The past week or so, Percy had imagined a lot of scathing things he might say to Nico when they met again, but the guy looked so frail and sad, Percy couldn’t muster up much anger.

[Mark of Athena, pg 536]

Nico’s eyes looked like shattered glass. Percy wondered sadly if something inside him had broken permanently.

[Mark of Athena, pg 539]

To recap: Percy never promised Nico that he wouldn't let Bianca die - he promised to do his best. Percy never promised Bianca that he would look after Nico. Percy spends months looking for Nico and never not even once told him to get lost. Nico was manipulated by Hades so that he'd bring Percy to him, and Percy was rightfully angry about it. The last person to betray Percy was Luke (and you all want Luke to die for that). Percy constantly worries about Nico.

Percy doesn't have to apologize to Nico for shit and he didn't "do him dirty" in the slightest.

#percy jackson #nico di angelo #hoo #pjo #riordanverse #percy jackson series #heroes of olympus #mark of athena #titan's curse #battle of the labyrinth #the last olympian

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actress4him · 3 years

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Overexposure - Punishment

(Prompt #3 for Whump of July)

I haven’t been in a writing mood much lately. Then suddenly last night, I realized writing wasn’t the issue, the issue was that everything I was working on or had planned was angst, and as much as I like angst, I was in the mood to beat the crap out of somebody. Ellery seemed like a good candidate. Sorry Ellery (but not really). This also happened to line up with today’s Whump of July prompt!

Taglist: @inky-whump , @michelleswhumpyreblogs Previous | Next | Masterlist

Warnings: lady whumpee (male whumper), creepy/intimate whumper, restraints, gag, claustrophobia, broken ribs, mild blood, torture, graphic burns, mild gore, mild emeto, mild dehumanization

He hadn’t even bothered to uncuff her or remove the gag. What seemed like hours had passed inside that tiny, dark closet, curled up uncomfortably on the floor with bottles and broom handles pressing into her from all sides and waiting for Lucas to come back for her. When he had finally appeared, he had yanked her up and herded her out to his car, popping the trunk and shoving her inside. It was terrifying. Not only because she’d never been locked in a trunk before, but because she knew he was still furious at her. Whatever she was headed back to, it was going to be bad.

Now they’re back at his house, she’s out of the trunk, but by the way he’s dragging her by the arm through the halls she almost wishes she was back in it. He opens the door to the basement and maneuvers her until she’s in front, still propelling her forward despite the fact that she’s fighting not to stumble in her one heel and one bare foot.

One moment his grip is leaving finger-shaped bruises in her skin. The next moment she’s pitching forward and his hand is gone. Ellery only has a split second to panic before she’s hitting the stairs, hard, pain shooting up through her hip, but then she’s flipping and tumbling and sliding and it’s all just a blur of falling and hurt until she comes to an abrupt halt by slamming into the concrete floor at the bottom.

Then she screams through her gag.

Everything hurts. Whatever meager healing her ribs had been able to manage has been completely undone, her whole side is on fire. It’s very possible that there are even more broken ones now than before. Her stomach hurts, her arms hurt, her legs hurt, she’s pretty sure she caught her foot on a step at some point because her ankle really, actually feels twisted now. Something is making the side of her head feel warm, and it’s doubtful it’s anything good.

Lucas drops into a crouch next to her, looking her body up and down before settling his gaze on her face. “You’re incredibly lucky that I was able to come up with a convincing lie tonight, Princess. But a breakdown like that, in public, can’t ever happen again. Once, I can make them buy anything. Twice, it’s gonna be a lot harder. Which means I’ve gotta make sure that you remember your lesson tonight.”

She nods, vigorously, despite the stabbing pain in her temple at the motion. Yes, yes, I’ve learned my lesson, please… but Lucas isn’t even watching her. He’s already stood and moved away to the shelving unit, browsing to see what kind of torture tool he can find.

“Ooh! Haven’t tried this yet.”

The phrase makes her heart stop beating without even knowing what he’s referring to. But when he turns and strides back toward her with a candle lighter held proudly in his hand, it kicks into double time.

No no no no, please, don’t, please no… It all comes out as a pathetic series of grunts and moans as she kicks against the floor, trying and failing to move away from him. Lucas straddles her, still standing and holding that lighter, and reaches down to flip her over by her arm. There’s suddenly far too much air hitting her bare back. Ellery sobs, still futilely pulling at the cuffs as if she can somehow escape her fate.

She’s not at all prepared for the flame to hit her skin. She’s been burned before, of course she has, she likes to cook and burns come along with that. But those were quick. Accidental. The brief touch of a finger to a pot fresh off the stove, the bump of an arm against an oven door.

Lucas flicks on the lighter, brings it up to her shoulder blade, and holds it there. Holds it while she screams and cries, while her skin begins to bubble and char. Sits down on her legs to keep her still so she can’t squirm away from him.

“Fascinating.” He leans in closer, studying the mess he’s made. Ellery has to assume that the lighter is turned off now, but she can’t feel it. Her shoulder hurts just as much now as it did a few seconds ago, and the smell of burnt flesh makes her retch.

“I’ve never gotten to watch something like that before. You know, I’ve never been much of a drawing, painting type of artist, but I bet…”

The lighter turns back on. She knows for sure now, because it drags across her back, slowly, leaving a scorched line behind it. The only good news is that it draws her mind away from the pain of the first burn. Without being fully aware that she’s doing it, she tries again to pull away. It’s instinctual. Something is hurting her, and her body wants to escape. But Lucas just uses his free hand to press her shoulder down into the concrete, and continues the waving motions over her back. Between the tears and the pain, she can’t see straight, can’t even think. All she can do is sob and choke out broken off wails and pray that it will end soon.

It doesn’t.

Nearly every inch of her back has been burned by the time Lucas finally gets off of her. He even yanked at and ripped the dress at one point to get to more skin. She’s not sure how she’s still conscious. She wishes she wasn’t.

Standing, Lucas stretches, cracks his knuckles, and admires his work. “Hm. Not necessarily professional quality, but not half-bad, I’d say. Can’t wait to see how it looks tomorrow, or when it scars. Gonna make some interesting photos, that’s for sure.” He yawns, stretches again. “I’m beat tonight, though. Come on, Princess.”

He leans down and grabs her by the arm again, actually being slightly patient as she struggles to get up now that he’s got the anger out of his system. Every movement, no matter how small, sends burning waves rippling across her back, and more tears slipping down her cheeks. Guiding her back into her cell, he finally unlocks the cuffs, though bringing her arms around to the front makes her dizzy with pain.

“Be good in the morning and maybe I’ll get you some cream for those. Don’t wanna do it too soon, though, ‘cause I wanna make sure they scar good.”

The door closes and locks, and Ellery sinks slowly, stiffly, onto her bed, trembling all over, his words echoing in her head. She’d been naïve to think that she’d get out of this place without any scars.

Maybe she’s naïve to think she’ll get out of here at all.

For the longest time she just sits there on the edge of the bed, consumed by the pain, unable to make herself move. It feels like it’s burning through her core, eating away at her insides, that soon she’ll be able to look down and see the front of her dress bursting into flames. She’s never felt so much pain at once in her life.

Eventually, she convinces one arm to lift, to gently, slowly tug off the glove on her sleeveless arm that hid her broken finger. It hurts, but she does it. Lifting both arms to remove the necklace hurts worse, but she does it, too. When she tries to stand, though, desperately needing a drink of water from the sink in the corner, it’s too much. She falls immediately back to her knees and loses the meager contents of her stomach.

The combined pain from her back and broken ribs is finally enough to send her over the edge and into blissful unconsciousness.

It’s not until the next day, when she’s able to glance over her shoulder at her reflection upstairs while she’s prepped for photos, that she sees fully what he did to her. Angry, raised red lines cover her back in an intricate, swirling pattern. Like she’s a canvas. An object, simply there to decorate and be decorated. It’s the way Lucas has always treated her.

And maybe he’s right. Maybe that’s all she really is.

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cavalierious-whim · 3 years

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The Weight of a Kiss (FE3H)

Sylvix | Canon-Compliant | 5 + 1 | Teen | Complete Five times that kisses are greetings, and the one time they aren't. Funny, how things change.

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A/N: Read here on AO3 for better formatting!

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A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.

Felix is a scrawny little thing. It’s the first thought that comes to Sylvain. He’s got the same coloring as Glenn even if he’s only half his brother’s height. He shies away, fingers gripping at Glenn’s trousers tightly. Sylvain waits patiently as Glenn reaches around, urging Felix forward. Just a gentle hand against his back.

“Come on, Felix,” says Glenn. Felix is surprisingly stubborn in his own right, unwilling to budge at first.

“It’s alright,” says Sylvain to Glenn. “He can take his time.”

“Felix,” says Glenn once more, gentler, like coaxing a newborn fawn. “Just a hello, that’s all that’s needed. And then you can leave.”

The way that Felix pouts is adorable, his cheeks puffed out slightly as he surveys Sylvain with a wary look.

“I don’t bite,” says Sylvain, thinking that it might help.

Felix finally steps forward until he’s right before Sylvain. The cool springtime breeze lifts his bangs from his forehead. Felix stares from underneath long eyelashes, dark amber eyes watching Sylvain with a calculating stare. Interesting, Sylvain thinks. Felix might be a shy crybaby, but there’s more to him than meets the eye.

“You don’t bite,” says Felix. More a statement than a question, an acute observation.

“I promise,” says Sylvain.

Felix purses his lips and then says, “Shame. Glenn needs someone to knock him down a peg.”

Sylvain’s mouth falls open and he glances at Glenn. They’re far enough that he can’t hear the exchanged words, but Glenn’s prone to having a biting wit. He wouldn’t have found the comment amusing, not as Sylvain does.

Or Felix, judging by the tiny quirk at the corner of his mouth. Suddenly, Sylvain’s not sure if it’s a joke.

“A proper greeting is expected,” says Glenn from behind them, breaking their quiet moment. Sylvain doesn’t miss the sly, amused smile that he wears.

“Right,” says Sylvain.

“Ugh,” says Felix. Still, he stands straight and readies himself.

Sylvain leans forward, gripping Felix by the shoulders gently. He presses a kiss to one cheek, and then the other. Felix repeats the gesture, Sylvain having to lean over slightly for him to reach. When they’re done, they pull back, staring awkwardly at each other.

Then, Felix makes a gagging sound, pretending to retch.

Sylvain follows suit, saying, “Gross. So, so gross.”

Glenn laughs loudly, amused by their reaction to expected societal customs. At least, he laughs until he has to follow suit.

Over the years, it becomes kind of a game to them. Well, more so for Sylvain. Felix tries his best to disappear and skip formal greetings entirely. He rarely succeeds, Glenn dragging him to the front of the manor by his shirt sleeve.

Felix looks more and more like Glenn every year. At eleven, Felix is past his crybaby stage for the most part and now spends his days emulating his older brother. Glenn’s a good guy, but Sylvain wonders if his personality is one to be adopted. But, with Glenn, as a knight now and rarely home, Sylvain knows that Felix will do whatever possible to cling to what he still can.

They’re close in height now, Felix’s amber eyes nearly level with his gaze. Now, or never, Sylvain thinks. Just get it over with. Sylvain leans over to press the sloppiest kiss that he can manage across Felix’s cheek.

“Disgusting,” snaps Felix, already pushing Sylvain away before he can plant one on his other cheek.

“Oh come on,” says Sylvain, “It’s proper.”

“Properly annoying,” says Felix. His hand finds Sylvain’s face, pushing at it hard.

Sylvain snorts before trying again. “Our fathers are watching.”

At that, Felix stops resisting, letting out a loud sigh instead. “Formality can kiss my ass,” murmurs Felix.

Sylvain pauses at that, still holding Felix’s face between his palms. “Since when have you cursed in such a way?”

“I only learn from the best,” says Felix. They both look to Glenn who smirks right back. The best, indeed. Then Felix says, “Well then, get on with it.”

Sylvain lets out a soft laugh and pecks Felix’s other cheek lightly, giving him a rest from their usual antics. It’s Felix’s turn next, reaching out and grasping Sylvain by the shoulders. His face is terse and serious as usual when he leans forward.

The kiss is soft against his cheek, and then again on the other. Then, Felix’s hand darts out, finding its target easily on Sylvain’s chest. Felix squeezes Sylvain’s nipple tight through his linen shirt and roughly twists.

Sylvain yelps, falling over, watching as Felix runs away with a smirk.

Rodrigue can barely hide a smile behind his hand. Sylvain’s father’s mouth is pulled into a terse frown. Glenn’s nearly doubled over with raucous laughter.

And Felix is long gone, having entirely disappeared. Sylvain grunts as he finds his footing again. He’s going to kill him the next time that they spar.

Sylvain doesn’t want to be here. It’s a foreign feeling, nearly incomprehensible. Fraldarius manor has always been a place of respite for him, but now it’s just dark and foreboding. The dark cloud that hangs over it permeates everything around them.

Glenn’s dead, far before his time, and doing what he did best; protecting those that he loves. Sylvain wonders what makes Felix angrier; that Glenn is gone, or that his brother died protecting Dimitri, and not him.

Felix, for once, meets them at the front of the manor, hands clasped behind him properly. He looks like he’s aged five years. He looks angry and sad and depressed. He looks like a shell of himself, barely there, quiet and distant.

He doesn’t look at Sylvain, he looks right through him.

“Felix,” says Sylvain, his voice quiet. He doesn’t know how to do this, he doesn’t know how to approach him. He feels utterly suffocated; by expectations and propriety, by the weight of war on the horizon, and the way that Felix looks like he’s just about died on the inside.

Sylvain misses Glenn, but not as much as he misses his best friend.

“Sylvain,” says Felix. His tone is curt, almost unfeeling, but Sylvain knows that it’s not directed at him. Felix has never dealt with his feelings well, lashing out at the slightest of things. Glenn’s always helped temper him. Without him here, Felix is a dark ball of angst with nothing to butt heads against.

That worries Sylvain.

For the first time, Sylvain thinks, he wants to greet Felix the proper way. Felix will likely hate it, but Sylvain’s the kind of person who grounds himself through touch. He reaches out, fingers sliding along Felix’s shoulders. Felix is thirteen, too young to look so old and broken.

Sylvain leans forward. Felix’s cheeks are cold against his lips and he stiffens against Sylvain’s hold. One kiss, and then two. When Sylvain pulls back, Felix’s hand lashes out, fingers curling into his sleeve tightly.

They both freeze. There’s a beat, and then Felix says, “Don’t. Don’t leave me as he did.” Felix makes no move to return the greeting, but the look that he gives Sylvain is utterly heartbreaking.

“Oh, Felix,” says Sylvain, pulling him in close for a hug. Proper manners be damned, he doesn’t care. Felix is hurting, Sylvain’s hurting, the entire damn household is hurting. “I won’t, I promise. The only way I’ll leave is if we die together.”

“A promise,” says Felix. “A promise never to leave each other.”

But even as he says the words, Sylvain wonders if it’s a promise that he can keep.

As it turns out, Sylvain’s shit at keeping promises.

Years pass and things change. Felix does what his father asks and sets on the path to becoming a knight. Even if it’s the last thing that he wants. He goes off with Dimitri, only to come back angry and sardonic and calling their prince a Boar.

Meanwhile, Sylvain’s father leads with the expectation of marrying him off early for even earlier grandchildren. Sylvain wants nothing to do with that at sixteen, seventeen, even eighteen. He wears women on his sleeve because it’s easier than commitment, and he doesn’t care what the lasting effects might be.

He sees Felix again when he’s nineteen and his heart flips upside down, seizing in an unfamiliar way. Felix looks less like Glenn and more like himself, and Sylvain finds that he cannot stop staring.

Ingrid punches him across the shoulder and tells him to pick his jaw up off the ground. Then, she tells him to not even think about it.

When Felix greets him, his lips are tugged into a frown.

“You didn’t write,” says Sylvain, his tongue strangely tied.

Felix frowns. “Neither did you.”

No, Sylvain hadn’t. Sylvain had been too busy dodging his father, dodging marriage proposals, and dodging responsibility. Not that Felix is any better; he’d run off to squire, following in Glenn’s footsteps, anything to get himself killed early. The ultimate honor in the wake of his dead brother.

The two of them are a mess, Sylvain thinks, and not for the first time.

Felix is the one to reach out first, finely boned fingers sliding along Sylvain’s broad shoulders. Sylvain towers over him nowadays, so he leans over, as expected. Felix kisses one cheek, rather aggressively, and then the other, and then pulls back stiffly.

When Sylvain repeats the gesture, it’s softer and with more poise, but that almost makes it worse. When he pulls away, Felix scoffs, scowling at him angrily. His gaze drops from Sylvain’s face, down to his feet and then he sneers.

“I’ve heard the stories,” says Felix. “Ingrid’s told me. Don’t expect me to peel you up after I find you drunk on a tavern floor. That’s on you.”

Years before, the harsh words would have been joking, maybe even funny. But now, they sound bitter and sour.

Sylvain wonders what it is that made Felix so.

Five years is a long time, and yet, it passes in a flash.

Sylvain’s been north, hunting down Adrestian troops that find their way into his lands. Meanwhile, his father holds the fortress, and with it, Sreng. The country isn’t above using wartime to launch strategically placed attacks.

He’s weary. He’s tired. It’s been a long day of battle and reunification. The Professor’s alive by some fucking miracle. Sylvain needs a woman, a cup of strong wine, and a bed.

At least, it’s what he thinks until he sees Felix, bloodstained and hardened, a shell of the boy he once was. Sylvain stares at him in surprise, wondering how he could have ever thought he’d looked like Glenn.

And, while most lose those harsh edges and the chips on their shoulders as they age, Felix hasn’t. He’s only gotten worse it seems, snapping acerbic quips at anyone who comes his way. Ingrid, bless her soul tries. And fails.

“Felix,” says Sylvain as Mercedes heals his arm. He’s got a pretty terrible gash and the warmth from her hand is welcome.

Felix doesn’t say anything, but he does look at him with hollowed-out eyes. Sylvain swallows. He’s handsome, beautiful even, in his own way. Sylvain’s never felt his heart twist like this. And then Felix sneers, annoyed, and looks the other direction.

It feels like a loss. There will be no kisses or cheeks cradled gently by fingers, despite how annoying manners can be. Sylvain wants the familiarity of it, he misses being normal because nothing is anymore. Everything’s gone to shit.

Sylvain’s surprised at how much he yearns for even a crumb of recognition in Felix’s cold, dead stare.

Mercedes hums, her fingers rubbing along the skin of his forearm lightly. “At least he looked at you,” she says. “That’s more than the rest of us.”

Perhaps it’s not as much of a loss as he thought, but it stings all the same.

It’s strange being here.

The Gautier Fortress rises above him, cold and empty. It doesn’t feel like home. If Sylvain had his choice, he’d never step foot here again. But, the Margrave is dead and Sylvain’s been saddled with responsibility since before he could walk.

He reaches out, resting a hand against the cold stone of the archway.

He misses his mother.

“Sylvain,” calls a voice from behind him. A voice that shouldn’t be there. A voice that Sylvain had thought he’d never hear again.

Felix had been very clear in his intent the last time they’d spoken. He’d leave and go far away, living by his sword, and dying by it too. Their promise would be broken because that’s what they do best.

Sylvain turns. Felix has already jumped down from his horse and is marching up the stairs. Sylvain shouldn’t be here, but neither should Felix.

“Felix,” says Sylvain.

When Felix stops before Sylvain, he hesitates, mouth twisting slightly as he thinks. He doesn’t know what to say; he clearly hadn’t planned this. That’s unlike him, Sylvain thinks. Felix is ever calculating, planning things to the tee. Sylvain’s the one that takes risks.

Except for lately. He hasn’t taken a risk in what feels like years.

“Well then,” says Felix, irate. “Get on with it.”

It takes Sylvain a moment to realize what he means. Manners and propriety haven’t been a part of their life in nearly a decade. Instead, Sylvain says, “You’re here.”

“Glad to know you aren’t blind,” says Felix. A pause, and then, “Get on with it.”

Sylvain wants to reach out to him and pull him close. His fingers are itching to curl into Felix’s hair and brushing it back, scratching at his scalp. The way he used to when they shared a bedroll in a single tent, keeping warm on the cold nights and waiting for the end to come.

They’ve never talked about that.

Sylvain reaches out tentatively. Felix’s shoulders are slight compared to his own, but no less powerful. He grips them tightly and pulls Felix forward. Felix follows easily, willingly, eagerly, even. Odd.

