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drabblesandimagines · 9 months

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Disinhibited

Leon Kennedy x fem reader Established relationship/married, mentions of sedation, blood, bit of spice, absolute nonsense

Leon looks through the porthole-style window of the metal door to the lab and what he sees makes his heart stop. You - his beloved wife - on the floor, propped up against a row of cages at the far back wall, each wrist zip-tied to the bars above you and your head hanging low, clearly unconscious.

You’d agreed on radio silence when you’d split up, the expectation being you’d break it when either of you had located your objective. It was meant to be an easy job – suspicions that the research being undertaken at this particular oil ring was questionable at best, conducted by a skeleton crew. A USB stick holding the files the two of you had been sent to retrieve is now securely zipped in a pouch on his vest, a handful of guards sacrificing their lives for the cause. Annoyingly, a speedboat had managed to get away with the scientists onboard, but a call to HQ had the coastguard swiftly on their tail.

Leon had started to worry when he didn’t get a reply from his call-outs and had circled back, his stomach in knots. There had been slight pushback from the DSO when you and Leon had started dating, and even more so after you’d tied the knot. The two of you remained professional to a fault, but it had been observed that you worked incredibly well together. It brings both of you a bit of comfort too, knowing you have each other’s back - not one left at home wondering if the other one is going to come home in one piece.

You can take care of yourself, he has no doubt about that… But, hell, neither you or he are invincible. He swipes the pilfered keycard through the automatic lock and it takes everything within him not to sprint on over to you as the door buzzes – he needs to remain cautious, scan the area for any remaining threats and then tend to you once he’s established it’s safe. He pushes the door open and checks each square foot, gun raised, finger ready to shoot on sight. The lab is small, just the one room – no outgoing doors – and once he confirms that it is clear, he quickly pulls across a medical cart to block the door as an extra precaution, then practically skids his way over to you across the linoleum.

He drops to his knees, placing his gun down by his side and grasping hold of your chin gently to tilt your head up.

“Sweetheart…?”

The first thing Leon takes in is that you’re breathing. He immediately releases the breath he’s been holding in relief. There’s some tacky blood on your temple from a wound that is already clotting, as well what will end up as a pretty nasty bruise developing under your eye. It doesn’t seem right though – you’re too skilled to take something like that…

He pulls out his knife and slices through the first zip tie, freeing your wrist when he spots a very unwelcome sight – there’s a syringe stuck in the crook of your elbow, obviously administered in quite the hurry.

“Fuck.” Leon pulls it out slowly and holds it aloft, squinting at a small serial code within. He presses his earpiece then, and there’s a couple of beeps before he’s patched through to Hunnigan.

“This is Roost.”

“Roost, Condor One. I’ve located Kestrel – unconscious, looks like she’s been injected with something. There’s a serial on the syringe, run it for me?”

“Ready.”

He recites the numbers, slowly, making sure he’s read them right – a slip might be the wrong diagnosis. There is a tense pause as he hears Hunnigan tap away on the keyboard.

“Got a match. It’s a barbiturate, type of sedative. Good news is Kestrel’s not allergic to any of the ingredients. Usually it’s administered via an IV to keep the patient under, but if it was a controlled dose via syringe she should come round soon.”

“Okay. Good.” He cradles your face with his palm, relieved that it wasn’t something unknown or particularly nasty.

“Did you obtain the info?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got the files. Can we get an extraction?”

“45 minutes ETA, Condor One. Meet it at the helipad – side of the rig - if you can make it there with Kestrel.” He looks down at the map and notes the point, as you let out a soft, sleepy mumble.

“We’re pretty close. Think she’s beginning to wake up. I’ll give her a little longer to come round.”

“Right. Just a warning – that drug is strong.”

“Noted. Condor One out.” He presses the button and the connection drops. He grabs hold of his knife again and slices the remaining zip-tie, pressing a kiss to the indent it’s left on your wrist – bastards - before he places it down gently in your lap, and waits.

Leon explores the lab a little further, digging in all the cabinets and drawers he can find. There’s a metal table with some dried blood on it and he reckons after they’d injected you you must’ve hit the deck, or, more literally, the table. He comes up empty-handed of items in search, besides finding your confiscated weapons in a medical tray – he adds them to his own supply, sticking your pistol in his front pocket. By the time he’s finished, you’ve begun to show a few more stirring signs so he makes his way back over, crouching down in front of you to caress your cheek once more.

“Hey, sweetpea,” Leon smiles as you blink repeatedly, trying to get your eyes to focus. “You’re all right, I’ve got you.”

“Huh?” You mumble as the blurs slowly transition into Leon’s face, his features in a mix of concern and relief at you finally regaining consciousness.

“Took quite the hit, huh?” He drops his hand to your waist and you flinch at the contact, causing him to withdraw. “Sorry, are you hurt there?”

“I’m okay.” You eye him warily as you reply, sitting yourself upright a little more.

“Good.” He lets out a sigh, before rubbing the back of his head. “Not gonna lie, you had me scared for a moment. Come here, sweetheart,” he slips his arm around your waist this time, pulling you forward in what he means to be a gentle kiss, but the second your lips meet he cannot resist taking it a bit further, tangling his hand in your hair to deepen it, swiping his tongue along your bottom lip to gain access within. You relent and he grins into the kiss, darting his tongue against yours and…

A stinging pain on his right cheek from where your palm has collided. There wasn’t a lot of power behind it, but it still makes him pull back. He opens his eyes in alarm and you’re glaring at him, hot tears threatening to spill.

“You bastard.”

The slap, the name – he’s heard you use some pretty colourful language over the years but never directed at him at least – renders him speechless for a moment, his mind trying to catch up with what happened to sweet reunion.

“Baby, what…?“ He reaches a hand out for you again but you slap it away, or at least you try this time - your co-ordination is all off and all you do is bat the air.

“Don’t call me that.” There’s a slur to your words, almost as if you’re drunk. “Back off, buddy.”

“I…”

“I’m married, I’ve got a husband.” You make a point of looking him up and down. “A husband that could kick your sorry ass into next week if he saw you right now.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Leon frowns, thoroughly confused now. “I am your husband.”

You laugh dryly at that. “You wish! He’s, like, ten times sexier than you without even trying.”

He looks down at himself then – he’s in his tactical vest, his usual mission get-up – maybe his hair does need a bit of a trim, but… what are you on about?

“I assure you that’s mathematically impossible.” Leon withdraws a flashlight from his belt and clicks it on, trying to direct it at your pupils. “Does your head hurt?”

“Stop that.” You wince into the light, ducking your head away. He only gets a quick glance but your pupils aren’t reacting as they should – a combination of the sedative and a concussion, maybe? You aren’t going to be a willing patient for him to get a longer look, that’s for sure. “Leave me alone.”

“Uh-uh, you need to listen.” He puts the flashlight back in his belt and cups your face with both of his hands, forcing you to meet his eyes. “I’m Leon, I am your husband. You were sedated and I think you’re concussed - that’s why things seem a little confusing right now, but you’ve got to believe me, sweetpea.”

You blink again, tilting your head in a curious manner before squinting. A delighted smile crosses your face as you take in his face, as if he hadn't already been in front of you this whole time.

“Hi,” you say, breathily. “There you are!”

“Hey.” He smiles. It is weird to see you so ditzy, however he can’t help but admit it is utterly adorable. “I’m here, darlin'. You’ll feel better in a bit, okay?”

“Nah, I feel great, baby.” You place your hand over his and tug it slightly so you can lace your fingers inbetween. “Hey, have I told you how sexy it is when you wear these gloves? We should-"

Your earpieces beep simultaneously and cut off your train of thought, as you both answer out of instinct.

“Condor One, it's Roost. Helicopter’s 20 minutes out. Thought you’d like to know the coastguard has picked up our scientist friends. Any update on Kestrel?”

“Hunnigan, it’s me!” You chirp. “I’m fine. Great.”

“Uh-huh…”

“Please tell me this is an expected side effect.” Leon comments, dryly.

“Yeah, sounds like it. Kestrel’s going to be like that a little while – I’m sure you can handle her, though.”

“By the way, Condor One – excellent. Love it, love you.” You poke Leon in the chest to really emphasise your point. “Roost – makes sense. Kestrel, though? Kestrel’s such a dumb name. I want a cooler one.”

“We don’t pick them, you know that.” Hunnigan replies, tapping away at her keyboard – Leon assumes she’s sending intel to the helicopter medic about your apparent state of mind.

“Well, we should. I'm changing mine." You declare, boldly. "My new codename is gonna be… Mrs Kennedy.”

“You don’t mean that, sweetpea.” Leon shakes his head in disbelief. You’d kept your surname when the two of you had got married – antiquated tradition that didn’t mean anything to him or you – hadn’t ever been an issue. “You don’t like it when people even mistakenly call you that.”

“Mm, that’s not strictly true." You pause to bite your lip and look up at him. "See, I’d really like it if you’d call me that next time we do that thing where y-“ He covers your mouth then, pulling you into his side. He’s now painfully aware of where you’re going with that sentence and it’s not something you - or he - will want recorded on the comms transcript for this mission for all time.

“Okay, Roost, I think we’re gonna head off now to the extraction point.”

“Wise.” The connection cuts out and he lets go of you, about to apologise, but you’re already distracted, looking down at what your hip bumped against when he grabbed you.

“Hey, that’s my gun,” your hand ghosts across his crotch as you try to take it from his pocket. He’s quicker though, grabbing hold of both of your hands and twirling you into his embrace, pressing your back into his chest and crossing his arms in front of you.

“Yeah… Best if I keep hold of it for now, don’t you think, sweetheart?”

“But it’s mine-" You protest. He steps you forward, leaning his chin on your crown as he directs you towards the door.

“You can have it back when you’re feeling a bit more yourself, I promise. Just let me look after you for now, okay?”

“Fine,” you huff out, allowing him to manhandle you forward with no resistance. “Where we going?”

“We’ve got a helicopter to catch.”

Satisfied that you’d forgotten about your gun, he settled for just holding your hand tightly as he tugged you up the stairs and to the helipad, keeping an eye on the horizon. It should be here soon – then maybe they could flush whatever it was in your system or you’d sleep it off in the helicopter. You’re not a big drinker – you get a little tipsy off a glass of wine – but this as if you’ve downed a whole bottle, your filter entirely wiped out.

“Leon…” You drawl, wrapping your arms around his waist.

“Uh-huh?”

“I’ve been thinking about the debrief…”

“Don’t worry about that right now, darlin’. Let’s just get ourselves home first, huh?”

“No, not that one.” You bite your lip, before your hands slide round and down to his ass, giving it a squeeze and then tugging at his belt to slip below. “I have a different kind of de-brief in mind, if you get what I mean…”

The helicopter blades whir in the distance at last and he thanks his luck, pulling your hands back to around his waist and away from his boxers.

“Don’t you want me?” You pout, pathetically, pushing yourself into his chest. “I do,” he hums, “but not like this, sweetheart. When you’re more yourself we’ll talk, okay?” He presses a kiss to your crown and wraps his arms around you, keeping his eyes focused on the helicopter’s approach.

You feel as if you’re hungover – head throbbing and nauseous as you wake. You’d dozed off in the helicopter ride back, vaguely aware at some point of Leon carrying you out and a sharp sting in your arm before you’d fallen asleep again. You’re in the med bay back at HQ, an IV in your arm connected to a bag of fluids and Leon’s sat cross-legged in a chair by the bed, typing away on a laptop.

“Hi.” You mumble and his blue eyes meet yours, his smile creasing the corners of them.

“Hi there. How you feeling?” He closes the laptop and puts it to the side, shuffling closer to you.

“Like I drank way too much. What happened?”

“Those scientists injected you with a pretty strong sedative and you whacked your head. Mild concussion – headache might hang around a couple of days, I’m afraid.” He hesitates then, curious. “Do you remember the lead up to that at all?”

“No.” You shake your head and regret it when the room spins. “I remember us splitting up and then everything’s a little hazy…” Patchy recollections of conversations circle through your mind. “I think… I remember saying some… things. Weird things.”

“If you count telling me that your husband is ten times hotter than me, then yes.”

“What?” You have to laugh at that one.

“Oh, yeah. Then you tried to get them to change your codename, before finally trying to make debriefing have an entirely different context.” He smirks as your face loses colour in embarrassment. “Didn’t think you had it in you, sweetpea.”

“I… I didn’t.”

“Oh, you did." He licks his lips then, maintaining eye contact. "I've been looking up some of the side effects of the sedative – apparently it can disinhibit you something rotten. Got me wondering though - you keeping some secret desires from me?”

“N-no.” You’re a terrible liar - a poker face in front of enemies, but you always crumble within a second in front of Leon.

He gets to his feet then, circles the bed to clamber in the opposite side of the IV drip and pulls you into his chest, pressing a kiss to your temple.

“Cos, as I told you at the time, I’d be very happy to revisit some of your ideas when you’re feeling better…" He moves his lips down, whispering in your ear. "..Mrs Kennedy.”

Comments, likes and reblogs make my whole day x 400 Followers Event.

Masterlist . Requests welcome . Ko-fi

#ghostdogwrites #leon kennedy x reader #leon kennedy x you #leon s kennedy x reader #leon s kennedy x you

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mediumgayitalian · 3 months

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“Will. Hey.” He reaches out when the medic doesn’t react, forcibly stilling his hands. Even then, he can feel the minute twitches, the fighting he’s doing with himself to keep still. “It can wait until tomorrow.”

“They leave tomorrow,” Will stresses, finally pulling his hands free. “The Romans are early risers, Nico, you know better than anyone, I need this done before they —”

He cuts himself off, too invested in the sprawl of paperwork completely covering the nurse’s station. Under his eyes is almost completely bruised black, not unlike the war paint he wore so long ago, and there’s a grey dullness to him. If he stays in one place too long, he sways on his feet.

“I’m fine,” he says, suddenly, as if remembering Nico is there. He pauses briefly to shoot him a small, strained smile, then returns to his frantic sorting. A red thumbprint bleeds onto the corner of the page of one of the files. He doesn’t seem to notice.

Without straying too far, Nico gathers the supplies he needs. He pulls out a tray to grab some antiseptic, swipes a Pac-Man bandaid off a box on the counter. Arms laden with his spoils, he nudges the half-door open with his hip, setting the supplies down when he’s inside the round desk-station.

“Will,” he says quietly, wrapping his hand around his elbow. He jumps.

“I’m — fine.”

“You’re bleeding.”

He blinks, staring down at his hands; brows furrowing as he notices the several scattered paper cuts crossing almost every finger. Many of them are clotted, scabbed over; dried blood streaking between his freckles and swirling around stark white scars.

“Come here.”

Without protest, for once, he does. He sets down the pen clenched in his left thumb and turns to face Nico fully. In the minimal space between them, his hands shake.

“I didn’t notice,” he murmurs, flinching as Nico soaks a cotton pad and presses it to a cut on the inside of his thumb. Nico can’t quite read the expression on his face, although there’s a choked quality to his voice. “I need to — before they —”

“Not everything is your responsibility,” Nico interrupts. He meets Will’s gaze head on, his own gaze steady, heart breaking at the fragility in his ice blue eyes. “Not everything is your responsibility, Will,” he repeats, firmer this time.

Will’s face crumples. “I haven’t slept in five days.”

Nico closes his eyes. “Gods, Will.”

“I’m sorry.”

In moments like these, Nico hates working for his father.

He had left to relative chaos. Relative, meaning in comparison to what the rest of the eight billion people on the planet would consider calm, camp wasn’t it, but by demigod standards it wasn’t too bad. Several Romans, including Reyna and Hazel, were due to arrive the day after he was summoned by his father, which was a bummer, but he had assurance from both of them that they’d stay long enough to see him. And reassurance from his father that the errand wouldn’t be too perilous. And, lastly, a threat (warning out of love, he would say, but Nico knows a threat when he sees one) from Will to take it easy.

He got back to debris and blood and a flurry of stress — a weapons development disaster, he’d been quickly informed. No deaths, at least not yet, but several in critical condition that were quickly approaching it.

And Kayla and Austin, back at school, and Will in the infirmary by himself.

“Will,” he repeats for the third time, a little more urgently this time. He places a gently finger under his chin. “Look at me a second.”

He regrets asking, almost, when Will meets his eyes, although he immediately feels guilty for the thought. The son of Apollo is so rarely vulnerable, stubbornly intent on carrying the burdens he’s stuck with without half a hand of help. It wears on him, and the proof of the weariness hurts Nico somewhere, deep in his soul; he hates bearing witness to it.

Worse, though, is the knowledge that Will is struggling with it himself.

“Everybody critical has been stabilized,” he says firmly. When Will opens his mouth in protest, he adds, “I can feel it, Sunshine, do you trust me?”

“Yes,” he says, immediately. He snaps his jaw shut. “Yes.”

Nico’s own shoulders slump when Will exhales, long and exhausted. “Good. This —” he gestures to the paperwork — “this is secondary, Solace. I don’t care if they want to leave tomorrow. You need rest, and, hell, if they’re that pressed about it, I’ll make them do the fucking paperwork.”

“Please, don’t,” Will says, laughing feebly. He swiped quickly under his eyes, pulling away, and Nico lets him, if only because his small smile seems genuine, if not exhausted. “The idea of that actually makes me want to puke. I hate paperwork, but I hate anyone else doing it more.”

“Right, right.” Nico nudges his shoulder, something like teasing showing in his eyes. “Heaven forbid someone dot their i’s incorrectly.”

“Exactly.” Will looks so serious that Nico stills, trying to figure out just how anal, exactly, his friend is, before his face breaks out into a wide, genuine grin. Nico’s stomach flips. “I’m only teasing, Death Breath. I don’t actually care if people dot their i’s incorrectly. And I would appreciate the help.”

“I feel like it hurt you to say that,” Nico says, once he recovers from the staggering force of one million megawatts of smile power.

“It did.”

“Also, you implied that there genuinely is a wrong way to dot your i’s.”

“…Of course there is.” Will looks at him strangely. “Maybe I’m not the one who’s sleep deprived,” he muses, reminding Nico that oh yeah, dumbass, Will is actually genuinely sick with how little sleep he’s gotten, maybe fix that.

“Will you sleep, now?”

Will hesitates. “There was a girl with a — skull injury.”

Nico understands immediately. (He saw the mangled mess of Lee’s shroud.)

“Come sleep in my cabin,” he suggests, squeezing his wrist. “I’ll keep watch, and you’ll have some privacy.”

“Okay,” he says quietly. He allows himself to be tugged out of the infirmary, only looking back a couple times. “Thank you, Nico.”

“Anything for you,” Nico responds, just as quiet, and his heart races when Will beams.

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juuuulez · 5 months

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📰 | part eleven: capulet.

info: Carl Grimes x Saviour! Reader, slowburn, teenagers in love, blood and gore, descriptive injuries, not reeaallllyyy angst not really violence either, cute Judith.

summary: After being taken back to Hilltop for recovery, Carl plans something to help lift your spirits.

okay sorry for making you all wait with that cliffhanger!!!! next chapter is going to be soooooo pure and soft i’m promising you right now, i’m very excited to write it!

in other words…..i fear capulet may be coming to a close! we all know how the show went (😬) and though i don’t plan on killing off Carl, i’m curious as to where to take this….if anyone has something they wanna see, let me know!

-> masterlist <-

Everything moved so quickly, Carl struggled to make out what had just happened. You were there one second, gone the next, body limp on the concrete. The mere idea of something fatal made his stomach churn, heart clenching in his chest with pure panic.

He was panting, overwhelmed and stressed, now by more than just the raid. It didn’t take long to rush over, finding that truck you’d been hiding behind, his knees colliding roughly with the concrete as he came to kneel and assess the situation.

The gunfire faded away, as all Carl could hear was his heartbeat in his ears. His hands were trembling as he finally tried to touch you, rolling your body over onto your back, taking note of your unconscious state.

