#WOULD THAT COUNT AS A TRIGGER? maybe gore

[edenesth]

The Way to His Heart [10]

Pairing: general!Seonghwa x wife!reader

AU: arranged marriage au (Joseon era)

Word Count: 4.5k

Trigger Warnings: graphic violence/torture, gore, implied mutilation

Summary: Life has been hell ever since your mother's passing many years ago. Despite being from a prominent family, you've never received the privileges associated with it. It only got worse with the arrival of your stepmother and her daughters. When the intimidating General Park was in search of a wife, your father seized the opportunity to dispose of you, simultaneously securing a connection with the powerful general—killing two birds with one stone.

Part 9 | Fic Masterlist | Part 11

"You wanted to see me, sir?" Wooyoung called out, entering the general's study with Jongho following closely behind, having been summoned to the estate.

Seonghwa looked up from his desk, "Ah yes, I heard you turned down the bonus incentive we offered. Why is that? Is there something else that you wish to have?"

Having encountered few who would refuse extra money, your husband found it hard to comprehend the private investigator's decision. Most people around him were usually drawn by the allure of his wealth or other associated benefits, which left him curious about Wooyoung's motives for declining the bonus. Surely, there was something specific he desired.

The younger man beamed, "My lord, I wasn't working so willingly for you because I wanted something more from you. Honestly, nothing makes me happier than being recognised by you! I just... okay, maybe there is one thing I really want."

Raising his brow, the general was not surprised by the sudden admission, "Go on, name it then."

With a cheeky grin, the investigator replied, "It's that you allow me to help you with whatever problems you have now!"

Your husband rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, "What do you mean? I have no problems now; the worst is over."

"Really? Is that why you're here sulking alone instead of being with Lady Park? You clearly want to be near her, and yet, here you are, staying away from her because you haven't a clue how to face her after the traumatising ordeal you put her through yesterday."

That finally piqued Seonghwa's attention, prompting him to sit up straighter, though he attempted to maintain a nonchalant demeanour, "H-how did you figure that out?"

Without waiting for Wooyoung's response, he shook his head, "No, wait, actually, I don't want to know that. Just tell me... what should I do? I realise I haven't considered well enough what she went through, but I... I've never had to care for someone like this before, and I'm not really sure how to..."

The investigator offered an understanding smile, "My lord, the key to any relationship is communication. You need to talk to Lady Park. Ask her how she's feeling, and tell her you're sorry for what she went through. Avoiding each other won't solve anything; it will only create more distance between you two. You're her pillar of support now, and she needs to feel that you're there for her. You both deserve happiness, but it starts with open and honest communication."

Absorbing the advice, the general nodded thoughtfully, "You're right, Wooyoung. I appreciate your straightforwardness. I'll go talk to her and make things right."

Without hesitating, he sprang from his chair and made his way out of the study. The assistant and his friend couldn't contain their laughter, covering their mouths with their hands, but quickly composed themselves when Seonghwa glanced back at them, "Oh, and please, accept the bonus. You deserve it, especially after this."

Before Wooyoung could object, he had already exited the room and was rushing down the path toward the House of Lotus, his heart pounding at the thought of seeing his wife again.

He remembered how quiet you had been during the entire journey back home the day before, your gaze fixed on the passing scenery outside the window. While you weren't overtly distant or cold to him, you seemed lost in thought throughout dinner. You excused yourself early, retiring to your quarters. The atmosphere carried an unspoken tension, making him hesitant to say anything for fear of your potential reaction.

Reflecting on it, he realised he should have assured you that things would be better from that point forward. Rather than maintaining a facade of normalcy, he regretted not breaking the silence and being there for you in that moment of unease.

His steps hesitated, and his breath deepened as you finally appeared in his line of sight, seated alone in the pavilion outside your room. Your lady etiquette books lay open beside you, but the faraway look in your eyes remained glued to the horizon beyond the lotus pond. For a moment, he stood there, appreciating your beauty, suddenly feeling thankful you looked nothing like your father.

However, as soon as you turned your head slightly and noticed him standing by the entrance, he blinked rapidly, feeling flustered. Gathering his courage, he took a deep breath and approached you.

Just go talk to her, you fool.

Seeing him approach, you closed the books and made room for him to sit in the small pavilion. He offered a warm smile, "Hey, I hope I'm not bothering you or anything."

Shaking your head, you returned a small smile, "No, not at all. I tried to study, but I just... I couldn't."

As he settled down beside you, reaching for your hand, you didn't flinch or pull away. He released a relieved breath and moved closer, "It's alright, you don't have to force yourself. I know you're probably upset with me. I... I'm sorry, my dear."

Lifting your head to meet his eyes, you furrowed your brows, "What? Why would I be upset with you?"

He winced, wondering if you were intentionally testing him to see if he knew what he did wrong. But then again, he knew you would never do anything like that. Sighing, he admitted, "Look, I know I should've thought things through better yesterday. I was so focused on wanting to punish your family for what they did, I forgot about how horrible it must have been for you to go back there and sit through all of that."

"I acknowledge it was a mistake. My intention was to give you a chance to confront your family by taking you to your old room. I didn't think it would affect you so badly. I realise now that it was a misguided decision, and I regret taking you back to that place. I'm a goddamned idiot."

His admission tugged at your heart, and you responded by placing a comforting hand over his.

"Seonghwa, you're not an idiot. I'm not upset with you," You assured him, "I've been quiet since the visit because I'm still processing the fact that my own father killed my mother. All this time, I believed she died from sickness. Now, I can't help but wonder how different my life would have been if only she were still alive. He took her away from me just like that, and for what? All for his own selfish reasons..."

"I just... I feel so—" Tears welled up in your eyes, and your voice broke, "I-I'm sorry..." You pulled your hands away from him, attempting to wipe your eyes, but he gently grasped your shoulders and turned you to face him.

"No, you need to stop apologising. You have every right to be sad, and I'm here to tell you that you never have to endure any more of the pain you're going through alone. I'm here for you, okay? From now on, I want you to lean on me whenever things get too unbearable. Can you do that?"

Feeling the genuine warmth in Seonghwa's tone and seeing the unmistakable care in his eyes, you finally broke down. The weight of the revelations, the pain of your father's actions, and the years of emotional torment spilt over, and you couldn't hold back your tears any longer. He pulled you close, cradling you in his arms as you sobbed against his shoulder.

Whispering comforting words into your ear, he pressed gentle kisses onto the top of your head. His touch was a soothing balm, providing the comfort and support you desperately needed in that moment. As you let out your emotions, he held you tighter.

The sound of your heart-wrenching cries only caused an uncomfortable squeeze in his heart. The general had never experienced this kind of ache before. Throughout his life, he had always believed that no one had a tougher life than he did. But then you came along, with your fragile form, managing to shake his entire world and alter his perspectives on life. All of a sudden, the notion of having someone to protect and care for didn't seem so repulsive, especially when it was you.

You slowly pulled back, staring up at him through your wet lashes, and offered a grateful smile, "Seonghwa, I want to thank you for doing all this for me. I never imagined someone caring enough to go through all that trouble. I promise, in return, I'll try my hardest to be a worthy wife for you."

He wiped away your tears tenderly and gazed into your eyes, "You don't need to prove anything, my love. You're already perfect, just as you are."

Your heart raced, and your eyes widened as you stuttered, "W-wait, what... what did you just call me?"

He stilled, realising the words that had slipped from his mouth before he softened. Leaning close, he pressed his forehead against yours, "My love."