A kiss to his right cheek, Sylvain’s mouth lingering. And then he presses in for the left and Felix turns his head. Their lips meet and sparks fly and they’re kissing. Felix is aggressive, pulling Sylvain closer, his mouth slipping open as he tries to stake his claim.

All they’ve ever done and they’ve never done this. A kiss hasn’t ever meant so much, and Sylvain cradles Felix’s cheek, thumb sliding across his cheekbone, trying to temper the movement. Felix reluctantly acquiesces, pressing against Sylvain slower and softer, with a tentative arch of his back.

When they part, they’re both breathing heavily. Sylvain stares into Felix’s eyes and he sees so much there, so much that’s waiting to be said. So much that Felix probably never will because he’s emotionally stunted on his best of days.

But still, Sylvain loves him, he’s loved him for years.

“You’re here,” says Sylvain again, still cupping Felix’s jaw.

“I’m here,” says Felix. “I promised.”

Sylvain wants to cry. Or laugh. Or die. Instead, he leans down to kiss him again.

#sylvix #sylvain/felix #felix x sylvain #felix hugo fraldarius #sylvain jose gautier #fe3h #fire emblem fanfiction

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sickfic-with-kiko · 4 years

Note

Maybe someone from a couple of your choosing could get sick on their first real date and they’re mumbling apologies whilst caretaker just wants to get them home in one piece? Bonus points if sick character denies it up until the last second and then slumps into their date and/or throws up on their shoes. Idk the main thing is comfort!!!

I chose SakuAtsu because I desperately need more Sakusa content in regards to sickfic. Don’t read this one if you don’t like vomiting, folks.

Sakusa had started dating Atsumu three weeks ago.

He’s not sure how he’d managed to fall for him, or how he’d managed to get a confession out of him. Atsumu, as it turns out, was rather shy when it came to dating. Upon a small amount of questioning, even Sakusa had more experience than him.

He doesn’t really mind. It’s refreshing, and it betrays his expectations of what Atsumu would be like to a partner. He wonders why he’d even made those assumptions. He’d only ever seen him glaring at fangirls who didn’t shut up during his serve.

And now, sitting at a table in a small antique cafe, Sakusa is waiting for Atsumu to meet up with him for his first date.

Going out together as busy high schoolers is hard. Hyogo and Tokyo aren’t exactly neighbouring prefectures, and to emphasize it once more, they’re extremely busy . Schoolwork to be done, practice to be attended. There’s not enough free time, they only realise when they need it.

“Hey! Uh, sorry, did you wait?” Atsumu hops into his line of vision, pulling out his phone to check the time. “You’re so early, Omi-kun!”

Sakusa shrugs. It’s the result of a lot of preparation on his part, dressing appropriately after being laughed at by Komori (“You’re not meant to wear that school jersey, you dumbass!”), grabbing some spare masks and making sure he was feeling completely fine.

He had no problem with completing two of them. But feeling fine is an extremely rare occurrence for him. Something always seems to be up with him— his head hurts, his shoulder feels unwell, his eye is twitching in the wrong manner. It’s all in his head, he’s heard from every possible person. It doesn’t make the wrongness disappear.

“...I didn’t wait.” Sakusa says, picking up the menu with a small frown. “I’ll get some yokan.”

Atsumu’s eyes blow open. “Yokan? Wow, are you a granny?” He teases, in his thick kansai accent. “But it’s cute, Omi-kun. Unexpected.”

Sakusa feels the blood rushing to his face, but glares at him instead. “Cute? I think you need a doctor’s appointment. Something is up with you.” Cute should be used on small animals or fancy decorated cakes, not a sullen high schooler like him.

Atsumu looks at him with his smitten eyes, smiling. “Is it that weird, to call your boyfriend cute? We’re dating, right?”

“Yes. It’s pretty clear that we’re… partners.” Sakusa rolls his words around in his mouth, as if they’re little pebbles that get in his way.

They order their food and drink, and chat for a bit until it comes. Sakusa can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong, but he ignores it for the sake of his date. It’s the one thing he can’t ruin. No matter what.

“Omi-kun. You have a little something there.”

Atsumu wipes the corner of his mouth with a napkin. He doesn’t try to be suave or flirtatious in doing so, surprisingly. He just grins at him like he’s seen something special. Sakusa’s heart jumps, doing a somersault.

“...Thanks.” Sakusa murmurs. He feels… boring. He isn’t sure what Atsumu sees in him. He barely talks about anything interesting, and it’s not like he has the looks or personality. And even if Atsumu is annoying, some could find that endearing.

“How’s volleyball been? Is it fun?”

There isn’t really anything else to talk about, besides volleyball. It’s that, or studies. And Sakusa knows very well about how much Atsumu hates studying. There’s nothing else for them to focus on, really.

“It’s been a busy few weeks,” Sakusa answers. “I have to make sure my team will be fine without me, after Spring High.” Maybe mentioning that was a bad idea. A dead weight sinks into his stomach, forcing something up to his chest.

“You’re really responsible, aren’t ya?” Atsumu says, slurping on his strawberry milk. “I’m sure my team will be fine. But maybe I should look out for them a little more.”

Sakusa shrugs. “Maybe.”

After a short pause, Atsumu finishes his drink and stands up. “Come on. Change of scenery. We'll go for a walk around here.”

Sakusa can’t help wondering if he’s done something wrong. Had he said the wrong thing? Had he said too little? He lifts himself up, his chest thumping worriedly.

They exit the cafe and head down the street, down to a quiet park. It’s a warm day, but Sakusa can’t stop trembling periodically. There’s something strange going on with him. He can’t let it ruin his date.

“...Omi-kun, you okay? Did I do something to make you mad?”

Sakusa shakes his head quickly. Bad idea. A wave of dizziness overwhelms him, and he realizes. It’s not all in his head, like it usually is. He’s actually, truly sick.

“No. Not your fault.” Sakusa can only mumble, sitting down on a nearby bench before he loses footing. “I’m fine.”

“Ya sure?” Atsumu says. “You looked a bit... out of it.”

Sakusa bites his lip out of frustration. He can’t be seen through. Atsumu isn’t meant to be perceptive like this. Everything is his own fault. He hates how he ruins everything. He’s horrible—

He pulls himself out of his brain. “...Sorry. I’m making everything worse. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Atsumu reaches over to him, and pulls back when he touches his shoulder. “Is it just me, or are you hotter than usual?”

“It’s just you.” Sakusa mumbles, waving Atsumu’s hand away. “I’m not sick. Leave me alone.”

“I never said ya were,” Atsumu raises his brows, and Sakusa realises he’s screwed up. He wouldn’t have done something so stupid if he weren’t sick. Now that Atsumu is catching on, he feels even worse.

He starts to shiver. It’s too cold, and he feels sleepy. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine, Atsumu.”

Atsumu grabs him, when he ends up unknowingly slumping against him. “But Omi-kun, you have a fever! Yer not fine! You need to rest, or else you’ll get worse!”

“But our date. I can’t be the one to ruin it.” Sakusa whispers, and Atsumu sighs softly. His arm wraps around him tighter, his grip comforting and warm. He snuggles closer, shutting his eyes.

A soft kiss is planted onto his cheek. “You didn’t ruin anything. It’s okay. I love you all the same, sick or not.”

Sakusa feels like the luckiest man on earth. The possibility of someone like him getting a boyfriend is slim, and yet he’s somehow winning so much at life. He returns the hug, while Atsumu strokes his curls softly.

“Come on. Let’s get you home.” Atsumu pats him on the shoulder, helping him to his feet. “I can take care of you, okay?”

“Okay,” Sakusa mumbles, too sick to care. They have to walk to the train station, for that to happen. His face is reddened beneath the mask, and he’s aware of how hot his breath is. To stay standing is a chore.

With every step, something in his stomach seems to grow heavier. His mouth is watery, and he stops mid-step to press his hand to it. He can’t walk anymore. If he continues like this, he’ll be sick.

“Omi-kun? What’s wrong?” Atsumu peers into his face, and Sakusa crouches down at the exact same time with a groan. “Does it hurt somewhere?”

A sick hiccup comes out of his mouth. There’s no time for him to react, before it turns into a gurgle. When he inhales shallowly, a thick rush of liquid rises to his throat. “Oh, fuck, I…”

Atsumu rubs Sakusa’s back in gentle strokes. “Aw, man. You really are sick, huh?” He murmurs, staying by his side and showing no sign of disgust. Sakusa is starting to wonder if he’s a saint. He knows that if anyone close to him was as sick as he was, he would take off running and not even look back.

But there’s no way of thanking him. If he opens his mouth even slightly more, he’ll surely throw up. He holds his knees tightly, bracing himself for the inevitable. A bead of spit dangles from his lip. There’s a strong sense of anxiety in his chest, because he hates how he’s so sick, hates how disgusting he looks.

“There’s nobody here. It’s just you and me, okay?” Atsumu reassures him in a soft voice. “And I promise I won’t tell. Just let it happen, and I’ll take care of everything.”

A strained cough tears out of Sakusa, and the pressure in his chest squeezes tighter. He can barely breathe. Every wave of nausea brings him closer to throwing up. A choked gag rises to his throat, and his stomach takes it as a cue to let loose.

Vomit flows into his mouth, splattering onto the pavement with a sick-sounding retch. He screws his eyes shut so that he won’t have to see, but the smell is overwhelming. As soon as he takes in a breath, a second wave of vomiting hits. He can’t believe this is happening.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. You’re doing fine.” There’s a comforting hand rubbing Sakusa’s back. It belongs to Atsumu, whose day he’s sure he’s ruined. He’s sick, and not even in a cute way. Instead of just sneezes or a mild fever, he’s emptying his guts loudly without a shred of dignity.

It doesn’t ever seem to end. Wave after wave of liquid pours out of him like a faucet, leaving him at the mercy of his stomach. The heaving puts pressure on his eyes, and tears slide down his cheeks one after the other. He wants to go home.

Atsumu hands him some tissues, grabbing a few coins out of his pocket to buy a drink. “Let’s try and head to the station. Ya feel okay?” Sakusa nods, wiping his mouth and spitting bitter slime into the tissues.

The ground is spinning beneath his legs. He can barely focus on standing up, and there’s a lingering ache inside his head. “...Atsumu. Can you call my parents? I don’t want to puke on a train.”

“Sure thing. Drink some water, you need it.” Atsumu tosses a bottle over to Sakusa, as he hands him his phone. “Will your mom pick up, do you think?”

Sakusa nods, wobbling over to a low wall and leaning against it. He uncaps the bottle of water, swallowing some of the liquid. It makes everything slightly better, once his mouth is no longer lined with drying vomit.

Atsumu shuffles beside him after a few minutes, giving his phone back. “I called. They’ll be here soon.”

“...Sorry I made you take care of me.” He murmurs, guilt and stomach pain eating at him. “I want to make it up to you, when I’m better.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just thank me. And when ya take care of me someday, I’ll thank you!” Atsumu snickers, patting Sakusa’s back playfully. “Come on. We’re boyfriends. This shit was gonna happen someday. It just came sooner than expected, right?”

Warm arms wrap around Sakusa, as he leans into Atsumu and shuts his eyes tightly. “You’re a good boyfriend, Atsumu. I love you.”

“Love ya too.” Atsumu ruffles Sakusa’s curls, noticing how hot his body is to the touch. He needs plenty of sleep and care, so he can shake off whatever nasty sickness he has. “Rest well, okay? You deserve it.”

#sickfic #sakuatsu #sakusa kiyoomi #Miya Atsumu #haikyuu #emeto

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boreothegoldfinch · 3 years

Text

chapter 12 paragraph v

But instead, when I threw open the door—I could scarcely believe it— there stood Boris. Rumpled, red-eyed, battered-looking. Snow in his hair, snow on the shoulders of his coat. I was too startled to be relieved. “What,” I said, as he embraced me, and then to the determined-looking clerk in the hallway, striding rapidly toward us: “No, it’s okay.” “You see? Why should I wait? Why should I wait?” he said angrily, flinging out an arm at the clerk, who had stopped dead to stare. “Didn’t I say? I told you I knew where his room was! How would I know, if not my friend?” Then, to me: “I don’t know why this big production. Ridiculous! I was standing there forever and no one at desk. No one! Sahara Desert!” (glaring at clerk). “Waiting, waiting. Rang the bell! Then, the second I start up—‘wait wait sir—’ ” whiny baby voice—“ ‘come back’—here he comes chasing me —” “Thank you,” I said to the clerk, or his back rather, since after several moments of looking between us in surprise and annoyance he had quietly turned to walk away. “Thanks a lot. I mean it,” I called down the hall after him; it was good to know they stopped people charging upstairs on their own. “Of course sir.” Not bothering to look around. “Merry Christmas.” “Are you going to let me in?” said Boris, when finally the elevator doors closed and we were alone. “Or shall we stand here tenderly and gaze?” He smelled rank, as if he hadn’t showered in days, and he looked both faintly contemptuous and very pleased with himself. “I—” my heart was pounding, I felt sick again—“for a minute, sure.” “A minute?” Disdainful look up and down. “You have some place to go?” “As a matter of fact, yes.” “Potter—” half-humorously, putting down his bag, feeling my forehead with his knuckles—“you look bad. You are fevered. You look like you just dug the Panama Canal.” “I feel great,” I said curtly. “You don’t look great. You are white as a fish. Why are you all dressed up? Why did you not answer my calls? What’s this?” he said—looking past me, espying the room service table. “Go ahead. Help yourself.” “Well if you don’t mind, I will. What a week. Been driving all fucking night. Shitty way to spend Christmas Eve—” shouldering his coat off, letting it fall on the floor—“well, truth told, I’ve spent many worse. At least no traffic on the motorway. We stopped at some awful place on the road, only place open, petrol station, frankfurters with mustard, usually I like them, but oh my God, my stomach—” He’d gotten a glass from the bar, was pouring himself some champagne. “And you, here.” Flicking a hand. “Living it up, I see. Lap of luxury.” He’d kicked off his shoes, wiggling wet sock feet. “Christ, my toes are frozen. Very slushy on the streets—snow is all turning to water.” Pulling up a chair. “Sit with me. Eat something. Very good timing.” He’d lifted the cover of the chafing dish, was sniffing the plate of truffled eggs. “Delicious! Still hot! What, what is this?” he said, as I reached in my coat pocket and handed him Gyuri’s watch and ring. “Oh, yes! I forgot. Never mind about that. You can give them back yourself.” “No, you can do it for me.” “Well, we should phone him. This is feast enough for five people. Why don’t we call down—” he lifted up the champagne, looked at the level as if studying a table of troubling financials—“why don’t we call for another of these, full bottle, or maybe two, and send down for more coffee or some tea maybe? I—” pushing his chair in closer—“I am starving! I’ll ask him—” lifting up a piece of smoked salmon, dangling it to his mouth to gobble it before reaching in his pocket for his cell phone—“ask him to dump the car somewhere and walk over, shall I?” “Fine.” Something in me had gone dead at the sight of him, almost like with my dad when I was a kid, long hours alone at home, the involuntary wave of relief at his key in the lock and then the immediate heart-sink at the actual sight of him.

“What?” Licking his fingers noisily. “You don’t want Gyuri to come? Who’s been driving me all night? Who went without sleep? Give him some breakfast at least.” He’d already started in on the eggs. “A lot has happened.” “A lot has happened to me too.” “Where are you going?” “Order what you want.” Fishing the key card out of my pocket, handing it to him. “I’ll leave the total open. Charge it to the room.” “Potter—” throwing down the napkin, starting after me then stopping mid-step and—much to my surprise—laughing. “Go then. To your new friend or activity so important!” “A lot has happened to me.” “Well—” smugly—“I don’t know what happened to you, but I can say that what happened to me is at least five thousand times more. This has been some week. This has been one for the books. While you have been luxuriating in hotel, I—” stepping forward, hand on my sleeve—“hang on.” The phone had rung; he turned half away, spoke rapidly in Ukrainian before breaking off and hanging up very suddenly at the sight of me heading out the door. “Potter.” Grabbing me by the shoulders, looking hard into my pupils, then turning me and steering me around, kicking the door shut behind him with one foot. “What the fuck? You are like Night of the Zombie. What was that movie we liked? The black and white? Not Living Dead, but the poetry one —?” “I Walked with a Zombie. Val Lewton.” “That’s right. That’s the one. Sit down. Weed is very very strong here, even if you are used to it, I should have warned you—” “I haven’t smoked any weed.” “—because I tell you, when I came here first, age twenty maybe, at the time smoking trees every day, I thought I could handle anything and—oh my God. My own fault—I was an ass with the guy at the coffeeshop. ‘Give me strongest you have.’ Well he did! Three hits and I couldn’t walk! I couldn’t stand! It was like I forgot to move my feet! Tunnel vision, no control of muscles. Total disconnection from reality!” He had steered me to the bed; he was sitting beside me with his arm around my shoulders. “And, I mean, you know me but—never! Fast pounding heart, like running and running and whole time sitting still—no comprehension of my locale—terrible darkness! All alone and crying a little, you know, speaking to God in my mind, ‘what did I do,’ ‘why do I deserve this.’ Don’t remember leaving the place! Like a horrible dream. And this is weed, mind you! Weed! Came to on the street, all jelly legs, clutching onto a bike rack near Dam Square. I thought traffic was driving up on the sidewalk and going to wreck into me. Finally found my way to my girl’s flat in the Jordaan and layed around for a long time in a bath with no water in it. So—” He was looking suspiciously at my coffee-splattered shirt front. “I didn’t smoke any weed.” “I know, you said! Was just telling you a story. Thought it was a little interesting to you maybe. Well—no shame,” he said. “Whatever.” The ensuing silence was endless. “I forgot to say—I forgot to say”—he was pouring me a glass of mineral water—“after this time I told you? Wandering on the Dam? I felt wrong for three days after. My girl said, ‘Let’s go out, Boris, you can’t lie here any more and waste the whole weekend.” Vomited in the van Gogh museum. Nice and classy.” The cold water, hitting my sore throat, threw me into goosebumps and into a visceral bodily memory from boyhood: painful desert sunlight, painful afternoon hangover, teeth chattering in the air-conditioned chill. Boris and I so sick we kept retching, and laughing about retching, which made us retch even harder. Gagging on stale crackers from a box in my room. “Well—” Boris stealing a glance at me sideways—“something going around maybe. If was not Christmas Day, I would run down and get something to help your stomach. Here here—” dumping some food on a plate, shoving it at me. He picked up the champagne bottle from the ice bucket, looked at the level again, then poured the remainder of the split into my half-empty orange juice glass (half empty, because he had drunk it himself). “Here,” he said, raising his champagne glass to me.

“Merry Christmas to you! Long life to us both! Christ is born, let us glorify Him! Now—” gulping it down—he’d turned the rolls on the tablecloth, was heaping out food to himself in the ceramic bread dish—“I am sorry, I know you want to hear about everything, but I am hungry and must eat first.” Pâté. Caviar. Christmas bread. Despite everything, I was hungry too, and I decided to be grateful for the moment and for the food in front of me and began to eat and for a while neither of us said anything. “Better?” he said presently, throwing me a glance. “You are exhausted.” Helping himself to more salmon. “There is a bad flu going round. Shirley has it too.” I said nothing. I had only just begun to adjust myself to the fact that he was in the room with me. “I thought you were out with some girl. Well—here is where Gyuri and I have been,�� he said, when I didn’t answer. “We have been in Frankfurt. Well —this you know. Some crazy time it’s been! But—” downing his champagne, walking to the minibar and squatting down to look inside— “Do you have my passport?” “Yes I have your passport. Wow, there is some nice wine in here! And all these nice baby Absoluts.” “Where is it?” “Ah—” Loping back to the table with a bottle of red wine under his arm, and three minibar bottles of vodka which he stuck in the ice bucket. “Here you go.” Fishing it from his pocket, tossing it carelessly onto the table. “Now”—sitting down—“shall we drink a toast together?” I sat on the edge of the bed without moving, my half-eaten plate of food still in my lap. My passport.