Red stained the side of your head, goopy blood soaked into your hair, pooling on the ground. He wiped some splatter from your cheek, terrified with the notion of baring a disfiguring injury. As his hand smoothed down your head, he felt a shallow groove along the side of your skull, gory and disgusting.

But it appeared the bullet skimmed past, wedging itself into the ground or a building or whatever, it didn’t even matter. Carl let out a hesitant sigh of relief with this realisation, pressing his hand firmly to the side of your skull, trying to stop the bleeding. He cringed at the bumpy expanse of where your ear had been completely taken off.

“Dad!” Carl yelled out, uncaring of giving away his position, just needing some sort of assistance. Each second they spent on the floor, panic welled up inside, growing distraught at the idea of doing nothing.

When no response came, Carl was about to yell again, somehow even louder. Fortunately, he turned to find Michonne approaching, having been alerted by his urgency.

“She needs help,” He tells her, though it’s blatantly obvious, with the dark red blood pooling on the floor. “We have-.. we have to do something, we can do something.”

Michonne comes to kneel besides Carl, though she’s looking out at the carnage, gun poised at the ready, the one she’d recently learnt how to shoot. She shakes her head, glancing down at your body, before continuing to keep watch.

“We can’t,” She says with emphasis, though her heart pangs at the distraught look on Carl’s face, eyes practically pleading with her. “He wouldn’t do this for you. For anyone.”

“This isn’t about him!” Carl yells, uncaring of his volume. His arms are already under your shoulders, trying to lift your limp form. Blood coats the side of your head and neck, pooling on your collarbone, getting all over Carl’s flannel as he tries to balance you.

He’s sick of it being about Negan. He’s sick of this war, of his family being threatened, of the people he cares about dying. It ends here.

Somehow, Michonne gives in, knowing she’d never be able to pry Carl away from your body. “Okay, okay,” She sighs, “Get her into the truck, and stay there. Someone will clot the bleeding. I’ll get your father.”

Carl doesn’t even ask questions, doesn’t wait to continue the conversation, already halfway standing before Michonne has finished speaking. He hauls your body up, awkwardly fumbling for a moment before he finds a more secure position, where he can bring you along to (supposed) safety.

Everyone knew of your reputation, and were reluctant to help. The doctor at Hilltop had tried to refuse, claiming to be uncomfortable with the suggestion, and Carl was amidst arguing when Rick returned.

Though sceptical, Rick decided that saving you would make great leverage. That your wounds were to be patched up, yet you’d remain at Hilltop, as hostage, until he could broker a deal with Negan over radio. If your health was at risk, then he wouldn’t come in guns blazing.

That, and Rick made it very clear that if anything went wrong, your ass was out with the walkers. Carl was sceptical, he didn’t think his father could be so cold, but considering all you’d done… maybe it wasn’t so far-fetched.

Turns out, the bullet had scraped past your head, leaving a nasty gash along your skull. It was easily stitched up, but would definitely leave a scar. The worst part: your entire left ear was gone. Shot clean off. It appeared that your eardrum had burst along with it, resulting in what would likely be long-term hearing loss from that side.

Your waking was slow, groggy and half-coherent the first few hours, though they granted you the reprieve of some heavy-duty pain medicine to ease the splitting headache. It was Rick who explained everything to you, and if you were capable of it, you would have attacked him. He knew that, too. Hence why you were handcuffed to the bed.

Mostly, you were angry at being captured. At being played, like a pawn in their stupid feud. At Carl avoiding you. The second you’d regained consciousness, he’d split, avoiding your little room at all costs. Yet, you knew he was here. He’d left his flannel behind, draped over your chest, which you were somewhat grateful for, given the flimsy tank you wore, braless and leaving little to the imagination.

Days passed. At least, you thought so, you weren’t allowed outside. To go to the bathroom, you had to ask through radio, and someone would come to un-cuff and supervise you. The whole situation was humiliating.

What was taking Negan so long? You missed him. Clearly, they were demanding something unreasonable, something that Negan couldn’t agree with. But surely you were worth it. You hoped so, anyway, after everything that had happened.

Eventually, after days of driving yourself crazy, the door opened. It was a small room, the interior of a stationary caravan, you thought. Nowhere to hide, that meant. Usually, when someone visited, it was in an attempted interrogation, or to watch closely while you ate the bare-bones meal they’d provide. You grit your teeth, that rude, uncaring attitude bubbling up again. Truthfully, you’re reaching breaking point here.

That doesn’t change when Carl finally enters.

He stands awkwardly at the doorway for a moment, something clasped tightly in his fist. Despite you wearing his flannel, he has another one on, a darker grey. How many of these does he have?

You don’t speak as he approaches, maybe wanting to give him the silent treatment. But neither does he. Slowly, Carl comes to stand beside your bed, unfurling his fist to offer something to you.

A small ringlet with a set of metal keys.

Immediately you reach out, trying to secure the bounty, but Carl pulls his hand away, keeping the keys out of reach.

In response to your venomous glare, he speaks slowly, words firm and stern. “No running off.” He tells you.

When you give no response, Carl takes it as understanding, moving cautiously as he slots the small key into the metal frame of your cuffs, releasing your wrist and letting them dangle from the bed frame.

The second Carl pulls away, you lunge at him. He reacts swiftly, hands grasping at your wrists, pushing you back against the bed. “Asshole!” You yell, squirming in his hold, desperate to be freed and far from here.

“Stop moving.” He commands, surprisingly strong, and just his tone is enough to force you into momentary submission, stilling against his hold.

You glare up at him, all those dirty emotions bubbling up since your capture. “This is your fault, isn’t it? Getting me kidnapped?” You brazenly accuse.

“You weren’t kidnapped,” Carl retorts, “I just didn’t want you bleeding out on the concrete—”

“Fuck you!” You cut him off, shamelessly yelling in his face. It seemed childish, like you were ungrateful of being saved, but for some stupid reason.. Carl liked that. He liked how aggressive you were. It felt good to be challenged.

“Do you want to get out of here, or not?” He finally asks, giving the slightest inkling of what he’s here for. Just the suggestion causes your mind to tick, and Carl knows he’s won by the look on your face.

He lets go of your wrists, and luckily, you don’t immediately try to escape. It’s clear he’s won you over, so Carl unclips the handcuffs, reattaching them to his belt for future use. Your eyes linger on them for a moment, wondering if he’d really cuff you, unsure whether that made you angry or excited.

“C’mon, up.” Carl commands, offering a hand to you. A moment of suspicion passes, before you just take it, letting Carl help you from the bed.

The first thing he notices is your sense of balance, which has been certainly fucked. You lean a little to the left side, prompting Carl to bracket your shoulders, trying to keep you upright. “There we go.” He mumbles when you find your footing, causing you to glare up at him.

The hostile reaction makes Carl grin, clearly amused, which does nothing to curb your attitude.

Somehow, there isn’t anybody guarding your door. It was locked, but Carl had the keys, so he quietly ushered you from the room. Avoiding the main gates, and consequently, any onlookers, Carl took you out towards Hilltop’s back, where a small opening in one of the walls let the pair of you sneak out.

A rusty car was parked against the wall, causing your brows to furrow in confusion, stopping on the path. You were suddenly hit with this wave of guilt. It must have been obvious, as Carl turned around, already opening the car door.

“Just a bit farther, I promise.” Carl tried to urge you along, satisfied when you gave in and got inside. You twisted in the passenger seat, alerted by the sudden cooing from behind you. Buckled into the back was Judith, who reached her chubby hand in your direction.

“Sorry,” He begun to apologise, “I couldn’t get out of babysitting. She won’t bother us.”

You smiled, resting sideways in the seat with your knees up, reaching out to meet her hand. She eagerly took it, squeezing the appendage with chubby fingers. “It’s okay.” You assured Carl.

The car vibrated as it started, the engine making a disturbing noise, but it ran nonetheless. Seemingly having a destination in mind, Carl drove down the dirt path, taking you away from Hilltop. It wasn’t necessarily a long drive, but you didn’t speak, aside from a few hushed mumbled as you entertained Judith’s blabbering.

Eventually he stopped near the treeline, thick shrubbery decorating the edge of the road. The car pulled over, and when Carl got out, he made an effort to haul a large branch in front of it, hoping the slight cover would deter any stragglers from picking it up. Clearly, he’d thought this out.

“Coming?” He asked when you remained still, already having picked Judith up from her seat, and was descending down a small slope past the bushes.

You felt inclined to follow, curious as to what this entire trip was about. As you stepped through the shrubs, you were reminded of your skewed balance, not quite steady. Fortunately, you made it down the hill without any casualties.

Carl walked a few meters ahead, placing Judith down, and revealing his plan. The sight made you shake your head, brows pinching in this weird mix of irritation and appreciation.

“You suck.” You grit out, giving Carl that same unamused expression, which only makes him smile harder.

He leaves Judith on a soft plaid picnic blanket, already decorated with crayons and paper, to which she eagerly grabbed at. There was a bag, too, and you wondered what was inside, though the mere thought that Carl had set this up made your heart clench, not sure how to interpret the gesture.

“Just sit down. Enjoy it while it lasts,” Carl advised you, taking your hand to tug you along towards the blanket, “We’ll be fighting again before you know it.”

Against your better judgement, you obeyed, a soft smile on your face.

Maybe you could do with a break.

#carl grimes x reader #the walking dead x reader #twd x reader #carl grimes #twd x you #carl grimes x you #the walking dead

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 10 months

Text

Comet Donati [Chapter 6: No Control]

Series Summary: Sex, drugs, boy bands. You are a kinda-therapist recruited (via nepotism) to help Comet Donati through a recent crisis. Things are casual with Aegon, very not-casual with Aemond. Loosely inspired by One Direction.

Chapter Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+), drugs, alcohol, smoking, mental health struggles, all-you-can-eat sushi, bodily injury, violence, hungry deer, Selena Gomez, angst!!!

Selected Chapter Quote: “He can’t see on that side, you fucking snake!”

Word count: 9k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

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Your last day waking up in Singapore: lying in bed and watching the shadows of birds shoot across the ceiling like falling stars. Your wrist aches in its splint. The door to the balcony is wide open. The wind blows in hot and damp off the South China Sea. You hear him before you see him: the swipe of a keycard, the swinging of the door, the clop clop clop of undoubtedly neon Crocs against the hardwood floor.

You look over at him, not moving from the bed. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Then Aegon notices something in the tiny trashcan beside your nightstand that’s cluttered with souvenirs. Nestled between empty soda cans and Starburst wrappers is a mostly full pack of birth control pills. He stares at it for a while before he says, tentatively: “Trying for a little bundle of joy? With anyone I know?”

“Definitely not.” You sigh, turning back to the ceiling, morose. “Baela and I did 23AndMe like a month ago, and we just got our results back. She’s distantly related to royalty. I have a defective gene that makes me extra susceptible to blood clots. So if I take hormonal birth control I could have a stroke or something.”

“Damn, that sucks,” Aegon says.

“Yeah.”

“But it’s good you found out, you know? I wouldn’t want you dropping over dead.”

“Yeah,” you say again, flatly, ungenerously.

“Hey, no big deal, Stargirl. You know I’d use condoms anyway.”

“Well I might at some point in my life want to have sex with someone who’s not you, so.”

Aegon steps closer; he appears upside down as he studies you from above, sunburned forehead knit into thoughtful grooves, smelling like Tiger Beer and Axe body spray and…you think…chicken wings. His hair is in disarray, his aviator sunglasses tangled in blond knots. He’s wearing a lavender tank top, like dusk, like a bruise. “Ohhhh, I get it. This is an Aemond and Shelby thing.”

You hate that you’re so transparent, like a window wiped clean of fog and fingerprints. You hate that he’s right. “Why are they even together? What the hell do they have in common?”

“Now or before?”

“Both, I guess.”

“Well, before…” Aegon scratches at his cheek. There is a bug bite there, a tiny pink welt left by the venom of a mosquito or a spider. “It was a mutually beneficial arrangement. Aemond got the satisfaction of boning the kind of girl who would have screamed if he touched her back in high school. Shelby got a massive career boost. She had 900,000 Instagram followers when they met. Now she has over 20 million.”

That recurring, futile refrain: I hate her, I hate her, I hate her.

“And I won’t lie. They had some good times.” Aegon grins down at you. “Just like we did.”

“What about now?”

“Now…” Aegon ponders this. “Now I think they’re both lost. Neither of them knows what comes next. Aemond leaving Comet. Shelby hitting that age when people like her start checking off the husband and kids boxes. When you’re thrown off a ship, you cling to the life raft, even if it’s small or ripped up or half-deflated or whatever, right? You try to hold on to what you have left. You return to what’s familiar. And that doesn’t make it right, but it’s what people do.”

“It is,” you agree mournfully. “So Aemond was the one who broke it off.”

“Yeah.”

“And then he took her back.” She called and called and called, he finally answered.

“He had a moment of weakness. Now we all have to live with it.”

“I didn’t know that.” Then you sit up on the bed and look at Aegon. “When the label wanted to get rid of Aemond, why didn’t you fight for him?”

“That’s just the way of the world, Stargirl.” He shrugs, an inevitability, good weather, bad weather, sun and clouds and storms. “He couldn’t stay in the band the way he is now. And the problem isn’t what he looks like. The problem is in his soul. But I have no idea how to fix it.” Aegon smiles, warm like summer. “I thought maybe you would. That’s why I called you.”

“You didn’t even know me,” you tell him. “I was just some girl from a bar.”

“No,” Aegon says softly, and he does not elaborate. And then, bright and cheerful again: “You’re really going to earn your paycheck at our next stop.”

“Where are we going?” You recall the names you’ve heard bouncing around since Comet arrived in East Asia, the cities you’ve seen on banners and t-shirts and Instagram posts. “Bangkok? Kuala Lumpur? Manila? Jakarta? Seoul?”

“Tokyo.” Aegon is still smiling, though in an off-kilter way now, uneasily, his murky ocean-blue eyes somber. The scene of the crime. Where the accident happened. Where Aemond believes his life ended. “We’re performing at the Budokan.”

~~~~~~~~~~

White clouds turn to sapphire waves, then emerald green fields and forests, then buildings in a million different shades of grey that stretch on forever, steel and concrete and asphalt and glass. Tokyo is the largest city you’ve ever seen, the largest city imaginable. It is a labyrinth that makes you think of the hay mazes that farms back home set up each autumn; it beckons you in and then dares you to leave.

As the band hurries through Haneda Airport, you are pursued by paparazzi and hyperventilating fans. The usual suspects—Aegon, Daeron, and Jace—can be relied upon to high five, smile, flash peace signs and hand hearts, blow kisses, pass out crochet astronomical objects, and shout such endearments as (woefully mispronounced) “Konnichiwa!” and “We love you, Japan!” Shelby waves like she’s goddamn Princess Diana. Aemond bows his head, his eyes enigmatic behind his sunglasses, his steps swift. Luke holds Rhaena’s hand; Baela walks with them. You hide behind Cregan. He casts quite a large shadow.

“I look real rock and roll now,” you joke, gesturing with your splinted arm.

Cregan replies in his rumbly subterranean voice: “I think I have you beat.” He pulls up one of his sleeves—floral print, silk, Valentino—and shows you the underside of his right forearm. Bisecting the flesh from his wrist to the crook of his elbow is a long, faint, moon-white scar that you’ve never noticed before, never even heard anyone mention.

“Oh, ouch! You broke it?”

“Compound fracture.” He covers his forearm again with his sleeve.

“When? How?”

Cregan hesitates. Suddenly, he no longer wants to be having this conversation. “Years ago.”

Just outside the airport waits that trusty fleet of black, tinted-window Escalades; but Aemond has requested that his 1960 Gold Star be there too. He takes his keys, helmet, and jacket from one of Comet’s hulking security guards. Shelby’s detail is notably more subdued since that night in Singapore; the man who dislocated your wrist has been exiled from the tour. Aemond climbs onto his motorcycle and starts the engine. The sound takes you back to Rome: when your hopes and spirits were high, when you and Aemond were still living on the light side of the moon.

“You in the mood for a ride, Shelby?” Aegon asks, smirking unkindly, taunting, chomping loudly on cotton candy flavored Bubble Yum. “Don’t forget your helmet. We’d all be lost without you.”

Shelby combs out her beachy blond waves with her artful fingers, tan, reedy, nails turquoise and adorned with golden koi fish. “You’re psychotic if you think I’m getting on that bike.”

“Jesus,” Jace mutters. He is as shocked as anyone by his abrupt demotion to only the second most villainous person in Comet’s retinue.

Aemond doesn’t react, doesn’t say anything to Shelby, doesn’t even look at her. But he does glance over at you. And the words rise in your throat like a burning sun at dawn: I’ll go, I’d love to go, I trust you, I want you. But before you can say anything, Aemond has knocked the kickstand out of the way and is weaving through thick afternoon traffic towards the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. And as the Escalades roll and the band chats around you—indistinctly, abstractedly—you keep staring out the window and searching for glimpses of Aemond like the rare flash of a meteor in a city sky; but you can’t find him.

Criston knows he’s brought Comet to dangerous ground, peppered with quagmires and landmines. So he has planned a ruthlessly hectic itinerary. As soon as you’ve received your room key and unpacked, it’s time for dinner at an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant down the street. Criston herds the band there like the rugged Australian cattle dogs that your parents have back in Kansas City nip at the heels of snorting, intractable Black Angus bulls. You sit between Baela and Aegon, who is wearing his neon green tank top, matching Crocs (per usual), and khaki cargo shorts. He’s also gulping sake bombs until they dribble down his sunburned face. Countless varieties of sushi and side dishes rotate by on a conveyer belt, colorful little plates waiting to be snatched up: salmon, tuna, eel, octopus, shrimp, miniature omelets, fried tofu, Wagyu beef, squid, yellowtail, veggie rolls, chicken and pork dumplings, seaweed salad.

“You okay over there?” Aegon asks, grinning as he watches you stab at your eel sushi, topped with some kind of mayo-like sauce and delicious but tragically challenging to eat.

“I didn’t know how to use chopsticks before my dominant hand was put out of commission.” You glare down the row at Shelby. She glowers back. Since that night in Singapore, you circle each other like snarling undomesticated animals, wolves or coyotes. Now you’re on her radar. Now she knows there is something—that mysterious, ever-shifting, worrying something—between you and Aemond. She just doesn’t know what it is. Neither do you, neither does he, neither does anyone.

“Want me to feed you?” Aegon slurs flirtatiously. He plucks up a piece of your eel sushi with his chopsticks and promptly drops it in your lap. “Oh. Fuck.”

Baela presses the button on the counter to summon the server. “I’ll get you a fork.”

“You are a saint,” you tell her. “Patron saint of initiative. Or drive, whichever you prefer the sound of.” Aegon is mayhem, Aemond is lost causes. What am I?

��And you are an uncultured hick from Kansas.”

You smile at her. “Missouri.”

Your fork soon arrives. A few seats down the row, you hear Shelby ask innocently, like it doesn’t mean anything: “How old is Louis Tomlinson’s son now?”

Aemond shrugs. He’s watching the conveyor belt for vegan options; he keeps missing them when they pass by. “I don’t know, five?”

“No, Freddie?!” Luke says. “He’s gotta be like seven now. We saw him last summer at Niall’s pool party.”

“He was so cute,” Shelby says. She’s sitting on Aemond’s good side, as always. She rubs his back and you fight the urge to break her fingers one by one, snapping them in half like dry autumn twigs, lifeless and hollow. “Wasn’t he cute, honeybunch?”

“Sure,” Aemond replies distractedly. And of course Shelby is the type of person who believes that becoming a father will heal a man, rather than just dooming his children to be collateral damage.

Aegon peeks over the conveyer belt at the chefs who are preparing plates in the middle. He lurches and wobbles. Criston covers his own face with his hands, mortified. “Hey, hey, can I get a Crab Rangoon please?”

A chef says something in Japanese, soft and polite but clearly imploring him to sit back down.

Aegon repeats slowly: “Crab! Rangooooooon!”

“Hey dumbass,” Jace says. “That’s Chinese. We’re in Japan.”

“Oh. Right.” Aegon sighs, retreats, and orders himself another sake bomb.

You grab a plate of veggie rolls and another of fried tofu sushi off the conveyer belt and pass them down the row to Aemond. Shelby sends you the most venomous of glares, but Aemond mouths when she’s not paying attention: Thank you.