Seonghwa's presence became almost intoxicating. Feeling him so close, as if with a mind of its own, your eyes slowly fluttered closed. He took that as permission to lean in further, and after what felt like an eternity, his lips touched yours in a soft and tentative kiss. When you didn't push him away, he bravely angled his head before pressing his lips firmly against yours.

Finally, our first kiss.

Pulling away after a while to catch your breath, you bit your lip shyly, "I-I'm sorry if I wasn't—"

He shook his head, "Don't worry, it's my first time kissing someone too," He admitted, struggling to take his eyes off your swollen lips. A soft smile played on his lips as he caressed your cheek with his thumb, "Can I..." He asked with half-lidded eyes, and you nodded breathlessly.

Without wasting another moment, he captured your lips in another loving kiss. The world seemed to fade away, leaving only the warmth of each other's presence. His touch was gentle yet filled with a depth of emotion. As the kiss deepened, you felt a rush of emotions, a mix of vulnerability and passion.

Feeling the need for air, he pulled back slightly, his forehead resting against yours. Your eyes met, and you could see the affection and sincerity in his gaze, "You're perfect." He whispered, his voice filled with tenderness, realising that kissing you might just be his new favourite thing to do from now onwards. The moment lingered, the air charged with newfound emotions. It was a beginning, a sweet promise of the love that had blossomed between you.

"Your Majesty, please—"

The King slammed his fists against the handle of his throne, causing the minister to gasp and lower his head. He shook like a leaf, awaiting his impending doom as the ruler declared, "I don't want to hear another word from you, Jang. You're a bloody disappointment. Actually, you're worse than that, you monster."

Kneeling beside your father were your stepmother and stepsisters, equally trembling. Pathetic tears rolled down their cheeks as they attempted to put on a pity show, hoping to move His Majesty's heart. However, their efforts did little to appease his rage. He scoffed in disbelief at their audacity to cry, considering all the despicable things they had done to you and your mother.

This marked the first time the four women had set foot in the palace, and little did they anticipate it would be under such circumstances. The visit might also be their only time here, as the imminent judgement from the King would decide their fate.

Seonghwa stood in the corner, arms crossed over his chest, an amused expression on his face. He left home that morning after a lingering kiss on your lips, feeling rejuvenated and determined. Choosing not to burden you with the details of today's assembly, he shielded you from further thoughts about your family.

Don't worry, my love. I'll make sure they suffer a punishment worse than death.

"I can't stand to look at you imbeciles for another moment longer. Let's get this over with already. Royal Secretary Choi, would you be so kind as to enlighten us with all of Minister Jang's crimes and his punishments?" said the King.

Stepping forward from his corner next to the throne, San bowed, "As you wish, Your Majesty," Tugging open the scroll in his hands, he began reading out loud, "Minister Jang has committed a total of five crimes. First, he committed adultery voluntarily, and for that, he will be whipped with eighty lashes. Second, he committed the crime of official document forgery, and for that, he will be whipped an additional twenty lashes."

Dread filled the minister as he gulped, anxiously listening to the secretary move on to the next section, "Third, for the confinement, continuous abuse, and mistreatment of his own daughter, an innocent citizen, he will be flogged thirty times. Next, for violating the code of ethics as a minister, which is to be a law-abiding citizen, he will be stripped of his title and flogged another twenty times."

As your father's hands trembled, he attempted to hold himself up by pressing his sweaty palms against the floor, breathing heavily as he awaited the final and most severe punishment. San continued, "And finally, for the murder of his first wife, an innocent citizen, he will be sentenced to permanent exile."

That's... it?

Feeling a sliver of hope, the old man let out a small sigh of relief. At least it wasn't death by beheading or arsenic poisoning as he had feared. Banishment seemed acceptable; he supposed he could still live a quiet life somewhere away from here. Bowing deeply, he cried, "Thank you, Your Majesty! Your grace is immeasurable!"

All the ministers and officials present quickly stole glances at Seonghwa, wondering if he would throw a fit and object to the punishment that was yet to be the heaviest one. However, they failed to discern his feelings, as there was only an unreadable smirk on his handsome face.

Lady Jang and her daughters trembled as they awaited their turn. With a nod from the King, the secretary continued, "Moving on, Lady Jang has committed a total of four crimes. First, she voluntarily committed adultery, and for that, she will be whipped eighty lashes. Second, she committed the crime of official document forgery, and for that, she will be whipped an additional twenty lashes."

She nodded to herself, seemingly already accepting her fate, as she listened, "Third, for the confinement, continuous abuse, and mistreatment of the minister's eldest daughter, an innocent citizen, she will be flogged thirty times. And finally, for being an accomplice to the murder of the first Lady Jang, she will be sentenced to penal servitude for life."

Her eyes shot up immediately, finding it hard to accept that she would be separated from her husband. She had believed she, too, would be exiled along with him. But she quickly lowered her gaze as soon as she saw the glare the King had directed at her, as if daring her to complain about it.

Oh god, my life is over...

Noticing the King's patience wearing thin, San quickly concluded with the final sentencing, "Lastly, for the confinement, continuous abuse, and mistreatment of the minister's eldest daughter, an innocent citizen, the three young misses of the Jang family will be flogged thirty times each and sentenced to penal servitude for a total of thirty years."

All three of the sisters' jaws fell slack at their punishment. After living luxurious lives like spoiled brats for so long, they were now expected to be servants, performing hard labour for three decades. All their dreams of getting married and leading comfortable lives were shattered. The prospect of finding suitors after serving their sentences seemed bleak. Their lives were forever ruined, and things would never be the same.

"Now that that's settled, remove these individuals from my sight, and see to it that they receive their physical punishments by today. I don't want their presence contaminating my palace walls any longer than necessary. Moving on to the next agenda, let us discuss who will stand in as the interim Minister of Military Affairs until we elect a new one." The ruler grumbled, waving his hands dismissively.

Seonghwa grinned smugly, relishing the way your father's face fell as he absorbed His Majesty's words. The King fully intended to drive the point home, reminding him that, no matter how much he believed he contributed to the nation, he, too, was just as disposable. Consider it emotional torment for further punishment, if you will.

As the members of the Jang family were forcefully pulled to their feet and guided toward the palace torture chamber where all punishments for criminals were administered, the general bowed deeply, "Your Majesty, forgive this humble subject for not feeling too well. Would it be possible for me to excuse myself from the remainder of today's assembly?"

With a knowing glint in his eyes, the King nodded, "Of course, my boy. Nothing matters more than your well-being. I'll have Royal Secretary Choi send you the minutes of today's meeting later on."

All eyes were fixed on your husband as he confidently exited the hall, wearing an excessively pleased expression, looking a little too content to be feeling unwell as he had claimed. It became evident to everyone that he was plotting something, a scheme that even His Majesty was privy to and had tacitly approved.

"P-please, have mercy!"

Screams reverberated within the dim and eerie confines of the torture chamber, a place the general once frequented during his duties of interrogating spies, war criminals, and suspicious individuals to maintain peace within the nation.

The familiar sounds of your family's agonising cries filled his ears, and he couldn't suppress the chuckle that escaped his lips as he entered, "Ah yes, music to my ears."

Upon his arrival, all the royal guards present swiftly bowed deeply and greeted Seonghwa with respect, "Good day, General Park!" They dared not continue until he gave them a nod, "Go on, don't let me stop you. I'm only here to enjoy the show."

"Yes, sir!" They chanted in unison. To many young soldiers and palace guards, he was akin to a god, an embodiment of success they aspired to achieve one day. Therefore, his mere presence motivated them to perform their duties with increased ruthlessness and precision.