In the long silence that followed, Boris reached across the table and flicked the edge of my champagne glass with middle finger, sharp crystalline ting like a spoon on an after dinner goblet. “May I have your attention, please?” he inquired ironically. “What?” “Toast?” Tipping his glass to me. I rubbed my hand over my forehead. “And you are what, here?” “Eh?” “Toasting what, exactly?” “Christmas Day? Graciousness of God? Will that do?” The silence between us, while not exactly hostile, took on as it grew a distinctly glaring and unmanageable tone. Finally Boris fell back in his chair and nodded at my glass and said: “Hate to keep asking, but when you are through with staring at me, do you think we can—?” “I’m going to have to figure all this out at some point.” “What?” “I guess I’ll have to sort this all out in my mind some time. It’s going to be a job. Like, this thing over there… that over here. Two different piles. Three different piles maybe.” “Potter, Potter, Potter—” affectionate, half-scornful, leaning forward —“you are a blockhead. You have no sense of gratitude or beauty.” “ ‘No sense of gratitude.’ I’ll drink to that, I guess.” “What? Don’t you remember our happy Christmas that one time? Happy days gone by? Never to return? Your dad—” grand flinging gesture—“at the restaurant table? Our feast and joy? Our happy celebration? Don’t you honor that memory in your heart?” “For God’s sake.” “Potter—” arrested breath—“you are something. You are worse than a woman. ‘Hurry, hurry.’ ‘Get up, go.’ Didn’t you read my texts?” “What?” Boris—reaching for his glass—stopped cold. Quickly he glanced at the floor and I was, suddenly, very aware of the bag by his chair. In amusement, Boris stuck his thumbnail between his front teeth. “Go ahead.” The words hovered over the wrecked breakfast. Distorted reflections in the domed cover of the silver dish. I picked up the bag and stood; and his smile faded when I started to the door. “Wait!” he said. “Wait what?” “You’re not going to open it?” “Look—” I knew myself too well, didn’t trust myself to wait; I wasn’t letting the same thing happen twice— “What are you doing? Where are you going?” “I’m taking this downstairs. So they can lock it in the safe.” I didn’t even know if there was a safe, only that I didn’t want the painting near me—it was safer with strangers, in a cloakroom, anywhere. I was also going to phone the police the moment Boris left, but not until; there was no reason dragging Boris into it. “You didn’t even open it! You don’t even know what it is!” “Duly noted.” “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” “Maybe I don’t need to know what it is.” “Oh no? Maybe you do. It’s not what you think,” he added, a bit smugly. “No?” “No.” “How do you know what I think?” “Of course I know what you think it is! And—you are wrong. Sorry. But —” raising his hands—“is something much, much better than.” “Better than?” “Yes.” “How can it be better than?” “It just is. Lots lots better. You will just have to believe me on this. Open and see,” he said, with a curt nod. “What is this?” I said after about thirty stunned seconds. Lifting out one brick of hundreds—dollars—then another. “That is not all of it.” Rubbing the back of his head with the flat of his hand. “Fraction of.” I looked at it, then at him. “Fraction of what?” “Well—” smirking—“thought more dramatic if in cash, no?” Muffled comedy voices floating from next door, articulated cadences of a television laugh track. “Nicer surprise for you! That is not all of it, mind you. U.S. currency, I thought, more convenient for you to return with. What you came over with— a bit more. In fact they have not paid yet—no money has yet come through. But—soon, I hope.” “They? Who hasn’t paid? Paid what?” “This money is mine. Own personal. From the house safe. Stopped in Antwerp to get it. Nicer this way—nicer for you to open, no? Christmas morning? Ho Ho Ho? But you have a lot more coming.” I turned the stack of money over and looked at it: forward and back. Banded, straight from Citibank.

“ ‘Thank you Boris.’ ‘Oh, no problem,’ ” he answered, ironically, in his own voice. “Glad to do it.’ ” Money in stacks. Outside the event. Crisp in the hand. There was some kind of obvious content or emotion to the whole thing I wasn’t getting. “As I say—fraction of. Two million euro. In dollars much much more. So —merry Christmas! My gift to you! I can open you an account in Switzerland for the rest of it and give you a bank book and that way—what?” he said, recoiling almost, when I put the stack of bills in the bag, snapped it shut, and shoved it back at him. “No! It’s yours!” “I don’t want it.” “I don’t think you understand! Let me explain, please.” “I said I don’t want it.” “Potter—” folding his arms and looking at me coldly, the same look he’d given me in the Polack bar—“a different man would walk out laughing now and never come back.” “Then why don’t you?” “I—” looking around the room, as if at a loss for a reason why—“I will tell you why not! For old times’sake. Even though you treat me like a criminal. And because I want to make things up to you—” “Make what up?” “Sorry?” “What, exactly? Will you explain it to me? Where the hell did this money come from? How does this fix a fucking thing?” “Well, actually, you should not be so quick to jump to—” “I don’t care about the money!” I was half-screaming. “I care about the painting! Where’s the painting?” “If you would just wait a second and not fly off the—” “What’s this money for? Where’s it from? From what source, exactly? Bill Gates? Santa Claus? The Tooth Fairy?” “Please. You are like your dad with the drama.” “Where is it? What’d you do with it? It’s gone, isn’t it? Traded? Sold?” “No, of course I—hey—” scraping his chair back hastily—“Jesus, Potter, calm down. Of course I didn’t sell it. Why would I do any such?” “I don’t know! How should I know? What was all this for? What was the point of any of this? Why did I even come here with you? Why’d you have to drag me into it? You thought you’d bring me over here to help you kill people? Is that it?” “I’ve never killed anybody in my life,” said Boris haughtily. “Oh, God. Did you just say that? Am I supposed to laugh? Did I really just hear you say you never—” “That was self defense. You know it. I do not go around hurting people for the fun of it but I will protect myself if I have to. And you,” he said, talking imperiously over me, “with Martin, apart from the fact I would not be here now and most likely you neither—” “Will you do me a favor? If you won’t shut up? Will you maybe go over there and stand for a minute? Because I really don’t want to see you or look at you now.” “—with Martin the police, if they knew, they would give you a medal and so would many others, innocent, not now living, thanks to him. Martin was —” “Or, actually, you could leave. That’s probably better.” “Martin was a devil. Not all human. Not all his fault. He was born that way. No feelings, you know? I have known Martin to do much worse things to people than shooting them. Not to us,” he said, hastily, waving his hand, as if this were the point of all misunderstanding. “Us, he would have shot out of courtesy, and none of his other badness and evil. But—was Martin a good man? A proper human being? No. He was not. Frits was no flower, either. So —this remorse and pain of yours—you must view it in a different light. You must view it as heroism in service of higher good. You cannot always take such a dark perspective of life all the time, you know, it is very bad for you.”

“Can I ask you just one thing?” “Anything.” “Where’s the painting?” “Look—” Boris sighed, and looked away. “This was the best I could do. I know how much you wanted it. I did not think you would be quite so upset not to have it.” “Can you just tell me where it is?” “Potter—” hand on heart—“I’m sorry you are so angry. I was not expecting this. But you said you weren’t going to keep it anyway. You were going to give it back. Isn’t that what you said?” he added when I kept on staring at him. “How the hell is this the right thing?” “Well, I’ll tell you! If you would shut up and let me talk! Instead of ranting back and forth and frothing at mouth and spoiling our Christmas!” “What are you talking about?” “Idiot.” Rapping his temple with his knuckles. “Where do you think this money came from?” “How the fuck should I know?” “This is the reward money!” “Reward?” “Yes! For safe return of!” It took a moment. I was standing. I had to sit down. “Are you angry?” said Boris carefully. Voices in the hallway. Dull winter light glinting off the brass lampshade. “I thought you would be pleased. No?” But I had not recovered sufficiently to speak. All I could do was stare, in dumbfoundment.

At my expression, Boris shook the hair out of his face and laughed. “You gave me the idea yourself. I don’t think you knew how great it was! Genius! I wish had thought of it myself. ‘Call the art cops, call the art cops.’ Well— crazy! So I thought at the time. You’re a bit nuts on this subject to be perfectly honest. Only then—” he shrugged—“unfortunate events took course, as you only too well know, and after we parted on the bridge I spoke to Cherry, what to do, what to do, wringing our hands a bit, and we did a little nosing around, and—” lifting his glass to me—“well in fact, a genius idea! Why should I doubt you? Ever? You are the brains of all this from the start! While I am in Alaska—walking five miles to petrol station to steal a Nestlé bar—well, look at you. Mastermind! Why should I ever doubt you? Because —I look into it, and—” throwing up his arms—“you were right. Who would have thought? Over million dollars for your picture out there in reward money! Not even picture! Information leading to recovery of picture! No questions asked! Cash, free and clear—!” Outside, snow was flying against the window. Next door, someone was coughing hard, or laughing hard, I couldn’t tell which. “Back and forth, back and forth, all these years. A game for suckers. Inconvenient, dangerous. And—question I am asking myself now—why did I even bother? with all this legal money straight-up for the claiming? Because —you were right—straight business thing for them. No questions asked whatever. All they cared about was getting the picture back.” Boris lit a cigarette and dropped the match with a hiss in his water glass. “I did not see it myself, I wish I had—did not think a good idea to stick around if you get me. German SWAT team! Vests, guns. Drop everything! Lie down! Great commotion and crowd in the street! Ah, I would have loved to see the look on Sascha’s face!” “You phoned the cops?”

“Well not me personally! My boy Dima—Dima is furious at the Germans because of the shooting in his garage. Completely unnecessary, and a big headache for him. See—” restlessly, he crossed his legs, blew out a big cloud of smoke—“I had an idea where they had the picture. There’s an apartment in Frankfurt. Used to belong to an old girlfriend of Sascha’s. People keep stuff there. But no way in hell could I get in, even with half a dozen guys. Keys, alarms, cameras, passcode. Only problem—” yawning, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand—“well, two problems. First one is that police need probable cause to search the apartment. You can not just call with name of thief, anonymous citizen being helpful if you know what I mean. And second problem—I could not remember the exact address of the place. Very very secretive—I have only been there once—late at night, and not in best of condition. Knew roughly the neighborhood… used to be squats, now is very nice… had Gyuri drive me up the streets and down, up the streets and down. Took for fucking ever. Finally—? I had it pinned to a row of houses but was not one hundred percent sure which. So I got out and walked it. Scared as I was, to be on that street—afraid to be seen—I got out of the car and walked it. With my own two feet. Eyes closed halfway. Hypnotized myself a bit, you know, trying to remember number of steps? Trying to feel it in my body? Anyway—I am getting ahead of myself. Dima—?” he was picking assiduously through the breads on the tablecloth—“Dima’s cousin’s sister in law, ex-sister in law actually, married a Dutchman, and they have a son named Anton—twenty-one maybe, twenty-two, squeaky clean, surname van den Brink—Anton is Dutch citizen and has grown up speaking Dutch so this is helpful for us too if you get me. Anton—” nibbling on a roll: making a face, spitting a rye seed between his teeth—“Anton works in a bar where many rich people go, off P. C. Hooftstraat, fancy Amsterdam—Gucci Street, Cartier street. Good kid. Speaks English, Dutch, only two words maybe of Russian. Anyway Dima had Anton phone the police and report that he had seen two Germans, one of which answers to precise description of Sascha—granny glasses, ‘Little House on the Prairie’shirt, tribal tattoo on his hand which Anton is able to draw exactly, from photograph we supplied—anyway, Anton telephoned the art police and told them he had seen these Germans drunk as gods in his bar, arguing, and they are so angry and upset they had left behind —what? A folder! Well of course it is a doctored folder. We were going to do a phone, a doctored phone, but none of us were nerd enough to be sure we did it totally untraceable. So—I printed out some photos… photo I showed you, plus some others that I happened to have on my phone… finch along with relatively recent issue of newspaper to date it, you know. Two years old newspaper but—no matter. Anton just happened to find this folder, see, under a chair, with some other documents from the Miami thing, you know, to connect to prior sighting. Frankfurt address conveniently inserted, as well as Sascha’s name. All this is Myriam’s idea, she deserves the credit, you should buy Myriam big drink when you get back home. FedExed some things from America—very very convincing. It has Sascha’s name, it has—” “Sascha’s in jail?” “Indeed he is.” Boris cackled. “We get the ransom, museum gets the painting, cops get to close the case, insurance company gets its money back, public is edified, everyone wins.” “Ransom?” “Well, reward, ransom, whatever you want to call it.” “Who paid this money out?” “I don’t know.” Boris made an irritated gesture. “Museum, government, private citizen. Does it matter?” “It matters to me.” “Well it shouldn’t. You should shut up and be grateful. Because,” he said, lifting his chin, speaking over me, “you know what, Theo? Know what? Guess! Guess how lucky we were! Not only do they have your bird in there, but—who would have guessed it? Many other stolen pictures!”

“What?” “Two dozens, or more! Missing for many years, some of them! And—not all of them are as lovely or beautiful as yours, in fact most of them are not. This is my own personal opinion. But there are big rewards out on four or five of them all the same—bigger than for yours. And even some of the not-sofamous ones—dead duck, boring picture of fat-faced man you don’t know— even these have smaller rewards—fifty thousand, hundred thousand here and there. Who would think? ‘Information leading to recovery of.’ It adds up. And I hope,” he said, with some austerity, “that maybe you can forgive me for that?” “What?” “Because—they are saying, ‘one of great art recoveries of history.’ And this is the part I hoped would please you—maybe not, who knows, but I hoped. Museum masterworks, returned to public ownership! Stewardship of cultural treasure! Great joy! All the angels are singing! But it would never have happened, if not for you.” I sat in silent amazement. “Of course,” Boris added, nodding at the bag open on the bed, “this is not all of it. Nice Christmas present in it for Myriam and Cherry and Gyuri. And I gave Anton and Dima a thirty per cent cut right off the top. Fifteen per cent each. Anton did all the work really, so in my opinion he should have got twenty and Dima ten. But this is a lot of money for Anton so he is happy.” “Other paintings they recovered. Not just mine.” “Yes, did you not just hear me say—?” “What other paintings?” “Oh, some very celebrated and famous ones! Missing for years!” “Such as—?” Boris made an irritated sound. “Oh, I do not know the names, you know not to ask me that. Few modern things—very important and expensive, everyone very excited although I will be frank, I do not understand why the big deal on some of them. Why does it cost so much, a thing like from kindergarten class? ‘Ugly Blob.’ ‘Black Stick with Tangles.’ But then too— multiple works of historic greatness. One was a Rembrandt.” “Not a seascape?” “No—people in a dark room. Little bit boring. Nice van Gogh, though, of a sea shore. And then… oh, I don’t know… usual thing, Mary, Jesus, many angels. Some sculptures even. And Asian artworks too. They looked to me worth nothing but I guess they were a lot.” Boris stabbed out his cigarette vigorously. “Which reminds me. He got away.” “Who?” “Sascha’s China boy.” He had gone to the minibar, returned with corkscrew and two glasses. “He was not at apartment when the cops came, lucky for him. And—if he is smart, which he is—he will not be coming back.” Holding up crossed fingers. “He will find some other rich man to live off of. That is what he does. Good work if you can get it. Anyway—” biting his lip as he pulled out the cork, pop!—“I wish I had thought of it myself, years ago! One big easy check! Legal Tender! Instead of this Follow the Bouncing Ball, so many years. Back and forth—” wagging the corkscrew, tick, tock—“back and forth. Nervewracking! All this time, all this headache, and all this easy, government money right under my nose! I will tell you—” crossing over, pouring me out a noisy glug of red—“in some ways, Horst is probably just as glad it fell out like this as you. He likes to make a dollar same as anyone but he also has guilt, same ideas of public good, cultural patrimony, blah blah blah.”

“I don’t understand how Horst fits into this.” “No, nor do I, and we will never know,” said Boris firmly. “It’s all very careful and polite. And, yes yes—” impatiently, taking a quick sneaky gulp of his wine—“and yes, I am angry at Horst, a bit, maybe I don’t trust him so much as formerly, maybe in fact I don’t trust him so much at all. But—Horst is saying he wouldn’t have sent Martin if he knew it was us. And maybe he’s telling the truth. ‘Never, Boris—I would never.’ Who can know? To be quite honest—just between us—I think he may be saying it only to save face. Because once it fell to pieces with Martin and Frits, what else could he do? Except gracefully back away? Claim no knowledge? I do not know this for a fact, mind you,” he said. “This is just my theory. Horst has his own story.” “Which is—?” “Horst is saying—” Boris sighed—“Horst says he didn’t know that Sascha took the picture, not until we snatched it ourselves and Sascha phoned from clear blue sky asking Horst’s help to get it back. Pure coincidence that Martin was in town—here from LA for the holidays. For druggies, Amsterdam is fairly popular Christmas spot. And yes, that part—” he rubbed his eye —“well, I am pretty sure Horst is telling the truth. That call from Sascha was a surprise. Throwing himself on Horst’s mercy. No time to talk. Had to act quick. How was Horst to know it was us? Sascha wasn’t even in Amsterdam —he was hearing it all at second hand, from Chinky, whose German is not that great—Horst was hearing it at third. It all lines up if you look at it the right way. That said—” he shrugged. “What?” “Well—Horst definitely didn’t know the painting was in Amsterdam, nor that Sascha was trying to get a loan on it, not until Sascha panicked and called him when we took it. Of that? I am confident. But: did Horst and Sascha collude to make painting vanish in the first place, to Frankfurt, with bad Miami deal? Possibly. Horst liked that picture very very much. Very much. Did I tell you—he knew what it was, first time he saw it? Like, off the top of his head? Name of painter and everything?” “It’s one of the most famous paintings in the world.” “Well—” Boris shrugged—“like I said, he is educated. He grew up around beauty. That said, Horst does not know that it was me cooked up the folder. He might not be so happy. And yet—” he laughed aloud—“would it ever occur to Horst? I wonder. All the time, all this reward sitting there? Free and legal! Shining in plain sight, like the sun! I know I never thought of it—not until now. Worldwide happiness and joy! Lost masterworks recovered! Anton the big hero—posing for photos, talking on Sky News! Standing ovation at the press conference last night! Everyone loves him—like that man who landed the plane in the river a few years back and saved everyone, remember him? But, in my mind, is not Anton the people are clapping for—really is you.” There were so many things to say to Boris, I could say none of them. And yet I could only feel the most abstract gratitude. Maybe, I thought—reaching in the bag, taking out a stack of money and looking it over—maybe good luck was like bad luck in that it took a while to sink in. You didn’t feel anything at first. The feeling came later on. “Pretty nice, no?” said Boris, clearly relieved I’d come round. “You are happy?” “Boris, you need to take half this.” “Believe me, I took care of myself. I have enough now that I can not do anything I don’t feel like for a while. Who knows—maybe go into bar business even, in Stockholm. Or—maybe not. Little bit boring. But you— that’s all yours! And more to come. Remember that time your dad gave us the five hundred each? Flying like feathers! Very noble and grand! Well—to me then? Hungry half the time? Sad and lonely? Nothing to my name? That was a fortune! More money than I had ever seen! And you—” his nose had grown pink; I thought he was about to sneeze—“always decent and good, shared with me everything you had, and—what did I do?”

“Oh, Boris, come on,” I said uneasily. “I stole from you—that’s what I did.” Alcoholic glitter in his eyes. “Took your dearest possession. And how could I treat you so badly, when I wished you only well?” “Stop it. No—really, stop,” I said, when I saw he was crying. “What can I say? You asked me why I took it? and what can I reply? Only that—it’s never the way it seems—all good, all bad. So much easier if it was. Even your dad… feeding me, talking with me, spending time, sheltering me in his roof, giving me clothes off his back… you hated your dad so much but in some ways he was good man.” “I wouldn’t say good.” “Well, I would.” “Well, you would be the only one. You would be wrong.”