~~~~~~~~~~

Two shows in Tokyo, two performances on the stage where Aemond was mutilated. Of course, you don’t see mutilation when you look at him. You never have. You see the way the light hits the angles of his jaw and nose and cheekbones and think of marble faces in museums, generals, kings, saints, angels. You see the crystalline blue of his right eye and think of rivers, cool and rushing and clean. You see the ethereal haze of his left eye and think of other planets. You don’t know why everyone else reads his scar and blindness as a tale of unspeakable ruin. You can’t imagine seeing Aemond that way. It would be easier, less painful, simpler for you if you could. Maybe you could stop wanting him. Maybe you could stop dreaming about him, wisps of longing and memory that escape you as soon as you wake.

Aemond does not attend Comet’s concerts at the Budokan. They’re the only ones you’ve ever known him to miss. He rides out on his Gold Star instead, and then reappears to join the band for their post-show ritual in Jace’s suite, grim and quiet and scribbling in his black-paged notebook, smoking his cigarettes, sipping his Brambles. You cannot blame Aemond. You weren’t here last December when a piece of rigging collapsed during soundcheck and nearly killed him, and yet you can’t stop thinking about it; you can’t stop yourself from glancing up at the rafters during shows, wondering exactly how it happened, picturing Aemond bloody and unconscious on the stage, half-blinded and robbed without knowing it yet.

Tomorrow night is Comet Donati’s final performance in Tokyo, but today Criston has a day trip planned. He has filled every spare second of this tour stop with distractions. The band travels by bullet train (or shinkansen) and then local railways to Nara, the city that served as Japan’s capital in the 700s. Criston hires a tour guide—an 80-year old man called Toru-san, who possesses an incalculable amount of knowledge and also a very, very thick accent—to lead you all around Nara Park to see Isuien Garden, the Kasuga Taisha Shrine, the Nara National Museum, and finally the Great Buddha. Nara Park is full of food and souvenir vendors, as well as 1,200 sika deer that you can pet and feed, albeit at risk of being trampled by overenthusiastic herbivores. There are signs posted with warnings to exercise caution, complete with cartoon illustrations of deer gone rogue.

It’s 95 degrees outside with 80% humidity. You are drenched with sweat and guzzling boba tea. The handle of your bag from a gift shop is slung over your splint. Toru-san, despite his long pants and cardigan sweater, is looking spry as ever and is deep in conversation with Luke and Rhaena; he is regaling them with a bottomless well of Nara trivia. Cregan and Daeron are still browsing through gift shops, mostly for the opportunity to escape the heat and hover, sighing with relief, in front of every electric fan they come across. Aegon, lobster-level red—you aren’t sure if he’s more sunburned or flushed—is snoring under a tree as deer nibble at his cyan tank top and white cargo shorts. Aemond purchased probably $200 worth of deer crackers and has attracted a sizeable crowd of furry new friends. He’s like he always is around animals: beaming, immersed, at peace. Shelby is capturing pictures and video clips of him from a distance.

Nearby where you stand under the shade of a black pine tree, Baela is dressed in a crop top and yoga pants and stretching in the middle of a patch of grass. She keeps having to stop to shove deer away from her as they tiptoe close, searching for snacks. Jace is using Google Translate to flirt with a crowd of Japanese fangirls who have recognized him. They are giggling so loudly you can hear them from across a field. Baela is trying to ignore this. She falls out of a pose and sighs irritably, then walks over to you. Together, you watch Jace for a while, you slurping on your boba tea, Baela frowning with her hands on her willowy waist.

At last, she says: “Sometimes we love people who we know don’t deserve it. But that doesn’t make us love them any less. We just hate ourselves for not being stronger.”

“I think you’re incredibly strong, Baela.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. Strong enough to leave him. Strong enough to begin living your own life again.”

Her expression is suddenly uncharacteristically vulnerable, fearful. “I don’t know if I can do it. I’ve never been an adult without him.”

“You’d figure it out. And you wouldn’t be alone. You’d have Rhaena, and Luke, and ballet, and all your friends and family—”

“And you too, right?” she asks. “You’ll still be my friend? Even after you go back home?”

You are stunned into a silence that Baela first mistakes for rejection. Her face falls. “No no no, I’m not hesitating, you just caught me by surprise. Of course I’ll still be your friend after the tour is over. I’ll be your friend forever.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“And you’ll visit me in prison if I snap one day and throw Jace into a meatgrinder?”

You laugh and hug her, your sweat dampening each other’s clothes: her orange crop top, your Backstreet Boys t-shirt. “Absolutely. For sure.”

“Okay. I gotta go practice some more.” She spends long hours down in the hotel gym while everyone else is sleeping or partying or preparing for shows, running and stretching and yoga and repeating the same dance routines over and over again. You applaud and whistle as she leaves. “Stop,” Baela complains, but she’s grinning.

You procure another boba tea. You find a nice shady spot on a bench. You check your phone; there’s maybe fifteen more minutes until the band is scheduled to leave for the train station to begin the journey back to Tokyo. Naturally, Criston has dinner already planned: kaiseki ryori, a traditional multi-course meal. You wonder if there will be vegan options for Aemond. Your eyes drift back to him. They always seem to. He’s dragging his palm down the face of a ten-point buck as he feeds him a crumbling brown cracker. There’s a fawn curled up in Aemond’s lap. His blond hair is slicked back off his forehead, his black shirt mostly unbuttoned. Sweat gleams on his chest. Your fingertips ache to draw sloping lines and lazy circles in it.

“I never worried about him,” Criston says. He’s appeared beside you, arms crossed guardedly. You move over so there’s room for Criston on the bench. He sits, distant and troubled. “I always worried about the others. Aegon and Jace especially. But not Aemond.”

“Because he never needed you,” you say quietly.

“He didn’t,” Criston agrees. “And so I wasn’t there to protect him that day.”

The day of the accident. “From what I understand, it wasn’t something you could have prevented.”

“No, I couldn’t have stopped that piece of rigging from falling. But I could have made it so he wasn’t standing under it.”

You wait for Criston to explain. That’s an element that people often underestimate: the power of waiting for someone to be ready.

“It was soundcheck,” Criston says. His voice is strained, hushed. He repeatedly touches the stubble of his beard, a nervous habit. “Aemond was on time, as always. Aemond was exactly where he was supposed to be. But no one else was. Aegon and Jace had gone off to a strip club or a burlesque show or something, I don’t remember. They came back to the hotel and were absolutely hammered, they were crawling around on the hallway floor and puking in corners, laughing hysterically, completely out of their minds. Cregan and Luke were there trying to get them cleaned up. I was on the phone with Cregan, he was pissed, probably the most angry I’ve ever heard him, he kept pausing to yell at Aegon. He’d dragged him into a cold shower, but Aegon was fighting, trying to bite and kick him and whatever the hell else. So eventually I decided to go to the hotel and deal with it. Aemond offered to go with me. I told him no, you stay here, I’ll bring the other four even if I have to get the security guys to toss Aegon and Jace over their shoulders and carry them. Then I left.”

“And that’s when it happened,” you realize. “While you were gone.”

“Yes,” Criston says. And he gazes across Nara Park, here in body but his mind trapped in the maze of the past.

“You had no way of knowing what would happen, Criston. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I should have told him to come with me back to the hotel. Or I should have stopped Aegon and Jace from getting wasted. If they’d been on time, if soundcheck had happened as scheduled, no one would have been standing where that piece of rigging fell. Aemond would still be the leader of Comet. He would still have his face, his sight, his life.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” you say again.

“Alicent blames me,” he confesses. And you only know who she is because you’ve asked Aegon: the wife of Viserys Targaryen, the mother of his three sons. “She’ll never forgive me.”

Is that really why she avoids you, Criston? Or is there another reason? “If that’s true, it’s only because she’s feeling a lot of horrible things—grief, pain, regret, guilt—and she’s directing them at you. You haven’t earned them. You’re just the person standing in the line of fire. They’re a reflection of Alicent’s inner turmoil, not of your own worth. I think you’ve done a phenomenal job trying to keep this band safe and happy. And I know it’s not easy. I know it’s damn near impossible.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” he says, looking at you with large, dark, truthful eyes like a dog’s.

And you imagine a world in which you’d never seen Aegon after that night in Kansas City, never met Aemond, Baela, Rhaena, Luke, Cregan, Daeron, Criston. “I’m glad I’m here too.”

Criston reaches over and—for a moment, so briefly you could have imagined it—rests his hand on your shoulder like he sometimes does to Aemond and Luke. Then he leaves to collect Cregan and Daeron from a shaved ice vendor. Shelby has strolled over to consult with Toru-san, presumably so she can add his trivia to her Instagram posts and TikTok videos. You go to Aemond.

“I have a confession to make,” he says solemnly as you approach.

The oxygen vanishes from your lungs; you try to hide this. “What is it?”

Aemond smiles up at you. “When the tour guide was leading us here, I thought he kept saying that the park was full of bears. And I didn’t want to kill the mood or anything, but I was definitely concerned about going on a field trip to feed over 1,000 uncaged bears. I am very, very relieved that he was in fact saying deer.”

You chuckle and sit next to Aemond on the grass, petting the fawn in his lap. It blinks sleepily at you, its fur soft and spotted, its ears pricked up and curious.

“What’s your souvenir for this stop of the tour?” Aemond asks.

You pull it out of your bag to show him: a small stuffed sika deer complete with floppy felt antlers. “Isn’t it adorable?”

“It is,” he says. “Are you going to have room for all these keepsakes in your apartment back home?”

“Already fantasizing about me leaving, huh?”

“No,” Aemond says, seriously now. Deadly serious. “No, I’m not.” And then Criston is shouting through cupped hands for everybody to huddle up so you can all head to the train station.

It’s not until the band is trekking out of Nara Park towards the blissful promise of air conditioning that you realize someone is missing. When you look around, you see Criston, Aemond, Shelby, Aegon (rubbing his eyes and yawning), Baela, Jace, Rhaena, Luke, Cregan, and a smattering of security guards dressed in black.

“Wait,” you say. “Where’s Daeron?”

A chorus of confusion: “What?” Huh?” “He’s not here?” At last, Criston spies him sitting alone on a wooden park bench, glumly eating through his mountain of shaved ice.

“What the hell is he doing?!” Jace says impatiently, swiping perspiration from his forehead.

Aegon massages your shoulders. “I think this might call for your particular area of expertise, Stargirl.” And when Aemond’s eye flicks to Aegon fleetingly, resentfully, you think for the first time: And where were you, Aegon, when Aemond was waiting all those months ago? Whoring, drinking, self-destructing in ways that take other people down with you? Then you leave him.

Through the heat that lays thick over the city like a tangle of vines, you trudge to the bench where the youngest Targaryen brother is lingering. “Daeron? What’s wrong?”

He stares gloomily down into his shaved ice: blood-colored, strawberry, ichigo. “Everyone thinks I’m always joking and optimistic, but I’m not.”

You ask gently: “What are you really, Daeron?”

“I don’t know what to be. That’s the problem. I worry about it all the time. I can’t win. If I’m sad, then I’m ungrateful for this tremendous opportunity. But if I’m happy, it’s like I’m dancing on Aemond’s grave.”

“He’s not dead, Daeron,” you say.

“Well, yeah, obviously.”

“But a lot of the time people talk about him like he is. You speak around him, over him, through him. Do you think he doesn’t notice?” Do you think he can’t feel the weight of that dark gravity that roots him to the earth? Do you think he can disentangle who he is from the wreckage that has buried its shrapnel in his bones?

Daeron isn’t insulted by what you’ve said. Instead, he seems fascinated. He seems grateful, like you’ve sat down to help him with an especially baffling puzzle. “What would he want from us, do you think?”

“I think he wants to know that his time in Comet wasn’t wasted. That even if he leaves, he will still be a part of this family. I think he wants to be acknowledged. He doesn’t want pity or awkward silences, he doesn’t want to pretend that the accident never happened. He wants to know that his life will go on in spite of it.”

Daeron ruminates on this, taking a bite of his towering mound of shaved ice. “If I said something about him at the last Tokyo show tomorrow, do you think he’d mind? I’ve had this idea for a while, but I didn’t know how he’d take it.”

“That depends on what you say.”

Daeron asks, peering up at you with large pale eyes: more translucent than Aegon’s, more harmless than Aemond’s. He has been shown more kindness than either of them; he is perhaps less deep, less singularly brilliant, but also less burdened. It is a trade many would happily agree to. It is a trade they would pay for in blood. “What should I say?”

You smile at Daeron. “The truth.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“I’d like to take a moment to share something with all of you,” Daeron says into his microphone as soon as Comet finishes The Worst Way To Be. The audience lowers their cheers to a reverent, intensely attentive murmur.

“Wait, what?” Baela whispers to you and Rhaena as you stand in the front row. Shelby, who had been looking rather bored, whips out her phone and begins a live stream. Aegon, Jace, Luke, and Cregan are upbeat and beaming—as is expected of them, as is required—but they pass each other nervous glances like folded paper notes in a high school classroom. This is not in the script.

“I just want to say thank you,” Daeron continues. His voice reverberates off the walls of the Budokan. “Thank you to all of you guys, of course. Our amazing, incredible fans. Thank you for letting us live this dream of a life.” There are claps and whistles, shrieked declarations of undying adoration. Daeron takes a deep breath. His hands are shaking; you can see the microphone tremble. “And thank you to my big brother Aemond.” Instantaneously, the crowd goes as close to silent as it is possible for a stadium at max capacity to be. The others are gawking at him openly now, unable to paper over it with masklike smiles. “I had been following Comet around for years before I got the offer to officially join. So I know how much work and talent Aemond poured into this band. I’m beyond honored to be up on this stage tonight performing for all of you, but I wish it could have happened a different way. I wish Aemond could be here too. And no matter where he goes in the world or what he does next, he will always be the person who made Comet Donati possible. And he will always be my greatest inspiration. I love you, man. We all love you.”

And the audience erupts into deafening cheers and applause, all for a soul who could not bring himself to attend the show. There are chants of We love you, Aemond! that go on for more than five minutes. Aegon is shouting as loudly as anyone; Jace, Luke, and Cregan are running around the stage and encouraging the crowd. They are a little shellshocked, but they are genuine.

Even Jace, you think, you marvel. Even Jace is honoring him. He doesn’t hate Aemond after all. He provokes and he taunts, sure, and he crosses lines on occasion, but Jace doesn’t hate Aemond. He might even miss him.

For their last night in Tokyo, Criston has grander aspirations for the band than the usual wind down in Jace’s suite. He gets everyone—Aemond included, fetched from the bar of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, already several Brambles deep—into the Escalades to drive to Club Camelot, where Criston has reserved one of the three floors for Comet. It swiftly fills like a flute of champagne: women in sparkling gowns, men with baiting smiles, security guards and label executives and friends and acquaintances and models. The tiles on the floor are black and white, but bathed in sapphire luminescence that covers everyone like rain. Empty hands are filled with frosty bottles and glasses clinking with ice. The song that thunders out of the speakers is a throwback: Butterfly by Crazy Town.

Cregan has acquired a harem of sorts; you look once and he’s flocked by three gazelle-like companions, you look again and there are five of them. Jace is mingling freely. Aemond is talking to Daeron—thanking him, it appears, offering heartfelt gratitude—while Shelby greets a pack of influencer-types as they arrive. They squeal and jump up and down with her in their clicking stilettos, then take turns snapping each other’s pictures. Criston actually appears to be somewhat relaxed. He sips on a Sapporo Premium and chats with one of the guys from the label, gesturing casually with his expressive hands. Aegon is curled up in a booth with Selena Gomez. Yes, Selena freaking Gomez. He keeps playing with her glossy dark tresses and making her giggle, propping his sunburned face up on his knuckles, glowing in that way that he does. It’s not just for you. It’s never been just for you. And sometimes he’s close to you and sometimes he’s not, and right now he’s on the other side of the solar system, he’s out in the Oort cloud, he’ll be back to visit earth in a few hundred years. Aegon disappears into the bathroom every few minutes. You see smudges of white powder on his hands, under his nose. If he tried to talk to you right now, you wouldn’t know what to say to him. He would feel like a stranger.

You’re watching Aemond. You wish you weren’t, but you are. He’s in all black, the top three buttons of his shirt undone. You nurse a Bramble and follow Baela, Rhaena, and Luke around the dancefloor, barely able to hear them over the music. Luke is lightheartedly making fun of Baela for something. Her earrings? Her shoes?

“I’ll have you know that I’m very important around here!” Baela cries over the music. “I’m the patron saint of drive!”

“Patron saint of driving herself to the Gucci store, maybe,” Luke says.

They’re all laughing. You feel like you’re observing them through a transparent wall, like you’re at the aquarium and they’re a dazzling rare species and you’re some grubby kid with your palms pressed to the glass. What am I still doing here? Why did I ever think I belonged here?

You break away from Baela, Rhaena, and Luke and drift by Shelby and her fellow influencers, not intending to eavesdrop but catching a few fragments of their conversation like Jupiter and Saturn capture moons. As Aemond talks to Daeron across the room, Shelby is lamenting her love life. She thinks she’s being discrete, but she’s had more than a few gin and tonics.

“No, he still…he probably doesn’t want me looking at him…he’ll let me blow him, but he won’t actually…you know…?”

And you remember what you told him on that balcony in Reykjavik: I think you haven’t fucked anyone since the accident, and you’re terrified to.

You were right. You’re still right. And here you are, like mirrors: Aemond not fucking Shelby, you not fucking Aegon, and there’s no especially good reason for either except that it just doesn’t feel right. After a while, Shelby and her entourage leave to check out another nightclub down the block. More photo opportunities, you suspect. A change of scenery.

“How’s your wrist?” Jace inquires. He’s found you loitering on the outskirts of the dancefloor. He’s wearing a black sequined blazer with nothing underneath except skin and ink. He’s unsteady on his feet, a Vesper sloshing in his glass. Now the song that’s playing is Ed Sheeran’s I Don’t Care, featuring Justin Bieber. In the booth she’s sharing with Aegon, Selena Gomez audibly groans.

“Great. It actually feels better when no one talks to me.”

Jace cackles, far too loudly. “You are hilarious. Hey, hey, listen.” His free hand skates around your waist. Instinctively, you jolt away from him.

“Nope.”

“Listen.” He grips you more adamantly. “Let’s do this.”

“No, no, that’s a very kind offer but I’d rather chew off my own limbs, thank you.”

“Look, I don’t care if you’ve hooked up with Aegon,” Jace purrs into your ear, sweating out vodka and gin, his curls brushing against your cheek. “Hell, I don’t care if you’re still hooking up with Aegon. I’m better than him. I have to be, right? That fat drunk. I’ll show you.”

You try to pull away from him again. You’re wearing the short sparkly dress you bought in Reykjavik, black velvet and silver stars. “Jace, don’t touch me.”

“Come on, Stargirl, give me a shot—”

“Jace,” you say harshly, your eyes blazing. “Do not touch me.”