Taking a seat in the centre of the room, your husband bit his lip with a smug expression, locking eyes with your father whose gaze reflected anguish. The elderly man lay face down on a wooden table, enduring lash after lash on his already bloody and battered back. His painful ordeal was far from over.

Whimpering, your father pleaded, "S-Seonghwa, I'm s-still your father-in-law! Please, at least show a little mercy to your wife's father!" Beside him, his wife nodded pathetically, sharing the same painful fate. Meanwhile, the three daughters stood frozen in a corner, wrists cuffed, awaiting their turn to face their beatings.

A devilish laughter escaped the general as he shot a menacing glare at the former minister, "Oh, I'm sorry, was that supposed to make things any better? I would show you mercy if only you had shown my wife any. You shouldn't have said anything, you fool," Turning to the guard in charge of whipping your father, your husband ordered, "Not hard enough, soldier. I want to see his skin tear."

"Yes, sir!" Striking with increased force, the lashes landed on the old man's back, inflicting wounds that would take months to heal. The continuous shrieks of pain only served to widen the smile on Seonghwa's face, "And to think you were thanking His Majesty for his grace; you've underestimated the severity of being whipped, haven't you? Did you really think you were going to walk out of here with a small bruise? Dream on."

"Oh, I can't wait for all of you to experience the wonders of flogging! It will be delightful, a punishment perfectly suited for your kind." The general sang, eyeing the three girls slyly.

They cowered under his intense gaze, suddenly regretting every action they took on the day of your visit. Perhaps if they hadn't attempted any of those, they might have gotten away with a lighter sentence. But there was no point dwelling on such thoughts now.

"Father! Mother!" The girls cried, witnessing their parents only now completing the first half of their punishment. Before they could continue their wailing, guards approached them, saying, "Quiet down! Worry about yourselves instead; it's your turn."

The former minister and his wife looked practically lifeless by the time the guards were finished with their hundred lashes each. The skin on their backs was completely torn open, blood gushing out relentlessly. They were nearly unconscious by the time the guards moved them to separate poles, where they would be beaten with a heavy stick all over their bodies.

Letting out a small yawn, Seonghwa signalled for them to prepare for the flogging. This would be entertaining to witness; most criminals barely survived this punishment by the time it concluded. He would relish the idea of them being left in critical conditions.

"Enjoy yourselves! Thirty times each for what you've all done to my wife – just the perfect amount to leave you halfway to hell. Don't worry; you'll wish you were dead by the end of this. But rest assured, we will keep you alive," Your husband exclaimed with a clap of his hands, "Now, I want you to think of all the things you've done to my wife as you endure this. Can we all do that?"

In the ensuing silence, the guards approached each family member, forcefully striking them with the heavy sticks in their hands. With just one hit, all of them began howling in pain, "Answer the general! Can you all do as you are told?!"

"Y-yes! Yes!" All five of them sobbed miserably, and the general beamed, "Fantastic! Now, let the official flogging begin! The first one does not count, alright? Consider it warm up!"

The insanity in his eyes was genuinely terrifying, and your family was once again reminded of his reputation. Suddenly, it all made sense. This was how it felt to be a victim of his cruelty. They never should have sent you to him; that was their biggest mistake, and nothing they do or say could ever change that now.

"Yes, sir!"

And so it began, the screams that now filled the room were even more piercing than the ones during the first round of whipping.

Approaching each family member one by one, Seonghwa smirked, "Remember all the times you starved her?" Jinjoo nodded in between shrieks, "Good. And you, recall all the times you insulted her and made her feel small?" Jinhee repeated her sister's actions, nodding furiously, "Very good. And you, remember all the times you did something wrong and blamed it on her so that she would take your punishments for you?"

Jinah cried, tears and snot running down her sweaty face, "I'm sorry!" He shook his head, "Will saying a useless sorry change anything? Nope. Hit her harder, soldier," With a grin of approval, he moved on to your stepmother, "And you, recall all the times you kept her locked up in that prison cell you call her room?" Not wanting to suffer like her eldest, she nodded aggressively, "Good."

Finally stopping in front of your father, he crossed his arms over his chest, "And you, remember all the times you laid your hands on her? Your own daughter?" The former minister nodded quickly but was not spared, "Good, hit him even harder so he never forgets how it feels."

"Twenty-nine, thirty." The beatings stopped for the four women, and they collapsed one by one onto the floor like rag dolls. Blood trickled from their noses and the corners of their lips, their bodies covered in countless bruises and open wounds, soaking their clothes red. And that is only what can be seen on the outside; who knew what fatal internal injuries they could be suffering from.

With his hands propped on his hips, Seonghwa took in the sight with satisfaction, "Very well, some of these scars should last you for life. Now, you look as bad as the way you'd left my wife. Actually, worse. But that's good. I'm very happy with the outcome. Guards, take them away and make sure to send them to places where they're known to treat their servants poorly."

The girls sobbed upon hearing that, "General, please, have mercy! We've already suffered enough!" Your husband scoffed, "Mercy? Have you not been paying attention this entire time? I'm not known for that. Get them out of my sight."

As the guards dragged the wailing women out, they cried for their husband and father. The former minister yelled, still taking his twenty additional beatings as he watched his wife and daughters go, "W-will you not at least let me say my final goodbyes to them?"

"Minister, please don't make me laugh. Did you also allow my wife and her poor mother a final goodbye?" The old man had nothing to say at that, grunts of pain escaping his lips as he tried to endure the remainder of his punishment despite feeling like all of his insides had been beaten to mush at this point. He didn't have to look down to know that he was soaked in blood; he could feel the sting on his wounds whenever the slightest bit of wind blew past.

Just a bit more, and I'm free.

« Preview of Part 11 »

"Forty-nine, fifty." Your father sighed in relief when the punishment finally ceased. Collapsing to the ground upon being untied, he stared blankly ahead, feeling pain throughout his entire body. Slowly but surely, he slipped into unconsciousness due to the loss of blood.

Unfortunately, his respite was short-lived. A bucket of dirty water was abruptly dumped over him, causing him to scream in agony as the injuries on his body stung intensely, bringing tears to his eyes.

"Did you think it was over?" His blood ran cold as he noticed he was now tied to a chair, unable to move. With most of the guards gone, only him and Seonghwa remained.

"What do you think you're doing, general? I've completed all my physical punishments; you're supposed to banish me now!" The old man croaked, his eyes widening in fear as he noticed the dagger in your husband's hand.

The general burst into laughter, "Oh, minister, you can be quite slow at times. Did you genuinely believe that His Majesty's decision not to sentence you to death was an act of kindness? Who do you think requested your exile?"

"Y-you—"

Seonghwa smirked, "Indeed, it was me. Killing you would have been too merciful. No, I want you to endure a life so filled with pain that you wish for death every single day. Now, after seeing how skilled you were at begging all day, I believe you'd make a very talented beggar. Do you know what would make you a successful beggar?"

Tears streaming down his face, your father shook his head hopelessly as your husband traced the blade against his skin before whispering, "One without limbs."

That was the most violence I have ever written HAHA I had to channel my inner Joker for Seonghwa's character. Anyway, I hope that was satisfying enough!

As always, thank you for reading and let me know your thoughts! <3

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#edenesth #the way to this heart #ateez #ateez fanfic #ateez fanfiction #park seonghwa #ateez seonghwa #arranged marriage au #joseon era #seonghwa x reader #seonghwa x you #ateez fic #historical au

[ruskaroma]

ordinary, corrupt human love. | chapter 1: written in blood.