“Look. I am more tolerance than you,” said Boris, invigorated by the prospect of a disagreement and sniffing up his tears in a gulp. “Xandra—your dad—always you wanted to make them so evil and bad. And yes… your dad was destructive… irresponsible… a child. His spirit was huge. It pained him terribly! But he hurt himself worse than he ever hurt anyone else. And yes—” he said theatrically, over my objection—“yes, he stole from you, or tried to, I know it, but do you know what? I stole from you too and got away with it. Which is worse? Because I’m telling you—” prodding the bag with his toe —“the world is much stranger than we know or can say. And I know how you think, or how you like to think, but maybe this is one instance where you can’t boil down to pure ‘good’ or pure ‘bad’ like you always want to do—? Like, your two different piles? Bad over here, good over here? Maybe not quite so simple. Because—all the way driving here, driving all night, Christmas lights on the motorway and I’m not ashamed to tell you, I got choked up—because I was thinking, couldn’t help it, about the Bible story—? you know, where the steward steals the widow’s mite, but then the steward flees to far country and invests the mite wisely and brings back thousandfold cash to widow he stole from? And with joy she forgave him, and they killed the fatted calf, and made merry?” “I think that’s maybe not all the same story.” “Well—Bible school, Poland, it was a long time ago. Still. Because, what I am trying to say—what I was thinking in the car from Antwerp last night— good doesn’t always follow from good deeds, nor bad deeds result from bad, does it? Even the wise and good cannot see the end of all actions. Scary idea! Remember Prince Myshkin in The Idiot?” “I’m not really up for an intellectual talk right now.” “I know, I know, but hear me out. You read The Idiot, right? Right. Well, ‘Idiot’ was very disturbing book to me. In fact it was so disturbing I have never really read very many fictions after, apart from Dragon Tattoo kind of thing. Because”—I was trying to interject—“well, maybe you can tell me about that later, what you thought, but let me tell you why I found it disturbing. Because all Myshkin ever did was good… unselfish… he treated all persons with understanding and compassion and what resulted from this goodness? Murder! Disaster! I used to worry about this a lot. Lie awake at night and worry! Because—why? How could this be? I read that book like three times, thinking I wasn’t understanding right. Myshkin was kind, loved everyone, he was tender, always forgave, he never did a wrong thing—but he trusted all the wrong people, made all bad decisions, hurt everyone around him. Very dark message to this book. ‘Why be good.’ But—this is what took hold on me last night, riding here in the car. What if—is more complicated than that? What if maybe opposite is true as well? Because, if bad can sometimes come from good actions—? where does it ever say, anywhere, that only bad can come from bad actions? Maybe sometimes—the wrong way is the right way? You can take the wrong path and it still comes out where you want to be? Or, spin it another way, sometimes you can do everything wrong and it still turns out to be right?” “I’m not sure I see your point.” “Well—I have to say I personally have never drawn such a sharp line between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ as you. For me: that line is often false. The two are never disconnected. One can’t exist without the other. As long as I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing best I know how. But you—wrapped up in judgment, always regretting the past, cursing yourself, blaming yourself, asking ‘what if,’ ‘what if.’ ‘Life is cruel.’ ‘I wish I had died instead of.’ Well —think about this. What if all your actions and choices, good or bad, make no difference to God? What if the pattern is pre-set? No, no—hang on—this is a question worth struggling with. What if our badness and mistakes are the very thing that set our fate and bring us round to good? What if, for some of us, we can’t get there any other way?”

“Get where?” “Understand, by saying ‘God,’ I am merely using ‘God’ as reference to long-term pattern we can’t decipher. Huge, slow-moving weather system rolling in on us from afar, blowing us randomly like—” eloquently, he batted at the air as if at a blown leaf. “But—maybe not so random and impersonal as all that, if you get me.” “Sorry but I’m not really appreciating your point here.” “You don’t need a point. The point is maybe that the point is too big to see or work round to on our own. Because—” up went the batwing eyebrow —“well, if you didn’t take picture from museum, and Sascha didn’t steal it back, and I didn’t think of claiming reward—well, wouldn’t all those dozens of other paintings remain missing too? Forever maybe? Wrapped in brown paper? Still shut in that apartment? No one to look at them? Lonely and lost to the world? Maybe the one had to be lost for the others to be found?” “I think this goes more to the idea of ‘relentless irony’ than ‘divine providence.’ ” “Yes—but why give it a name? Can’t they both be the same thing?” We looked at each other. And it occurred to me that despite his faults, which were numerous and spectacular, the reason I’d liked Boris and felt happy around him from almost the moment I’d met him was that he was never afraid. You didn’t meet many people who moved freely through the world with such a vigorous contempt for it and at the same time such oddball and unthwartable faith in what, in childhood, he had liked to call “the Planet of Earth.” “So—” Boris downed the rest of his wine, and poured himself some more —“what are your so-big plans?” “As regards what?” “A moment ago, you were tearing off. Why not stay here a while?” “Here?” “No—I didn’t mean here here—not in Amsterdam—I will agree with you that it is a very good idea for us probably to get out of town, and as for myself I will not care to be coming back for a while. What I meant was, why not relax a bit and hang out before flying back? Come to Antwerp with me. See my place! Meet my friends! Get away from your girl problems for a bit.” “No, I’m going home.” “When?” “Today, if I can.” “So soon? No! Come to Antwerp! There is this fantastic service—not like red light—two girls, two thousand euro and you have to call two days in advance. Everything is two. Gyuri can drive us—I’ll sit up front, you can stretch out and sleep in the back. What do you say?”

“Actually, I think maybe you should drop me at the airport.” “Actually—I think I should better not. If I was selling the tickets? I would not even let you on a plane. You look like you have bird flu or SARS.” He was unlacing his waterlogged shoes, trying to jam his feet into them. “Ugh! Will you answer me this question? Why—” holding up the ruined shoe—“tell me why do I buy these so-fancy Italian leathers when I wreck them in one week? When—my old desert boots—you remember? Good for running away fast! Jumping out of windows! Lasted me years! I don’t care if they look crap with my suits. I will find me some more boots like that, and then I will wear them for rest of my life. Where,” he said, frowning at his watch, “where did Gyuri get to? He should not be having so much problems parking on Christmas Day?” “Did you call him?” Boris slapped his head. “No, I forgot. Shit! He probably ate breakfast already. Or else he is in the car, freezing to death.” Draining the rest of his wine, pocketing the mini-bottles of vodka. “Are you packed? Yes? Fantastic. We can go then.” He was, I noticed, wrapping up leftover bread and cheese in a cloth napkin. “Go down and pay up. Although—” he looked disapprovingly at the stained coat thrown over the bed—“you really need to get rid of that thing.” “How?” He nodded at the murky canal outside the window. “Really—?” “Why not? No law against throwing a coat in the canal, is there?” “I would have thought so, yes.” “Well—who knows. Not very widely enforced law, if you ask me. You should see some of the shit I saw floating in that thing during the garbage strike. Drunk Americans puking in, you name it. Although—” glancing out the window—“I am with you, rather not do it in broad daylight. We can take it back to Antwerp in the trunk of the car and throw it down the incinerator. You’ll like my flat a lot.” Fishing for his phone; dialing the number. “Artist’s loft, without the art! And we’ll walk out and buy you a new overcoat when the shops are open.”

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gothighunicorntolerance · 4 years

Text

Lord of the Wild (one shot)

AO3

His journey had been uneventful so far- that is, until his horse had reared up and he had fallen off.

“Indigo! Indigo, come back sweetie!” Patton called out to his horse who had run off into the woods. Brambles and beaches tore at his clothes, drawing pinpricks of blood on his uncovered arms. He could only imagine how terrified the horse might be!

Patton knew that starting off the path was unsafe, but he needed to find Indigo! And besides, he could just retrace his steps!

“Ind- agh!”

A net sprung from underneath the leaves where it had been hidden, trapping him inside as it dangled from a tree.

“Hey! Help!” Patton shouted, suddenly afraid. But this was only a hunter’s trap for game animals, right? The hunter would surely be along soon to help him out. Right?

Suddenly, Patton realized that in his capture, his glasses had fallen to the forest floor, which must have been ten feet from where he dangled in the net.

“Help!”

Patton kept shouting until his voice was hoarse and the sun had gone down. Resigned to his fate that he wouldn’t be getting down until someone came to check the net, Patton attempted to close his eyes and sleep. But every sound kept him awake, every gust of wind made the net swing and spin.

Then, just as his eyes were about to close, he heard the crunch of leaves below him.

“Hey!” Patton looked down and saw a hooded figure. “Help!”

The figure looked up at him, their face obscured by the heavy black hood. Patton watched as they walked to the tree, and suddenly he plummeted to the ground.

He bit back a help of pain as his ankle twisted on the impact.

Still tangled in the net, Patton looked up at the hooded figure.

“Gosh, thanks! I don’t know how long I could have been there if you hadn’t come!”

He attempted to wiggle his way out, the figure still standing, unmoving.

“Hey, uh, a little help here?” Patton asked, pointing to the knot that held the net together.

The figure moved, and instead of undoing the knot like Patton had expected, they grabbed the rope that had been attached to the tree branch.

“What are you doing?” Patton shouted, hoping the waver in his voice didn’t register with them.

The figure remained silent as they dragged the net with ease, even though Patton thrashed and grabbed foliage in an attempt to stop them.

“Please! Where are you taking me?” Patton cried, wincing when his ankle was hit by rocks or branches.

They must have had enough of his pleas, as they stopped walking and turned to Patton.

Instead of an answer like Patton expected, they drew out a long metal staff from inside their robes.

Patton didn’t have time to shout before the staff connected with his temple and his vision faded to black.

***

Patton woke to the sound of voices. Struggling to open his eyes, he saw a crowd had gathered around where he stood, all of their faces hidden, all dressed in identical black robes. Even though he could see none of their faces, he knew they were all staring at him, and as he realized that he also suddenly realized that he was now shirtless.

He tried to take a step back, but found his hands were tied above his head to a wooden post, the tips of his toes just barely reaching the ground.

“Prepare the offering, Brother.” Someone in the crowd said.

A jolt of fear ran through him. Was that what he was to become? An offering for some higher power? Patton had doubted the existence of the powers religions and cults worshiped, but he had no doubt that he would die because of their belief.

“One for the ground, uncaringly trod,” a sharp pain ran through Patton’s back as a sharp crack sounded in the air. Biting back a scream, he felt blood begin to drop down as the gravelly voice rhymed.

“Two for the birds, fearfully awed.”

Another crack.

“Three for the fish, painfully caught.”

Patton couldn’t tell if it was the crowd or himself repeating the verse as another crack split the air.

“Four for the horse, unwillingly bought.”

His back had gone numb, and Patton couldn’t choke his screams down anymore.

“Five for the fire, painfully tamed.”

How long had it been? It seemed like it had been an eternity since he found himself tied to the post.

“Six for the floods, unfairly blamed.”

Another lash, another welt on his back.

“Seven for the winds, shamefully rang.”

“Please… stop!” Patton cried, unable to hold back the tears or the shrieks. How long would his pain last? Was this how he was going to die?

“And eight for the quakes, to bring you all down.”

If there was more, Patton couldn’t tell. His head slumped to his chest, and though he could feel himself being moved, he could do nothing to stop them.

He was powerless.

He was alone.

He was going to die.

That was the only thing he was certain of now: that these people would bring him to his end, whether it would be infection or blood loss or some gruesome way, there would be no getting out of this alive for Patton. And there was absolutely nothing he could do except perhaps prolong his suffering.

So still he fought as cloaked arms dragged Patton to what looked like a giant shepard’s hook. Every injury became tenfold as painful as the cultists-was that what they were?- forced Patton’s arms above his head once again, the cuts in his back becoming worse as he was hoisted off the ground, kicking his feet in vain until a two grabbed his ankles while a third wrapped thick rope around them to stop him from thrashing.

Patton continued to scream for help, to shriek at them to stop, until a gag was shoved into his mouth, rendering him almost mute except for the muffled grunts he managed to get out.

He shook his head, resisting his hands getting tied to the curve of the hook until someone took a clump of hair in their fist, fighters digging into his scalp, while tied a blindfold around his eyes, digging into the back of his head.

The hands holding him down finally let go, and Patton's face paled as he realized what had happened.

They had hung him there like cow’s meat at a butcher’s shop.

That last thing he heard was “The Lord of the Wild will be pleased with his offering.”

***

Patton hung there for- seconds? Hours? Days? Every breeze swung him in a different direction, every caw of a bird seemed to signal that his time was up- and when it was, would he go peacefully? Relieved? Ready to be rid of the pain? Or would he keep fighting? What would he do? Drifting in and out of consciousness, he wondered.

His wrists strained at the weight of his own body, and Patton felt as if his arms were about to snap off and let him plummet to the ground. How fitting of an end that would be, to be rid of the pain in the same way he had brought it upon himself in his stupidity.

It seemed like an eternity had passed before he heard a sound below him- on the ground! By now, the feel of grass seemed like a distant memory. Before he died he would have liked to run on the grass barefoot one last time, just as he had done as a child with his brothers, their only care being who could catch the most fireflies. Patton had always lost, always a little too slow to catch one.

Now the hope of living became just as distant as those fireflies had seemed.

Still dangling there like a worm on a baited fishing hook, Patton heard another sound identical to the first- a grunt of pain. No, they couldn’t have kidnapped someone else already! They couldn’t subject anyone else to the pain Patton had been through- sobs hacked at his throat, the full wave of despair crashing into him. These cultists would continue to kidnap and kill people until they were all dead-

“I’m going to get you down. Please stay strong.”

What? Had he heard that right? That must be Death himself talking to him. And in that moment, Patton knew what he was going to do. He would let Death take him, let Death ease his suffering. Patton had always wondered about where you went when you died, and he supposed he was about to find out.

He felt a tendril of… something… wrap around his waist. He briefly attempted to shale off his blindfold, but like so many previous escape attempts, it was in vain.

The pressure on his wrists suddenly released, his arms numb and stiff.

Something solid pressed into his side, and- was that grass? Yes! Patton had never been so glad for the grass that prickled around him, pressing into his cheek and side.

Just has suddenly as it had been taken from him, the pinprick light of the far away stars returned to his vision.

Patton angled his head to see the person who had saved him.

Attempting to speak, he realized the gag was still shoved in his mouth, so he could only grunt.

“Shh, it’s okay, I’m going to help you,” they said, pulling the gag out.

“Tha- thank you,” Patton replied, his voice hoarse. Was it from screaming or disuse?

“It’s okay,” they said again, cutting Patton’s wrists and ankles loose from the rope. “You’re safe now. Can you stand?”

Grunting from the effort, Patton eventually got on one leg, then the other- he shrikes as he put pressure on his foot, the one that had been twisted in his first fall. Stumbling back to the grass, his savior caught him.

“I’ll carry you, then.”

Patton looked around as he was picked up, moving his eyes as it hurt to turn his head, and saw for the first time what had caused the grunts he had heard.

Scattered around the cleaning were a dozen corpses, all cloaked in black. Weeds and vines covered them, as if they had died a hundred years ago and had been grown over.

Patton immediately retched into the grass.

“S-sorry-” he trembled. He had thought this person his rescuer, but would they simply kill him, too? Choke him with vines as they had done with the cultists?

“I swear I’m not going to hurt you,” they said. And though Patton didn’t quite believe them, he allowed himself to be carried from the clearing that had become the site of a massacre, if only because he was too exhausted to fight back.

He could have imagined it, but Patton swore he heard the person carrying him say, “Thomathy, find some bandages, please.”

***

Patton lay on his chest in an unfamiliar bed. Was this the afterlife? Surely the afterlife, whatever it was, would have comfortable beds like this one?

He looked to his left, and saw a man sitting in the corner. Groaning, Patton tried to see what the man was doing. He suddenly looked up and smiled. Patton became acutely aware of the bandages wrapped around his torso.

“You’re awake! You probably don’t want to move too much, you got messed up pretty good,” he said, standing. In his hand he held a block of wood and- a knife!

Patton gasped in fear. This man really was going to kill him! Trying to move somewhere, anywhere else, the pain began to set in again. His back was on fire, his wrists screaming for him to stay still.

The man’s eyes widened as he realized what was happening. He dropped the knife and stepped back.

“Listen to me, okay? You’re safe here. You’re safe. No one is going to hurt you.”

Patton let his words sink in, and relaxed after a moment.

“Am I dead?” Patton whispered, his throat sore.

“No, I don’t think so. But then again, we never really know.”

“Who are you?” If this man wasn't going to hurt him, then what was he going to do? Patton wanted answers, and he wanted them now.

“My name is Remus, what’s yours?”

“I- I’m Patton.” “Hello, Patton. Is there something you’d like to talk about? Your injuries will likely take a long time to heal, so I hope we can be friends.

“Injuries? What- what did they do to me?” Remus sighed. “Well, they’re a cult, as you’ve probably figured out. They think I’m some kind of deity or sorcerer or whatever-”

“You? That’s you? The-” “The Lord of the Wild, yeah, that’s what they call me. They think I’m some malevolent entity or something, which is all bullshit, of course. I’m not even that powerful of a sorcerer. Anyways, you probably really don’t want to hear about what happened in detail, but you lost a lot of blood and have several broken bones. Your back looks like shit. No offense, of course, but they did horrible things to you. And I’m so, so sorry that you had to go through all that on behalf of someone’s delusional beliefs.”

“How long has it been?” Patton dreaded the answer but needed to know.

“They kidnapped you five days ago.” Remus answered, apologetic. Patton said nothing for a moment, thinking. Five days… less than a week ago he had been happily on the road, no destination in mind but going where he wanted. Now? Now he had been kidnapped and tortured and sacrificed! He should be afraid right now, but… he wasn’t.

“Who’s Thomathy?” Patton asked, breaking his silence. Was there someone else here? From what Patton could see, the house, if it could be called that, seemed to have the back half inside a small cave where he lay now and the front half almost like a log cabin. Surely there couldn't be room for three people?

“Oh!” Remus said, brightening. “This is Thomathy!”

Remus slowly walked over to where Patton lay on the bed of animal furs, his hand cupped around a- rat?

“He’s my assistant,” Remus said proudly as the rodent in his hands squeaked. Was Remus delusional? Off of Patton’s confused look, Remus explained, “I talk to rats and mice. I give them protection, and they give me help!” It made slightly more sense, but Patton had never heard of anyone talking to rats. In the stories it had always been princes or princesses talking to birds, or perhaps deer. But Patton never heard of talking to rats, of all creatures.

Thomathy squeaked and climbed out of Remus’s hands onto the bed where Patton lay. “Hello there,” Patton moved his hand, a task that felt almost impossible, and pet the small rat on the head. The rats he had in the village where he lived before deciding to go on a journey had all been huge, mean, ugly things, but Remus’s rats were so cute! They were just tiny little furry babies!

“Rats are actually really smart! Thomathy knows how to count to thirty, which is the highest any rat knows how!”

Thomathy seemed to stand up a little straighter at Remus’s praise.

“I’m going to go get some food. Thomathy, keep Patton comfortable for me, okay? Patton, if you need anything, just tell Thomathy. He’ll know what to do,” Remus walked toward the cabin part of the house after giving Thomathy a pat.

The rat curled up beside Patton on the pillow as Patton drifted off into a dreamless yet restful sleep.

A moment after Patton woke, Remus walked in with a wooden bowl, his hand covered in red. Red- so much red- red blood-

Patton started to breath rapid, shallow breaths as he saw the redness drip down Remus’s palms, the stickiness of it clinging to his green tunic-

“Patton! Patton, look, it’s just berry juice. Patton, take a deep breath for me, that’s it.”

Patton shuddered as he did as Remus said.

“I- I’m sorry…” Patton’s voice hitched as his eyes watered.

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Remus reassured him. “I know what it’s like, to have your mind hate you, to be afraid of things that don’t make sense. Tell me what I can do, Patton. Am I allowed to hug you?” Remus grabbed a water jug and washed his hands of the red juice. Patton nodded, and Remus wrapped his arms around Patton, careful not to disturb the bandages. For the first time in what seemed to be forever, Patton felt safe.

There, in Remus’s embrace, Patton could finally breathe. He could finally, finally stop fighting for the chance to live, because at that moment, he knew he would.

Patton would survive.

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #whump #angst #hurt comfort #sanders sides fic #sympathetic patton #sympathetic remus #patton sanders #remus sanders #ash writes #one shot

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chickensarentcheap · 4 years

Text

Sanctuary -Chapter 33

Warnings: mentions of blood and violence

Tagging: @innerpaperexpertcloud, @c-a-v-a-l-r-y, @alievans007, @thorsbathroomchicken, @valkyrie-of-the-light

“Do you smell that?” Esme wrinkles her nose in disgust. “It smells like...”

“Death,” Tyler finishes for her.

“If we find a dead body down here, I am the first one running out screaming. I did not sign up for this.”

“I doubt it's a person. Probably an animal that got caught up in here and couldn't get out. How the hell were you ever in the Corps? Did you never see dead bodies and other gross shit when you were overseas?”

'That was almost fifteen years ago. I don't remember. I've had four kids. I have mom brain. I can't even remember what I had breakfast this morning never mind what I did fifteen years ago.”

“This one time, in Kandahar, on my third tour, we were on patrol and a guy three people in front of me stepped on a landmine and ended up in about a hundred different pieces. Nothing like being handed a shovel and a garbage bag and being told to clean up the mess.”

She makes an audible retching noise.

“Jesus Christ,” he grimaces. “Don't do that. You know that noise makes me puke.”

“And you're the one with the iron stomach and that is what makes you want to throw up? The sound of someone else throwing up? Yet you can impale someone's face on the end of a garden rake and not even blink?”

“That was kind of...gnarly...”

She laughs. “You sounded so surfer dude just then. You can take the boy out of the ocean, but you can't take the ocean out of the boy. Oh God...” she draws the front of her t-shirt up over her face when the smell becomes even stronger. “...I am sorry if I throw up on you, baby. This was not a good idea. Bringing me down here when I've been so sick the last few days.”