“Okay,” he sighs; and, to his credit, he releases you. He holds up his palm in surrender. “Okay, fine, but when you change your mind—”

Aemond soars in out of nowhere, a comet, a meteor, the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. His fist connects with Jace’s jaw. Jace’s Vesper goes flying; blood spurts from his mouth, split lips and lost teeth. “Don’t you fucking touch her!” Aemond is roaring. He has Jace pinned to the floor, black and white and sapphire and red. “When she says not to touch her, you don’t, you hear me?!”

People are screaming and descending upon them, trying to pull them apart. Your Bramble shatters against the tile floor. Criston is here, and security guards, and Baela and Rhaena and Luke and Aegon. Everyone is talking at the same time, so it’s almost like no one is. Jace is striking at Aemond from the ground. Aemond hits him again, and again, knuckles into defenseless flesh and bone, blood vessels bursting, nerves on fire. The music stops, the lights come on.

“Aemond, stop!” you shout. “Aemond, Aemond, you’re going to kill him!”

“Let him go, Aemond, please!” Baela is yelling, and there’s raw terror in her voice.

Then Jace lands a solid punch at last, a hook that comes in from Aemond’s left. Blood pours from Aemond’s nose, it’s on his face and his throat, it’s running down his chest. Cregan arrives, locks his arms around Aemond’s waist, and heaves him away. Before Jace has a second to recover, Aegon wrenches him up by the collar of his blazer and slaps him open-handed across the face.

“He can’t see on that side, you fucking snake!”

Criston bellows: “Aegon, back up, back up, back the fuck up!” He finally gets a good look at Jace: bleeding, bruised, teeth missing, blinking dazedly at the spectators, too stunned to feel the pain yet. “Oh my God!” Criston whirls to Aemond, who is struggling against Cregan’s grasp. “How’s he going to perform in five days, huh?! Jesus Christ, he looks like he’s been butchered! How am I going to cover that up?! How is he going to sing?!” Criston pulls Jace to his feet; he practically has to carry him. Baela follows after them, more distressed than you’ve ever seen her, flowing tears and strangled sobs. Rhaena and Luke go too.

You, Aegon, and Daeron rush to Aemond. He’s bent over and spitting blood onto the floor so he doesn’t choke on it. “Not broken,” Cregan pronounces after examining his nose. “Just gonna bleed real bad. Needs pressure on it.”

“Are you okay?” Aegon asks you, a hand careful and tender on your face. He’s back again, for a minute, an hour, a day.

Your voice quakes. “Yeah.”

“What did Jace do…?”

“Nothing, nothing that bad, I mean he grabbed my waist but—”

“Aegon?” Selena Gomez says tentatively, waiting nearby and hugging her arms around herself.

“Yeah, one second, love. Give me a second.” He appraises Aemond and whistles. “Man, you are wrecked.” And not just physically. He’s incensed, he’s in shock. You reach for Aemond’s hand and he lets you take it.

“You got him?” Cregan asks you.

“I’ll clean him up. I’ll take care of him.” And as blood continues to run down his face, you draw Aemond towards the bathrooms. You lead him inside the women’s room and lock the door, blue walls and white florescent light. Somewhat ungainly—relying mostly upon your non-dominant hand—you press a pile of paper towels against his nose and tell him to hold it there. Then you wet more paper towels and wipe down his knuckles, his face, his throat. The blood on his chest has run beneath his glossy black shirt. We match, you think randomly. “Can I…?”

He yanks the shirt over his head, then returns the mass of crimson-stained paper towels to his nose. Fortunately, the bleeding appears to be slowing. You erase the smudged trail of scarlet that runs all the way to the waistline of his dark jeans. When you reach the end of it, Aemond flinches away from you; not a pained flinch, but a fearful one. He turns his back on you and walks to the other end of the small and shadowless room. He braces one palm against the wall and sighs deeply. He throws the wad of paper towels in the trashcan and then covers his face with his hand, shaking his head.

“Aemond,” you say. And you wait for him to look you in the eye. It takes a long time. “What do you want?” Why were you watching me and Jace? Why did you lose control?

“Nothing,” he replies immediately.

“That’s a lie.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” you insist, your voice fracturing. “It does matter. Just tell me what you want.”

“Why, so you can let me down easy? Or worse, pretend to be into it to make me feel better, to help piece me and my fragile little ego back together? I don’t beg for anything. You really think I’m going to beg you to want me?”

“No, you’re too fucking proud, you’d never even ask for it. You’ll beat people half to death for things you’re too much of a coward to say out loud, and I’m supposed to feel sorry for you?!”

“Then why are you even in here with me?! Just go back to Aegon, I know that’s what you want. I guess you’ll have to wait in line behind Selena Gomez, but he’ll work his way back around to you eventually.”

“Jace stole something from you, right?” you say. “You feel like he stole the band from you after you were kicked out, and then tonight you felt like he was stealing something else, and that’s why you freaked out and almost murdered him—”

“No. No, because you’re not mine.”

“What do you want, Aemond?” you ask him again, tears of exhaustion and desperation in your eyes.

“I don’t want anything from you,” he says, coming in closer. “So you’re absolved, you’re free to go, I don’t need your goddamn charity—”

Your good hand juts out, and what you plan to do is plant it against his bare chest and push him away. What you do instead—as if by muscle memory, a reflex, an instinct—is reach up to plunge your fingers into his hair. And then his palm is cradling the small of your back and his lips are on yours, moving seamlessly like how currents thread through the ocean. He helps lift you up onto the counter; there is just enough room between two of the sinks. Your legs link around Aemond as he presses himself to you, lips still tinged with coppery blood, bare chest, his waist, his hips. Your back hits the mirror—cool and unyielding, the ink of his lyrics flat against the glass—with enough force to make a thump.

“Are you okay—?”

“I’m more okay than I’ve been in years.”

He tilts up your chin and kisses you deeply, dizzyingly, his tongue darting between your lips. He tastes like his Brambles, sweetness cut with the bite of gin, and smoke, and something else too, something that’s just purely him, something you could drown in like the river of his clear right eye. Gently, you bring your fingertips to his face, to his scar. “Don’t,” he pleads softly, pained.

“There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Don’t—”

“Aemond, look at me.” And you hold his face still so you know he hears you. “There’s nothing wrong with you. There has never been anything wrong with you.”

You watch it hit him like a stone into water, ripples that wash away everything he’s felt before. He knows you mean it, he can feel it, the same way you can feel the care with which he caresses you, not just lust but engulfing warmth, wordless veneration. He whispers between kisses: “Tell me what to do. Tell me what you want.”

Your lock your gaze with his, then reach down to unbutton his jeans. It’s difficult with the splint, but you manage. You think he might stop you, you prepare yourself for it, but he doesn’t. Instead, Aemond’s hands vanish beneath your dress and slip off your panties, black lace you hadn’t planned on anyone seeing tonight. As you kiss his face—jagged scar, flushed cheek, the slope of his jaw—his fingers slide into a pool of staggering heat and wetness.

He moans. “Oh fuck, that’s for me?”

“I’ve wanted this from the start.”

“Show me…show me how you like it…”

You guide his hand to exactly the right spot and give him a rhythm, a pressure, a pace that rolls a euphoric shudder down your spine. He’s barely touched you, and already you’re shaking all over; you’re throbbing, you’re dazed with that delicious needful aching, you’re gasping into the sweltering, salt-strewn dampness of his neck. His fingertips stroke you in commanding circles—only a few times—until you’re on the precipice, until you stop him. You’re ready, even though he’s huge: long and thick, revealed as he tugs down his jeans and boxers. He pins your uninjured hand against the mirror and kisses and bites at your throat as he eases himself inside you: a stretching that is intense but not unpleasant, hunger being satisfied. And when he thrusts—carefully at first, waiting for you to tell him he can be rougher—there are so many layers of pleasure that it stuns you, it leaves you speechless. Has it ever been like this before? Never, never, never, not once, not for a moment, not with anybody. His future was stolen from him, but he’s taken your past from you; he’s carved it out like a gemstone from the earth and locked it away in a vault no one remembers the passcode to.

“I’m so close,” you whisper, you beg. “Aemond, please, please, I want to come for you…” And you gasp as his fingers skim down your belly again, stroking you forcefully as his thrusts become deeper, quicker, impossibly powerful.

His voice is low and murmuring. His scent is everywhere; it’s all you know how to breathe. “You okay, baby? You alright?”

“Yes, yes, oh God, Aemond, don’t stop, please don’t stop…”

“I won’t stop, baby. You’re doing so well, you’re almost there.”

“Aemond…yes…I love this…”

“I love you.”

He what…? He WHAT…??

And it doesn’t just drag you over the edge; it pushes you, it propels you, you go plummeting off the cliffside and freefall for miles. There’s no disguising it. You have to bury your face in his chest to keep from crying out, clinging to him, your fingernails leaving indents like crescent moons. Aemond, fighting his own climax viciously, lasts just long enough to fuck you through the aftershocks and then empties himself not just physically but also of the shame and aimlessness of the past seven months, of his fears, of his suspicions.

“Wait,” you say as he pulls away from you. You yank a paper towel out of the dispenser and wet it with cold water. First you cool his forehead and the back of his neck with it, then you wipe his fingers and his cock. Still perched on the counter, you wet another paper towel for yourself.

“No,” Aemond tells you. “Let me.” He takes it from you, opens your thighs, and kisses your mouth—teasingly, biting and sucking your lower lip—as he spreads your folds and cleans them of his seed, abundant hot white fluid that you can feel dripping out of you. As he passes over where you are most sensitive—where you can already feel longing for him rebuilding brick by brick—you jump a little, and you both laugh. I could go again, you think. I could do this with him forever. And then, as Aemond descends from the chemical high like a plane gliding down towards a tarmac, you watch as those old familiar poisons—shame, aimlessness, fear, suspicion—begin to fill up in him again, slowly but unmistakably.

He throws out the paper towels and takes several steps back. He starts putting on his clothes, staring at the wall, then at the mirror, not at you but past you, at himself, his clear river-blue eye wide and vacant. He looks horrified by what he’s done; or perhaps, rather, by what he’s said.

You grab your panties off the counter and step into them, readjusting your dress. “Look, uh…if you didn’t mean what you said…that’s totally cool. I get it, sometimes people say things in the moment that aren’t real, there’s the oxytocin and the dopamine, and I don’t want you to feel…uh…you know…like you have to keep up a false pretense or anything…”

Aemond turns around and walks out of the bathroom, the door slamming behind him.

“Okay,” you say to yourself. “Okay. I can fix this.” You use the toilet quickly—UTIs are not welcome here—and then head out onto the dancefloor.

The lights are dim again, and thank God for that; your makeup is smudged, your hair unruly, your eyes glazed, your dress rumpled and stained. Cregan is the only person still waiting. “Hey,” he says flatly, then squints at you. You avoid his astute greyish eyes.

“Hey. Where is everyone?”

“Criston took Jace to the hospital. Baela is there too. Rhaena and Luke are back at the hotel. Aegon is presumably balls deep in Selena Gomez. Aemond just sprinted out of this club and I’d guess he’s headed back to the hotel too. Daeron went after him. I think that’s everybody.”

You shift your weight from foot to foot uneasily. “Shelby?”

“Oh, right. Haven’t seen her. Still out with her friends.” His eyes sweep over you. “On a scale of one to ten, how homicidal would she be if she found out about whatever happened in that bathroom?”

“Nothing happened.”

“Uh huh.” Cregan strides towards the stairwell that leads down to the front door. “Let’s go.”

Back at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, you swipe your keycard and flick the lights on in your suite. You stand there alone, feeling the evidence of what you’ve done: sore muscles and bruised skin and pooling wetness, both yours and his. You are absorbed with thoughts of what you’re going to say to Aemond when you confront him, how much of your truth you are willing to bare. And then your eyes catch on the small trashcan beside your bed, which reminds you of the one back in Singapore, which reminds you of your pack of birth control pills discarded on a pile of crumpled soda cans and snack wrappers.

I haven’t taken a pill in days. How many days? A week?

“Oh my God,” you breathe. And then, more frantically: “Oh no, oh no, no no no…”

What do I do? What the hell do I do?

You race out into the hallway and knock on Baela’s door. Nobody answers. You try Rhaena’s next. She appears in her pajamas, pink and dotted with tiny green Tyrannosaurus rexes. “Hi,” she says agreeably enough, but she’s rubbing her eyes drowsily.

“Hi. I’m really, really sorry to bother you, but it’s an emergency.”

She perks up considerably. “Okay, how can I help?”

“Where’s Luke?”

“In the shower.”

“So he can’t hear us right now?”

“No, he can’t.”

“Good. Do you know when Baela will be back from the hospital?”

“Not anytime soon,” Rhaena says. “She messaged me that Jace needs stitches and has a concussion. They’ll be there all night, at least.”

You exhale, a defeated little squeak. “Is Aegon around? With or without Selena Gomez?”

“No, they haven’t come back yet. I have no idea where they are.”

“Okay.” You swallow noisily.

“What’s going on with you?” Rhaena asks, concerned.

“This really is not a Rhaena situation. This is a Baela or Aegon situation.”

“Alright, but neither of them are here. So I’m who you’ve got.”

You stare at her. “I need Plan B. Do you happen to have any Plan B?”

“Plan B…? Like, you just had unprotected sex with someone Plan B?”

“Yes, exactly, that one.”

Rhaena gapes, scandalized. “With who?!”

“Confidential,” you say briskly. “Do you have any or not?”

“No, I definitely don’t have any Plan B lying around.”

“No,” you groan. Tears are welling up in your eyes. “What am I going to do? How do I get Plan B in Japan?!”

“We’ll figure this out,” Rhaena says. She dashes to her nightstand to grab her iPhone. “Don’t panic. It’ll be okay. Let’s Google 24-hour pharmacies in Tokyo…”

You don’t have Criston here to summon an Escalade—nor would you willingly risk him finding out about this—but Rhaena uses Google Translate to ask the hotel’s front desk to call a taxi. She shows the taxi driver an address, figures out how many yen you owe him, and then asks him very politely (if haltingly) in Japanese to wait ten minutes while you’re inside the pharmacy so you can take a return trip as well. He seems to agree.

Rhaena accompanies you into the pharmacy and repeats these steps: Google Translate, an exchange of yen, the receipt of a service. She tells you that based on her quick research, Plan B is usually by prescription only in Japan, but pharmacists will sometimes be willing to prescribe it on the spot to a patient in need. Rhaena spends a long time typing out a message for the middle-aged, bespectacled pharmacist, then points to you. This is my friend, the maybe-pregnant slut from Missouri, you imagine her saying. She needs emergency contraception. It’s really in all of humanity’s best interests for her not to continue her bloodline.

“You have to show him your ID,” Rhaena tells you.

You give your passport to the pharmacist, and then he hands you a small package. You and Rhaena purchase a bottle of Coke Zero as well. You gulp down the single tablet as the pharmacist watches with bushy raised eyebrows, amused. You are pleased to discover that the taxi driver has waited, and within fifteen minutes you and Rhaena are back at the hotel.

“You’ve talked to a lot of people tonight,” you tell Rhaena matter-of-factly as you ride the elevator back up to the band’s floor.

“Oh, yeah. I guess I did. I mean, I’ve been practicing. And you needed me.”

“I’m proud of you,” you say.

Rhaena smiles sheepishly. “Thanks.”

“And I’ll be even more proud of you when I get my period.”

She giggles, she trots off to her suite, you retreat into yours. You collapse onto the floor and gaze up at the ceiling, studying the specks and grooves in the tiles like constellations.

“It was only one time,” you say to the ceiling. “I was on the pill for years. That takes a while to leave my system, right? I mean, what are the odds? It’s fine. It’s totally fine. Nothing’s going to happen, right?”

Right?

#aemond targaryen #aemond one eye #aemond x you #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond x y/n #aemond x reader #Aegon Targaryen #aegon targaryen ii #Aegon II Targaryen #Aegon Targaryen II x reader #aegon ii #aegon targaryen x reader

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spider-stark · 1 year

Text

GUTS

Pairing - Peter Parker x Reader

Summary - Peter gets seriously hurt saving someones life, in the midst of panic your true feelings for him come out.

Warnings - Stabbing, blood, violence,

a/n - wow what i'm actually posting something that is WILD. anyways, i recently moved to a new apartment so for the past month my brain has been fried and i have had zero time to write. but, here is this lil blurb! and i am in the process of finishing up the next part of Infinitely You if anyone still wants to read it haha enjoy :)

// masterlist // send me your thoughts //

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

He had gotten hurt. Really hurt.

It was a simple carjacking, or at least it was supposed to be simple. The type of petty crime he responded to all the time.

He had been so bored, legs dangling over the side of the Empire State building when he heard the call come through over the police scanner he’d been listening to. Finally, he thought to himself, webs already shooting from his wrists as he dived off the side of the building, some entertainment.

But everything went wrong.

So fucking wrong, so quick.

There was no time to think as he saw the streetlights dance along the steel blade of the pocket-knife in the carjacker's hand, its sharp edge just milliseconds away from plunging into the innocent man’s stomach. Peter could see the man’s kid in the backseat of the car, heard his shrill screams as he banged against the window, crying for his dad.

He let adrenaline guide his actions, throwing himself in front of the blade with not a hint of hesitation, shoving the innocent man to the asphalt as steel plunged through the fabric of his suit.

There was so much blood, so much that it left him feeling dizzy. His vision went spotty, struggling to aim for the carjacker as he tried to shoot his webs at him, hoping to stop him just long enough for the police to get here.

They have to be close, he could faintly hear the sirens blaring over the sound of his own heart thumping in his ears.

But, due to a heavy hand and blurry vision, he missed. How could he miss?

The man, the one he saved, was back on his feet and rushing to comfort his son. They hadn’t seemed to notice Peter yet, notice just what he had done, how he had potentially saved that man’s life. He was thankful for it, thankful that the kid was spared the trauma of watching it happen.

Peter stumbled into the alleyway, the same one the thief had run into, but he had no intentions of chasing the criminal down. He couldn’t, not in the state he was in.

It had taken every last bit of his strength to get to your house. To get to you.

You hadn't expected Peter to come by, but then again he rarely ever gave you notice, especially for visits like this. Late nights spent with a cheap dollar store sewing kit and the skill set of someone who had a mild interest in embroidery often being the only thing that stood between Peter and certain death. You hated when he came to you like this, but you’d never say it. You’d stitch him up a thousand times, put yourself through the horrors of watching your best friend nearly bleed out over and over again if it meant that he would still be here—that he would still be alive.

But this was the closest he had ever gotten to death, just barely holding on when he came crashing through your bedroom window. He was in and out of consciousness the entire time, as you removed the knife, stitched him up, and tried to clean his blood from your carpet. You worried that you would lose him, worried that he wouldn’t wake back up. But, by some stroke of luck, your security deposit was the only thing you lost that night.

Still, it was different this time. His super-healing had kicked in once he was awake, the blood beginning to clot and stop leaking out from your amaetuer stitch job. But you couldn’t shake that feeling, the terror and anxiety that consumed you when you had to come face-to-face with the idea of losing Spider-Man. Of losing Peter Parker.

He thought it was a fever dream. The thought of infection setting in to his fresh stab-wound much easier to believe than the possibility of his best friend, the girl of his dreams, suddenly leaning in and kissing him. But it wasn’t a dream, wasn’t his mind playing cruel tricks on him. You were here, right in front of him, your lips desperately moving against his own and your fingers getting tangled in his dark hair.

So many times he had dreamt of this. Dreamt of crossing the line between just friends and something more, a line that the two of you had been balancing on for years now. He always hoped that one day he would spill his guts to you, but had never quite expected to almost literally spill his guts to you, and certainly wouldn’t have expected it to end like this.

He was breathless when you pulled away, and he finally realized that he hadn’t even kissed you back, too lost in his own mind. “Wha-why?”

“I don’t want to lose you.”

It was a desperate answer to a desperate question, a single beat of silence passing before you followed it up, doubling down on the statement.

“I can’t fucking lose you.”