Warnings: this series will include highly disturbing/dark topics such as stalking, unhealthy obsession, graphic descriptions of violence, blood and gore, manipulation, gaslighting, large age gap, emotional/psychological abuse, dom/sub undertones, bad BDSM etiquette, etc.

this is a dark fic, written in john's pov and a glimpse of how his mind works. if you still continue to read and get triggered, that is not my responsibility.

Summary: John finds himself a new obsession.

Author's note: this is my first ever fanfic for this fandom and i am beyond excited to share this with you guys! though i must say before you begin, english is not my first language and there might be a few errors in my writing here and there, so i apologize in advance.

but either way, i still hope you enjoy this piece, and i can assure you that once i finish writing this series there will be more to come! i really enjoy writing john wick be a merciless bastard who kills everything that breathes, and i hope you enjoy it too as much as i did.

please, please, PLEASE tell me what you think in the comment and reblogs and likes would be so appreciated. it motivates me to write even more :)

(also this is not edited so all mistakes are on me and i apologize)

Word count: 8.1k

also read on ao3.

It’s one of those days again.

The sound of his watch ticking is the only thing keeping his car from being too quiet. His eyes watch every single movement of his target, never leaving his sight. It won’t be too long for John to finally strike, he just doesn’t want too many civilians seeing the horror that’s about to happen right before their very eyes.

His mind is thinking of many things he could do with this target in particular. A lowlife thug that got himself involved with a very dangerous Italian mob, but then again that’s not the reason why John’s murderous intent is at its peak at the moment.

He’s angry at something, he just doesn’t know what. And this target of his isn’t helping his situation at all. Reading his criminal record made John think this could be a chance to cure his boredom. This man is not only a sex trafficker, but also a pedophile who has a history of targeting teenagers to rape and sell to the black market that’s as fucked up as him.

He doesn’t normally take his time thinking of ways to kill his targets. He points, shoots, leaves. This one in particular though, got him facing a side of him that John himself doesn’t want to face.

He would start by breaking every single one of the man’s fingers. And if that doesn’t do any justice, he’ll cut them off.

One by one, let the man savor the feeling, let John relish the nightmare.

He could slit the man’s throat, watch as life drains away from his body, watch as the man clings to his legs for mercy. John could even pull out the man’s dick, step on it, fucking cut it off and shove it so far down his own throat that he couldn’t scream for help if he tried.

It’s John’s version of Colombian Necktie. A classic, only ever tried it out four times, hopefully this would be the fifth.

John is never the one to take pleasure in killing people, but these past few months have proved him otherwise.

Maybe it’s because of Helen’s death, and the way he was basically forced to sculpt the demons he buried back into himself. His only remaining bit of humanity was taken from him, and he’s coping in the most unhealthy way possible. Perhaps Winston was right about dipping his pinky a little too much into the pond, but it was inevitable.

John has gone back to his old ways. Taking contracts here and there to distract himself from the void in his heart. He remembers how burying a knife into someone’s throat for the first time in many years has ignited something in him he didn’t even know he had.

That’s why he’s here, exiting his car in a swift move, following his target as quietly as possible into a narrow alleyway that stinks of garbage in piss. This would be a nice place to kill a guy like him – right where he belongs.

John’s movements are so discreet the man couldn’t even sense him until John wrapped his right arm around his neck and his other hand went to cover the man’s mouth. He walks them both to the back of a building as the man struggles, where John’s sure no more people are present, and he kicks him on the jaw to stop the man from making any more noises.

John can make this quick. Pull out his gun and blow his brains out. But there’s that sinister glint in his mind that’s telling him to do something unimaginable – grotesque even – a death a man like him deserves.

The man tries to swing his arm at John but misses pathetically. The poor guy’s already shaking and John hasn’t even begun.

John doesn’t respond to the pitiful attempts of questioning who he is and who sent him here, he simply pulls his knife from his pocket and wastes no time slashing it against the man’s throat, the blood spraying all over his face. The man tries to stop it by shakily covering the deep cut with his hand, but it’s useless.

He’s gargling, choking on his own blood, and John’s watching it all unravel with a familiar glint in his eyes.

John is contemplating if he should follow the plan he made in his head or just leave it like this. Somehow, the sight looks rather incomplete to him. He knows what he’s done is not enough, but that could be just the rage talking. The man’s already dead, and surely cutting off his dick and shoving it so far down his throat it comes out of the wound would leave an ugly reputation on his name. 

Would that be a good thing? John is already feared enough, would it be a good thing to make people fear him even more? But then again, this won’t be the first time he’s done it. Doing it again one more time wouldn’t make any difference.

He glances down at the dead body on his feet before he kneels down to do the unforgivable.

Slicing off a man’s cock is easy. Too easy. John’s knife is perfectly sharpened and stoned, he merely uses any strength to cut it off. The sight is so fucking ugly, too much blood, but nothing he can’t handle.

Once that’s done, John uses his other hand to force the dead man’s jaw open, immediately greeted by the foul stench of blood as he shoves the unpleasant dick into the man’s open mouth. The genitalia is definitely not long enough to reach the throat, but that won’t be any problem for John.

He grits his teeth as he forces his hand in there, not bothering to care even if the jaw breaks and the hole becomes even wider, his goal is the only thing in his mind.

The blood continues to drip and he has never been so grateful for wearing an all black uniform for this occasion. Soon enough, after a few minutes of such a brutal wrongdoing, John sees the tip of the cock reaching the deep wound on the man’s throat as it continues to peak its way out.

A sick, small smile spreads across John’s face. The smile is barely there, but he’s fucking enjoying this more than he’d like to admit. He can only imagine how the news would spread across the assassin underworld like a wildfire.

The Boogeyman’s back in business and he’s scarier than ever.

Perhaps this might be the way to lay his point across. This is a way to show them that it was not a good idea pissing him off, killing what’s his, and bringing him back in business. They’d regret it, but it would be already too late for that.

John uses his other hand to pull the cock right out of the man’s throat but not completely. Half of it is hanging out and John thinks he could even consider this as a masterpiece. There’d be flies and maggots that would make the scenery better, but the cleaning service is there for a reason. He can’t just not use it.

John stands up from his position, pocketing his knife back into his pocket before retrieving his phone with the other. He dials a number, waits for them to pick up, all while admiring his work on the ground.

His previous contracts these past few months all ended in such an unimaginable, ugly way. He figured that by showing them that he’s capable of such brutality, it would increase the numbers of people calling him in for more jobs, because this is exactly what they wanted. They wanted Baba Yaga, the ruthless killer of the underworld who stops at nothing to finish his job, and he’s simply giving it to them.

Someone picks up the call and he straightens his posture, checking the time on his watch before speaking.

“This is Wick. John Wick, yes. I would like to make a dinner reservation for one.”

The news spread faster than anticipated.

The notorious man John Wick, the hot topic of the criminal underworld at the moment, even gained the attention of The High Table, and it all happened in the span of one day. That’s how quick the news spread amongst his fellow assassins, though that’s exactly what he was going for.

John expected it so he isn’t surprised when he receives a call from Charon saying Winston wants to meet him.

He inserts a coin in the door and the small window opened briefly. The guy on the other side immediately recognized him, not wasting a single moment to open the door and let the man of the hour in. All eyes are on him the moment he steps into the club, but no one dared to murmur anything to anybody – not when the man himself is here.

They know better.

John spots Winston at his usual spot drinking his usual order, signaling John to sit beside him where a glass of bourbon is already present. 

“Jonathan,” Winston greets, raising his glass. “We have a lot to talk about, don’t we?”