“Well I wasn't leaving you alone up there, so....” he reaches over her, placing a palm on the first door they encounter and pushing it open. A hand on her shoulder, applying slight pressure to get her to walk in front of him.

“Oh yeah put me in front so the bad guy gets me first. Thanks.”

“There's no one down here. Just relax. And if anyone comes down here while we're here, they'll come from behind and they'll get me before you. Why else would I do it? Calm down. Why are you shaking?”

“I'm freaking the fuck out. It's like the walls are closing in on me and it feels like I can't breathe. You know I hate tight, confined spaces. Remember the sewer? When I had a panic attack? What did you think was going to happen when you brought me down here? You should have just let me stay up there, outside.”

“By yourself? Fuck no. Just calm down, okay?” He wraps his arm around her, forearm snug against her chest, and pulls her tight against him, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. “Just breathe. Everything is fine. You're safer down here with me than you are up there by yourself. Just breathe.”

She briefly closes her eyes. Inhaling and exhaling slowly. Relaxing in the warmth that radiates off his body and the familiar, comforting scent that clings to his skin and clothes. It is little things like this that puts him in a league all his own; the reason why every man that had come before him no longer matters. The small ways in which he'd show her that he loves her. When he takes the time out of whatever he is doing...no matter how big or how small...to either support or comfort her. Or the way he'll finish household chores without having to be asked. Or when he knows she's struggling to hold her shit together and he'll just throw the kids in the car to get them out of her hair for a couple of hours.

“Good?” he asks, and pressing his lips to her ear. “Calm now?”

She nods.

“Just take it easy. Nothing is going to happen to you if you're down here with me. Go...inside...” he gives her a nudge in the ass with his knee, encouraging her to step into the room. It's pitch black; even with the light in hall way tumbling in. And with one hand firmly on her shoulder, he uses the other to blindly feel along the wall for a switch. Palm coming in contact with nothing but cold concrete. Relegating himself to using the flashlight option on his SAT. “Be careful,” he says, and hands her the phone. “I'm relying on you to be the eyes here. You trip, I'm going down with you. And that'll hurt. Just a bit.”

“I do not want you falling on me. You'll crush me for sure,” she slowly moves the phone in front of her, casting the light on every available surface. “There's nothing here. It's empty. There's no furniture, nothing on the walls, nothing but dirt on the floors. Not cabinets or counters. Nothing.”

'How far back does it go?”

“Maybe another five feet? There's nothing back there, either. I don't think anything ever has been in there by the looks of it.”

“We gotta keep moving. There's a couple more rooms...at least...to check out. Turn slowly. Don't elbow me in the face or the nuts. You'd be devastated if anything happened to either. You okay?

“Yeah, I'm okay.” She does as she's told, overly cautious where she puts her foot and how she turns her body. The room is incredibly narrow. Suffocating. And she breathes a sigh of relief when they finally reach the hallway.

“Keep going,” Tyler instructs, hand once more returning to her shoulder; the gentle yet firm pressure keeping her moving.

Her body is much more relaxed now. Comforted by the strong, solid presence behind her; soothed by his deep voice and the calm yet assertive way he is handling the situation. She's always been the higher strung of the two of them; she's liable to fly off the handle quickly, while he's able to keep his shit together for longer periods of time. There's very few things that send him into an immediate rage. Someone...or something...threatening his wife or his kids being the top culprits.

They search each room with the aide of the phone flashlight, yet find nothing but mould, cement, and dirt.

“Jesus ...fuck...” Tyler grimaces, the worsening smell even bothering him now; so strong and putrid that it makes him gag and his eyes water. “....I'm starting to think I was wrong.”

“Oh God,” Esme groans. “Please don't say what I think you're going to say.”

“Something's dead down here. But I don't think it's an animal. Put your shirt over your mouth and your nose. It's fucking gross and the last thing I need is you throwing up all over the place. You alright?”

“No...not really...” her voice is muffled by the layer of cotton now drawn over the lower half of her face. “You don't think it's Heather, do you? Or the kids?”

“It can't be the kids. We just got proof of life six hours ago. That smell? Well that's the smell of someone who's been down here a while.”

“I can't do this...” panic begins to take hold, and she digs her heels into the floor with such power and force that he has to put his hand against the wall to stop himself from stumbling into her. “I can't...I can't do this.”

“You're fine. Just take it easy. I'm right here. Nothing is going to happen to you. I won't let anything happen to you.”

“There is someone down here,” she sounds close to tears. “Someone dead.”

“You need to take it easy,” Tyler takes hold of her shoulders, turning her around to face him. “Everything is fine. You're fine. Just breathe. Close your eyes, listen to my voice, and just breathe.”

Her eyes flicker closed as she rests her forehead against him. His voice reverberating deep in his chest as he attempts to calm her, hands slowly moving up and down her shoulders and arms.

“Better?” he asks.

“Yeah...a little...”

“I won't let anything happen to you. You're safe with me. You're always safe with me. We have to keep moving. If there's anything down here, we need to find it now. Mark can't keep McMann tied up all day. You good now?”

“I think so.”

“You take the door on the right, I'll take the left. I'm right across the hall. You need me, just yell. Okay?

She nods.

“You're fine,” he assures her, and presses a kiss to her forehead. “There's just the two of us down here.”

“And whoever that smell belongs to.”

“They're dead. They can't hurt you. Got your phone? You're going to need the flashlight.”

She removes her SAT from the pocket of her jeans and holds it aloft for him to see. “I do not want to walk in there and find a dead body.”

“The smell is coming from the left. I'll take that one. Just try and stay calm and call me if you need anything. I'm less than twenty feet away,” he runs a hand over her hair, then places it on the back of her neck and gives her a quick peck on the lips. “You got this.”

****

This room is much larger than the rest; at least three feet wider, several longer, with water and drainage pipes that run across the high ceiling. Condensation glistens on the smooth concrete walls; water drops splatter on the dirt floor. She moves slowly, shining the flashlight over every possible surface, treading through the small puddles and mounds of left over mud. T-shirt stilled pulled over her mouth and nose; preventing the rancid smell from bothering her.

The toe of her runner catches something on the ground; creating a crackling noise that seems to echo throughout the entire room.

“What the hell...” she mutters, as the flashlight beam catches a pile of styrofoam containers that have tumbled out of an overturned black garbage bag. And she cautiously hooks a fingers around the edge of the plastic and draws it back, discovering the remnants of wasted food, plastic water bottles, and aluminum pop cans.

She presses the button on the radio, then continues her exploration of the room. “Yaz...can you hear me?”

“Yeah, I'm here. There's a lot of static. You might have to speak up.”

“Someone's been down here. Within the last few days. There's all kinds of garbage. Take out containers, pop cans, water bottles. The food hasn't even begun to rot yet. You need to get a hold of McMann and find out when the last time was that he was down here. Or if he knew of anyone being down here. I don't know how you're going to do it without letting him know we were here, but...”

“I could call Mark. Ask him to casually work it into conversation. Question him about anything weird he's seen going on at the house lately. I'll think of something. You guys okay down there?”

“I think so. Tyler found a dead body.”

“What?”

“Well he thinks it's a dead body. He's in checking it right now. I'm...fuck!” her knee collides with something; so caught up in her conversation and swinging the beam of the flashlight along the walls and the ceiling that she hadn't been paying attention to her surroundings.

“You okay?” Yaz asked. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing's wrong. I just...” her eyes widen as the light falls on the object she'd bumped into, and she runs a hand over the smooth wood, then kicks the toe of her sneaker against the broken zip ties that sit in the dirt below. “...you will not believe what I just found.”

“Another body?”

“No. The chair. The chair from Heather McMann's video and photos. I'm going to send you some pictures. To your SAT.”

“Okay. I'll be waiting.”

She turns the flashlight off just long enough to snap photos; pictures of the chair from all angles, followed by the plastic ties on the ground. Her anger growing stronger with each passing second as the truth becomes all to painful clear. It had all been a set up. Heather McMann had never been a victim. She'd been in on it all along. She'd planned and helped orchestrate a sick and twisted plan to get revenge against her husband that included using her children...who'd she'd nurtured and keep alive inside of her for nine months...as pawns. She let people abuse them. Physically. And there was no telling if she'd let the culprits stop there.

Tears burn her eyes; hot and angry. And she quickly sends the photos the Yaz.

“Tyler!” she calls. “You need to...” she turns on her heel, only to find him already standing in the room. “Jesus Christ! Would you stop doing that?! Why do you insist on sneaking up on me like that? You scare the shit out of me every time.”

“We gotta get out of here,” his tone is curt. “Let's go.”

“What's wrong? What happened? What...?”

“You remember that girl I told you about? The one that showed up at the other hotel? Gave me all those pictures?”

“Erin Ferguson. Nik wasn't able to track anyone down by that name. She said the last time there was any sign of her was when she left through the hotel's front doors that same night. What about her?”

“That's who's dead in the next room. We need to go. Now. We need to get the fuck out of here before someone shows up. They weren't done yet. I think we just missed them and I think they're coming back.”

“They definitely haven't been gone long. There's trash...” she points her cell phone in the direction of the bag on the ground. “...lots of it. The food isn't even spoiled yet. This is definitely where Heather McMann was kept. Or should I say, she pretended to be kept. The walls are the same as the ones that were in the videos and the pictures. The chair is even here,” she shines the flashlight upon it. “...she was totally in on this. She planned this whole goddamn thing, Tyler. This is all some sick and twisted game. She's using her own kids...” her voice cracks. “....and who knows what she's letting those people do too them.”

“We can't worry about that right now. We have worse shit to think about. Come on, let's go,” he steps forward, grabbing a hold of her by the upper arm and turning her towards the door. “We need to get the fuck out of here. Now.”

“How did she die? Could you tell?”

“Yeah....I could tell...”

“That bad?”

“That bad,” he confirms. “Just keep going. Walk in front of me,” he steps to the side, back pressed against the wall, pulling her by the arm and placing her where he wants her. “Move. Go. We need to get out of here. Now. Not five minutes from now. Now.”

“You could tell it was her?” she asks, his hand on the back of her neck, fingers digging into the skin. She's never seen him like this. At least not with her. That hurried, almost frantic pace. The harsh tone of his voice. Whatever he'd seen, it had unnerved him, and he was anxious to get away from it. Or get her away from it. If he was alone she was certain this wouldn't be the way he'd react; he'd be calm, cool, collected. It was her presence that bothered him; the thought that if someone did come back, she would be caught in the middle of it.

“I have eyes. I'm not blind. I could see it was her.”

“I didn't mean it like that. I meant, she still...you know...had a face.”

“It wasn't her face that was fucked up. It was everything else. Just drop it. Just keep moving. I do not want to get caught here. Not when you're with me. I need to get you out of here.”

“Tyler, what....?”

“Just go!” he snarls, and puts even more force into the grip on the back of her neck. “I'm not fucking around, Esme. I need to get you the hell out of here. If we got caught here...if you get caught here...well these people don't fuck around and they won't hesitate doing to you what they did to her. If not worse. So please...let's go...”

She relents, allowing herself to be pushed down the narrow corridor. And at the bottom of the stairs, he pushes her against the far wall, then removes the Glock from his holster.

“Wait here,” he orders. “Don't move. Not even an inch. Just stand there and wait for me to tell you it's okay to come up. Okay?”

“Tyler, what is going on? What did you see? What...?”

“We'll talk about it later. Just wait here. Stay quiet and just wait. Got it?”

She nods, pressing her back against the wall, chewing nervously on her bottom lip as he cautiously climbs the stairs; gun at his side, finger already on the trigger. Her nerves are shot; every bundle and ending completely on edge, a brutal headache beginning to settle in the base of her skull, chest impossibly tight. She's seen him on edge before; in Dhaka, when the threats had been everywhere and he'd been determined to get her and Ovi out of there alive. But this is another level of intense. His prey drive incredibly high, the rage in his eyes accompanied by fear and worry. And for a moment she can actually imagine what those young men...Ovi's captors...had felt like when Tyler had kicked down that door and taken them all down. Successfully. The rage and brutality that they had witnessed him inflicting on others while waiting for their own demise. This is the merciless Tyler. The savage Tyler. The one who will stop at nothing to protect the people he cares about.

“Come on,” he finally appears at the top of the stairs. “All clear. Let's go.”

When she reaches the the middle of the stairs, he offers assistance and she curls her fingers around his, comforted by the sheer size and strength of his hands, of the feel of his callouses against her skin. She is used to those hands; the power wrapped up in them, the punishment they can inflict one moment, and the tenderness they can possess the next. Such a juxtaposition; how someone can go from creating pain fear yet be capable of bringing about so much pleasure.

“We should have parked closer,” he laments, hand wrapped tightly around the base of her wrist, all but pulling her through the yard, her much shorter legs having to work twice as hard to keep up with his long, purposeful.

She can see practically she the wheels turning in his head. She knows he's questioning himself; doubting the decision that he'd made. It was second nature with him. The second guessing that often came with the intricacies of the job. He's always been hard on himself; his own worst critic. Exuding confidence on the outside, but struggling internally. And right there's a thousand and one possible scenarios running through that troubled brain of his.

“You didn't want anyone to see the SUV in the driveway,” she attempts to reason, knowing full well that no matter what she says, it won't be good enough. Once he's in this mindset...the job mindset...there's no reasoning with him. He becomes an entirely different person; the patience and the tenderness gone, replaced by a different Tyler. The old Tyler. The one that comes out to play under certain circumstances. Who can be brutal and savage and shows no fear.

“Shit...fuck...” he curses, when a car pulls up and parks alongside the back gate. “...other way...go...move...” he roughly spins her around to face the other direction, and gives a purposeful shove to get her to move. “Don't look back. Just go.”

It's a brisk walk at first, but then the hand around her arm tightens even more; grip tighter, the push behind is more forceful. The grass slick under the soles of her runners; twigs and leafs snapping and crackling with each step. A jog now; a desperate attempt to get away from whoever is now stepping through the back gate, a loud squeak as metal rubs upon metal.

“We gotta split up,” he says, as they reach the front corner of the house.

“What? No. Fuck that, Tyler. We stay together.”

“Go back to the car. I'll meet you there.”

“Are you insane? I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying with you.”

“Esme...listen to me...” his tone is dire, eyes dark and stormy, mouth set in a grim line. “...you need to get back to the car. This is the safest way. It's two blocks south. Just hang a right at the next corner and...”

“No,” she remains steadfast, even as he grabs her hand and aggressively shoves the car keys into it. “I am not leaving you here.”

“These people...those people?” he jerks his head in the direction of the back yard. “They don't fuck around. You don't need to be here. If they get you, you're not going to like where it leads. What happened to Erin? The end result? They'll make what happens before a hundred times worse on you than the did on her. And I do not want that happening to you. You need to go.”

“Tyler...don't do this...please...”

“You go. I need to see who these people are,”

“No! You come with me or we both stay. It doesn't matter who they are. We can find that out later. We either go together or neither of us go.”

“I said go!” he bellows, and pushes her into the into the sidewalk. “Run. And whatever you do, don't look back.”

*****

It's twenty minutes before she sees him approaching the car; watching through the passenger's side mirror as he hobbles towards her. His limp far more pronounced, right forearm across the chest, as if preventing the shoulder from bearing too much weight and strain. His clothes, hands and some of his face covered in dirt and much. And as he gets closer she sees the blood; starting from his hair line and trickling down the side of his face.

It makes her feel nauseous. Seeing him like that. The grimace on his face, the obvious pain he's in with every stride. It doesn't matter how serious of an injury it is; it doesn't have to be a gunshot wound to the next that leaves him bleeding out on bridge in Bangladesh. It can be nothing more than a bloody nose or a split lip and it rocks her to her very core. And she tosses open the SUV door and jumps out, rushing towards him.

“Tyler...oh my god...what happened? Are you okay? What...?”

He doesn't respond. At least not with words. Instead he takes her face in both hands and kisses her; his mouth pressing hard against hers. She can taste his blood and his sweat, yet doesn't pull away. Her hands tightly grasping the front of his shirt; not caring about the dirt and the grim of the blood that transfers onto her own face and clothes. It's a relief; feeling his hard chest and his heart pounding within it, being able to breathe in his scent.

“You're okay,” he says, relief evident in his voice, as he places a hand on the back of her head and holds her again. “You're okay.”

“I'm okay,” she confirms, and just allows him this moment. Letting him feel her against her, his stoic and brave persona disappearing momentarily as tears mix with the blood, sweat and filth. And she feels his body relax against her as the reality sets in that she is there in front of him. In his arms. Alive and breathing.

“What happened?” she tries her best to hold it together. Since his release from the hospital five years ago, he's always been the strong one. Always keeping his shit together during even the darkest and toughest of times. She'd once told him that the only time in her entire life that she'd ever felt safe and protected was when she was with him. And since then he's been holding onto that. Always believing that he has to be that way. That that...the protector, the provider...is what she needs.

Her hands are gentle as they investigate the various wounds on his face and hands; a large gash in the hair line, the bloody nose, the start of a black eye. Knuckles on both hands swollen, bruised and bleeding.

“I'm fine,” he breathlessly assures her. “Don't worry. I'm fine.”

“You don't look fine. Tyler, what the hell happened?”

“They're dead,” he says. “All of them. All four of them.”

“What did you....”

“It doesn't matter. I did it. I...” he lets out a groan and a string of expletives as her fingers press into his shoulder. “...it would be the bad one,” he manages through gritted teeth. “I couldn't fuck up the other one so they'd match?”

“I need to get you to the hospital. You need to see a doctor.”

“No. No hospital. No doctor. I'm fine.”

“You are not fine,” she pushes those wayward locks away from his forehead, gentle fingertips surveying the large wound that travels from the top of his eyebrow and travels several inches into his hair. “Tyler...you are not fine...at all...”

“We gotta get out of here. I put in an anonymous call. To the cops. They'll be swarming all over the place soon. We gotta go.”

“Let me at least call Nic. Maybe she knows someone. A nurse or a doctor that I can take you to see and...”

“I''m fine. I'll be fine. We have to move. You're going to have to drive. I can't...with my shoulder...”

She nods in understanding, struggling to help him along when he drapes an arm around her shoulders.

“Fuck...you're really short...” he manages to tease her. “...did you never grow again once you reached puberty?”

“You said my height was one of the things that attracted you to me,” she reminds him, wrapping an arm around his waist, trying her best to keep him upright and not to be pulled down by his weight. “You said it was cute. That I was cute.”

“Yeah...yeah I did...” he confirms. “...said I could pick you up and put you in my pocket.”

“Among some pretty X rated comments,” she teases him in return. “You're going to have to help me out here. You're insanely heavy. Can you at least get yourself into the car?”

He nods, grunting and swearing as he slides into the SUV, her hand over the top of his head so he doesn't catch it on the door frame.

“Legs,” she orders, and has to help him swing them into the car before shutting the door.

From the supply bag in the back seat she grabs a towel, then climbs in behind the wheel, snags the keys from where she'd drop them on the dash, and shoves them into the ignition. “Here...” she places the towel in his hands. “Tyler...” she grabs a hold of his thigh and shakes vigorously when his head falls forward; eyes glassy, disoriented. “...wake up...stay awake...use this...for your head...”

“What?” his voice is groggy, eyes closing and then opening again, head repeatedly nodding forward.

“Tyler...don't you do this to me...stay awake!” she presses the towel to his head, then grabs him by the wrist and forces his arm across his body, pressing his hand to the fabric now trying to staunch the flow of blood. “...you need to stay awake!” she scolds.

“I am,” he argues, even though that sleepy voice and the continued nods of his head give him away.

“Don't you pass out on me, Tyler Rake. There is no way I can get you of of this car if you pass out.”

“Okay...okay...relax...don't yell...”

“Don't you tell me to relax, you enormous pain in my ass. Here....” she grabs a bottle of water sitting in one of the cup holders, uncaps it and then holds it to his lips, one hand under his chin to catch any spillage. “Drink.”

“I'm not one of your kids. I don't need you to help me. I can drink on my own.”

“Listen, I love you, but I will kick your ass into the middle of next week, you hear me? Stop being so stubborn and combative and let me take care of you. You're bleeding all over the goddamn place, you act like you're going to faint...”

“I'm not going to faint,” he insists. “I'm fine. I'll be fine.”

“Just drink!” she orders, carefully tipping the bottle back and allow some of the liquid to enter his mouth. “Hang onto it,” she says after her swallows, and places the bottle between his thighs. “Keep your eyes open. I look over there and see your eyes are closed, I will pull over and beat your ass, understand me?”

