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writing-on-the-wahl · 1 year

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O Positive Part Three

Hi hi my lovely chickens! It’s been a while but I am back with more of O Positive! Y’all can thank @im-a-wonderling for the request and all her amazing encouragement and edits. Fun story I was almost done with my first draft when I realized I’d written it in first person (the perspective my manuscript is in) and I was too lazy to go back and fix the entire thing so sorry lovelies! I hope you still enjoy:)

Part 1 Part 2

The sun was high in the sky, shining down between the towering skyscrapers, warming the sidewalk and reflecting happily off of the dozens of windows on the building I approached. I squinted my eyes and glared at the reflective glass, the low throbbing in the back of my head making me wish I’d thought to bring sunglasses.

A pedestrian shoved past me as I slowly shuffled down the sidewalk. I stumbled forward for several steps before I managed to use a conveniently located lampost to keep the ground from swooping up to meet me. I glared at the retreating suit, clenching my fingers around the bottle in my hand to keep from returning the favor and shoving him down into the gutter. Normally, I would have immediately felt guilty for the violent thought, but it had taken the other heroes hours to find me last night, and after freeing me from the streetlight and demanding a detailed explanation of my failed fight with Villain, they’d requested [Read: required] that I join them in canvassing the streets for Villain. A pointless, idiotic gesture, if ever there was one. As if Villain would be stupid enough to hang around four hours after robbing an art gallery and cuffing me to a lamp pole. So between my utter lack of sleep and the two pints of blood I’d already donated this morning, I didn't have much sympathy for rude civilians.

Finally, I reached the double doors at the base of the offending shiny building. A temporary banner hung above them proclaiming, “Blood Drive Today!”

“Really, you are sadly predictable.”

It took my fuzzy brain much too long to process that the words had been spoken by a man leaning against the building, and another to recognize that the person behind the aviator sunglasses and casual shirt and jeans was Villain.

By the time my sluggish brain caught up to the situation, he was standing before me, crowding my space and giving me a death glare I could feel even through the dark glass that covered his eyes.

“Villain.”

“Hero.”

He said my name like a parent scolding a toddler.

“I thought you told me we wouldn’t be having a repeat of last month.”

“We aren’t.” I shoved past him, grabbing the handle of the door. But I couldn’t resist shooting over my shoulder, “I’d hate to burden you again in such a way.” The overwhelming bitterness I felt at the last month of pretending nothing had happened slipped into the words, and I bit my tongue.

As Villain’s brows rose above the rim of his sunglasses, I darted into the cool reception area.

I made it about half a step before Villain caught up to me, hand wrapping around my elbow.

I let him pull me to the side, out of the flow of traffic that bustled through the large space--regular office workers breezing past the brightly colored signs hanging above folding tables, making an odd combination of suits and dresses mixing with the more casually dressed donors that were much too few in number for what the city needed.

The sparse group gathered on the other side of the room only hardened my resolve. I twisted my arm from Villain’s grip and managed a step towards the blood drive before Villain got in front of me.

He didn’t try to grab me again, though. In a sense, we both had our hands tied, unless we wanted to draw unnecessary attention to ourselves and risk outing our secret identities.

My headache throbbed as I tilted my neck to look up at the irritating man. “Move, Villain.”

He folded his arms across his chest, staring me down.

My will was stronger than his, but my aching self unfortunately was not. I dropped my head, rubbing my neck with a sigh. “Please--just, don’t. I’m going to do this.”

Villain dropped his angry stance and sighed. “Your day job is do-gooding. Why is this so important to you?” The words themselves should have set me on edge, but I couldn’t deny the utter sincerity with which he asked.

I swallowed back the painful memories enough to get out one word, the most important one. “Sidekick.”

I couldn’t look at Villain, but I felt the moment he understood. The tension in the air drained as all the fight went out of him. I turned away and walked towards the registration table, trying and failing to ignore the long-legged shadow behind me.

“Here to donate? Bless your heart.” The elderly woman behind the table smiled as she passed me a registration form. I reached out to take the clipboard, but an arm shot in front of me, snagging it from my fingertips.

“I don’t think so,” Villain murmured in my ear as his free arm wrapped around my waist. It took everything in me to convince my exhausted body that it was a bad idea to lean against him, let him take some of my weight.

Instead of dropping the form on the table and dragging me from the building like I half expected he would do (and half-hoped? - my headache was getting worse and worse), he instead led me to a chair and pushed me down into it, claiming the one next to it as he pulled the pen free of the clip.

That jolted me out of the fog that surrounded me. No way was I telling him all my private information.

I made a rather pitiful attempt to reclaim the papers, but Villain just looked at me in a way that confirmed how pathetic the attempt had been. I dropped back down into my chair, turning my bottle of orange juice around in my hands.

“This is really that important to you.”

“Yes.” This time I set my orange juice down before reaching out to take the forms again.

Villain sighed, rubbing a hand down his face as he muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a plea for help. Then he held the forms between us like a peace offering. “What if we trade?”

My nose wrinkled in confusion. “What?”

He tugged the clipboard back onto his lap. “If you agree not to donate any more blood today” I started to protest but his hand covered my mouth and I froze. “Then I’ll—” He gritted his teeth as though the words pained him. “Then I’ll donate instead.”

Too preoccupied by his hand pressed to my lips, it took a moment for the meaning of his words hit me.

“You?” I mumbled against his hand.

Villain’s hand dropped away and he let out a put-upon sigh, but how could I not question his statement, especially when he said it like I’d asked him to return every cent he’d ever stolen? I hadn’t even suggested he donate, for crying out loud.

“No.”