“I figured,” John replies, though not interested. He slides himself to the booth and takes a sip of his own drink. “I don’t understand why though.”

“Are we really playing this game, Jonathan?” The manager raises a brow. 

“I was just doing my job.”

“In a way you don’t normally do,” Winston then adds. “Or should I say, in a way you don’t even do.”

John gives him a look, but he could tell Winston doesn’t know how to interpret it. His face remains emotionless, not letting the mask slip and grant Winston the privilege to take a peak. John will continue to play this game until he’s satisfied, until he feels something again. Surely he’ll find what he’s looking for while doing the only thing he’s ever good at – slaughtering.

“Let’s just say I was trying out a new technique,” John says, voice deep and almost sinister. Winston’s scared, though he doesn’t show it, John knows. 

“I have known you ever since you started, Jonathan. Not once did it cross my mind you would do something so.. horrifying as this. You discarded the body like he was some sort of pig, so believe me when I say I couldn’t believe it at first.”

John has no idea why Winston’s whining about him being horrifying, when that’s all they’ve been saying about him ever since he joined. He didn’t gain this reputation for no reason, now he’s just simply showing them what more he’s capable of.

“You should’ve seen his record.” His tone is menacing, swirling the drink in his hand as he stares deeply at Winston’s eyes. “He’s worse than a pig.”

The drop of the curse word takes Winston by surprise. “So is that what it is, then? You killed him that way because you think he deserved it?”

“Not really,” John simply sighs, leaning back on the leather seat as he takes another sip of his bourbon. He really isn’t planning on staying longer, but Winston seems to be taking his sweet time asking him a bunch of stupid questions. “I couldn’t care less of what he’s done. I was simply… bored. Saying that I did that because I think he deserved it gives people a reason to think that what I did was justifiable.”

The look on Winston’s face says enough. He’s afraid of John, afraid of what he has become. Hearing John say he did such an unforgiving thing just because he was bored is beyond frightening. No man has ever inflicted so much fear on him before – at least not until John.

“I think we’re done for tonight,” Winston finally says, not wanting to hear any more disturbing thoughts of John, but he remains polite and calm for the sake of their friendship. “You have a good night, Jonathan.”

John gives him a nod, standing up from his seat and downing his drink in one go. “Goodnight, Winston.”

He exits the club with an eerie aura following behind him, not caring about the way people are looking at him like he’s got Death himself walking beside him.

It makes him wonder that maybe death doesn’t follow him after all.

Maybe it is him.

Someone offered him five million to fuck up a man who allegedly stole a fuck ton of kilograms of cocaine from their warehouse, and really, who is John to decline the offer?

Hunting the man is easy. It didn’t even take a day to locate where the man lives, and John’s already breaking into his apartment to shoot the guy and leave. There’s no point in rummaging the place for the cocaine, all of it is already up the man’s system by the looks of it, and killing him is John’s job.

John wants to finish this one fast, he’s got other business to attend to. As he backs up the frightened, pathetic excuse for a man against the wall, he takes his gun out of his holster and aims directly at the head, right between the eyes, and he watches in great pleasure as the residue of his brains splatter against the walls and the floor.

This man didn’t even put up a fight. John thinks this is a waste of time.

He exits the apartment with disappointment heavy on his shoulders, slamming the door shut. Although the gun he used has a silencer, the rooms are too close to each other. He’s sure there might be other people who heard the shot of his firearm.

The apartment building is located at the filthy side of New York, where most known drug dealers and junkies do their nasty deals. It’s no surprise that as soon as John steps a foot out of the worn out building, all eyes are on him, but mainly on the clothes he’s wearing. They’re planning on mugging him out, and John would like to see them try.

Just as he’s about to walk to his car, his phone rings abruptly in his chest pocket. He retrieves it in one swift motion, not noticing that a gold coin fell out as he does so, and he continues walking to not waste any more time.

“Sir! Excuse me, sir, you dropped something!” John hears from behind. He doesn’t bother looking.

The call isn’t nearly as important as the business he needs to attend to, so he hangs up the call and pushes his phone back into his pocket. As soon as he does that, he feels a small hand touching his shoulder.

John’s hand immediately flies to wrap his large hand around the person’s wrist, turning around to see a young woman with a bewildered expression on her pretty face, little fingers holding his golden coin that looks far too big on her hand.

She looks scared, terrified, and oh how fucking awful that makes John feel. Like he’s been punched right in the fucking gut. He’s enthralled.

“I wasn’t–you dropped it and I’m just giving it to you, I promise!”

She’s looking at John with big, doe eyes. She also looks freshly showered, wrapped in a black puffy jacket that makes her even smaller than she already is. John lets his eyes linger on her lips, so plump and glossy. Her voice sounds sweet, soft, something John isn’t used to hearing.

John can’t help but to stare.

“Are you–are you gonna let me go, mister?”

The way she stutters triggers a hot feeling in John’s guts, and can’t help but to rub his thumb on the girl’s dainty wrist before slowly letting her go.

So delicate, he could snap them in half.

“Sorry,” John apologizes, taking the coin from her hold, and his fingers itch at the way her skin feels so soft against his rough hands. “Force of habit.”

“It’s okay,” she smiles a little, and there goes that hot curl in John’s stomach once again. “That thing looks expensive so be careful next time.”

Just like that, John doesn’t get the chance to reply back. She makes her leave and patters away from him, and he watches. He watches until she’s out of the view, taking a turn to a corner, leaving John with something he can’t quite figure out yet, but he soon will be.

For the first time in a while, he feels something new.

Suddenly, everything is too good to be true.

John will find himself staring at his hands for too long, still feeling the ghost of her soft skin on his fingers, fantasizing about her pretty face and soft, plump lips.

It’s scary for him to feel something again because that only means destruction. John likes to believe he has a gift of ruining everything he touches, especially the pure ones – like her. It’s a proven statement. Just look at Helen and Daisy.

This little one won’t be any different, he’s sure of it. John’s whole body is heating up everytime he thinks about her. The look on her face when she saw John’s chilling expression, her wide eyes, so glossy and innocent.

John wants to see her again.

His fingers itch, yearning to touch her again. 

Why he’s suddenly interested in a young woman he just met a few days ago, he has no idea. John’s a bit confusing – fucked up, even. He long accepted the fact that his mind is nowhere near healthy years ago. He tried to push those thoughts away when he met Helen, but now he’s out of his shell and back in business, there’s no need to.

He’s always been one of the wolves, and now that he’s laid his eyes on his next meal, he will make sure there’s not a single thing that will get in his way to hunt her down.

He had a crisis for two days before doing the unexpected. It didn’t take long for John to find her. 

Now, John has been following her around for a week, and he noticed a certain pattern his little one likes to follow as she goes on her day.

The very place where they met is where she lives, surrounded by a bunch of goons who have no idea what to do with their lives. John begins to wonder why she’s living in a place like that. He could take her, put her somewhere safe, under his care and protection. Make sure no one will dare to lay a finger on her.

John knows where she works. At a veterinary clinic not too far from her apartment, which is why she walks to work every three in the afternoon, but not without stopping by in her favorite deli and getting a large order of her favorite sandwich. She’s a part-timer. She’d be at school from seven to twelve, and at work from three to eight.

John finds the little things she does amusing. He’d be seated in a cafe right across from her work, watching how she moves around her office through a big window, petting and cooing at the animals who come and go.

She’s so perfect, so pure, so naive. She has no idea that a monster is lurking ten feet away from her, watching her every move like a hawk, thinking about the ways he could destroy her, make her his.

John is not delusional. He’s fully aware of what he’s doing and he’s aware of what people might call him. 