“It's kinda hot when you think you can boss me around,” he quips.

“I don't think I can. I know I can,” she says, as she throws the SUV into drive, tires squealing on the pavement as she speeds away.

*****

“What the fuck happened?” Mark asks, as he and Yaz meet them in the underground parking lot of the hotel. Holding the driver's side door open and offering a hand as Esme slides out; she's at a disadvantage to due to her height, and needs both the aide of his hand and the running bars on the vehicle to safely get out.

“Everything went to shit,” she laments. “Story of our lives.”

“You're okay?” he takes her face in her hands, frowning as his eyes take in the blood and dirt that tarnish her skin.

“I'm fine,” she knocks his hands away from her. “Tyler's pretty fucked up though. Yaz is going to need some help.”

He just stares at her, concern registering on his face and in his eyes.

“Did you hear me? Yaz is going to need some help. Tyler's messed up and there's no way Yaz can get him out on his own. So do you think could stop eye fucking me and help out?”

“He's too heavy for just me,” Yaz says from the passenger side. “Someone want to give me a hand here.”

“I'm fine,” Tyler argues. The grogginess now replaced by sheer orneriness. Annoyed by all the hands touching him, hating the idea of appearing weak and needy. “Just fuck off and let me do it myself.”

“Please?” Esme pleads with Mark. “Help him?”

He nods, then journeys around the other side of the SUV. “Jesus Christ...” he chuckles. “...what does the other guy look like?”

“Dead,” Tyler responds, as he swings his legs out of the car, frowning at Yaz as he slips his hand under his arm. “I can do it.”

“Quit being such an asshole and let them help!” Esme snaps, as she slams the driver's side door closed. “He gets like this,” she explains. “After something happens. He gets totally bitchy and uncooperative.”

Her husband glares at her.

“Just let them help, Tyler. For crying out loud. Quit being so....I don't know...so you.”

“What the hell happened?” Yaz asks once again, as he drapes one of Tyler's arms around his shoulders, Mark following suit.

“It's all fucked up,” Esme laments, as she grabs the bag of gear out out of the backseat; shoving the bloody and dirty towel into it before using her hip to shut the door. “We found where Heather McMann was being help. Or at least where she was pretending to be held.”

“It was all a set up,” Yaz explains, as he and Mark help Tyler hobble through the lot and towards the elevator. “Esme found the room where Heather was being kept. Or where she made it look like she was being kept.”

“And Tyler found a dead body,” she pipes up. “An extremely smelly one.”

“It was Erin,” he says. “The one girl that showed up that night with the photos.”

“You're sure?” Mark inquires. “I mean, if she was dead long enough to smell that bad...”

“She still had a face. It wasn't her face that was messed up. It was everything else. From the neck down. I don't want to talk about,” he drops his voice, so only the two other men can hear as he adds, “...I don't want her knowing about it. About what they did to that girl.”

“That bad?” Yaz inquires.

“Yeah. That bad. Brutal doesn't even begin to describe it. Just...drop it...let it go...at least while she's with us, yeah?”

Both men nod in agreement.

“Nik says she'll have someone come by the room,” Yaz says, as he hits the button for the elevator. “A doctor she knows. It all be keep off the books, on the down low. You don't have to worry about that.”

“I don't need a doctor,” Tyler argues, and then winces when the simple act of leaning back against the wall while waiting for the lift sends shards of scalding, brutal pain shooting across his right shoulder and down his arms, fingers momentarily tingling.

“Yes, you do,” Esme insists, as she stands in front of him, facing him with her hands on his hips. “Tyler, you're a fucking mess. You need someone to look after you.”

“You can do it. You've done it before. In Dhaka. When I've come home after other jobs.”

“This isnt Dhaka and this isn't like the other jobs. I'm not a nurse. Or a doctor. My days of stitching you up with a sewing needle and thread are long behind me, okay?”

“You did that?” Mark asks, obviously impressed.

“I had to. His right arm got all torn up and it had to be done. What was I supposed to do? Let him just bleed out all over the place?”

“She gives really good sponge baths too,” Tyler adds, smirking when Mark gives him a dirty look for even suggesting such a thing. “Well, she does.”

“Can you two stop?” she huffs. “Seriously. Just stop. This is not the time for a pissing contest. It not matter at this moment whose dick is bigger than whose.”

“Or who gives her multiple orgasms,” Tyler tosses out. “Both are me, by the way.”

She sighs heavily. “Stop. Please. I know this is your way of dealing with shit, but you're only stressing me out more. We're going to get your upstairs and get you cleaned up and then someone is going to come and look at you. You don't get a say in this, Tyler. For once, let other people take care of things. You don't always have to be the one taking care of everyone else.”

“I love you,” he declares, and nearly stumbles into her as he leans in to kiss her.

“I love you too,” she says, and burying her face in his chest, holds onto him as tight as she can.

#tyler rake #tyler rake fan fiction #tyler rake fan fic #extraction #sanctuary #chris hemsworth character

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whump-tr0pes · 4 years

Text

Honor Bound 2 - 9

Honor Bound 2 - 9 (cold-blooded torture) - @badthingshappenbingo

Red X is for posted, white X is for requested.

This is a series. Start here, continued from here.

This is a sequel series to Honor Bound.

AO3

Cw: death mention, medical whump, blood, flashbacks, emesis

He was making a splendid recovery. At least, that’s what the surgeon said. He’d been discharged from the hospital days ago and was starting to feel more like a person again. More whole. More alive.

His mother had been doting on him endlessly, tending to his every need, waiting on him hand and foot. It’s not that he minded, but he’d never felt so dependent on someone else.

Maybe that wasn’t entirely true. When he’d woken from his medically-induced coma when Isaac had broken his nose, cheekbone, and eyesocket with just his fist, he’d needed more help. He’d been cathed, for Christ’s sake. Couldn’t even pee on his own.

His mother had had a husband when that happened, though. Now she only had him.

The house had seen a revolving door of relatives and friends passing on their condolences to him and his mother. He’d received them graciously, as graciously as he could when slightly buzzing from painkillers. He’d withstood their hands on his shoulder, gritted his teeth against their raised eyebrows when he refused to shake hands. Nevermind that it sent agony shooting through his chest when he moved, or tried to move, or thought about moving. Nevermind he’d been bedbound for the first eight days of his recovery, unable to do so much as lift his head without feeling like he’d been shot all over again. Nevermind that it was his father who’d been murdered, slaughtered in front of his eyes like prey. They had expectations of him, and he was being disappointing.

His mother swept into the room, her eyes sparkling like he hadn’t seen since… He winced. He couldn’t go an hour without some crushing realization that something was happening without his father, and the fact that he’d never be there for him again. He sat up slowly on the couch, face twisting as he shuddered against the pain. “Hey mom,” he rasped. “What’s up?”

“I have a surprise for you.” Her lips curled up into a smile that looked almost happy.

“Great.” His voice was flat. “What is it?”

“Come with me. I’ll show you.” She offered her hand to him.

He looked at her hand, then up at her. “Is it ok if you bring it to me? I’m…really hurting right now.”

She pursed her lips at him, mild annoyance coming through in her eyes. “No, darling. Come on. It’ll make you feel better, I promise.”

He hung his head in supplication. “Ok.” He took her hand, groaning softly as the pain crescendoed in his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut and stood still for a moment, blowing out a slow breath as he waited for it to fade again. He blinked his eyes open to see her staring expectantly at him. “Ok. Let’s go.”

She led him through the kitchen out the back door and into the yard. The house was small, more like a cottage than anything else. But Gavin had asked specifically to stay there for his recuperation. Out of the way. Away from other people. So I can relax, be by myself. She led him across the small yard to the small work shed that held the tools the help used to keep the property perfectly, imperfectly manicured to resemble the quaint wilderness-feeling that some cottages in the country had. He looked at the ground as they made their way to the door.

She turned back to him and clasped her hands under her chin. “I know it’s still early in your recovery,” she said, gazing at him fondly, “but I really think this will help you feel better. Get you feeling more like…yourself again.” Before he could ask her what she meant, she pushed the door open and stepped inside.

Gavin’s eyes went wide as he realized what exactly she had meant by a surprise: there was a young man tied to a chair, gagged, and looking absolutely terrified.

He turned to her with wide eyes. “Mom…”

“I know, I know. Maybe a little early for this. But…” Her hand went to his cheek and for a moment, her smile fell away to reveal the aching sadness beneath. “It’s been…hard…since your father died.” She smiled gently and tears ran from the corners of her eyes. “I want you to be reminded that not everything has to change.”

“But mom, I…”

“This is Peter.” She presented him to Gavin with a sweep of her hand. “I wanted to do something for you to help you feel better. You’ve been so brave, sitting through all these visitors, you’ve been so brave through the pain…” She picked up a knife from the bench and passed it to him. “Let’s do something just for you.”

He looked down at the knife, held loosely in his shaking hand. His mouth felt bone dry. He felt the stir of something in him, something dark and unsettling and unwelcome. It wasn’t the excitement he normally felt when he hurt someone. It wasn’t that sweet flutter he got in his stomach when he imagined what it would be like to lay someone open with a knife. It was…something else.

It was fear.

“Mom, I…” He wet his lips. “I don’t think I can.”

She placed her hand gently on his arm. “Sure you can, sweetheart. I’ll help you.” She took the knife from his hand and turned to the poor man – man, he looked closer to a boy – and held the knife to his throat. He dissolved into sobs behind the gag, thick tears rolling down his cheeks as so many sounds of fear came bubbling out his throat, one right after the other. For a moment Gavin felt the familiar fluttering in him that normally rose when he heard sounds like that. Immediately on its heels was a creeping dread that he shivered against, a feeling that told him last time you felt this way, a monster shot you and slaughtered your father in front of you. His lips trembled. He realized she was looking at him, waiting for him to step forward. He did, on legs that wobbled.

She took the knife away from his throat and drew it down the side of his arm. He whimpered, twisting away from the pain. A slow drop of blood rolled lazily down his arm and dropped with a tiny splatter to the floor.

Gavin’s hands started to shake.

He took another step forward until he was standing almost between the man’s legs. His eyes were red and raw, like he’d already been crying for hours. He licked his lips. “Where did he come from?”

“Does it matter?” She sounded confused. She brought the knife to his arm and made another cut, much deeper. The man screamed, jaw clenched tight against the gag. A steady stream of red wound down the man’s arm and began to dribble onto the floor.

His voice shook. “N-no.” The blood was so red, garishly so. He hadn’t seen anything that color since… He squeezed his eyes shut against the flash of memory, of his father’s blood gushing down Vera’s chin and throat and onto her shirt. He swallowed hard. I did this to Sam. I cut them in the same exact place. He balked at the sudden, unwelcome thought that jumped into his mind.

“Don’t worry about it, honey.” The knife flashed as it went to the man’s arm again, carving into him. Gavin felt dizzy with his screams. Why do I feel so weird? Usually this makes me feel good. He experimentally fished around in his mind for the familiar sensation, the warm feeling that spread through his bones at the sound of screams, at the sight of blood. At the sight of a face made haggard with agony. He swallowed hard.

His mother stepped back and passed the knife to him. He tightened his hand around it, trying to feel the weight, the familiar heft of it. In a fluid motion he brought the knife to the man’s other shoulder and drew it over his skin. It split under the knife, opening him up, letting the blood spill out. For a split second, for a brief moment of bliss, Gavin felt the feelings inside him, sharp and warm and so, so good. His heart fluttered. Maybe I just needed a second to get back into it. He drew the knife down the man’s chest this time, cutting his shirt and the skin underneath, watching the red stain grow along the edges. His own chest ached with the motion of his arm. He put the feeling away and went to make another cut across the man’s arm. The man’s gaze darted around the room in panic and desperation. His eyes flicked up to Gavin’s for a moment, pleading and scared and so delicious.

Then, somehow, the smell of blood hit him all at once.

He staggered backwards, nearly dropping the knife. He stood stock still as memory after memory crashed over him, of his father, his throat hanging open, the blood soaked into the floor, his and Gavin’s, of the mind-numbing terror of lying on the floor of his childhood summer home, bleeding out onto the carpet. A choked sob tore from his throat.

“Gavin, honey?” His mother took a step towards him, her hands held out and stained with blood. “Honey? What’s the matter?”

“This used to make me feel good,” he whispered, tears threatening in his voice. “Now this just makes me feel scared.”

She stared at him, dumbfounded. “What, sweetheart?”

He held the knife out to her. “I’m sorry. I need…maybe I just need more time.” He glanced at the man, whose eyes were flicking between him and the knife.

“What, you don’t want to try again?”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “No.” He swallowed. “Please.”

Hesitantly, she took the knife. “Ok, honey.” She walked behind the man. “Just let me get rid of this.” Before Gavin could say anything she drew the knife across the man’s throat, cutting deep. He screamed and jumped back from the fountain of blood that poured from his neck. The man immediately paled, shuddered, died. Gavin turned and bolted to the door, barely clearing the threshold before he vomited into the grass. He groaned as he retched, the motion sparking fire in his wound. He heard his mother right behind him, felt her cool hand rubbing unsure circles on his back. He sobbed and sank to his knees.

Continued here

@untilthepainstarts, @womping-grounds, @free-2bmee, @quirkykayleetam, @walkingchemicalfire, @inpainandsuffering, @redwingedwhump, @burtlederp, @castielamigos-whump-side-blog, @insomniacscoprio, @whumpy101, @whumpywhumper, @stxck-fxck, @omega-em-z-02, @whumps-the-word

#honor bound 2 #honor bound universe #bad things happen bingo #cold-blooded torture #medical whump #death mention tw #gunshot wound #blood tw #knife lady #flashbacks tw #emesis tw #look guys #Colleen is just trying to make her son feel better #death tw #my oc: Gavin

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bennysiegcls · 4 years

Text

I don’t usually post these kinds of things, but considering how quiet I’ve been on here lately I figured it wouldn’t hurt to toss this out there for the fun of it to say I’m still alive. Not much context besides a post-full moon wake up call with the werewolf oc I posted art of a bit back- I wanted to try and delve a bit more into his headspace after having a ‘bad night’. Hope you enjoy!

He doesn’t pass out immediately after the shift this time around. There’s no reprieve, no solace to take in an endless void of black. His bones crunch under the weight of his body forcing itself back into a smaller frame, muscles rippling and clenching and spasming until he hits the floor on his knees with a strangled yelp. His body jerks like a puppet on strings, bows his back as his insides writhe and squirm around below his flesh, and his jaw is barely locked into place before he lurches forward with the force of his stomach emptying itself all over the hardwood.

He chokes, gags, retches again. It brings tears to his eyes; they sting like the back of his nose and his throat, and he claws his fingers over the floor and prays to whoever can hear him that it'll be over soon.

A snap- that’s his femur- and a crunch- that’s his spine- and he gasps a rough, ragged noise and almost instantly goes limp. He just barely manages to catch himself on his elbow when he teeters to the side to keep himself from hitting the floor like a sack of rocks. His head hangs, bobbing with each stuttery pant that leaves his lungs, and he stays like that for a long while. Everything hurts. Even in the aftermath it’s nothing but pain, this vicious ache in his muscles that leaves him feeling like he’d been backed over by a steamroller. He swallows, coughs, and slowly brings a hand up to rub at his eyes.

It’s sticky and wet when he touches it to his skin, slips and slides across his forehead and it makes him pause and pull it back.

Red. Squishing between his fingers, caked under his nails like he’d dug his hands into a chest and 𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘥. He breathes in- it’s shaky and weak and full of every ounce of trepidation he feels crawling over his skin like a hoard of roaches- and brings his fingers back to his face. Red. Red, red, red everywhere, smeared over his cheeks and dripping off of his chin. He can taste it behind his teeth underneath the bitter bile and acid on his tongue, and it nearly makes him heave again. The beast under his breast shivers excitedly, like it’s proud of what it’s done. 𝘓𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐'𝘷𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰, 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘥. It’s satisfied at the same time that it isn’t, and the blood in his mouth reawakens something inside of himself that nearly sends him into a frenzy again. He wants it. He wants it, fuck, he needs it, he-

He cuts off that train of thought with a pained noise in the back of his throat. Shut the fuck up. 𝘚𝘩𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬 𝘶𝘱. 𝘞𝘩𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴. 𝘞𝘩𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨? The question is asked like he doesn’t already know the answer. The monster that has become him agrees.

Moving his hand away to the floor, he pushes himself up to sit and finally, after blinking the haze out of his blurry eyes, takes a moment to look around.

It’s a mistake. But it’s unavoidable. No way to run and hide his head in the sand without the blinding reminder of what he’s done.

He’s not even sure he can call them bodies anymore. They’re too far gone, piles of viscera and gore with the occasional limb or tatter of clothing. It freezes him where he sits; he stares for a long, hard few minutes at the remains of a woman closest to his side, throat working, jaw trembling, eyes searching again and again like he’s waiting for the whole thing to be a fever dream. Some sick joke of the mind- any second he’ll awaken to the woods and go on with his life while the beast stays angry and caged below his skin.

Seconds pass, minutes, maybe hours. The scene never fades. The smell of rot and innards and shit stings at his nose in an undeniable accusation of what he’s done. His whole chest hitches and catches when he tries to breathe in, and he tears his eyes away to the floor. There’s half of a face lying there, one eye and a bit of a nose staring up at the ceiling cold and foggy and blank.

It’s blue. He doesn’t know why he notices it so vividly, but it crawls under his flesh and gets his nails digging into the bloodied floor beneath him.

A turn of his head, and everywhere he looks there’s hunks of meat and bone and tissue. Two other bodies besides the woman, one male, one something he can’t make out. He sits there among them, a dead man surrounded by the dead, and he doesn’t get up until the rays of sun peeking in through the shattered windows have moved themselves halfway across the room.

He needs to- he needs to get clean. Shower. Something. He needs to focus on that, make it his one task to accomplish and occupy his mind.

His eyes flicker back over the mess around him a few more times- he feels numb. Carved out and hollow and charred like a fire ate away at him from the inside out and left him with nothing.

Maybe it’s shock. It’d be funny if it was, he thinks- he’s seen so much death, 𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘥 so much death, that it’s become as much of a part of him as the beast since before the beast had even made its presence known. But there’s something about the carnage that lies at his feet now. He doesn’t know what it is, what makes staring into what’s left of the eyes of these unfortunate strangers send shivers of unease up and down his spine. But he looks to them and it pangs something deep and raw in his gut- a type of guilt he hasn’t felt before. A monster of a thing gnawing away at what’s left of what he tries to call his humanity. Carve another chip off of that block, one more point on the side of the wolf.

He goes to heave himself upright, but the floor is stained with red and slippery and nearly sends him careening back onto his side; he catches himself with both hands and pants, shifts his legs and tries again. He gets to his feet on the second try, and he keeps his eyes ahead as he stumbles and trips off down the hallway in search of the nearest bathroom he can find.

There’s splatters of blood painting the walls like some morbid facsimile of the art hung here and there in picture frames. He finds a fourth body with it’s belly missing and a hunk out of its neck on the floor in front of a door. The door leads to a closet when he opens it, so he shuts it back and continues on his way.

The bathroom finally reveals itself to him at the end of the hall. It seems to be the only room so far untouched by his bloodlust; the walls are a clean, crisp baby blue and the floor an unstained white tile. He ruins it the second he puts his foot through the doorway, leaving bloody prints of red in his wake. The door gets closed behind him despite him being the only living creature inside the house. He needs the space to himself. He needs somewhere to hole up for a while that doesn’t reek of death and corpses.

His reflection in the mirror catches the edge of his attention when he moves to pass it by, and he pauses, backtracks and takes a moment to look over himself even when everything in him is screaming to let it rest- some part of him wants to calculate the damage. Maybe he just wants to look himself in the eye so he can remember who it is to blame.

He looks like shit.

Eyes swollen and bloodshot, ringed with dark circles of purple and blue. His skin is sallow and pale beneath the exterior of red; he looks like he’s been fucking bathing in it with the way it coats his flesh like it belongs there. He stares at himself. Maybe it does.

A droplet beads at his hairline, slinks down the side of his face until it falls off of the edge of his chin to land against the rest of the blood caked to his chest. He watches it, and all he can think about is the rivers of red flowing out of the throat of that woman as she screams- he can see it plain as day, can feel the warmth of her body as he rips into her like a paper bag, and the man stands behind him and screams and cries bloody murder before he’s silenced with a pair of jaws to the jugular. Jax tries to swallow, then hunches over and empties whatever is left of his stomach into the sink.