Peter’s already shallow breath caught in his throat, butterflies erupting in his stomach (or maybe it was just pain from his newly sustained stab wound, though he found butterflies to be far more romantic).

“You won’t.” He breathed out the promise, both of you unsure of whether or not it was one he could actually keep, though neither of you cared at this moment. Because for now he was here, he was alive, and he was finally yours.

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this, but he didn’t care so long as it meant you would kiss him again.

512 notes · View notes

themeatpit37 · 9 days

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SWWSDJ Mini Fic; A Little Help From Nurse Jack

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Content included: Gender neutral reader in second person, medical care, at home IVs, medical guidance, fluff, reader centered angst, self indulgent writing, and more

Warnings: Medical talk, Syringe talk (no physical needle to skin injection), Surgical mention, Midline discussion, vomit mention (not present day), Mentions of taking blood (Not present day), blood mention (VERY minor), And more.

I’m basing this off of memory, so it may not be the most accurate. I made this specifically as comfort for others who might be going through something similar to what I did, but this can be comforting to any and all. This story is about Jack helping his Sunshine with at home IV drip therapy since I didn’t get this type of comfort when I was going through my hospitalization and then release. So to anyone who is going through the same thing and has been looking for comfort like I was, this is for you!

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“Sunshine, are you sure you don’t need help with that?”

You jumped at the sound of his voice, causing you to squeeze the saline injection a little too hard and getting the fluid on your hands and a little on your shirt.

“Oh shoot! Sorry Sunshine! I didn’t mean to scare you!”

Jack quickly ran over and got onto his knees, snatching up a nearby hand towel and helping you dry the spot off. He started to softly mutter to himself about how he should’ve made his presence known first before asking and worrying that he had messed the whole routine up.

“Jack, it’s no problem! It’s fine, only a little extra came out. Besides, this is just the injection to clean out my medline! No harm no foul!”

You attempted to reassure him but instead he gave you a confused look, cocking his head to the side.

“Clean out…? Then… What about these other things?”

He gestured to the equipment on the table. There were four alcohol wipe packs, the first saline injection, an IV bag connected to tubes and wires with clamps on them, a second saline injection, a few towels for any leakage, an IV stand right beside you, and a syringe of Heparin. It all looked complicated to Jack but that only made him want to help his Sunshine out more.

“Well two are for cleaning, the wipes are for the nozzle of my medline, the IV bag is antibiotics, and I think the small syringe there is a blood thinner so I don’t get clots!”

You replied as you gestured to each of the tools and injections on the table, occasionally making a hand motion to the nozzle of the midline when it was relevant.

“… Can you teach me how to do this? I want to be able to help you.”

“… Help me?”

“Yeah, help you. I mean, I already have been helping out during everything so I believe I should help here too!”

He was right, he has been helping out. From gently pulling you up from the hospital bed when you couldn’t even get up on your own from the pain of your surgery scars, guiding you through the halls of the hospital while you walked so you could get your blood pumping to avoid clotting, and even feeding you when all the IVs in your arms prevented you from using any utensils. Not only that, but he comforted you when you had to get your blood taken so they could check for bacteria in your bloodstream and refused to leave your side no matter what. It made the whole experience less scary than it would be without him. At the same time though, it almost made you feel bad how much he was caring for you, but Jack snapped you out of your thoughts quickly by placing a firm hand on your shoulder.

“Please, I want to take care of you. I want to be by your side no matter how sick you get or how much help you need! And if that means I need to learn how to use all these injections and IVs, then I’ll do it!”

Jack looked at you with the most gentle and kind yet determined gaze he could, taking his hand off of your shoulder only so he could take your hand into his with a gentle squeeze as affirmation. This made you consider his offer and decide to take it.

“… Okay Jack, I can teach you how to prepare for my drip treatment.”

He quickly switched from the sad pout to a soft smile as he got up and made his way back over to the table.

“Alright then, in that case I guess I’ll be your nurse for today!”

He chuckled to himself, making you laugh in return. It was playful and fun, something you missed during the days you spent laying in the hospital bed just hoping your pain would be over with. You decided to play along a little as you gave him direct instruction.

“Well okay then nurse, first you’ll need to pick up the first Saline injection and take off the cap. Usually I take the air out before I even begin, but you’ll need to practice on them. Just pull the plunger end back and then gently press it until the air is out. You’ll know it’s out when you see a droplet of the solution drip from the tip. Don’t forget to put the cap back on because you’ll need to do another step before injection.”

Jack picked up the syringe and twisted the cap off as instructed, pulling the plunger back and pressing onto it a little too hard which caused a bit to spray out.

“Sorry Sunshine, didn’t mean for it to squirt!”

He was worried at first before you chuckled at his reaction which in turn reassured him that it was okay.

“See? You need to be careful! Now, you’ll need to take out the alcohol wipe and rub it on the nozzle of my midline to sanitize it. Whenever you are about to inject anything into it, you need to clean it okay?”

He screwed the top back on before making his way over to you and opening up the alcohol wipe.

“So… I just need to rub it on this thing right?”

“Yes, for about 15 seconds.”

Jack carefully pinched the plastic part of the midline and carefully rubbed the end, making sure he was thorough but not too rough.

“Good, now just twist the saline injection onto it, unclamp the line, and slowly inject it into the line. Also word of advice, the midline end has a plug so you need to put a bit of pressure while twisting.”

The cap was twisted off and pressed into the midline carefully as he slowly connected the two. The clamp took a bit of prying but it eventually snapped open.

“And slowly inject…”

Jack muttered to himself as he began to push the plunger with his thumb and watched as the small strand of extra blood that had entered the medline was flushed out, cleaning out the tube. He remembered watching you do this before, so he snapped the clamp shut again.

“Good job! Now this is where the bag comes in. You see the bag with that little glass bottle full of powder attached to it? I already hooked on the wires for it so you don’t need to worry about that. However you do need to snap the little blue piece that connects the bottle to the bag.”

He was following along until the breaking part, which he responded to with a raised eyebrow.

“Are… Are you sure…?”

You nodded and watched as he pressed his thumb against the blue plastic piece, creating an opening for the bag’s fluids to leak into the bottle.

“This is the part where you need to be careful, okay? What you need to do is squeeze the bag and let the fluid inside into the bottle until it’s around 3/4ths full.”

Jack squeezed the bag, but only a few drops came out.

“Oh, don’t be afraid to squeeze harder! It’s a little hard, even for me!”

He gave a nod and squeezed the bag harder, stopping every one in a while to adjust the bag and squeezed the bag some more. It took a while, but soon the fluid had filled the bottle.

“Is that good sunshine?”

You nodded and continued,

“Yes! That’s good! Now you’ll need to gently shake the bottle to dissolve the powder in it. After that, you’ll need to turn the bottle and bag upside down and squeeze the bag so that all the fluid in the bottle mixes into the bag.”

The bottle was held on one hand and jostled around to help the powder mix with the fluid which took a while since it was kinda clumpy. The bag was then flipped upside down and Jack gave it a good squeeze, watching all the liquid disperse into the bag with much more ease than what it took to get the liquid out the bag.

“Alright sunshine, your bag is ready! What’s next?”

You picked up the IV tube and gestured to the drip chamber first as Jack hung the bag onto the IV stand.

“Well you’ll need to start by squeezing this so that the chamber fills.”

Jack quickly got to it and squeeze the drip chamber until it filled with some of the fluid before turning to you for further instruction.

“Good, now you’ll need to turn the dial flow on and undo the clip. Now I should warn you that the end will start to leak, so you’ll need to turn it back off once all the fluid is dispersed. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you when you need to turn it off! Oh and don’t forget to re-clamp!”

As you told him this, you grabbed the luer connector and a clean, dry rag so that any extra drippings wouldn’t spill everywhere. With a nod, Jack turned the dial to open and unclamped the tube. The fluid inside slowly moved throughout the tubing without any problem, passing through the dial and traveling out through the connector.

“Okay now!”

Jack turned it back off and squeezed the clamp until it clicked before looking back at you for approval, which you gave to him.

“Good job Jack! We’re almost done with the bag prep! Now before we get to plugging things in, you’ll need to flick the air bubbles out. A few tiny bubbles won’t hurt anything, but it’s what the doctors recommended.”

He raised an eyebrow at this.

“Flick the air bubbles out?”

“Yes. Here, go ahead and hold the tube.”

Jack reached over and took the tube from you to look at it only to see small bubbles floating in the fluid.

“Oh! These bubbles!”

“Yeah, You’ll need to flick them so they pop.”

He nodded in understanding and held the tube in place, gently flicking at the few bubbles that were floating around. Some popped while others just floated up. But all of them did eventually pop the more Jack flicked at them. After some time, the tube was completely bubble free.

“How’s that sunshine? Anything else I need to do?”

You nodded and gestured to the midline.

“All you need to do now is clean this and then plug the IV tube into it.”

Jack first grabbed the saline syringe before you quickly stopped him.

“With the wipes. The saline is for after the bag is empty! Plus, you need to remember you have to wipe before injection!”

He stopped and immediately put the syringe down to grab the alcohol wipes.

“Sorry sundrop! It slipped my mind!”

It was normal for someone inexperienced with this stuff to make mistakes so you didn’t get upset. Plus he was clearly trying his best.

Jack got down on his knees and wiped your midline’s tip as gently as he could, quietly counting the 15 seconds he needed to take. After that, he picked up the luer connector and looked up at you for further instruction.

“So… I just connect these two right? Just like with the injections?”

You nodded and he continued, twisting the connector to the line. Once that was done, he remembered the dial and grabbed onto it.

“It’s… 100 ml right?”

“200 ml, actually.”

“Oh sorry!”

“It’s fine! This is a lot to take in so it’s pretty normal to have to be reminded what to do!”

You reassure him, watching as he turns the dial to 200 and undoes the clamp. He then came back over to you and undid the clamp on the midline, something you yourself almost forgot about. Jack then looked up at you for further instruction, but you just smiled.

“You did a really good job! For now though, we’ll have to wait. The midline usually takes from 30 minutes to an hour or two so… you can go ahead and get back to what you were doing-“

Instead of waiting for you to finish, Jack plopped down right beside you and carefully wrapped an arm around you, careful not to get himself tangled up in the wire coming out your arm.

“And leave you to sit here all by yourself? Now what kind of friend would I be if I did that?”

Normally he would lay you on his chest or wrap his arms around your waist but you were extra sensitive from the surgery which could risk messing with the scars, so even if Jack tried to be gentle it wouldn’t be a good idea. As you two sat there though, Jack had a question.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what’s in the bag?”

“… It’s antibiotics.”

Jack paused at this, remembering the previous conversations you had with nurses and doctors while you were in the hospital.

“Didn’t they give you that stuff at the hospital though? Why are you doing it at home?”

You realized you never told Jack about it. He tried his best to respect your medical privacy since most of this information was on documents and talk about during big events like the surgery itself. Of course, you felt it was time you tell Jack more about what was happening.

“… They wanted me out the hospital as soon and possible. I also wanted to be out as soon as possible. So they figured that my treatment could continue at home if I had the right equipment. Plus there was probably someone else who needed a room more than I did.”

Jack let out a soft sigh and very carefully adjusted you so your back was against his chest, his strong arms wrapped around your shoulders and neck to avoid touching the more sensitive areas. The hold wasn’t tight but it certainly had a possessive edge to it like he was afraid to let go.

“… Are you at least feeling better now, sunshine?”

This question made you stop. Now that you thought about it, even with all the pain from fresh scars and the complete panic you’d have about the injections, it was significantly better than before. Before the visit, you remembered how much pain you were in; Constantly laying in bed, unable to move or even think about anything but the pain. This connected to other memories, mostly ones about how terrified Jack looked during your flare ups. He would always do his best to care for you, he really did, even though all he would be able to do was watch as you cried over the toilet and threw up whatever food you had or sit by your side while you sobbed out that you just wanted the pain to end. Honestly, it was a scary time for both of you now that you had time to think on it.

“I… I am. Yeah, I’m feeling a lot better now.”

Jack leaned in and gave you a kiss on the forehead, a relieved sigh leaving him as he rested his chin on the top of your head.

“I’m glad… I’m so happy to hear that you’re no longer in pain- Well at least not as much as before.”

You couldn’t help but smile at this, hugging onto his arms and giving them a soft kiss since you couldn’t exactly move around like you normally would. As you two cuddled up the best you could in your current state, a comfortable and soothing silence rose. It had been so long since you could be close like this and it was heavenly, like something you were deprived of for so long.

…..

“And… Done!”

Jack said as he finished injecting the Heparin into your midline and pinched the clamp until it pinched, bagging up the garbage left behind and tying it up

“So… What do we need to do now sundrop?”

You chuckled and helped yourself up with the help of Jack, stumbling forward a bit since you were sitting for so long.

“We’re all done, don’t need to do this again until tomorrow… However, you could always help me with something else…”

Jack turned to you with a smile and gestured for you to continue.

“Of course sunshine, what do you need?”

“Maybe you can help me wash up. Y’know… Since the doctor said I need to keep my scars clean and my midline dry.”

The way you said it was more of an invitation, one that made Jack’s cheeks turn bright red, almost as bright as his face paint.

“O-Oh!”

He quickly gain his composure and decided to turn the tables on you.

“Well we can’t have you risking slipping in there! Maybe I’ll take you up on that offer~”

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And that there is the end! I hope you guys liked it! This is one of the works I was tinkering with for the past few weeks now! Apologies for any errors, this is kind of one of my few long works that I’m actually posting!

Oh and just in case the requester is reading this, your request is being worked on don’t worry! I just happened to be working on this before you requested your piece! Kinda stumped on it too… Especially with current circumstances… But don’t worry I should be done before the 15th of June if I can! See everyone back here soon hopefully! Bye!

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#something’s wrong with sunny day jack #somethings wrong with sunny day jack #sunny day jack #swwsdj

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penvisions · 4 months

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the melting point {chapter 16}

Pairing: Frankie Morales x Baker! Reader (ex EMT! Reader)

Summary: In the aftermath of a rather eventful and terrifying last summer farmer's market, you try to find a semblance of normalcy as best you can. Meanwhile, Frankie is up to something that is beginning to cause you to worry about the burden you've become in your recovery.

Word Count: 6.8k

Warnings: medical jargon, mild language, emotional monologues, internal monologue, negative feelings, negative thoughts, ptsd symptoms, pining, emotional pining, depressive thoughts, description of pain and injuries, blood, descriptions of post shooting chaos, panic attacks, notions of death, hospital setting, mentions of needles and iv's, mentions of narcotics, use of prescription narcotics, feelings of inadequacy, angst

A/N: um, so it's been four months since i've touched this fic, then i woke up yesterday morning and just began writing like nothing. takes breaks when you need to, don't force things and it'll all work out. please let me know what y'all think!

ao3 link || series masterlist || main masterlist || ko-fi

“C’mon, hang on for me baby, please, don’t-don’t close your eyes.”

“Mantequilla, everything is gonna be okay, I promise, we’re all here for you, please know that everything is going to be okay.”

“We’ve got you, you did so good, you saved my little girl, you did, you saved her.”

“Honey, we all love you so much, please stay strong, I’ll hold your hand the entire way there.”

“Let’s get you turned over, ma’am, c’mon. There we go, you’re doing amazing.”

“Santi, she-she-“

“Papa!! Papa, please help her, I love her! Tio Santi, do something!!”

“Merde, that’s so much blood, Frankie you’ve gotta focus, you’ve gotta calm her down. Get her home safe, to your mother’s, somewhere safe.”

“Will!! They got her, call Morgan! She went missing the second things got crazy.”

“Has anyone seen Benny?”

“They’re transporting her now, rushing her to surgery the second the get there.”

“She’s lost a lot of blood, any donations with the same blood type would be appreciated. Who here is a positive?”

“Sweet girl, please, you’ve got to pull through, I know you can do it. You’re so strong.”

“No response, it’s been how many days now?”

“She’s being rushed into another surgery, she keeps clotting. They can’t figure out why.”

“Fransico Morales? You’re next of kin?”

“No, no, but we’re all she has. Her family is flying out, they’ll be here in a few hours.”

“Taylor, take a moment, it’s…it’s a lot to take in.”

“Daddy, why is tia all tangled in those machines, she’s going to be okay, right?”

“This is my son, he wanted to come and cheer her up because she always did the same for him when he was sick.”

“Please, mi amor, please, you have to make it. I don’t know what I’d do without you.

Fractered memories played over each other, words echoing and bouncing off of each other through the fog that was all you knew. You couldn’t feel anything, all of your senses stripped away, and you were nothing more than a half-conscious mind tunneling in and out of suspended darkness.

Beeping, an even beeping was the only steady thing you could make out. Sense of environment completely gone and sense of awareness slowly trickling in. Your eyes hurt as you slowly blinked them open, the faint lights around you too bright and you clenched them shut with a huff that pulled at your lungs. The stillness of where you were was shattered as the clattering of a chair sounded, followed by a pair of hands tightening around yours that were settled over your middle. A hushed order to go fetch someone and then a deep voice was rumbling close. You turned your head toward the presence hovering close to your left side, drawn to whoever it was.

“Hey, hey, take it easy, sweet girl.”

A grunt sounded from deep in your chest as you tried to open your mouth and respond. Then a gasp when pain reverberated from the same spot. You tried to shift your legs, hips feeling oddly numb but you couldn’t quite feel them. It was as if they were asleep, but… you cracked your eyes open a second time, squinting down the length of the bed you were in. Your legs were there, obvious underneath the thin, knit, scratchy blankets that only a hospital possessed. You tried to shift again, but even your hips didn’t feel like a part of your body. Your eyes flew open completely, tearing up at the brightness of the room.

Shuddering breaths pulled deep hurt, but you tried to shift again and again but there was no movement underneath the blanket. None.

“Okay, alright, querida, please. Take a deep breath, it’s-it’s gonna be okay.” Frankie. It had been Frankie speaking to you, close to you. His hands reached out for your own, where you had pried them from him to try and prop yourself up, wires and tubes pulling, clattering against each other and making your head swim. “The doctors-“

“I know this must be quite a shock, but it’s good that you’re awake!” A white coat, thrown over a modest skirt and blouse, blonde hair. A kind face, pinched. A furrowed brow. Bad news on the tip of her tongue.

You tried to speak, demand why you couldn’t feel anything below your waist. But you could only croak out the faintest notions of words. Everything was a blur, the hospital room you were in a mess of blue and white, the beeping of machines hurting your ears. Nothing made any sense, confusion coloring every thought as to how you got here and why.

“Let’s get you some water and food first, your body is pretty weak right now. Can I get a level two meal delivered to room thirteen eighty-nine, please?” She turned to address someone who had been hidden behind her, a nurse in teal scrubs.

“Tell me.” You managed to croak out, eyes fixated on her pinched ones.

“I would really prefer to get you a little acclimated.”

“No.”

Her eyes flickered toward Frankie, as if in a silent plea to get him to calm you down and put you at ease however little he could manage. But you ignored the warm weight of his hand on your shoulder, eyes trained on the doctor in front of you as you tried to find more strength to speak around the dry cotton feel of your mouth, the panging hunger that was present in your stomach, the lack of control over your body.

She sighed, arms holding the clipboard in front her in an imitation of a fig leave over her hips.

“We had you in a medically induced coma for the last two weeks. I’m not sure all of what you remember, the brain is fickle that way, pushing things and events out in response to trauma.” She didn’t look from you as the sound of fast steps approached the door, nor when a large figure moved passed her and came straight to your right side. It was Taylor. Both of the most important men in your life on your sides. He was quiet, but you could see the evidence of tears in the puffiness of his eyes, the lack of a smile on his face as he hovered close.