Stalker.

Creep.

They don’t know him though. They don’t know why he acts this way. They’d do the same if they were him, that’s for sure. He’s not the bad guy here, he’s simply just protecting her little one, even from afar. John went as far as destroying a whole Russian Bratva for a mere puppy and a car, he’d do even worse if she’s somehow taken away from him.

John sees her exiting the building and his first thought is to follow her. He stands up from his seat, the cup of coffee long forgotten as he makes his way out of the café and keeps a safe distance between the two of them. It’s risky, especially in the broad daylight, but John knows she’s too oblivious to notice.

She’s with her friends this time, and it doesn’t go unnoticed by John how she clings at the shirt of her co-worker as they cross the street, small hands fisting at the fabric. He thinks about how he won’t ever let go of her hand once she’s his. He’s not big on physical affection, having to grow up with no parents and a rather strict orphanage, but maybe he could be gentle. Engulf her hand in his, stroke it with his thumb, tuck her hair behind her ears, show everyone that she’s already owned.

They wouldn’t dare to lay their hands on her again.

John walks in the middle of the sidewalk, not bothering to move away despite seeing people approaching. He doesn’t need to, the look in his face is enough for people to give him the way. It’s interrupted however, when someone does try to get in his way, placing a hand on his chest and pushing him back a little.

John clenches his jaw, pissed. He takes his eyes from his little one and on the person who so rudely interrupted what he’s doing – it’s Marcus.

“John? I was just looking for you at the Continental.” Marcus has a small smile on his face, clearly not aware of John’s expression.

His eyes dart behind Marcus, where his little one is supposed to be, but she’s gone. John feels something curl in his stomach, his fingers itching again, eyes rapidly searching for her in the sea of people.

He looks at Marcus again, deciding he’ll just find her later, but he worries that something might happen to her now that John’s attention isn’t on her.

“Why?” he almost snaps, voice deep and laced with no emotion.

“Why? Because it’s been quite some time, John. I haven’t heard from you since the Iosef situation, but I did hear you’re back in business,” Marcus replies, but when he sees how distracted John looks, his voice falters. “You working?”

“Yeah.” The lie comes off smoothly. “I’ll see you around.”

John taps Marcus’ shoulder, trying to sound as polite as possible even though he badly wants to break a couple of his teeth for taking his attention away from her. He knows Marcus is probably noticing something, but John’s never the one to care.

Marcus drops the subject. “Alright, John. I’ll see you around.”

With that, John disappears in the crowd with no looking back.

It’s been awhile since John last took a job.

He can’t seem to take his eyes away from his little one. He can’t stop fucking stalking her from morning to night time.

John’s afraid that once he takes his attention from her even for a second, something bad might happen to her. It’s engraved in his mind that she can’t protect herself and he’s solely there to be the protector.

No one would understand. He’s doing this for her own good.

John’s absence at the Continental doesn’t go unnoticed by Winston and Charon. They’re his favorite, after all. Watch his every move carefully ever since that ugly murder John did. Perhaps he could make his next kill even uglier. To them, it’s vile and grotesque. For John, it’s special and unique.

This time, it took a good self-beating before John decided to take a contract. Three million to hunt down a rival crime lord, nothing he can’t handle, but somehow it brings an unusual feeling on his shoulder he isn’t fond of. Perhaps because John’s leaving his little one for a while and he isn’t quite sure what to feel. Worried and pissed – but mostly worried.

That is why he hired someone to trail his little one on his behalf. Everyone in business would do anything for a coin despite how fucked up disturbing it is. John offered a generous amount of coins to keep the assassin’s mouth shut, but he also held him at gunpoint and gave him a good talk before he sent the dog out in the field.

His only job is to keep an eye on her, report everything he’ll see to John, and maybe even take pictures for safety purposes.

John has been overseas in the last three days, and everything that’s been sent to him has been his only form of entertainment. There’s videos of her giggling with her friends, videos and photos of her in the library, outside her school, her work, and even in her apartment. There’s also information sent to him about the background of her friends – every single one of them, because John didn’t pay so much for nothing.

There’s one particular friend that ticks off John in all the worst way possible. He’s young, around her age, and the way he hugs and touches her just fucking sets him off. John wants to break his fingers in half. He reminds himself that once he’s home, he’ll make sure to take care of that boy himself.

“What else have you got?” John questions through the phone, and it doesn’t take long for his precious dog to respond.

“Oh, he is one creepy motherfucker. I’m starting to understand why you’re so riled up with this guy, boss. The urge to strangle him every time he gets in the picture gets stronger and stronger everyday.” He hears a laugh at the other end. The guy that’s working for him – Alex, if he remembers correctly – is young, new in business, knows not to fuck with John so he keeps his job adequate. If Alex ever notice how fucked up John is for making him follow a young woman to keep his life in order, he doesn’t say anything about it. “Just tell me when I can shoot this guy and I’ll do it in a heartbeat.”

“Leave him. Keep an eye on him, but don’t kill him,” John advises, his tone leaving no room for discussion. “I’ll handle him myself when I get back. For the meantime, focus on Y/N and keep any troubles out of her way. Fail that task and I’d serve your head hot on a platter.”

“You got it, boss.”

John is playing nicely.

He’s not going to force his way into her life. He’s gonna be welcomed, with open arms, desired.

There are times he’d thought about giving in to his desperation and act with his dick instead of his head. There are times he’d thought about following her to a dark street, where no one’s around, he’s on the prowl and ready to pounce. He’d put a fabric against her mouth and nose, laced with enough chemicals to make her pass out and for him to carry her in his car with no problems whatsoever. John thinks about how he’d make it look like he’s just picking up his very drunk and passed out girlfriend and no one would know a goddamn thing.

John would keep her in his house where she won’t need anything but him. 

But of course, he’s not that cruel.

They’re only thoughts. Thoughts that he tries hard to keep away, but at the end of the day he reminds himself that he’s better than that.

John is not going to force his way into her life.

He’ll make sure to get her addicted enough to come crawling at his feet herself. She’ll be dependent on him, won’t be able to live without him. John will make sure his plan will go out smoothly or otherwise he’ll be the one bringing Hell with him on this land and seek as much havoc as he possibly can.

The death emissary himself will strike tonight.

A Friday night out with her friends has John on high alert. That’ll only mean she’s constantly surrounded with people, god knows what could happen if John even takes his eyes off her for a second. He lurks on the side, blending himself with the crowd as much as he can all while keeping his gaze on her. 

He doesn’t need any drugs to keep his mind insane, because the sight of a specific man getting very close to what’s his is enough to make him visualize all the ugly and twisted ways to kill a man.

She’s wearing a thin silky dress that’s low on her cleavage and shows her perky breasts. She’s currently the flame in a room full of moths, John included. Everyone’s eyes are on her, observing the way she sways her hips and sings along to the loud music – John’s fingers itch.

The itch to kill is back again, driving into his veins, his hands twitch on the table. John wants to pull out his gun and shoot everyone in this fucking room. He wants to stab them in the eyes one by one and make them feed it to themselves. He wants to grab this guy on the neck and slam his head against the wall repeatedly until his brain scatter all over the fucking place and there’s nothing left for him to ruin.

This guy is getting on his fucking nerves.

John watches as the man smoothly brings his arm on her shoulder, whispering something in her ear that doesn’t make her look so impressed. In fact, she looks disturbed, uncomfortable, tense. Despite the guy being her friend, John could tell she doesn’t feel comfortable with the way he’s showing her affection.