The noise of the shower echoes against the walls when he finally heads over to flip the switch. He doesn’t step in until it’s scalding enough to sting his hand when he slips it under the spray to test the temperature, and he lets the fire consume him, ducks his head under the cascade and burns alive. It’s the only way he can find to wash off the feeling of the gore glazed over his skin enough to live with it; it never disappears, not truly- it stains him with a permanence like the neverending shooting pain through his bones- but it wipes away the outer layer. Fools his brain into thinking if no one can see the visible remains of what he is that they’ll never think to look deeper below the surface.

Jax’s eyes find the floor, tracking the way the red drizzles out of his hair and off of his shoulders and chest and swirls away down the drain. He reaches up and runs a hand over his head, shakes it out, and flecks of flesh and bone come away and fall to his feet to join the rust brown on its way down the sewer pipe.

Screaming- it bubbles up in his ears and he moves his head side to side like a tired old dog, trying to knock the memory of it out of his mind to no avail. He closes his eyes and sees the terror on her face, so he opens them up again and looks at his toes. They flex, and each movement pushes more blood out from where it’d been caked between them. He looks away.

Tipping his head back, he lets the water fall over his torso while he reaches a hand up to rest over his eyes. Something wells up in his chest- shrieking, crying, 𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦, 𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦, 𝘨𝘰𝘥, 𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦- 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘱! 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘱! 𝘗𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦!- and he locks his jaw like a dam against the emotions that threaten to swallow him whole.

He digs his fingers into his eyes. His teeth chatter before he clenches them to silence it. A deep breath gets sucked into his lungs, and when he finally releases it a whimper comes out along with it and his face crumbles for a split second before he moves his hand and pushes his face into the spray. It’s convincing enough to his mind that he’s drowning for a moment that anything other than blank panic gets pushed to the side to deal with later. He uses the time to clean the rest of what he hasn’t yet- scrubs his hands over his body and through his hair in quick motions until the water running down to his feet is clear.

There’s a towel hanging on the rack beside the shower, and he grabs it once he shuts the faucet off and buries his face in it for a beat before moving to dry off the rest of himself. It’s all on autopilot. His body moves but he’s not really there, gazing with unseeing eyes at the wall while he drags the towel over his arms. His mind keeps feeding him flash images of the night before. He’s stopped his futile attempt to fight them off; he lets it happen instead.

The towel ends up on the floor- he’s struck with the vague realization he hasn’t got any clothes to change into, and he briefly considers seeing if he can find something in one of the rooms before he leaves, but he shuts the idea down before he can think on it for too long. He’s in the middle of a forest. No one will see him here. He’s done worse than a naked trek through the woods to get back to wherever the hell he parked his truck.

No, the hardest thing he has to do now is make it down this goddamned hallway.

He’s procrastinating it, he knows this. The second he opens that door everything he’s been trying to pack away inside becomes unavoidable. He gazes blankly at it for a good minute, eyes the doorknob like it’s liable to bite him if he reaches a hand in its direction. He does it anyway; it doesn’t bite him in the end, but the smell of death that hits him like a slap to the face when he eases the door open nearly sends him reeling back and slamming it closed again. He twitches his nose and steels himself, tenses his whole body like he’s preparing for a fight, and walks forward.

Eyes up, keep your eyes up. Ignore the walls, ignore the squish beneath your feet, ignore the body on the floor. He steps over it, and that’s his first mistake; his foot glides a bit on the floor and on instinct he tips his head down to look at it as he steadies himself with a hand on the wall.

He meets their eyes; it’s always the goddamned eyes, every fucking time. The one piece that the beast always seems to leave behind, like it wants him to see them when he wakes the morning after. It wants him to know what he’s done in a way he can’t easily brush aside. They bore holes into his skin, burning themselves like a brand into his brain, and that’s the crack that starts the slow decline of the walls of steel and concrete he’d tried so hard to build around himself. He clears his throat, bites his tongue, and walks on.

His feet stop him in the living room again. He tries in vain to get them to move, to carry him forward, but there’s an invisible barrier that keeps him at bay.

He parts his lips on an inhale that catches and sticks to the inside of his throat. He’s still looking forward, resolute and stalwart in his stubborn attempt to keep himself together, but his eyes are traitors and seek out the most ruthless betrayal- they slip undaunted from the doorway ahead of him, slowly but surely until they land on a hand on the ground. It reaches for something it’ll never touch, and Jax’s gaze traces it back to the mess of a body it’s attached to. The crack grows larger, eats away at his resolve.

His hands flex at his sides, and his trigger finger is going wild, jumping and twitching without his say so in the same way his head, and then his whole body, starts to turn and move and shift with restless, almost disbelieving energy.

It’s easier to see them all spread out when he’s stood up like this. The damage he’s done, claw marks in the wall and tearing the floor to shreds, claw marks in their flesh where the beast- where 𝘩𝘦- wouldn’t stop digging even after they were long dead. He scrunches up his face in an aborted effort to clamp back the stinging behind his eyes- the emotion chokes him like a noose, and all at once the hollow void in his stomach is flooded with things he didn’t even know he could feel, building and building and building until he’s fit to burst with it all.

He wonders for a moment if he could. If he’d join them on the floor in a bloodied up pile of guts and gore. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘧. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘪𝘵. 𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘸 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘵 𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘭 𝘪𝘵 𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘥.

He coughs out a little noise that tries to make itself a cry- he thinks about the worlds he’s ended, the future plans he’s snapped in half, the hopes and ambitions he’s crushed, and his walls tumble and break around him before he can get on his knees to try and build them up again.

The first tears down his cheeks do him in for good; once they start they can’t stop, and Jax raises his arm, presses the back of his wrist to his mouth to try and muffle a sob.

It doesn’t do much to help- he steps to the side, turns, lands his feet in a puddle of crimson and turns again. It closes in on him on all sides, inescapable, and he surrenders himself to it. Let’s the guilt eat him alive until he’s nothing but skin and bones and endless, echoing sorrow.

He screams.

He sobs.

He ends up on his knees, clutching the ankle of the woman with whiteknuckled hands as he dips his head and wails. The beast wails with him beneath his bones- they cry together, for who he used to be, for what he is, for the lives he’s ended, for the lives he knows he’ll end, the lives he’ll come to ruin and wreck. They cry for the hollow, never ending ache inside of them that can never be filled, they cry for the pain that racks over their body and leaves them shaking like a dog in the cold. They cry from exhaustion. He’s tired.

He’s so, so tired.

His body jerks and heaves with his sobs, tears dripping off of his nose and his chin to mix with the blood on the floor. It almost feels like a violation. That his grief dare get mixed with their sudden demise.

He stares blankly at where they land as they continue to fall, making soft ripples only to be swallowed by red. And he stays like that for a long time. Until his throat goes raw and his voice goes hoarse, and the numbness returns to take its place in the pit of his stomach like it’d never left.

He pants and he swallows and he pants again, finally unlatching himself from her leg and taking a beat to sit there before he fumbles and stumbles upright. His eyes flicker over the room once more.

He takes it in, ingrains it into his memory. There’s consequences for a thing like him.

And standing here, he knows, he must reap what he sows in spades.

#my writing #tw : death #tw : gore #tw : vomit #tw : blood #tw : mild body horror #tw : panic attacks #an umbrella of all the bad things that come with being a werewolf I'd assume #also guilt #lots and lots of guilt #werewolves #OC

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actuallykiwi · 4 years

Text

OC-tober 7th: Pre and Post Game Life

OC: Annie Sinclair, Alec Sinclair / Featuring: Codsworth, Nick, Hancock, mentioned names

Enjoy :)

***********************

Spring would always be Annie’s favorite season, but man she loved fall, too. Especially since the weather was just perfect for a Saturday.

October 23, 2077 was her first day off from the day care in weeks, and she was looking forward to it. She lie in bed and remembered telling the kids in her class yesterday about how excited she was to go see a movie with her best friend, walk around the park, and then have her favorite meal with Alec for dinner.

So when she rose from her pillow that morning, little did she know her plans would change drastically.

“Morning, Codsworth!” She said cheerfully as she approached him in the kitchen.

“Ah, good morning, mum! Your coffee; 173.5 degrees Fahrenheit, brewed to perfection!” The Mr. Handy robot spun around the counter, carefully holding the steaming mug out to her. She chuckled, “Why, thank you! Glad I actually have time to enjoy it today.” She carefully set it on the counter and prepared her blasphemous amounts of cream and sugar. Typically Codsworth would do that, but it was the one thing Annie insisted on doing herself. Mainly because he commented on the sheer amount of sugar and caffeine she poured into it each day.

“I’m assuming sleepyhead is still asleep?” She wondered out loud to Codsworth. “Yes, mum! Sir Alec is peacefully sleeping his day away, though I did hear him mumble something about space monkeys at around 4 am.”

Annie laughed. “He is a space monkey. But he did get off from his shift pretty late last night. I’m gonna check on him.” She grabbed her coffee and headed down the hall to his closed door. After gently knocking, she cracked it open just enough to poke her head in.

His soft snoring drifted into the hallway. Army fatigues littered the floor next to his bed from when he was too exhausted to change last night. “Bless your heart, Al. They’re working you to death. What exactly are they expecting to-?”

The doorbell echoed from the living room, causing Annie to jump and Alec’s snoring to pause for a brief moment, then resume quietly.

Annie placed her coffee back on the counter. “I believe it’s that salesman again, Miss Annie. He can’t take ‘no’ for an answer, can he?” Codsworth explained from the window. “He’s just doing his job, Cods. Let’s see what’s up.” She tightened her bathrobe and adjusted her bun before opening the door.

“Good morning! Vault-Tec calling!” A Vault-Tec Sales Rep approached her with an all-too-wide smile on his face. “Good morning!” She politely smiled back.

“Isn’t it? Just look at that sky up there!” He paused to gesture also-too-widely, and cleared his throat when she nodded awkwardly. “*ahem* You can't begin to know how happy I am to finally speak with you. I've been trying for days. It's a matter of utmost urgency, I assure you.”

“Oh, well, then I’m sure glad you came!” She laughed nervously.

“Yes ma’am, I am too. Now, I know you're a busy woman, so I won't take up much of your time. Time being a, um, precious commodity... I'm here today to tell you that because of your family's service to our country, you have been pre-selected for entrance into the local Vault. Vault 111.” This man bounced back and forth from being overly excited to clearly being afraid of something. Annie was beginning to be a little worried. “Oh, okay, uh, great! Where do we sign up?”

“You’re actually already cleared for entry! Just need to verify some information, is all, you know, in case of uh.. total atomic annihilation.” He whispered the last part.

Now Annie was worried. “Right, okay...” She took the clipboard and filled out the information, while tentatively watching him glance around nervously. “You don’t think that will actually happen, do you..?”

He took the clipboard from her. “U-uh, well it’s always better to be prepared, right?” He glanced down at the papers. “Wonderful! I’ll just run these over to the vault, and congratulations on being prepared for the future-!”

The door was closed suddenly as half-awake Alec leaned against it. “That guy again? Annie, don’t tell me you bought anything from him?”

“No, of course not! He was just telling us that we’re cleared for entry into that vault on the hill, in case of ‘total atomic annihilation!’“ She mimicked the sales rep, and Alec chuckled. “Yep, thanks to yours truly.” He grinned and wandered off to get his coffee from Codsworth.

“Well, I’m gonna go freshen up real quick.” Annie stretched and went to the bathroom for just that.

A few moments passed, and she was just finishing tying her bandana up in her hair when she overheard Alec from the living room. “Wait, Cods, turn that up.”

“What’s going on?” She asked as she entered the living room, finding Alec huddled by the TV.

“Followed by... yes, followed by flashes. Blinding flashes. Sounds of explosions... We're... we're trying to get confirmation... But we seem to have lost contact with our affiliate stations... W-We do have coming in... That's um... confirmed reports. I repeat, confirmed reports of nuclear detonations in New York and Pennsylvania. My God.”

The TV went black. Silence roared as Annie and Alec exchanged fearful looks.

Then all hell broke loose when the air raid sirens cried their woeful cry.

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

How much time had passed? 1 day? 1 week? 1 year? She didn’t know. But when Annie opened her frosted eyes, it felt like it had been ages. A horrible gag escaped her throat when her pod suddenly opened, causing her to fall to her hands and knees and retch on the floor.

She took deep, heaving breaths and shivered. “That... was not a decontamination pod.” She muttered. The difficult part was standing up, as if she had forgot how to. But she was able to weakly get on her feet and stumble to her brother’s pod directly across from hers. Only, she wasn’t expecting to find it already open, and empty.

“W-what? Alec!?” She cried out, and turned to look around. “Alec!!??”

Then, ever so faintly she swore she imagined it, she heard it way off in the distance. “Anneka!!”

They made a promise to each other when they were little. A promise to only say each other’s full names when something was really wrong. And she knew, not only from her full name, but from the plain fear in his voice that something was very, very wrong.

“ALEXANDER!!” She screamed, and began staggering as fast as she could towards the exit. She only paused when the door wouldn’t open to cough some more, then promptly gained her footing and ran to find another way out.

The only thing that made her pause again was the site of the roaches the size of small dogs. And the several vault-tec-adorned skeletons littering the vault. “How long has it been...?” When she found the 10mm pistol, she was glad Alec taught her to shoot when she was in high school. It made the rest of her escape easier for her.

When she eventually found the Pip-Boy and made it to the elevator, it was coming down, when it should have been up this whole time. She called his name again, but when there was yet again no answer, she tentatively stepped onto the platform and let it raise her joltingly to the surface.

A thousand thoughts were swimming through her mind, so when she adjusted to the sudden sunlight, she wasted no time in jumping off before the platform even fully stopped and frantically began calling his name. “Alexander!!! Alec!! Al-...Al...”

And she took it all in. The world she once knew, decayed to almost nothing. All the green, gone. All the life, dissipated. She fell to her knees in shock. “A...Alec...” And the tears fell. The tears fell and the vocal cords were strained from agony.

Moments passed before she finally lifted herself from the ground, dusting off her vault suit, still damp with frost.

And a new fire burned in her. An inferno of determination to find her brother, and adapt to this new, terrifying world.

“Don’t worry, Alec. I promise you..” She adjusted her glasses and looked at the sky. “I will find you if it’s the last thing I do.”

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

“And I did... didn’t I...?” She said quietly to herself.

Annie had been walking around Sanctuary, reminiscing about her promise, and where it’s taken her. In the backyard of her dilapidated house, a small, white handmade cross sit still on a mound, covered in wildflowers. And an aging military picture of Alexander Sinclair was pinned safely in the middle.

“I just wish I could’ve found you sooner. But, no sense dwelling on that, right? I’m happy for those last few moments I had with you.” She crouched in front of him and rubbed the picture endearingly. Tears trickled down as she smiled sorrowfully at him. “I miss you, Alec. Every day. But we’re making a peaceful Commonwealth here. You’d be happy.”

“Annie? Time for the speech, doll.” Nick called from the house.

“Oh, coming!” She wiped her face quickly. “Sorry, looks like I’m needed! I’ll be back soon. Love you.” She kissed her fingers and tapped them on the picture, then scurried back to the street where the crowd was waiting.

A soap box sat patiently waiting for her underneath the strung lights along the street, and the banner from the tree that read “United Commonwealth 1st Anniversary!” Everyone was chatting amongst each other until Annie took her place on the box.

“Everyone! Today we celebrate the 1 year anniversary of peace in the Commonwealth!”

A roar of applause.

She laughed. “I know our version of ‘peace’ may seem odd, but as tenuous as it is, we must celebrate every moment we have of it, which is why 1 year is cause for such a huge celebration!” Applause. “1 year ago today, I made an agreement with every faction, city, and settlement to compromise in all our endeavors. I met with each of the leaders, including the new mayor of Diamond City, Hancock of Goodneighbor, Preston of the Minutemen, Maxson of the Brotherhood, and yes, even the leader of the Institute, with whom we had the most... animosity. But they have agreed to stop the kidnapping, the experiments, and to leave the Commonwealth alone unless it’s to help us. By their terms, we also leave them alone, and help voluntarily with whatever they need should they need it. The Brotherhood has agreed to help, not control, with building up the Commonwealth defense. And the Minutemen are still setting up settlements, now with the help of the Brotherhood. I know there’s still some hatred amongst us, especially for the Institute. But we need to put that hatred aside if we’re ever going to thrive again. Continue to stand with me, with each other, and let’s continue making the Commonwealth a better place.” Hancock handed her a Nuka Cola. “TO THE UNITED COMMONWEALTH!”

“TO THE UNITED COMMONWEALTH!” There was another roar of applause, and everyone happily cheered, danced, cried, and just celebrated.

Hancock helped her down from the box and watched the crowd with her. “Good speech, sunshine. But part of me is kinda worried.”

“About?” She asked as she took a swig of cola.

“About this ‘tenuous peace’ you’ve worked so hard to achieve. I know you’ve got an optimistic way of lookin’ at things, but it probably ain’t gonna last. A year is lucky.”

“I know. That’s why we need to celebrate while we can, before someone disagrees with someone else, and then it’s back to square one.”

“Right. Then it’s the war all over again.”

She chuckled sadly. “Well, if it ever comes to that, it’s like Alec always said...” She took a long drink from her cola and sighed.

“’War never changes.’“

#fallout #fallout 4 #writing #oc #OC-tober

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vantaestummy · 5 years

Note

please feed my craving for minjoon expecting a baby sometime soon. jimin gets really bad morning sickness all the time & poor joonie doesn’t know what to do to help but he tries his best. his sweet minnie is so sick and nauseous all the time that he doesn’t know what to do, so he calls taegi asking them what they did when yoongi was pregnant. namjoon is a nervous partner & soon to be father.

A/N: this prompt is oh so precious! i hope you enjoy! thank you so much for requesting and reading friend! ❤︎

TW/// emeto & mpreg

WORD COUNT: 2186

————————————

Namjoon is at his wits end.

He and Jimin couldn’t have been happier when they found out Jimin was pregnant. It was a dream come true, something that albeit terrifying, was a gift.

But Jimin has been going through hell these past couple of days.

One thing that the two of them have learned, is that morning sickness has absolutely nothing to do with the morning. Apparently, it’s an all day thing, at least it is for Jimin.

Namjoon sighs for the umpteenth time that night, listening as Jimin retches over the toilet bowl with tears in his eyes. Namjoon feels awful. He can’t help but to blame himself for Jimin’s pain. It takes two to tango and frankly, Namjoon feels like this is all his fault, no matter how many times Jimin tells him that it’s not.

“I’m so sorry baby...” Namjoon sighs, his head leaning against the door as Jimin’s loud heaves echo through the cracks, the toilet water crackling as Jimin’s vomit fills the bowl.

“It’s okay Joonie...” Jimin calls out through the door, his voice hoarse but, his smile crystal clear through his words. It makes Namjoon want to cry.

Jimin gets sick every morning and every night. Throughout the day things are fine, but breakfast is hard to eat and must be very light. Dinner also doesn’t stay down for too long. Namjoon is jolted awake at least three times a night to the sound of Jimin running to the bathroom. What makes it worse is that Jimin hates feeling helpless, like a burden so, he doesn’t let Namjoon come inside the bathroom when he’s sick.

Namjoon hears the toilet flush after a few moments of silence, a good sign. Next is the sound of rushing water in the sink. Namjoon steps back as the door creaks open.

Jimin isn’t even really showing yet and still, he’s going through so much strife. His cheeks are flushed and swollen, his eyes watery and a bit red at the rims. His hands are trembling as they rest upon the barely noticeable swell of his belly.

And still, he manages to smile brightly.

“I’m okay now.” He says softly, his voice cracking and quiet.

Namjoon’s heart breaks.

He pulls Jimin into his chest, the smaller of the two already burying his face into his neck. Namjoon rubs his fingers through his hair, kissing his head and tracing circles into his back.

“I’m sorry baby. Why won’t you let me help you?” Namjoon asks, his words heightened and breaking, as if he’s on the verge of tears. Jimin intakes a shrill breath.

“I don’t want you to see me like that...” Is all he says in response. The words make Namjoon pull back, thumbing away the other’s warm tears.

“In sickness and in health, remember baby?” He says. It makes Jimin giggle tiredly.

“We’re not even married yet Joonie...”

Namjoon scoffs before kissing Jimin’s forehead lovingly. “I don’t need a piece of paper telling me that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I already know that.” He says with a dimpled grin. Jimin hums, his lips curved into a delicate smile. Namjoon then cups Jimin’s flushed cheeks. “But we need to figure something out. Morning sickness shouldn’t be this bad. Should we go see a doctor?” He asks, quizzical and yet, as serious as a heart attack. He can’t take Jimin’s suffering, knowing that there’s nothing he can do to help.