“You were hit in the sacrum and coccyx region, paralyzing you from the waist down. We performed three surgeries to remove the bullet shards and repair as much of the damage as possible. Your blood flow and reflex reactions have improved but we had no way of knowing if anything truly worked until you woke. A week has passed since we stopped inducing you, we were beginning to think you might not wake up.”

The rest of the conversation was a blur, medical terms floating heavy in the air of the room. Daunting, terrifying, life altering. You didn’t think you could handle another life altering event of this caliber. But it didn’t look like you had to traverse it alone. You teared up once the doctor left the room, offering to come back and talk to you once visiting hours were over, though she had mildly glared at both men as she said it. But knowing them both, they had been alternating staying the night to watch over you past the set hours that allowed for them to be present.

You had two wonderful men who were willing to do anything for you, one with a friend group who would follow his lead and the other who had given you so much already. You hoped it wouldn’t be too much, taking what they were willing to give.

“It’s a lot,” Taylor’s voice broke, his words spoken through eyes glittering with tears. His hands tight around yours as he leaned his forehead against yours, completely in your personal space. “But we’ve done somethin’ like this before and we can do it again. We can do it again.”

You could only nod, throat and voice still weak from weeks of disuse.

He walked closer to the side of the bed, the man’s large build shadowing over you in the dimmer setting of the lights you had requested. The full effect of them too bright for you eyes after being unconscious for so long. You reached out to him, urging him to sit atop it as best he could as you all but threw yourself at him. He let you, aware of Frankie standing close to the other side, eyes watering as he heard the cries that began to bubble up from you.

“I-I-“

“Shh, it’s okay, I’m here. We’re both here.” Taylor murmured, as he wrapped his own arms around you to pull you close. He smelled like your apartment, a mix of faint buttercream and the rose perfume you favored all rolled into one comforting scent. His own masked by the time he had been in town. “Alfred was here too, but he had to be taken back for school. He sat with you every day for that first week and read to you. He was so worried about you, mami. He kept talking with you like he always does, hoping you would wake up and respond.”

Frankie excused himself, his phone beeping in his pocket and the sound of you crying too much for him to handle all at once. You watched him leave the room, his shadow visible through the blinds in the window looking into the room as he paced up and down the hallway just outside. His voice a low murmur as he spoke with whoever had been trying to contact him.

“I didn’t mean to scare him…or you. I’m so sorry, that call – it must’ve been so terrifying.” You hiccupped into his chest, unable to stop the tears and emotions from flowing all at once, overwhelmed and completely at a loss of how to respond to anything at the moment.

Hushed words eradicated any ill thoughts you were having of yourself, comforting in their genuine indication. He assured you he had been able to handle it, that he was able to handle the hard things that came along with being bonded with someone for life, for knowing someone for so long. For having already done something similar before. But yeah, that it had been scary but Frankie had been as detailed and direct as he needed to be, levelheaded in his description of what had happened and what immediately happened afterwards.

Frankie came up to you both as he entered back into the room, a hand on both your shoulders to get your equal attention. You looked up at him with watery eyes, feeling so proud of how everyone was trying to keep it together for you but guilty at the same time since it had been something they had been dealing with for weeks now.

“That was the airline, they need someone to come in and take over a few tours for double pay. I wouldn’t normally turn them down and I will if you need me here. You’re awake now and I want to be here with you.”

“Y-you should go, if you want to, if you need to.” Scratchy words spoken with what little conviction you could muster. He was conflicted, worried about making the wrong decision.

“You need me here.” He didn’t argue so much as read the thoughts in your mind as clearly as if you had displayed for him to see. “You want me here.”

“Yes, but….money is money, Frankie. For your house, for your daughter, for everything. I’ll be okay, I promise.”

“I’m gonna run and get a coffee before you head out, I’ll stay the night, okay?” Taylor announced before he pressed a kiss to your temple and stood. Leaving you and Frankie truly alone for the first time since you woke up. You reached out to the man, gripping his open flannel shirt and lightly pulling him toward you. But he didn’t budge, his feet stable on the ground and his back not leaning to meet you. He wasn’t looking quite at you, but just beyond you. His eyes a little distant.

“I’m sorry.” Pulling your hands back to rest in your lap, you began to twiddle your fingers, unsure of what to do, unsure of why he was acting so weird and distant. Maybe he was just exhausted, mentally wiped out from waiting and waiting for you to wake up. Maybe…he was rethinking everything he’s once promised you…

“Hey, no, you don’t have to be sorry.” His eyes caught your own, his hands reaching out to hold your own as he kneeled down to be at your eye level. Emotions you couldn’t read swirling behind them. “I just- It’s just… you’re awake. And I’m so scared I’m going to open my eyes or wake up and you’ll still be unconscious…or passed.”

“I am awake.” You insisted, worried about this being an elaborate dream all the same. Some made up fantasy your brain concocted in its last moments and none of it was real, that you weren’t real anymore.

“I want to stay,” He pleaded with you, desperate for you to understand how hard it is for him to make the decision to leave, to heed the call of an entire week’s worth of pay in just a few days. But he had a plan and he had to stick with it, it would be for the best in the long run.

“C-can you stay tomorrow?”

“Of course, sweet girl. I promise. I just- this is important. For the both of us. I swear.”

“I believe you, Frankie. I love you.” You lifted your intertwined hands and kissed his knuckles. He repeated the words before he shrugged his jacket on and bid you goodnight. He didn’t kiss you back, instead squeezing your hands twice in farewell.

“Hermosa, I-I just-“ Frankie hung his head, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees the next evening.

He had gone home to change and get a little sleep after a hectic two days of back to back tours. A touch restful now that he knew you were awake, but still fleeting. His thoughts had been a jumble as his mind flashed your unconscious form across the backs of his eyelids. Bleeding, hyperventilating, being rushed into emergency surgery not once but three times. Of you completely still save for the slight rise and fall of your chest laid out in the hospital bed. “I don’t want to say the wrong thing or diminish anything but- just thank you.”

“You saved her, at such a great risk to yourself. But you did, you saved my little girl when I couldn’t. I have endless love and admiration for you, querida. Please, I am here for you. I will help you with whatever you need or want. And not just because of this, but…but until you don’t want that anymore. You’ve got me, sweet girl. I promise.”

The conviction in his tone was strong despite the way his words were pushed out with deep breaths, trying to keep his composure. His shoulders were quaking with the effort he was holding back another wave of tears. Too many emotions for him to handle since the second you had rushed in front of that gun aimed at his daughter.

“Come here,” You softly compelled him, trying to shuffle atop the bed. Feeling still numb below the tops of your thighs, only some control over your legs that you were trying not to dissect. Going over your charts and test results had helped a little, compartmentalizing that it was happening to you and mind working to help solve and reason the things you read as if it was a patient of your own. Work. And a lot of it was ahead of you.

Frankie shuffled up and out of his shoes, choosing to urge you forward softly so he could be the one resting against the back of the angled bed. He helped to situate you against his chest, his arms coming around you in a warm embrace, the smell of his cologne and body wash puffing up and surrounding you in a comforting way. He pressed kisses to the crown of your head, nose shuffling in your hair and making you sigh out at the human contact.

“I would do it again, in a heartbeat. Even knowing what would happen.”

“Te amo. Te tango mucho amor ti, querida.” He whispered hoarsely in your ear, sending shivers down your spine. All you could do was repeat the words to him, meaning them with everything in your very being. Bringing his hands up to rest over your heart, palms flat over your chest, you both just laid there soaking up each other’s company.

His thoughts took over as you felt your breathing even, reaching over to silence the television that had been playing quietly in the corner where it was installed high on the wall.

‘Everything was so loud, a cacophony of too sharp frequencies grating on his ears as he watched the way your body fell to the ground. The man with the gun fleeing from the scene as soon as the gun had fired, steps heavy as he ran as fast as he could. Pope taking off immediately after him, his own gun pulled from the holster attached to his belt. Permission to carry it around off the clock from one of the local military bases where he worked as a freelance advisor.

Frankie was rushing too, toward you. Toward his daughter. Toward you both. There was a pool of blood forming beneath you, having twisted yourself to prevent from falling on top of Alexia’s smaller frame. She was kneeling beside you, tears running down her cheeks as you reached up to cup her face. A pinched expression on your features and blood blooming dark low on your front. His little girl turned to him as he crashed to his knees behind her and brought her in a crushing embrace to his chest, hearing the hum of the crowd that had begun to form all around.

Shouts to call 911 and responses that more than one person was already speaking with officers, telling them of what had just happened.

She begged him to help you.

She begged him to save you.

Shouting at him in her small voice that she loved you and she knew he loved you too.

She buried her face in his chest as he leaned forward to try and get your eyes to focus on him, but you were barely able to keep them open. Lashes fluttering as your breath became labored. He was speaking, words falling from him as he fell back on years of training. Pinging questions off one after the other, getting no response from you for even one. Unresponsive in the worst way, body completely laid out before him and eyes now completely closed. You could’ve been sleeping, as you were still for a fleeting moment.

But then you started to convulse, body fighting against the bullets that had landed deep in your body. He tried to tilt your head toward him, to avoid you biting on your tongue or choking on your own breath.

A new set of hands was taking over, gently ushering him away as paramedics appeared on the scene.

He could only hold tight to his sobbing daughter as he watched the two technicians tend to you. Your chest ceasing heaving at an alarming rate, your breath almost rattling as your lungs desperately tried to keep working.

Blinking rapidly, Frankie focused his eyes on his hands curled over the controls in front of him. He was flying, the landscape of the city and surrounding greenery, the ocean all laid out before him. He was okay, you were okay. Alexia was okay.

He was at work. He was okay.

His fingers twitched at the clueless ‘ooh’s’ and ‘ahh’s’ of the tourists clamoring for views outside the windows. Their voices coming in clear through the headsets they wore to match his own. Completely in their own world and no problems plaguing them. Carefree.

He was at work. He wasn’t okay.

He should’ve stayed with you.

He should’ve turned down the offer.

But he had run at the first opportunity. Unable to stop the events from replaying in his mind on a loop.

Preventing him from sleeping, preventing him from being able to look at you half the time. Seeing you as you had looked right after the attack, seeing you as they rushed you onto the ambulance, seeing you as your chest went completely still once loaded up. The way your body didn’t respond to the attempts of resuscitation.

Mind torturing him by projecting you laid out in an open coffin. Copper hair resting around your lifeless frame, beautiful face covered in the wrong shade of makeup, hiding the freckles that dotted your face from him. Forever closed eyelids hiding your bright eyes from him. Black dress hiding your soft skin from his twitching fingers, itching to trace the delicate ink that decorated your skin. A masterpiece taken from him in a cruel twist of fate.

Shaking his head minutely, he shoved the fake notions out of his head and pivoted the helicopter toward the coast. Following and announcing the route for the tour that the people sat behind him had requested.

He was at work and he didn’t think he’d ever be okay again. But he would try for you, because you were awake and waiting for him to return to you.

He pulled his sunglasses from where the frames were hanging from his collar and covered his reddening eyes.’

“Come on, two more steps and we’re home free.” The physical therapist was encouraging in the most grating of ways. Your normally polite and civil personality being shattered by the turn of events your life had taken. It was a lot of work now, but it had been a lot of work to initially discover that you had only minimal feeling and control over your lower half. Hips sore no matter how much medicine was added to your IV, legs numb and unresponsive more often than not.

But that didn’t stop the doctor from putting you on a physical therapy track of two appointments per week. Something you had thought was a lot right off the bat but not wanting to argue. Just as angered by the quick pace as you were determined to stick to it. It was the second week since waking up, discharge looming like a storm over the horizon, visible but not yet tangible.

There had been talk about Taylor renting a home to move into for the duration of your recovery. His son being taken care of by his co-parent back home with school having started. But Frankie had offered up his own home, a flush to his caramel skin as he did so. Not having wanted to ask you to move in under such dire circumstances. But he would be lying if he said the thought of offering you a space in his home hadn’t been on his mind lately.

Taylor had offered to split his time between Frankie’s and the apartment above the shop. An outpouring of love from the community delivered to the shop and hospital in overwhelmingly equal parts. Baskets of treats, flowers, cards, vouchers for services from all around the city and local vendors. Everything was being toted back between the two spaces that were now yours.

Lex indulging in the treats as she sat with you in the afternoons after school. Homework laid out before her atop the bed as you helped her with her math and writing. Different people picking her up while Frankie returned to work, determined to put in as many hours before he took two whole weeks off to help you transition to being home once you were discharged.

But right now, you were stood on shaking legs, arms braced heavily on the bars on either side of you as you stood between the set up of the parallel bars. Sweat dripping from your hair thrown up in a haphazard bun, skin sallow from the medication you were on a strict rotation of. You had forgone shoes, insistent that you wanted to be able to feel anything should it come back to you while practicing.

Your arms were shaking, holding up the entirety of your body weight on them, muscles straining and tattoos looking distorted with the flex of them. With a huff, you shifted your hips, right leg lifting slightly and managed to shuffle it about a foot before placing your foot down flat and tipping forward to even your weight with the new stance.

“Alright, you did it!” The nurse was a kindly young man, his arms hovering behind you as he waited for you to tap out. But you sucked in a deep breath and concentrated. Shifting your left foot ahead in the same manner before a spike of pain shot up from the arch of it as you settled it flat on the mat.

“Fuck! Okay, okay, I’m out. That’s all I got.” You wavered, arms shaking and legs beginning to tingle where you could feel them.

“That’s okay, you did good today. Four steps is progress.” The nurse helped you, gathering your form in his arms and lifting to get the pressure off your aching shoulders.

Santi was in the room when you were wheeled back, no sign of Taylor or Frankie. He informed you that they were both taking care of something for you which made you feel a little uneasy that they hadn’t told you themselves the night before that they wouldn’t be in to see you today. The nurse let the man take over with helping you get back into the bed, knowing you’d rather it be someone who you knew handling you for something a little more intimate of a move.

The man’s broad shoulders tensed as he supported your nearly dead weight, completely at a loss of energy from the days activities.

“Did they say where they were going?” You inquired, voice soft as you nuzzled your face into the man’s neck. He smelled so good and you were just in a very physically affectionate mood in wake of not getting any direct attention from Frankie in the way you were too hesitant to ask for.

“Mante, you know I would tell you if I knew, but they were like school boys, shuffling their feet and avoiding eye contact. I’m sure it’s just a surprise for you, don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”

You were quiet for a moment, allowing the man to situate your aching legs as best he could and covering you up with the blankets that had been brought from your apartment. He busied himself with getting a take out bag unpacked and placing containers over the collapsable table attached to the bed for you. A cup of coffee that smelled of caramel and foamed milk pressed gently into your reaching hands. He was so diligent, the soft curls of his graying hair falling over his forehead as he focused. When everything was set up, he settled into the chair beside the bed with his own container and began to dig in.

But you were still, only a sip taken from the hot coffee handed to you.

“Santi…”

“What is it, hermosa?” He looked up from his food, utensils loaded up and a bite halfway to his lips. “I get the wrong thing?”

“No,” A small smile offered to him as your heart fluttered in your chest, unsure of how to even broach the concerns that were crashing over you in overwhelming waves. “No, this is great. Thank you.”

The man watched you, eyes scanning your face as you averted your eyes. He let out a quiet sigh and set down his utensils completely, asking you to tell him what was really on your mind.

“Frankie…he, um, he-“ You felt like a complete idiot as your face heated up, tears welling in your eyes unbidden. Foolish question, it was such a foolish thing to be worried about when the man’s words were nothing but reassuring and loving. “Why won’t he kiss me, Santi?”

“Is that what you need right now?”

You warbled out an affirmative. Feeling for all the world like a pathetic lovesick fool even surrounded by everyone who you could possibly need in your life right now, everyone working together to help you in any way possible.

“Have you talked to him about it?”

A shake of your head was all the answer you could muster up.

“He’s probably just trying to respect you, not wanting to put pressure on you to be that way with him if you’re too overwhelmed.” Santi went on to explain that his best friend had trouble with stuff like this, showing his affection and feelings in wake of traumatic events.

That you should try not to worry too much, though he knew that was easier said than done. To not take it personally, but he admitted to knowing that might be hard to do as well, everything so much at the moment. He reminded you that you could reach out to you with anything at any time. He would try his best to be there for you in any way that he could. Even jokingly offering to pepper kisses over your face and approaching you with overly pursed lips until you erupted into a laughing fit at how ridiculous he looked as he loomed closer. He sealed the conversation with a genuine press of his lips to the corner of your mouth, his hands cradling your face in their warmth before he moved back to his seat and ordered you to eat.

Across town, Taylor and Frankie had a similar conversation as a bell dinged above them where it was nestled in the doorway to a shop front. The two men determined to surprise you with something that Frankie had quietly brought up one night following your first rush into emergency surgery. An approval of sorts he had been seeking after was granted instantaneously with a smile and words of encouragement from the only other man he felt like he could share the conversation with at the moment.

“Discharge papers should be processed by end of day, looks like you’ll be spending the night in your own bed.” The doctor offered you a small smile. She had been worried about having you under her care when she found out you were a once trained medical technician, knowing how bad of a patient she was when sick herself. But you had surprised her, not talking over her or voicing opinions on what needed to be done. It had been another week, progress made in physical therapy.

You were able to walk the length of the parallel bars, slowly and with a lot of huffing and puffing. But it cleared you for outpatient treatment. The feeling in your legs was spotty, coming to you mostly in the mornings when you first woke up and at the end of the day after resting for a few hours. Something she was only mildly worried about, muscle atrophy from being unconscious for so long lingering even now.

But she had been confident that the feeling would come back completely, though she was honest when she said she was worried about numbness flaring up.

That’s how you found yourself seated in the passenger seat of Frankie’s truck as he pulled into the drive of his house. He was waiting for the garage to open, in order to make it easier for you to walk straight into the laundry room instead of having to attempt to tackle the stairs to the front door. Everyone would be over tomorrow, to celebrate your release. Giving you a free night to settle in and mentally deal with the shift in environments. Lex would be at her grandparents so Frankie could focus on getting you settled.

“One moment, just…want to get something set up before I help you out, okay?” His earnest gaze widened his beautiful eyes, watching you and making sure you were alright to be left alone for a moment. He was through the door and back in the garage in a matter of minutes, a shy smile aimed at you as he helped you down and got a walked ready for you. It had a cushioned seat in the middle, in case you needed to take any breaks when trying to move about. Something you wanted to argue but didn’t have a good one against.

You felt…weird. Having to rely on him so much, but extremely grateful that he was willing to. You’d seen friendships and relationships fall apart with this much stress and similar situations. Both as a professional and a civilian, as a friend. You only hoped this wouldn’t be one of the last things he did for you before telling you it was too much, that you were too much. Love could only encompass so much before it wasn’t enough to hold two individuals together.

Melancholic and depressive thoughts abundant as you tried to come to terms with what the near future would hold for an unknowable amount of time. There was no timeline with things like this and that’s what worried you the most. What if you had flares of numbness for the rest of your life, what if he began to see you as a burden, as work he had to come back to after doing his shifts at the mechanics and his flying tours. What if all your progress was meaningless and you woke up one day with no feeling at all?

He had hushed you on more than one occasion with soft words, promises he wouldn’t do that. Promises that he was yours, that you were his, that you were in this together. But doubt crept in regardless. Even more so in the realization that he hadn’t wanted to kiss you. He was quick to dodge your advances, placing placating touches of his lips to your hair instead; of pulling you tighter to his body instead. Almost as if he was hesitant to show you affection in that way and it was hard to handle when all you wanted was that type of comfort from the man you loved so completely.

His hands were warm as he supported your weight, but he didn’t shift you down to the ground completely, instead he pulled you flush against him. Your own arms tightened around his neck, feet barely touching the ground as he ducked his head to kiss you fully for the first time since you woke up in that hospital bed. You melted into him even more, welcoming his lips against yours reverently, desperately.

The plush give of them against your own feeling like a true welcome home.