It’s hard to see her like this, but he knows he can’t just jump in between the two of them and beat the shit out of the guy until he chokes on his own blood. He’ll have to wait, maybe after this party, he’ll strike and discard the body in a way that’ll make even Winston spook in his sleep. It’s not a major offense to kill a man that’s not in the game anyway – or at least that’s what John tells himself.

This guy wouldn’t be able to be three feet near his little one once John’s done with him. He’ll be six feet under.

John sees her swiftly moving away from his touch, trying to make her rejection look as polite as possible, which receives a not-so-amused reaction from her little friend.

This guy doesn’t deserve her at all. No one does. Except maybe John, but that’s because he knows he’s capable of actually taking care of her and keeping her safe. Nobody would understand what he feels, what he yearns, what he wants.

Good girl, John thinks. Walk away.

His gaze follow her as she makes her way to the backdoor and out to the cold air of the city. John follows in a hurry, keeping a safe distance between the two of them, then opens the door as quietly as possible so he wouldn’t let his presence known.

There are a few people on the street, either having a smoke break or making out against the piss stained wall, but she stays just beside the busy road as she wraps her arms around herself.

His gaze burn daggers on her exposed back, the urge to cover her up with his jacket and take her home. A drunk man comes stumbling out of the club, accidentally tripping over his steps and he pushes her hard enough to make her yelp as her heels lose balance and almost making herself get run over by a passing truck.

Almost.

Everything happens so fast. One moment John is standing five feet from her, the next is he’s grasping her wrists in his hand and pulling her back to her feet and dragging her back to the curb. He was already on the act once he saw the man exiting the club, he knew exactly this would happen.

The scene looks strangely familiar, one John could never forget. The same position, same hand placement, same rough fingers around her wrist and dark eyes boring into hers – their very first meeting.

“You!” she gasps, not caring about the fact that she almost just got hit by a fucking truck. “I know you! You’re the guy outside my apartment that day! What are you doing here?”

John stares. Predictable. Of course she’s talking to him like they’ve known each other for years. She’s too friendly.

“Hello to you too,” John replies, though his tone is blank as well as his face. “You remember me.”

“‘Course I do,” she giggles, a little tipsy, pupils dilated and licking her lips nervously. “You’re pretty hard to forget. I remember asking my neighbors around the area if you’re new there, turns out you were just visiting.”

John furrows his brows, hand still not letting go of her wrist. What does she mean by she’s asked around the area about him?

His face must’ve looked confused, he sees her grinning childishly. “It’s a coincidence that I see you again!”

Not a coincidence, but fate.

John doesn’t believe in a lot of things, but he believes in fate. Fate brought him Helen, and now fate is bringing him another angel. If she really went as far as asking the neighborhood about his existence, then it must be fate.

“I’m Y/N. I figured if we keep bumping into each other then you should at least know my name,” she says, completely oblivious that John already knows everything that has to be known about her. From her little mannerisms to the last name of her fucking grandmother. “May I know yours or are you just gonna stare at me all night?”

“It’s John,” he gulps, not wanting to look like a loser in front of her, not after everything he went through for her. “It’s really nice to see you again.”

He sucks at this. He fucking sucks at this.

“You haven’t answered my question, by the way. What brings you here?”

It hangs in the air, John lets go of her wrist. Luckily, he thinks fast enough and says the first thing that comes to his mind. “Work.”

“Ah, work,” she nods. “You work here? In the club? What are you, a bouncer or something?”

“I don’t. Someone I work with is in the club.” A lie, but it’s not like she would know. “We had a talk.”

“Not really a man of words, eh?” she raises an eyebrow teasingly. 

“This is the most words I’ve said in the past few days,” John says. “I’d say you’re special.”

The look on her face is enough to make his entire night even better. Blushing, lips opening and closing, not knowing what to say. John wants to graze his thumb on her lips, thinking about how good it would feel stretching over his cock.

He blinks. Where did that come from?

“For someone who doesn’t talk much, you sure make it sound smooth when you do. Are you always this slick, John?” she giggles again, music to his ear. “That’s actually better than what I heard from my friend earlier, so thank you.”

“That’s good to know.”

Before she could say anything back, the door of the club opens once again and her friends appear, waving a hand at her and beckoning her to get inside. She looks at John, gives him a sympathetic look, as if apologizing that their talk gets cut off too soon.

“I’m really sorry but my friends want me back in there. Hopefully we can continue this again, yeah?” she smiles cheekily, tucking her hair behind her ear. “If you want, you could give me your number so we can talk someplace else? You know… with no one bothering us and all that.”

There it is. John didn’t think it would be this easy to sink the hook in. All he needs to do is pull and take what’s meant to be his.

“Sure.” He enters his number swiftly, feeling that familiar burn in his guts once again when he sees the wallpaper being her pretty face. “Feel free to message me whenever you want. I’ll make time for you.”

She looks at her phone and smiles before starting to walk away from him, waving a hand goodbye, but it doesn’t feel like a goodbye. John knows it isn’t. She’s already his the moment she started talking to him again.

“Of course! Get home safe, John! I’ll see you soon!” 

“You too.”

She doesn’t know John won’t be heading home any time soon until he knows she’s safe and sound in her apartment.

Jay Lopez.

The name burns on his tongue. Bitter and resentful. He stares at the photos his precious dog sent to him and he has to stop the impulse to burn every single one of them.

Jay Lopez is the guy that’s been leeching on his girl since the dawn of time, and thankfully John is here to put an end to it. 

He’s hideous. It’s interesting how John stooped this low that he’d be willing to kill a college student for being too near his little bambi, but alas, he’s never the one to care for such things. Morals and righteousness have never been in his book, not now, nor ever.

It’s only a matter of time until he gets rid of this pest. He’s fucking creepy, follows around not only Y/N but a bunch of other women. 

John doesn’t want his death to be quick and simple. He wants to do it in an ugly way, make sure his body will never be found, make sure he’ll never get to lay his hands and eyes on what’s his. The way Jay stares at her in these pictures ignites something evil within John’s veins. It’s been awhile since he felt something like this.

“Alex.” he looks at his pet standing by the door, waiting for the next command. “Bring him to me alive.”

“Can I at least rough him up a bit?”

John doesn’t answer at first, looks back at the photos on his table. “Do what you want, just make sure he’s still breathing when you bring him here.”

“On it, boss.”

Truth be told, John doesn’t need a pet to order around for this job. He has himself – a labeled attack dog of the Tarasovs for years, their hellhound, chained and muzzled unless they need him to kill. He’s a one man army as some would say, he doesn’t need Alex running around doing tasks for him, but it sure does make the job a lot faster.

It’s not a way to downgrade his reputation nor skills to hunt, he really just needs this Jay guy gone as fast as possible.

On the same day, Alex manages to haul a very brutally violated Jay to the floor of his basement. He stinks, pants wet from piss and a face John is having a hard time recognizing.

“You said rough him up a bit, not make him look unrecognizable.”

“Same thing.”

Jay is sobbing his eyes out, his cries of pleas falls to deaf ears and John just wants to fucking bash his skull with his own foot. “W-who are you guys?! What the f-fuck did I do?! Get me out of here or I’ll tell the fucking police–”

John kicks him on the chin hard to stop the goon from rambling. “You’re not telling anybody any shit, tough guy.”

“So, what are you planning to do to him? Can I watch?”

“Can you handle it?”

Alex shrugs. He’s in the presence of the most dangerous assassin in the underworld, wouldn’t hurt to learn anything from his skills and techniques, doesn’t matter how fucked up it is.