Jimin swallows thickly before escaping from Namjoon’s grasp, his hands hovering over his stomach. “It’s not that bad Joon... I can handle it, okay?”

Namjoon sighs. “Love, I know you can handle it but, you shouldn’t have to. You can’t tell me that this is normal.” He argues. He knows that Jimin is strong, that’s not something he has to prove. What he also knows, is that Jimin isn’t alone in this and he needs to stop acting like he is.

Jimin groans, his eyes screwed shut as he makes his way back to the bathroom. “I’ll be back...” He croaks out before clamping a hand to his mouth, trapping in a gag. He runs down the hall to where the restroom is. Namjoon follows him quickly.

“Jimin let me help.” Namjoon calls out but the only response he gets is a door slamming in his face, a grating retch soon to follow, along with the plopping of disturbed toilet water.

Namjoon sighs, downhearted and defeated as he thinks of what to do. Jimin doesn’t like hospitals but they might not have a choice. He doesn’t want Namjoon’s help because it makes him feel like a burden, like he’s incapable of taking care of himself. Namjoon doesn’t want that for him either but no matter how many times he explains to Jimin that this is not the case, the younger doesn’t listen.

Namjoon racks his brain for every possible solution before picking up his phone and scrolling through his contacts out of pure wonderment.

Jungkook wouldn’t be able to help. Not only is he not a carrier, but he’s single and won’t have a clue on what to do about Jimin’s morning sickness.

Hoseok and Seokjin have been together for much longer than he and Jimin, however, they don’t have kids. They probably wouldn’t know more than the common google searches (which, none of the home remedies did much to relieve Jimin of his nausea)

Namjoon then sees his parents’ contacts. He loves his mother and father but, they tend to scold or chastise him for his decisions, rather than figure out a simple compromise. Namjoon is grown now. He needs to learn how to raise his own child, not follow in his father’s footsteps per say.

Lastly, is the surname Min. Min Yoongi, and Namjoon feels like he’s struck gold. Not only is Yoongi a carrier, but he’s pregnant with his second child, and he and Taehyung are the youngest and best pair of parents Namjoon has ever known. Yoongi may be strict, but he is loving and kind. Taehyung can be the fun and playful parent, but he knows when to take matters into his own hands. When to be serious.

Namjoon presses the call button and waits for the ring.

...

Yoongi was known to give into his sweet tooth every now and then, but his first pregnancy was never this bad.

This is already his second bowl of ice cream and frankly, he deserves this shit. Raising a three year old is hard as hell. Thankfully, he’s not alone.

Yoongi crawls over to the couch, stepping over the clump of legos and stuffies scattered all over the floor. The loud squeal that greets him does make his head ache but, it also makes his heart flutter.

“Oh no! I’m dying! Yoongi-hyung help, he’s got me! I couldn’t slay the dragon!”

Taehyung falls to floor with a dramatic flare, his hands over his heart as if he’s dying from one of the most iconic killings in all of cinematic history. He lays at the foot of the couch, his eyes closed, his mouth hung open, as their three year old son, Yeonjun, crawls onto his stomach and giggling immensely.

Taehyung gasps as he reaches out a hand to his boyfriend who, is on the couch, pregnant and enjoying a bowl of ice cream.

“Hyung... I’m dying.” He wheezes, his son burying his face into the crevice of his neck.

“Oh no... you’re dying.” Yoongi deadpans as he spoons another clump of ice cream into his mouth with a small smirk. Taehyung rolls his eyes before lifting his upper half from the ground, picking up the baby on his chest and holding him up in the air, creating the illusion that he’s flying. Yeonjun squeals and babbles with delight, squeaking as Taehyung brings him to his chest and holds him close. He kisses the baby’s hair as he pulls the child further into his lap.

“I think some ice cream might bring me back to life.” Taehyung says with a beaming smile. Yoongi sighs before scooping up a clump of the sweet treat and holding it out to Taehyung who, bites it. With his fucking teeth. Yoongi frowns.

“You’re weird.” He laughs as Yeonjun copies his father, opening his mouth for a spoonful of ice cream. Yoongi shakes his head.

“Uh uh baby. You’ve had enough sweets for tonight.” Yeonjun pouts with a whine, making Taehyung do the same. Yoongi groans because he knows he’s no match for the carbon copies known as his boyfriend and son.

“Please? Just one scoop?” Taehyung asks.

“P’ease?” Yeonjun repeats. Yoongi throws his head back with a groan to cover up his own bouts of laughter.

He spoons a small scoop into Yeonjun’s mouth before scarfing down the rest himself. “There, now, no more.” He says before discarding the bowl and making room for Taehyung and the baby on the couch. He smiles as Yeonjun crawls into his lap, his lids already growing heavy.

“Someone looks sleepy.” Yoongi mumbles. Taehyung laughs.

“Being a dragon is hard work.” Taehyung says with a serious tone despite the silliness of words. Yoongi shakes his head, incredulous.

“The only kid I know who would rather be the dragon than the prince.” He says. Taehyung looks up, his eyes bright and his smile meaningful.

“He’s a special one, isn’t he?” He asks, already knowing the answer. Yoongi hums as he cards his hands through Yeonjun’s hair, lost in Taehyung’s chocolate eyes.

“Yes, he is.”

The phone rings, making Yeonjun stir and whimper in Yoongi’s hold. Taehyung sighs before picking the baby up and hoisting him into his arms.

“I’ll put him to bed. Can you get that?” He asks as he cradles the three year old. Yoongi nods before answering the phone, not bothering to look at the caller ID.

“Hello?”

“Hey, hyung?”

Yoongi raises a brow. “Joon? Hey, what’s up?”

“Uhm... hey...” Namjoon sounds frazzled, nervous even. It makes a sense of worry tinge around Yoongi’s heart.

“What’s wrong Joon?”

“Uhm... okay so... As you know, Jimin is three months pregnant and... he’s sick, like, really sick and... hyung I don’t know what to do. This is so hard and if I can’t help Jimin when he’s sick how the hell am I supposed to take care of this baby?! Hyung I’m scared—”

“Woah, woah, Joon calm down. Jimin is sick?” He asks, making to stand but needing to balance himself with the armrest of the couch. Being pregnant has messed with his depth of perception.

“No, I mean yes but, not sick sick. It’s the damn morning sickness but it’s not just in the morning, it happens every single day and night.”

Yoongi sighs, a hand rested on his swollen stomach because yes, he remembers that all too well. Every pregnancy is different and the morning sickness this time around was no where near as painful as the first.

He doesn’t notice Taehyung is behind him until he feels a hand around his front, a kiss placed upon his head.

“Is everything okay?” He asks. Yoongi nods with a smile before resting his head against the younger’s shoulder.

“Yeah. Jimin is having really bad morning sickness. It sounds like it was just as bad as mine when I was pregnant with Jun.”

Taehyung hisses through clenched teeth. “Oh yeah, really bad then.”

Yoongi frowns into the phone. “Is Jimin feeling well enough for a car ride? Bring him here. I have some things I haven’t had to use since Jun was born.”

Namjoon’s cry of relief is so loud that even Taehyung can hear it.

“Thank you hyung. Thank you.”

It doesn’t take long for Namjoon and Jimin to arrive, but when they do, Jimin looks pale and delirious. Taehyung ushers him to sit on the couch as Namjoon follows Yoongi into the bathroom.

“He managed to keep the soup in his stomach on the way here but, he’s still feeling bad.” Namjoon says in a panic.

Yoongi nods as he filters through every cabinet and cupboard. In a few minutes, he has an arms full of remedies and treats.

The two walk back into the living room to find Taehyung rubbing a hand up and down Jimin’s back as he leans forward, his head in his hands. Yoongi puts the items down on the table before opening a pack of what looks like cough drops.

“Ginger pops. Suck on it and lay back.” Yoongi instructs. Jimin does as he’s told, his hearing swimmy and his stomach quivering with queasiness. Yoongi then opens a sickness patch that he places behind Jimin’s ear. “Take it easy, okay Jimin? You should feel better in a little while. Tae, can you get him a glass of water please?” Taehyung nods before running to the kitchen.

Jimin slowly nods off with a whimper as he allows the taste and scent of the ginger to overwhelm his senses, soothing his nausea.

“Thank you hyung.”

Jimin falls asleep with ease, a peaceful look on his face, his nausea now dissipated. Namjoon stays by his side all night. Before the two leave the next morning, Yoongi and Taehyung both pack a bag full of remedies for them to take home.

Both Namjoon and Jimin have never been so thankful to have such good friends.

And when Namjoon gets home, the text he receives makes his eyes water.

from: Min Yoongi

and joon? ur doing great

———————————

A/N: this one was long lmao, i know. thank you for everything you guys! ❤︎

#bts sickfic #sick bts #sickfic #bts emeto #emeto #sick #sick!jimin #caretaker!namjoon #caretaker!taegi #caretaker!yoongi #caretaker!taehyung #mpreg #my fic

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37energydrinks · 5 years

Text

Pugna -- Eyeless Jack x Reader

Chapter Four: Defensionis

---

I can't fall asleep.

It's cold.

And there's something dripping off in the corner.

I don't know how long I've been laying here, in this room, and on the lumpy mattress, but it feels like it's been ages. I tried to free myself of the handcuffs but that only lead to red, raw wrists.

"Hello? Please! Let me go!" My eyes adjusted to the light a while ago, and I can make out shapes far off in one of the corners of the room. "Please!" A sob broke my chest and suddenly I couldn't stop crying. Fat tears rolled out of the corner of my eyes and dripped down onto the bare mattress, soaking through my hair that laid thick next to my head. Through my delirious cries, the rational part of my mind worked endlessly to find a way out of my situation.

The door, the lock, the bed.

The door, the lock, the bed, the man.

The man, the bed, the door, the lock.

Handcuffs. Locked.

Handcuffs. Keys.

Handcuffs. Small hands.

Small hands.

I have small hands. My sobs slowed down to a small shutter in my chest as I took a deep breath. Small hands! I swallowed down the hard lump in my throat and wiggled my hand. In my panic, my hands were tense, tugging and pulling, leading my to believe that the handcuffs were tightened around my wrists so tight that even the thought of escape was fleeting. Another tug at the handcuffs and my hand slipped through.

"Oh, my god." I suck in a shaky breath, trying to stay quiet as I gently pulled my other hand out of the second pair of handcuffs. "Oh quiet, oh please, please be quiet." An involuntary shiver runs down my spine as I cringe inwards on myself, listening to the old bed squeak. My feet, now apparently bare, hit the cold ground and in a second I am moving, pressing myself hard against the wall, desperate for my body to mold into the shadows painting the wall.

One step. Two steps. Find the door. Breathe.

Right foot, left foot. One in front of the other. Breathe. I close my eyes and let out a shuttery breath. Calm down. It's dark. He can't see you. It's okay. You're alright. I open my eyes and my foot hits something hard. The blood drains out of my face and my breath gets stuck in my throat as the squeaking of the wheels on a cart echoes throughout the room. The carts hit the wall with a loud crash, disturbing whatever was resting on it. I think my heart is no longer beating..? It's no longer beating, my soul has left my body.

I jump start, launching forward into the dark, feet hitting the ground hard. I skid to a halt and hit a wall just as the door to the room (lab? Maybe? I didn't get a good look.) opens.

"(Y/N)? Running around are we?" The man's deep voice hits my ears hard. I force my lungs to not take in any air and will myself to mold into the wall. "I've been watching you, (Y/N)." The man steps in and closes the door behind him, blanketing the room in darkness once again. "You were asleep for a long time. I was beginning to worry that I had killed you. " I can hear him shifting around the room, straying far away from the corner in which I hid myself. I think he's moving towards the cart that I accidentally kicked into the wall. "You can't hide forever, (Y/N)..." The last syllable of my name slowly drips off of his tongue, the drawn out sound muffled by that stupid mask he wears. Even though my eyes adjusted to the dark of the room, I still found it near impossible to see where the man was going. When the man entered the room, I have yet to learn his name, I could see the door. It's only a few feet away. The man is still taunting my name on the other side of the room as he searches for me, so I take this chance and start slowly moving across the wall.

I'm going to die, I'm going to die, oh please God don't let me die.

My steps are small and calculated, each one taking seconds to complete. My eyes are trained at the ground, watching for anything that I could accidentally kick. Every so often my eyes flicked upwards, looking for any movement in the dark. The man stopped talking a while ago, and I don't know where he is, but I haven't heard him in my nearby vicinity, so for now, I'm okay. My hand gently glides over a bump in the wall and then meets somethings smooth.

The door.

My heart jumps up into my throat as another trill of adrenaline shoots through me. All I have to do is find the handle. My fingertips glide over the smooth surface of the door, looking for the handle. In ratio to me, and in ratio to my kidnapper, the handle should be around my waist. Right? I bring my hands down the door, careful to keep my eyes and ears trained for the man. I struggle to keep my breathing under control as my hands reach the handle. I give it an experimental tug. Nothing.

I have to turn the doorknob. It's a handle, dumbass, turn it.

I try to turn the doorknob as quietly as humanly possible, but the doorknob (curse the damn thing) creaked loudly as it tried to spin against the lock. The lock. The FUCKING door is locked!

"Found you, kitten." The sudden voice behind me whispered into my ear. I let out a scream and spin around, arm swinging before I can even register it's movement. The man quickly catches my arm and shoves me against the wall, pinning my second arm in the movement. He chuckles, the voice deep and menacing, breaking a deep seeded fear in me. I give a shout of struggle and thrash wildly against the man's grip, anger flaring up in place of fear.

"Let me go! Let me go!" I cry out as the man grabs my shoulders. I can feel his fingernails, sharp, like claws, digging into my shoulders, breaking the skin and letting the blood run free. He pulls me forward and the slams me into the door, forcing the wind out of my lungs. His knee comes up and hits me in the stomach with such force I feel blood build up in my throat. I gasp wildly, my knees giving out as I try to gather my wits. The man slams me into the door again and the back of my head smacks hard against the metal. Sharp pain webs through my skull and my head lolls to the side, neck to weak to keep it up. I give a weak groan as I feel my body go limp. My knees completely give out and I fall hard against the man's chest, suddenly relying on him to keep my feet on the ground. I'm pushed against the door again, gentler this time.

"I do love it when they struggle," My vision is swimming, and I can barely make out the man lifting up his mask, securing it on the top of his head. He moves forward and tucks his head into the crook of my neck. I weakly lift my arms and push against his chest, trying to force him away, but the solid build of him and the weakness of my arms does nothing. The man takes a deep breath in and I can feel him shutter. "You smell so good, the fear, the adrenaline." I feel his tongue lick up the side of my neck, pausing at my pulse point. His tongue retracts and he opens his mouth, biting at the artery. I feel his teeth sink into my skin and I feel another wave of dizziness pass through me as he laps at the wound, tasting the blood leaking from my neck. He groans into my neck. "You taste as good as you smell, (Y/N). So different from my other experiments. You are the first person to even try the door. Very smart of you" I hear him sigh, and I feel the hot air against my ear. "I'm almost tempted to drain you dry, right here, right now, but that would be a waste of a very entertaining patient." The man pushes away from me and I slump against the floor. I hit the ground and my stomach twists uncomfortably, wanting to vomit, but not having anything to vomit up. The light flicks on and the man kicks my in the leg. "Get up." I groan and shift, my hand wrapped hard around my stomach. "I said, get up." He kicks me harder this time.

"Stop kicking me!" I gag hard and roll onto my back, trying hard not to dry gag. "Sto-" I retch hard and turn on my side, but nothing comes up. I hear the man sigh, and tap his foot as he waits for me to finish. A sob breaks my chest and the man heaves a heavy sigh, bending down and scooping me off of the ground. He flings me over his shoulder and I dangle limply, my energy draining heavily. "Put me down..." His shirt muffles my words and I weakly pound against his back.

"What happened to your vigorous energy, kitten? Did you get tired?" His mocking tone alights a flame in me, not like I have the strength to actually do anything.

"Well, you keep smashing my head against various objects and I haven't eaten since I don't know when. Dumbass.." I mutter that last part under my breath, not trying to anger the dude that kidnapped me and has obvious strength. The man chuckles (I want to learn his name so that I can stop calling him 'the man' over and over and over.) and lifts me from his shoulder and lays me down on the table that I had been tied to before. I immediately launch up, ready to fight this man when all of the blood rushes up to my skull and I start to tip over the side of the table, not able to catch myself from falling.

"You are always trying to do things that you can't do, kitten, and that is so entertaining." I grumble and the man catches me and pushes me back down on the table, quickly securing my hands with leather straps. He doesn't do anything, just stares down at me. I squirm under his heavy gaze, feeling very exposed.

I clear my throat. "I-uh-, what-what's your name..?" My eyes trail over him, not having much room to move, and I notice that at some point in the alteration the man pulled his mask back over his head. Unfortunate. I would have scratched the ever living fuck out of his face once I got the chance.

"You want to know...my name." He stares at me and I glare back at him.

"Yes, I want to know your name. I've been calling you 'the man' the entire time that I've been here and it is starting to get old. Also, I want some food." The man shakes his head and laughs.

"You aren't exactly in the best position to be making demands. I'll tell you my name, so that you fear it, but I won't give you any food. I want to see what happens to a human female once the body enters a state of starvation. I've studied the effects of starvation on human males, but there are many differences between the anatomy and the physical makeup of males and females." The man continues to rattle on about his experiments while my face goes pale. He's going to starve me? What is wrong with him? He turns around to a counter and continues to talk, but more to himself this time. I'm about to open my mouth again when a loud banging comes from the door. Jack stops talking immediately and grabs a large scalpel next to him before making his way over to the door.

"Jack? Jack you in there?" So his name is Jack then. Jack's shoulders visibly relax, and he pockets the scalpel and opens the door with familiarity and ease.

"Hello Jeffrey. What brings you here?" Jack steps aside and lets another man into the room. The other man, Jeffrey, has his back to me (thank god) and continues to talk to Jack.

"I got bored. You got any more playthings?" I lift my head up and strain to look at Jeffrey. I can't see his face, but I can see the back of his head. His scalp looks like it was horribly burned, and his hair is growing in thin patches all over his head. His voice is scratchy and hoarse, like he's been smoking for 40 years. He's wearing what looks like a red (hoping that it's just the natural color, but something in my gut tells me otherwise) hoodie, and jeans, stains covering most of the fabric, patches hide the rest. I can't see his feet, but with the sound his heavy steps are making, I would assume that he's wearing some kind of boots.

"I do, in fact. This one's new." I see Jack gesture over in my direction and Jeffrey turns to look. When I see his face, I let out a shrill scream. His skin is leathery and scarred, completely white in some places, and tan in others. His cheeks are cut into a thick smile, the tips and edges of the cuts completely scarred over, while the cuts around his mouth are cracked and bleeding. His lips are chapped, and when he hears me scream, his mouth opens into a smile, showing yellow teeth. He stands about as tall as Jack, who I estimated to be around 6"2, and his build is big, like he's been building muscle for years. Jeffrey laughs at my scream and turns back to Jack.

"Gotch' yerself a pretty one there, Jack. She any fun?" Jack looks to me and sighs when he sees me pull my hands out of the leather straps that bind me to the table.

"She's more trouble than anything." I roll off of the table and stumble to the counter, grabbing it for support. Resting on the counter top were several surgical tools, all varying in size and shape. I shutter and try not to think about what Jack was going to do with them. I grab the biggest scalpel out of all of them and move behind the table, giving myself ample space to move and to escape. "See, there she goes again, thinking that she's going to be able to fight her way out of this." Jeffrey throws his head back in a cackle.

"She does look fun! Mind if I have a go at her." Jack sounds mildly amused when he responds.

"Sure, just try not to hurt her too bad. I need her to be mostly not-injured when I'm doing the tests on her." I really don't like the sound of that. My head pounds, and I sway on my feet, but I stand steady, scalpel in my grip and waist level. I try and remember defense classes, but the pounding in my head prevents me from thinking about anything other than the situation that I'm in right now.

"I won't hurt her too bad, just enough to put her in her place." Jeffrey reaches into his hoodie pocket and pulls out a large kitchen knife.

"Lets dance."

----

Word count: 2619

Title meaning: Defense

A/N: Sorry it took me so long to update this, I've just finished all of my final testing and I will have a lot more time to update now. This fic is going to be a slow burn, don't know if you realized that yet. Thank you for reading and please vote!!

#eyeless jack x reader #eyeless jack #ej #x reader #creepypasta #jeff the killer

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