Shifting your hands up into his soft hair, you knocked the cap clear of his head as you parted your lips for him. He held you tight, not risking you putting too much weight on your own feet for even a second as he kissed you again and again, lips meeting yours in a dizzying display of his unfettered affection. Pulling at his curls, you pivoted his head to deepen another kiss, desperate for his touch and his taste. He groaned into your mouth, pulling back slightly to rest his forehead against yours. You opened your eyes slowly, watching the way his face was completely relaxed. The lines of his age smoothed out slightly as he moved to peck one last kiss to your slick lips.

He had set the table up before picking you up, at home during the day as he had received your hopeful text about the paperwork this morning. But he had run inside to pull everything from where it was keeping warm in the oven, lighting twin tapers set in the middle of the dining table. You tried to hide the squeal of surprise as he lifted you up completely, choosing to carry you bridal style over the threshold of the house and through the laundry room and into the kitchen.

“Frankie, you didn’t have to do all this.” You placed a kiss to his cheek as he carefully set you down into a chair, making sure your legs were situated how you wanted them. “I woulda been happy with a fast-food drive thru, you know that.”

“I know, but I wanted to do something special for you.” He moved over to the closest chair, settling down into it with a sigh. He looked nervous, you realized as you took in the dinner had had made before picking you up. One of your favorite dishes filling the kitchen with its tantalizing scent. The boys had snuck in food from time to time, but it had mostly been bland hospital food for a majority of the last three weeks.

Frankie cleared his throat, your eyes lifting from the items on the table and toward him.

In his hands was an emerald velvet box, open to reveal a simple gold band with a sparkling rhombus diamond in the middle.

Your lips parted, a gasp falling from them as your heart stuttered hard in your chest. Hands dropping the utensils you had just picked up clattered to the table and you stared across the table at him. At a complete loss for words as he nervously shifted in his seat and leaned closer toward you to take your hands in his own, the small box set down gently beside your plate. His hands were shaking slightly, his nerves obvious as he bared his soul to you with his next words.

“Sweet girl, I know things are going to be touch and go for a long while,” He took a deep breath, chest pulling the fabric of his shirt taut with the action. His tongue peaked between his lips, a habit you noticed when he had a lot on his mind, and he was trying to sort through everything. “But I don’t want you to worry about anything to do with us, with you and me. You have me, you have me until the moment you decide you don’t anymore. I hope you don’t ever change your mind because I’ve been gone on you since the second you aimed that glare in my direction all those months ago. Will- will you do the honor of marrying me?”

Tears welled up the longer you looked at him, his eyes so wide and open, his voice cradling you with his earnest words. All you could do was nod, voice caught in your throat.

He let out a deep exhale, pulling a giggle from you when he broke out into the widest, goofy smile you had seen on him yet. You mirrored him, lips pulling as you squeezed his hands and leaned forward to rest your forehead against them clasped together.

“Of course I’ll marry you, Fransisco. Of course.” You kissed the tops of his hands, one and then the other before you were pushing yourself up slightly, tentatively placing weight on your legs and surging forward to kiss him.

He only let you get away with one before he was standing from his seat and kneeling in front of you with the box in his hands. He carefully removed the ring from its spot nestled safely inside the velvet cushion and you held out your left hand for him. It took a second for him to place it securely on your ring finger, snug and perfect against your skin. It glittered in the candlelight and you felt a tear run down your cheek.

Frankie’s hands came up to cup your face, his lips connecting with yours as he chuckled breathlessly at having managed to pull out the surprise proposal. At your resounding yes. At the prospect of a concrete future with you.

“I love you so much, thank you for...for everything.”

“I love you too, you dork,” Your laugh sparkled against his parted lips. “I can’t believe you just thanked me for agreeing to marry you.”

“Well, you could’ve said no.”

“Not in a million years.”

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whorediaries-09 · 8 days

Text

if you tasted poison;

pairing- sirius black x reader warning(s)- angst, sexual assault. a/n- please do not continue under cut, if any of the topics trigger you.

prequel masterlist series masterlist little train.

you were woken up by a loud thud on the door. out of instinct, you tried to crane your neck to locate the source of the sound. instead, a sharp pain shot throughout your body, tears at your waterline.

'she's not a death eater?'

'no. did you bring the veritaserum now?'

as the tears flowed down your cheeks, your vision cleared. severus snape and lucius malfoy stood by the door, discussing about you.

'we must trust the dark lord's choices. if we question it, it may backfire on us,' snape said, looking over at you. 'ah, she's awake.' lucius sneered.

'do you not trust my judgement now?'

'i'm a solemn servant of the dark lord, not yours malfoy,' the latter let out a breathe.

'the dark lord trusts me, you can't hold me captive,' you said. on a second thought, it wasn't the best decision to indicate any signs of life between them, yet here you were. lucius lifted a brow.

'you're awake now are you, mudblood?'

'must have fallen asleep. really comfy place to sleep actually,' you bit back.

'mind your attitude,'

'or what? your little snake friends will gather around and kill me? death doesn't fucking scare me,'

'you've got a nice tongue for somebody who'd in dire need of medical assistance,' lucius commented, his steps faltering near you. 'mind your attitude, or i might just feed you to nagini.' he bent over your form, tilting his head to meet your eyes.

you spat on his face.

he seethed with anger, getting away from you.

for the second time that day, the door creaked open. you heard the familiar steps near you, carrying a tray, the metal of utensils clinking against each other with every movement.

'eat, i've got to keep you alive, in the least,' he said, throwing the tray on your lap. he swished his wand, setting your hands free.

'no funny business,'

he stood by you, watching as you wolfed down the food. it was bland, lacking any form of spices, and cold, but it didn't matter. as long as it was something edible, you were happy with it. you needed to be alive, and you would get out of here, alive. you drowned the glass of water, breathing heavily as you finished the food.

'good girl,' he said, taking away the tray.

'don't call me that, lucius,' you warned. he swished his wand, tying up your hands. but this time around, he let you up in the air, floating within his eye line.

'no? what should i call you then? a filthy whore perhaps?' he said, sliding the shoes off your feet. you screeched, the pain shooting right through you.

'don't touch me!' you shouted, trying to get away from him. but he had you in place, as you floated like an object in the air. he had complete control over your body.

'no?' he asked, breathing you in, his fingers raking over your form. you felt the tears clot your vision. 'i fear,' he whispered, 'you're not in much of a position to give orders.'

his hands were cold and disgusting on your body. he held your head up, craning your broken neck on the other side.

'shame,' he breathed, ripping apart your clothes, matted with your blood. 'what a fucking shame. such a pretty mudblood,' he said, eyes cold as ice gazing over the exposed skin of your naked body. his words were vile and cruel, stabbing within you. as his hands touched every part of your body, as you hung mid air, helplessly, hot tears pouring out of your eyes.

'lucius, please, please leave me,' you begged, feeling pathetic. he laughed cruelly, bitterly and coldly.

'can't,' he said, burying himself within you. 'you feel so good.' pure hot white rage filled you up as he pushed himself within you, your nerves flowing with disgust.

'taking it like such a good girl,' he groaned, his filthy hands roaming all over your body. 'what a good whore,'

it was cold. your body was restricted and lump on the ground. you could feel the blood dry at your lips. your body ached from all the abuse lucius had dawned upon you. you hated yourself for it. you ought to have had been more careful. it was your fault, letting lucius catch you when you'd been sneaking in his manor.

the disgust of the feeling of his touch still tasted like poison on your tongue.

you hated how you couldn't spit it out.

you felt your body growing lump, the hot tears a quiet contradiction to the coldness. the agony was too much. you felt pathetic, your eyelids becoming heavy, as you felt your breathing falter.

you didn't have it in yourself to go with grace.

you were dying for somebody who wanted to be the hero, flying around and saving faces. you'd be buried by him as he wore the same jewels you gave him.

and with your gathered storms, you watched as the soul torturously died within you. you felt your battleships sink, killing you softly, killing you treacherously. drowning you slow and heavy, pulling you under the waves which carried you to the shore.

it was as if you saw your life flash within your mind, when you heard the voice of the loss of your life. when you saw through your tears, the sparkle of life you'd burned reflect in front of your eyes. when you felt the cold yet cozy touch, so unfamiliar yet so similar.

you felt yourself being pulled against his chest, as he whispered, into your ear, holding you close,

'fuck, please, hold on,'

pathetically, you closed your eyes, the sight of tears in the gray eyes you lost the last.

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original idea posted by - @lilwnet

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#harry potter fanfiction #harry potter #marauders #sirius black #sirius x reader #sirius black smut #the marauders #sirius black x reader #sirius black imagine #marauders era #sirius black thoughts #sirius black x oc #sirius black fanfiction #sirius black fanart #sirius being sirius #sirius black fluff #sirius black angst #fanfiction #james & peter & remus & sirius

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tadpolesonalgae · 1 year

Text

Amarantha x cryptid!reader x Rhysand: Big, Bad Wolf[*]

A/N: reader is kind of on the asexual spectrum, except they aren’t sex repulsed? Kind of fun but see you what you guys think. Also, this came about because I saw a comment mentioning this so here you go!

Summary: Rhysand and Amarantha attempt to whip you into obedience without getting any of their limbs snapped off.

Warnings: threesome fmf, pussy eating, rimjob, slight degradation, smut

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A thunderous snarl tears from your chest, shaking the ground of the dungeon.

They’d hunted you. You. A beast among beasts. And then they’d dared lock you up. A room with no lights, solely illuminated by the burning of flame, flame that flickered and slithered over the grim walls.

You take in the two figures as you rise to your haunches, keeping low to the ground, preparing to pounce on instinct, shrinking down to be underestimated. Your claws scrape against the hard stone of the large cell, your four paws could carry you across in seconds, tear them to pieces were it not for the chains shackling you.

“Seems it’s awake, my Queen,” the male purrs. He’s positioned casually against the far wall—a good choice, to be as far from you as possible—long legs crossed at the ankle, arms folded over a powerfully built chest. Jasmine and citrus. A lost hint of sea salt. Your nostrils flare as they take down information.

“Quiet.” Your attention snaps to the female. Stood front and centre, a strong, healthy figure. Well fed, good hunter. Cunning, or powerful? Sharp features, cultivated beauty for fae kind. Poised but laced with arrogance, arms folded. Defence. Your nostrils again flare. Metallic, sharp, the bitterness of poisoned fruit.

The female watches you carefully as you rise to your paws, shaking out your matted mane, clotted with dirt and blood. You lower to your haunches. And pounce. Springing against the constraints with a snarl. You make it a hair’s breadth from her, before you’re locked in place. She doesn’t flinch as her cold eyes pierce into your own.

Your jaws open over her, a roar ripping through the room, shaking the stones as it thunders back and forth. This time, she does retreat, before her hand flicks and magic crackles at her ears—protection. You snarl down at her. She’d make a good few mouthfuls. Drool slips from your lower lip at the thought of devouring her. Two gulps, if you didn’t stretch it out.

“It seems rather lively, considering the circumstances,” the male drawls, making the female narrow her eyes at him. “Give me the whip,” she snaps, “see if some pain lashes some sense into it.” He pushes from the wall with casual grace, limbs moving with lethal elegance toward her as he pulls an empty circle from thin air. Curled leather. Crack.

It snaps against your thick skin—you barely feel it. A light pinching, if anything. Still, you roar, back stretching at the effort as you bare the three rows of razor sharp teeth at her. You could shred her in a heartbeat. If only she was one step closer.

When the whip cracks again, your jaws snap around it, tugging sharply. The female stumbles forward with the force, into your range. You snarl as you surge forward, teeth aimed for the mouthful of her stomach. But then she vanishes. Your jaws snap around air, and you growl. She appears a few feet back, ire blazing in her gaze as she glares at you, lip curled.

“Perhaps it’s not agreeable to a whip,” the male drawls, amusement dancing in his eyes. So blue they’re violet. “I wouldn’t delight in it, no matter how beautiful the wielder.” The female doesn’t take her eyes off you as she gives a sharp order. “Shoot it. See how it likes faebane in its system.”

“Should you wish to strike the blow?” He mocks as he saunters to a rack. It holds a range of miscellaneous sharp metals, bent and wound into a variety of shapes. Your animal mind can’t make sense of them. The female does not remove her attention from you. Cunning. “Fetch the bow, before I send you into its jaws, Lordling.”

Your ears prick at the word.

A smirk slices her blood red mouth. “You can understand us.”

You snarl in response, making her laugh. The male hands her a bow and you puff out your chest, moving to intimidate. “I am your High Queen, beast. You feed, hunt, and fuck on my lands.” You snarl again and she grins. “That’s right, this territory is mine. No matter how many trees you’ve pissed on to uselessly mark your property, it’s still mine,” she snarls, baring her teeth in a fierce smile.

“Now.” Her hand grips the bow, “will you serve me, or do I have to bury this arrow in your chest?” Amusement sparks in your eye. No fae-made weapon could harm you. It would take something ancient, full of malice to pierce your hide. You growl your wordless taunt, and the maddening spark is reflected in the female’s eyes.

She pulls the bow taut, arrow aimed for your chest. “Last chance,” she taunts, grin slashing across her crimson painted lips. Your lips pull back from your teeth, mirroring the vicious smile. Behind her, the male has enough sense to stiffen, yet the female—the High Queen—matches you. She gives no further warnings as she looses the arrow, and you hear it sluice through the air.

And impale your skin.

You rear to your hind legs, jaws opening as a howl tears from your throat, followed by obsidian, iridescent blood. The liquid spills from your maw, wetting your fur as you shrink away from her. She’s still grinning with vindictive triumph. Your heart stutters. The arrow was laced with something—a curse. An old one, strong enough to split your enchanted leather.

Your paws give out as the spell threads around your bones, pumping through your blood as it floods your system. The High Queen grins viciously as you topple over, collapsing to the ground as ragged pants pull from your blackened maw. She walks forward, heels clicking on the stone tile as she lifts her foot, raising it as she sets it on your snout. Proprietary. A show of ownership. A conquered beast.

A weak snarl crawls from your throat, as you feel your power gushing from you. Her brow furrows as you begin to change. Behind her, the male stands straighter, watching with keen, sharp eyes. You feel the shrinking of your bones as they click into a different form, one that will conserve energy to maintain.

The High Queen steps back as your fur fades to skin, snout softens to a feminine mouth, paws shrinking to arms and legs. Her eyes widen at what lays before her. A female. Bare, without clothes, save for the natural hair to your hips, that dusts your legs—between them, too—your forearms and scalp. Her brow narrows, while the male behind her steps closer to view your shape shift.

“Huh,” he drawls, “looks as though it’s a female.” The High Queen ignores him, using her foot to roll you onto your back, your eyes shut. The arrow clatters to the floor with the transformation, but black blood still leaks from your chest. A lot of it. “Call for a healer,” she snaps to Rhys, realising the amount of blood lost in this form is much more detrimental. He nods lazily, and within seconds, the door to the dungeon is being opened.

You pounce.

You flip onto your front, springing from your hind legs, the chains now much too large to hold your wrists and ankles. The nails tipping your fingers sink into the muscle of the male’s broad shoulders. Your jaw drops open and you feel his dark power thrumming, beating beneath his skin but unable to hit your enchanted hide. Your teeth splay over his throat, poised to rip but a fist has tightened in your hair, tearing you away with an unexpected force. Your head is jerked back, though your nails still find purchase in the corded muscle of the male’s torso.

You should have gone for the female.

The next thing you know, a set of hands have landed on your back, where the tail end of the wound lies. The world fades to black as pain explodes in your vision.

————

When you wake, you’re lying in a fae bed.

Your hairs raise at the fabric clinging to your body. No they don’t. They’ve had the hair taken from your body, all but your scalp, and you snarl in anger. It’s uncomfortable. You’re bare in a way that’s dangerous. With a huff and a dull throb in your shoulder, the hair regrows from your skin, coating you in a thin layer of protective senses.

You start with a snarl, but wince at the pain in your shoulder. Fae bandages crisscross the skin, and you growl, nails tearing at the fabric of the fae clothes, removing the strangling material from your form until it lays shredded on the floor.

It’s been a long while since you’ve been in this form, and it’s odd, the layers of information your changed senses bring in. Like the taste of the air, the temperature against your skin. Your eyes are much sharper, scent dulled, while you hear near silence compared to the symphony of noises you would delight in as a beast. It’s so quiet.

You peer about the room, nosing at the sheets, beneath the pillows, through the wooden boxes that contain more ghastly fae clothes. With some difficulty, you move to the door, unaccustomed to the bi-pedal movement patterns of the fae. So unstable. So balanced, you correct. Balance would be fundamentally important to two footed creatures.

When you determine no exit from the large chamber—seemingly a nest of sorts—you return to the bed. It seems you would simply await the creatures arrival. You’ll hardly bother to waist precious energy with the throbbing in your shoulder over needless exertion. So you curl upon the bed, only to shift beneath the covers. How they survive without fur when the cold comes in baffles you. Still, you settle into sleep easily enough, nestling into the too-soft mattress.

A hushed click—familiar—echoes from outside the door, waking you, as they swing open, revealing the female from earlier. Her wretched clothes have changed, though the male still heeds her foot, as though tied to her through an invisible leash. You don’t bother to raise your head for them, even as you recognise the shift in your breathing pattern—one the fae would likely pick up.

“You’re a rather insolent beast, aren’t you?” The female speaks from your side. You huff, shifting so you’re facing her, cracking your eyes open. “Will you not even greet your High Queen?” You huff again, lethargically raising from the bed, sheets sliding back to reveal your naked form. Her icy eyes find placement on your arms, lips curling in sustain, “and after I had you so well looked after.”

“I don’t appreciate you tampering with my body, Lady.” Her eyes glint with surprise, stiffening ever so slightly as you raise to stand on two legs on her bed, towering over her. You set your hands over her shoulders, nails scraping with preternatural propriety. “How would you feel if someone skinned you while you were sleeping?”

The male stiffens as he watches the exchange, hands lifting from the deep pockets of his clothes. The High Queen’s lip curls, and a sudden wave of magic knocks you back, knees buckling as she grips your jaw in her hand, nails biting into the flesh of your cheek as you snarl. You’re still concerningly weakened from the poison coated arrow. “I’m not weak enough to allow that to happen,” she snarls down at you, baring her glinting canines.

She releases your jaw and you settle down onto the bed, rolling your jaw to ease the slight sting. It’s disconcerting, how sensitive your skin is in fae form. Your eyes pierce into her, hateful but curious. She waits for you to ask, making it clear you have to take the step. Your lip curls as you speak, “you said you wished for me to serve you… Surely you don’t expect me to do so from your bed and without my power.”

You don’t phrase it nicely, and you make it clear it’s not a question.

She arches a perfectly shaped brow, “maybe I do expect you to serve in my bed.”

“And what of my power.” You don’t even bat an eye at her statement. “You expect me to perform as I am?” You roll back onto the bed, legs spilling over the edge of the bed, arms propping up your torso. Distaste flashes through her eyes at your shameless nature. Bestial to the core.

She would have to break that out of you. Then again, it could be an advantage to have such an unhinged animal by her side.

“You think I’m foolish enough to return your power to you? Untested?” She enjoys the dissatisfaction that surfaces on your mouth in reply. “Untested?” You echo, raising a brow. You hadn’t expected her to so willingly offer you a solution to your lack of energy. Her lips slash into a vicious grin, one that she only wore when she was about to inflict damage upon something.

“Rhysand,” she purrs. You narrow your eyes on her as the male slinks forward, standing at her side, only looking at her. “Why don’t you give my little pet a demonstration of some of her duties?” A malevolent smile whispers across his mouth, “it would by my pleasure, my Queen.” His hand brushes across her stomach, resting at her waist as he pulls her tight against the powerful lines of his body. You watch, disinterested, as his lips find her neck, the female tipping her head back to indulge in the sensation.