Villain’s head reared back a little at my forcefulness, and I seized on his distraction to make a grab for the clipboard. My fingers didn’t even graze it, but I teetered forward, cursing myself for the sudden movement that had made the word turn all swirly-whirly.

I closed my eyes against the wave of dizziness, not fighting as Villain shoved me, gently, back into my chair. “I wasn’t asking, Hero.” His long, lockpicking fingers—so skilled at freeing objects from their homes—wrapped around the curve of my shoulder, trapping me in place.

I cracked one eye open, trying to piece together our conversation.

“What?” Or at least that’s what I meant to say. It came out more of a “hammmgggh?”

“You heard me.” He picked up the pen tucked in the top of the clipboard.

The bout of dizziness passed, and a better solution presented itself. I looked around for a free volunteer. We were going to need a second clipboard.

“Orrrrrrrr,” I dragged out the word, not quite believing what I was about to suggest. “We could both donate and save twice as many lives.”

Villain shook his head, but didn’t look up from the paperwork he was now flying through. “You can let me donate in your place, or, I can drag you out of here kicking and screaming.”

Why did I get the impression Villain would prefer the second option?

I finally flagged down a free volunteer across the room and mimed writing on a clipboard. He nodded and I turned to glare at Villain. “It’s not up to you whether I donate or not.”

“No.” He snapped, his voice rising. “It's not. Fortunately for you, you already donated today.” I blinked in confusion as his scowl morphed into a sweet smile.

Until I turned and saw the volunteer hovering in front of us, nose crinkling in confusion as he shuffled the clipboard in his hands. “Oh, you already donated today?”

Villain leaned back, releasing his death grip on the clipboard to swing an arm around my shoulders and pull me against his side. I tried to ram my elbow into his ribs, but as close as we were, it was barely a tap.

“Yes.” His voice was a sweet, honeyed tone that completely lacked the mocking edge it normally carried. “She donated first thing, and when she told me about how desperate the need for blood is, I couldn't help but volunteer.”

His hand tightened on my shoulder as he spoke the word desperate, but I ignored the insult, running through the usual donor sites, mentally calculating the next best option. It would be easy enough to slip away from Villain once he was hooked up to a blood bag. If I ordered a ride on my phone now, it should be ready by the time I slipped out the door.

And despite his bold words, Villain wouldn’t make a scene, or waste his donation by ripping out the tubes and chasing after me.

I felt a prick of guilt at basically conning Villain into donating blood. But. It was his idea. And I’d never actually agreed to not give more blood today if he did.

When I snapped out of my planning, the volunteer had moved on, and Villain had returned to his paperwork. What he hadn’t done was remove his arm from around my shoulders.

I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel nice. Familiar. As warm and comforting as it had felt a month ago draped across the back of the couch behind me as Villain gently felt for my pulse.

My mind whirred as I implemented the first step of my plan. I tried to stand. Villain's arm instantly pulled me back down, trapping me next to him.

Feigning irritation, I huffed and sank back into my chair. It had the wonderful consequence of me being buried further into his embrace. Villain’s pen paused, and I froze, waiting for his reaction. When he resumed writing, I slowly relaxed, easing my phone out of my pocket. I tried not to enjoy the warmth of his arm around me, knowing it was short lived. But oh, did I love the way it draped across my shoulders like a warm blanket, the way his fingers unconsciously rubbed circles across my arm as he frowned at the endless pages of the questionnaire.

I tried to keep my expression bored as I googled the nearest blood drive. 7 blocks away. I rubbed my aching head. I’d definitely need a ride.

Unfortunately, seeing as it only took me 37 seconds to speed across the entire city, I’d never had need of one before, and so I watched with impatience as the ride-share app slowly downloaded.

The phone was plucked from my fingers before I could react.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

A spilt second glance at my screen was all it took for Villain to figure out my genius plan.

I shrank away from his impending judgment, but he simply shook his head and tucked my phone into his pocket.

Before I could try to bolt for the door again, he stood, pulling me with him.

“C’mon. I didn't fill out all this stupid paperwork for nothing.” He trapped my hand in a vise-like grip. I was a hairsbreadth from wrenching free when his thumb skated across the back of my hand. My already fuzzy brain short-circuited at the tenderness of the gesture, and I numbly followed as he tugged me towards the registration table.

Villain flashed the nice old lady from earlier a too-wide, slightly terrifying smile, the expression so foreign it wrenched my brain free of its daze. I frowned up at him. The wide, sharp grin was nothing like his usual overbearingly confident half-smirk. No, it was all hard edges and gleaming white teeth and none of the soft eyes and quirked lips he usually wore.

I shook myself as Villain shoved the forms across the table. I didn’t have any business telling his smiles apart.

Yet I couldn’t help but wonder at the difference as he spoke, an unfamiliar, strained note in his voice.

“Here’s your forms. Let’s get this done.”

Taglist:

@im-a-wonderling @shieldmaiden-of-gondor @watercolorfreckles @distance-does-not-matter @onestopheroxvillain @lolafaiy @chaoticgoodandi @1becky1 @tobeornottobeateacher @himynameisorla @superherosweet @brekker-by-brekkerr @crazytwentythrees @great-day-today @sunflower1000@selectivegeekwithstandards @chibicelloking @trantolette @sapphiques @jinpanman @genesissane @wish1bone1 @amongtheonedaisy @distractedlydistracted @kitsunesakii @glitterythief @jinx1365 @cherrychewingbrat @in-patient-princess @thepenultimateword

#HERO X VILLAIN #hero #villain #o positive #more angst to come #just wait until part four #ehehe #but fluffy angst dont worry

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