You grow restless when his hand finds the shoulder of her dress, slipping over her arm while unzipping the back, allowing the material to pool at her feet as she keeps her eyes trained on you. “You want me to bathe you, is that it?” You snap, impatiently. You want your power back. It’s yours.

The High Queen’s icy laugh echoes through the room as the male steps back at the push of her hand. “Such a crude way of putting it,” she croons, nails glittering in the light. Your lips curl back. “Tell me what to do, my Queen,” you condescend. Her hand fists in your hair, tugging you back so she can see your throat. She steps forward, until she’s between your legs, yanking your face until it rests between the generous swell of her breasts.

“You’re going to drop the attitude very quickly, or I’ll get you so numb on faebane you won’t even be able to move while I use you.” Ire blazes in her eyes at the blatant disrespect, and she sees red when you grin up at her lazily. “So I get to lie back and do nothing? Sounds rather pleasant, my Queen.” A snarl tips from her throat and the male’s—Rhysand’s—pupils contract at the sound.

You simply grin. “You have to return my powers at some point, if you want me to serve with my strength.” Fury boils beneath her skin as you work her up, maddening her with rage.

“Insolent beast.”

She shoves you back onto the bed, stalking over you until she has one leg either side of your face. “I should have your tongue cut for that,” she snarls, nails raking over your scalp. You barely feel a thing, drops of power already accumulating within. “Then how would you enjoy my mouth?” You return, smug grin tipping your lips.

“There are a plethora a ways to use you while not having to listen to your insufferable tongue.” She growls, lip curling with venom. “Rhys,” she snarls, snatching at your hair, “whore for her.” You can practically hear the arrogance dripping from his voice as his hands drop to the ties confining him. “You wish for me to play a part in her torture, my Queen?” His hands land on your thighs, pushing them apart. “I’m honoured.”

You tense at the foreign feeling of his fingers between your legs. Intrusive. You open your mouth to snarl at him, but the female tugs at your hair, yanking you between her thighs as she settles on your face. At the same time, Rhysand pushes in, a strange heat pooling in your lower belly. “I think you should set to work, little pet,” the Queen taunts.

Right. Your power. She might return it if you follow her orders. You hope you remember the fae anatomy correctly as your tongue unfurls from your lips. You can sense that it takes her by surprise, not expecting you to comply so easily. Yet you seem to be dancing between her legs, nipping at her clit before pressing your wet muscle to her entrance.

‘Very eager,’ a voice drawls inside your mind, making you start. ‘Very eager indeed.’

‘Get out of my head,’ you snarl at him, all the while dragging your tongue over her clit repeatedly, suckling. He hums a dark laugh, drawing his hips back. ‘I don’t imagine you would have engaged in nefarious activities as a beast. Try not to get swept away.’ A growl rumbles in your chest, flexing your inner muscles around his cock in retaliation. He groans, fingers biting into your hips as he pounds into you. Reluctantly, your back arches and you hear the erotic whisper of his laugh in your mind.

‘Careful, or before you know it, I’ll have you kicked out of your rather comfortable position.’ A warning growl echoes from him in reply, and you tighten your thighs around his hips, pulling him flush against your cunt. In response, he slams his cock into your pussy, hands tugging you back against him. A feeling you’re fairly certain could be described as pleasure sparks through you.

‘Pretty confident for a beast,’ he drawls into your mind, ‘especially one who looses her head so easily.’ You realise what he’s talking about. Your eyes snap up to the female atop you who’s icy gaze is slicing into you with frozen ire. “Are you even trying? Or are you waiting for another dose of faebane so you can laze back and let me do as I please.”

You snarl down that mental bridge at Rhysand, who only chuckles, the sound coated with writhing darkness. Your leg curls up his hip, shoving him away violently as you grip the female’s hips, flipping her over until she’s on her back. Rhysand will not get in the way of regaining your power.

The High Queen snarls at the change in position, attempting to yank at your hair with her full strength but a growl thunders from your chest. Your nails dig into the creamy skin of her thighs as you push them open, tongue, teeth and mouth ravishing her. Soon enough, her grip shifts, instead tugging you tighter between her parted legs as she grinds her hips against you.

‘You’re going to pay for that stunt, pet,’ Rhysand growls into your mind. You howl across the bond as he settles behind you, mounting you as he slams his cock back inside. Something about the angle changes the sensations, more pleasure singing through your blood as you concentrate on the High Queen before you.

Her nails rake over your scalp, and you feel it vaguely in the back of your mind, where you’ve locked away all the feeling your fae skin is now so hypersensitive too. It’s your power on the line though, you need to be better. She needs to be gasping and writhing, thrashing and screaming from you to have a chance at returning the sacred energies.

A growl rumbles in your chest, resonating in your tongue as you roll it over her clit. The High Queen’s back arches in response, a snarl of pleasure dragging from her throat. Rhysand continues pounding into you, making it difficult to control your accuracy on the female. ‘Something bothering you, pet?’ He drawls, the silky caress of his voice making your body react, nipples hardening as his fingers bite into your hips.

You roar down the bond at his tone—the male arrogance. You move your rear leg to attempt to kick him away once again so you can focus on the High Queen. He isn’t fooled though, and his hand grips your ankle painfully. A ragged moan rips from your chest as he lifts your leg, and slams in, cock reaching deep inside of you, stimulating something you don’t have in beast form. His laugh echoes in your mind. ‘Act like a beast, and I’ll fuck you like one,’ he snarls, pounding into you, the snap of his hips loud throughout the room.

‘So desperate to remain her whore?’ You bite back, grip tightening around the female’s hips as you pull yourself deeper into her heat. You need to give her more. What can you do? Your nails are too long to push inside of her. You’re certain any chance of regaining your power will disintegrate before your eyes should you cause her pain.

Rhysand snarls down that bond at you, before his hand glides up the spine of your back, gripping your lower neck painfully, pushing you into her cunt. Perfect. You stop the movements of your mouth, ceasing all action. The High Queen growls, bucking her hips, piercing eyes snapping open. You squeeze your own together, imitating pain as you whimper. The Female snarls, nails slicing at Rhysand’s hand that she believes to be the cause of the halt in pleasure.

“You interfere again, unprompted, and I’ll have you flayed alive,” she grits out, fury blazing beneath her tone. ‘Have her whore flayed alive? How lovely.’ You mock to Rhys, feeling the sharp buck of his hips that makes you wince. “Forgive me, my Queen. She looked as though she was resting.” He replies, the erotic brush of his voice soothing the ire in the room.

With his hand removed from the base of your neck, you deliver and appreciative lap to her clit, eyes flicking up to hers with a pleased glint. Good. You seem to say. Her eyes narrow as she glares at you, baring her teeth as you smirk. Your mouth dips lower, hands pushing her thighs back, further apart. She hisses in a breath when your tongue swipes her rear entrance, growling. You shoot her a grin as the pad of your thumb presses over her clit, stimulating her upper half while your mouth takes the lower one.

The High Queen’s back arches at the change of tactic, a growl of pleasure resounding throughout the chamber. You can feel her fluttering against the pad of your thumb, dipping down to collect slick to ease the oscillations over her clit as she comes. ‘How’s that, whore?’ You snarl at him, taking vicious pleasure as he growls in response.

Her pants resound throughout the room as her body goes lax, and you pull away from her. “Both of you,” she growls, “stop.” Your brow narrows. You don’t want to stop. It feels good, like something’s about to break over you. But Rhysand—perfect whore, through and through—pulls out, despite how close he also was.

You snarl, spinning as you pounce on him, pushing him back on the too-soft bed as it’s your turn to mount him. You spread your thighs either side of him, and he snarls at the movement, hands flying to your hips in attempts to stop you. But you slam down on him before he has the chance. Startling, blinding pleasure seizes your body, lightening cracking in your veins as your head tips back, eyes rolling with it. Even Rhysand’s hands drop to his sides with the onslaught of pleasure that crackles and zaps between you.

An angry snarl rips you from the moment, claws tangling in your hair as you’re yanked off him, a creamy liquid decorating your cunt. You land at the High Queen’s side, who snarls her wrath at you, furious at your disobedience. “Did I not order you to stop?” She rages. You stare down at her, “I wanted release, Lady.” You can practically taste the ire rippling from her, and it pleases you. “More than you want your power?” She snarls, and you’re tugged back down from your high.

You bow your head, “no, my Queen.” You lower yourself by her side, moving as your tongue laps at one of her nipples, “not more that my power.” She watches wrathfully as you again settle between her thighs, but your eyes flick to hers. You raise your hand, retracting the claws so only the delicate pads of your fingertips are left.

Your hand snakes between her thighs while your mouth remains pleasuring her, “forgive me, my Queen.”

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Taglist: @myheartfollower

#amarantha x f!reader #Rhysand x reader #Amarantha x reader x Rhysand #Rhysand smut #acotar smut #Amarantha smut #smut #Amarantha x f!reader smut #Rhysand x reader smut #under the mountain #UTM

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lover-of-mine · 3 months

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https://www.tumblr.com/lover-of-mine/745334896398073856/i-know-i-completely-changed-my-original-spec-on-s7 please I want to hear this! I love hearing your metas and spec lol

Alexa, darling, I love that the original spec was also written on an ask from you, thank you for always supporting my ramblings 💜💜💜💜also @steadfastsaturnsrings, Saturn, darling, I do have more thoughts lol

Okay first, this one needs context, so other metas/speculations whose elements got me to think this one makes sense, I don't think you need to read them for this to make sense, but just in case you want to read something more in-depth about it, I do strongly recommend you read them thought, I think it makes this one more impactful: link to the original spec where all I had to go on was the voices in my head, like legit, we didn't even have a date for season 7 yet, this one is just in case you wanna see the original version of this, buddie is mirroring the couples in Buck, actually and the only situation they are missing is the couple that crashed into the tree aka both of them in danger/hurt at the same time, Buck needs to deal with death/figure out how to live as someone who wants to live, buddie is tied by death.

Okay, so, when I first started thinking about this I was mostly thinking about Buck's relationship with water/breathing and that leading to a breakdown or leading to buddie. Because Buck drowning could trigger him enough for him to have a full-blown breakdown, but a Buck who's already been through the process of realizing he wants to be alive almost dying again might give him an oh moment that would lead him to act on his feelings for Eddie. My hope was also for that to mirror elements of the shooting since I am a firm believer that the shooting was Eddie's oh moment. But I was writing that with no clue about what they would do with the season, so now that we have more information, I need to tweak things a bit.

Buck has a very intricate relationship with breathing which also gives him an intricate relationship with water. The first call we see on the pilot is the 118 responding to a kid who drowned, who Buck is doing cpr on, then we have the baby on the wall who's also not breathing, we have the girl getting strangled by her snake, and we have him saving Athena with water. On a less this is probably just a coincidence note, Buck's first real brush with death is on the date with Abby, where he chokes and Abby needs to perform an emergency tracheotomy on him, the surgery on his leg leads to blood clots in his lung, he gets caught on a tsunami, during the warehouse fire in Buck Begins he gives his mask to the victim and openly states he will hold his breath and the sprinklers also give it the water elements, and after the lightning, the thing that stops working is his lungs. This all led me to the belief that they will drown Buck at some point. Mostly because I wanted to mirror elements of the shooting and one of the elements of the shooting is that it brings up a previous trauma for Eddie. The easiest way to bring up previous trauma for Buck is to drown him, you hit breathing and water elements. Having him crash his car, be driven off the road, drive off a bridge, or something like that, into water is a situation that would be urgent enough that he can't wait for help. At first, I just put Eddie in the car because I wanted Eddie to be forced to save Buck, but now I have a reasoning for Eddie to be in the car.

Let me back up and explain how getting there makes sense though. The promotion of the season has had a lot of talk about vulnerability, and Buck and Eddie leaning on each other, and they need to deal with death as a concept. Eddie needs to stop chasing Shannon, along with dealing with the grief over having to save Buck and Buck needs to deal with his passively suicidal behavior and with the way that following the coma dream, Buck actually does care if he dies, so he needs to get to a point where he acts as someone who wants to be alive and asks for the things he wants. Personally, I think the only way buddie will truly work as a couple is if they get to that point, because a Buck who asks for what he wants is not a Buck who will let Eddie get away with thinking he's always right, and Eddie needs to stop trying to fix what went wrong with Shannon and just do what he actually means.

Eddie welcoming Buck to the world of the living in the locker room gave me hope on that front because Buck finding out he wants to be alive and also calling Eddie on his bullshit while they navigate a place where Buck can face death as something not scary can be good for both of them, especially with the way they keep talking about both Buck and Eddie just “wanting to be happy” because they could walk through the trauma, and Buck talking about death as boring and the focus the show put on Shannon on the past few episodes, showing Eddie and Chris visiting her grave, more detail on hers and Eddie's relationship, Chris’ conflict with her memory, you can have them learning the move forward together. Oliver also saying there will be a chance of things coming up in a not so great light but the friendship persevering can also mean that they will deal with other aspects of their relationship that could create problems in their relationship, like the way they assume they understand each other so they won't actually talk about things that matter and just assume the other will understand what they mean since they are very much in sync a lot of the time, like for instance the way Buck definitely misunderstood what Eddie actually meant with his will or the way Eddie reacted to Natalia and the whole I feel like she sees me. They also need to deal with the way they don't talk to each other about big changes in their lives, Eddie didn't talk to Buck about changing his will or leaving the 118, Buck didn't talk to Eddie about the sperm donation, and they need to.

So let's say season 7 is the buddie utopia of my dreams where they address these base issues, something they need to talk about is how it felt to save each other's lives. But they haven't talked about it yet, and it's been long enough they would need another trigger. But this conversation is the conversation you pretty much can't write without ending it with a love confession of some form, but I'll come back to this.

We need a trigger. I said up there about how they are mirroring the calls in Buck, Actually. There we have a crush injury involving a vehicle with Thomas and Mitchell, we have someone injured more worried about the other's safety who got injured by someone while at work with Ruth and Earl, we have Lola and See Me Norman talking her out of the ledge. Crush injury and focus with hand holding happens both ways, with the truck bombing and the bridge, one of the injured by more worried about the other we also have both ways, granted one is a lot more intense than the other, but during the shooting Eddie asks if Buck is hurt and when they get kidnapped, Buck gets pistol whipped but he spends the whole time more worried about Eddie than himself. And we watched Buck talk Eddie off a metaphorical ledge in dumb luck, if we're lucky, we can get a mirror of that going the other way this season.

Most of my hopes of this particular thing come with the way Buck and Eddie's individual storylines are parallel but slightly misaligned, you have the first love who left and came back without giving them real closure, you have Eddie having too much responsibility being put on him by his parents when Buck is invisible over the fact that he “failed” on the thing his parents' wanted from him, the lightning mirrors the well quite literally, they are in opposite sides of the frame, Buck is in the sky, Eddie is underground, Buck is the middle of a street, Eddie is the middle of nowhere, (here’s a set if you need help visualizing that), among other smaller things, like the way Buck’s first death on the job was someone falling to their death and for Eddie too.

That leaves us with the newlyweds who crashed on their way back from the wedding, aka a situation where both of them get hurt, but one of them gets pinned, one of them gets the worst of it.

So car crash.

I go back and forth as to why they are in the car. I played with the idea of Taylor activating her emergency beacon and them actually going into that situation willingly, but considering everything about the show, you can do pretty much anything, they could witness a crash and then things go to hell, they could be driven off the road, they could fight in the car and lose control, I don't know, but the thing is, utopia buddie who are in a spot where the change from friends to more could work, maybe toeing the line more heavily (I mean, we are mirroring newlyweds lol), getting into a crash while off duty. It's very important that they are off duty because now we're mirroring elements of the shooting.

Why we mirroring the shooting? Well, because the shooting is a banger. I'm kidding lol. There's something inherently romantic about the shooting, Buck wearing Eddie’s blood, the shared looks across the pavement, the focus on hands, Eddie literally bleeding out and asking if Buck’s hurt, Buck escalating from we got you to I got you, from just hang on to I need you to hang on. And there’s also my personal belief that Eddie is aware of his feelings and realized what they meant during the shooting, so I want to put Buck in a situation where he can’t escape what his feelings about Eddie mean, because I think Buck never stopped to truly look at what Eddie is to him. And with where they are, to be put in a situation like that would force them both to confront these feelings, even if they don't feel like saying Eddie has been pining since season 4.

The shooting has quite a few elements that make it as intense as it is: they are not supposed to be there, it’s not their call and the 136 is the house responsible, it brings up a previous trauma for both of them, Eddie gets shot, bringing up things from his days in the army and Buck is forced to roll under the truck after being crushed by one, Buck does the saving alone because there’s no one else they trust around, it happens by chance because Eddie gets targeted just because, they are also done with what they went to do by the time Eddie gets shot. All of these can be achieved in many ways, the only thing I’m sure of is that they need to be in the car together and they need to be off-duty because if they are not off-duty you take away from the urgency of the situation, having tools and immediate rescue available waters the situation down. I don’t know why but I keep going back to them driving off a cliff into water, sometimes I shift to a bridge, but they used that with Judd and Grace in Lone Star so I don’t know if we would get a repeat, but basically I see them stopping to help someone, getting back to the car, and maybe the side of the road gives under them, or there’s another crash, that now is into them throwing them over, or they get driven off the road. There’s also the chance of them just losing control of car, a tire pops, it's raining, something runs across the road, and they get underwater.

Why is them being underwater important? If they are just hanging on the side of the cliff, they can wait for help. Also, we are bringing up past trauma for both of them, if you put them in a car filling with water, you hit the water/breathing elements for Buck, but you also hit well elements for Eddie, and Shannon was also hit by a car. So their car gets thrown into water, going back to the Buck, Actually comparison, the crash, one of them gets pinned. The one who’s pinned needs to be Buck. Why? Eddie is the widower, Buck is the savior. Eddie has to live with the fact that he didn’t actually save the people he thought he did, and he has to live with the fact he was helpless watching Shannon die, and Buck exists to do the saving. So we are letting Buck be saved and Eddie know he actually did save him. It could be cathartic for both of them.

And I want Eddie performing desperate CPR. Sue me. Can you imagine everything Ryan can give us there? Mouth to mouth, “you’re not doing this to me again”, being all wet and you can’t tell if the water on his face is from the water or his tears, begging Buck to wake up, Buck finally coughing wake and dropping back against Eddie, Eddie breathing as heavily as Buck as he hubs his back and encourages him to breathe while refusing to let go of him. If we’re lucky Eddie hiding his face in Buck’s hair or something like that. It could be so good. Because you can also have Buck looking at Eddie like he’s seeing him for the first time in a very clear revelation moment. You can have them looking at each other in a clear revelation moment. It could be THE oh moment.

And then they can talk. I said I would come back to this. Them having a conversation about saving each other, forces them to talk about what they mean to each other. You literally can’t have them talk about what it was like to save the other without forcing them to talk about how they love each other, and if they do the groundwork I mentioned, they can have one HELL of a getting-together scene. Imagine one them yelling “because I don’t want to live without you!” and the way it would be literally I don’t wanna be alive without you and I don’t want to continue living my life without you. And like, having Buck say something like this with the way he reacted to Thomas and Mitchell dying together and how he focused on them dying together, not the life they had, and the way Buck interpreted Eddie’s will as Eddie asking him to be okay with Eddie dying, Eddie asking him to outlive him, and have him look Eddie in the eye “I don’t ever want to do this without you” come oooooooooon, it would be such a beautiful conclusion to the buildup we have right now.

But yeah, this is the madness. The ultimate wishful thinking. I could be so good.

Anyway, if you read this I love you 💜

#this is long lol #imagine not being delusional #couldn't be me lol #911 #911 meta #911 spoilers #911 speculation #buddie thoughts #buddie #i really need a tag for asks #alexa 💜#🪐#drown Buck 2024

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