John nods towards the chainsaw sitting at the corner of the room, and Alex turns to face him with wide eyes. “Jesus Christ, man. You serious? Last time I heard you’re a hitman, not a serial killer.”

“Same qualifications. Same thing.” John grabs the man by the arm then drags him to a chair. He takes a rope from the table and swiftly ties him up securely. “We start with the head, then arms and legs. It would be hard to put his entire body in a drum full of acid, so we need to cut him off one by one.”

Alex looks like he’s about to run off somewhere safe from what he’s witnessing. “You’re talking like you’ve done this before, holy fuck.”

John gives him a look, and Alex immediately shuts his mouth. Right. He’d done this before. This is completely normal.

“I’ve been following you for a while, Jay. You’re a creep who befriends pretty girls, then you’ll drug them and make them have sex with you,” John taunts, the sound of his heels hitting the concrete floor is enough to send shivers down his spine. “Is that what you’re also planning to do with Y/N? Be her friend and fuck her once she’s drugged up and vulnerable?”

It’s a bold statement coming from John himself since he’s no better man than Jay, but at least his intentions come from a different place.

“You-you’re fucking sick!” Jay spits.

“I’m sick? I’m not the one going around making girls uncomfortable now, am I?” he picks up the chainsaw, then watches in enjoyment as Jay widens his eyes in fear. “We’re going to have a lot of fun, Jay. You won’t be able to use your pathetic little dick of yours to any woman ever again, and most importantly –”

John fires up the chainsaw, adrenaline coursing through his veins when he sees the horrified look in the man’s face as he tries to get up and scream for help.

“I can finally sleep well at night knowing you’re not in Y/N’s life anymore.”

As John steps into the light, a roaring chainsaw in his hands, Alex could only watch in horror as the basement gets painted with blood in mere seconds.

There’s a vacant apartment just across her room, giving John the perfect view of what she’s doing while she’s alone.

Most of the time, John will pull up a seat beside the window and take pictures. The other half of the time is just him staring, observing. It seems that she’s too comfortable knowing there’s no one across the building so she doesn’t close the curtains, leaving John no choice but to keep his eyes on her.

He found this place just three days after following her. He couldn’t help it. Following her to school and work suddenly wasn’t enough for John that he had to find a way to somehow watch her even in her sleep. 

He should be ashamed of himself. He should feel guilty for what he’s doing – he should stop, but he just can’t. John’s already done too much. This is like being pulled back into the underworld all over again but this time, there’s something good that’s waiting for him on the other side.

Maybe it’s the delusion that comes with it that’s not stopping John from whatever he’s doing. Lately, he’s been thinking about how life would turn out to be if his plan goes out smoothly. They’d live happily ever after, she would end up loving him just the way he planned it out to be, and John will make sure no one will ever dare to take those peace away from him again.

He’d make sure no one will ever come close to her again once she’s his. She’d be isolated but protected. Just how John likes it.

It’s been two days since John gave his number, but he knows she’s just giddy and nervous to text him. He’d seen her staring at her phone, biting her bottom lip anxiously, thinking if it would be a good idea or not. He knows she’ll give in one way or another because he sees it in her face. She’s too easy, too gullible, too naive.

She’s lonely, just like him.

John could tell she’s waiting for someone – she’s desperate, no wonder she asked for his number the second time they met. She wants someone to take care of her, to hold her, tell her that she deserves the world. That someone is John whether she likes it or not.

This isn’t just any unhealthy obsession. John finds himself too deep to get out. He knows her little mannerisms, studied her every action, has a red room full of her pictures and no one can’t say he’s not ready to give up anything for her. John has already given up his sanity ever since he mutilated a man for being too close to her.

She’s his life now, his everything.

John watches intensely as she shreds her clothes in her room, baring him the full view of herself naked, and John grips the side of his chair too hard his knuckles turn white. This is the first time he’d seen her naked, it’s so sudden and so… perfect.

His cock fattens in his pants as he observes every curve of her body. Her waist is fucking perfect and her body is thick yet delicate. John thinks about bruising her sensitive skin, leaving a mark that will show everyone that she’s owned. He would love to see her in a collar, hear it jingle when she crawls. 

She’s completely fucking naked that John wonder just how naive she is to think there would be no one seeing her like this. What if John isn’t the only one watching her? What if somebody else sees her like this? His fingers itch, jaw clenching.

He’d kill them. He’d kill them in front of her, and the thought somehow made his cock hard even more. He grimaces, disturbed at the reaction of his body.

John doesn’t really understand the sexual aspects of killing, but now he’s thinking about how she would react if she sees him working. He’d kill someone in front of her and he’d see the look of disgust and betrayal in her face. He can already imagine how her eyes would well up with tears and fuck, his dick shouldn’t be this hard.

She’d fear him, and John would be turned on. How fucked up would that be? Just how fucked up can his mind get?

He resists the urge to wrap his hand around his cock because fuck no. He would not stoop this low, he is not a teenage boy. No matter how strong the thoughts get, the thoughts of wrapping his own hand around her neck, squeezing it hard and cutting off her airflow as John forces his cock in her cunt, hearing her mewl and scream and beg to just –

John sucks in air, eyes back on her in her room, wrapping a robe around herself and heading to the bathroom. This is fucked up. His cock is incredibly hard and leaking, and his mind won’t stop thinking about how good her pussy would feel around him.

He’d talk her through it. Whisper sweet nothings in her ear as she releases around her cock, praising her for being such a good girl. Then he’d fuck her again, in a different position, debauching her in different ways not even the devil himself could think of.

John would ruin her, and she will have no choice but to accept it.

He brings his hand to his face as he sighs deeply. He wonders what Helen would feel of what he’s doing. Disgusted, no doubt. This is not the same man she fell in love with years ago. He would never do something like this, but fate has its plans, and John believes everything happens for a reason.

She was brought into his life for a reason and it’s up to him whether he takes.

John doesn’t realize that he’s been staring at nothing for too long until she comes back in his view once again. Her hair is still wet, still wrapped up in a fluffy pink robe, and John’s fingers itch to grab, squeeze, possess.

He sees her picking up her phone, staring for a moment before her fingers start typing. John has been anticipating this moment for so long, the time has finally come.

In his chest pocket, his phone buzz silently, the vibration sending excitement in his whole body.

There it is.

13.06.15 11:46 PM UNKNOWN NUMBER : hello! this is Y/N from the club the other night

13.06.15 11:46 PM UNKNOWN NUMBER : also that Y/N who returned your super expensive looking coin hehe ;) i hope you didn’t forget about me!

There it fucking is.

John’s lips curl into a small smile. His efforts are finally paying off. 

All he needs to do is to get what’s his.

#john wick #john wick x reader #john wick fanfiction #john wick imagine #john wick fanfic #john wick chapter 4 #john wick x you #john wick 4 #keanu reeves #john wick smut #ochl #my works

[no-droids]

Another Rough Day

gif credit @chrishemsworht

Part Twenty of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 13.7K

Warnings: Angst, violence, canon-typical blood and gore, language, hurt/comfort

A/N: i wanna thank yall for sticking around during my hermit era, in the time ive been gone i am now officially a junior at a university majoring in aerospace and it’s a fuckin nightmare and i hate everything and god help us all literally kill me and I will be posting INCREDIBLY slowly because of that (I’m talkin weeks or months in between updates yall, im sorry I can’t dedicate more time to this but I am going to finish this fic within the next handful of chapters idk maybe 5 or 6 so you shouldn’t have to wait too too long).  As a heads up there will be hard angst as we enter the final arc, there will be hurt and it’ll get dark but everything is gonna turn out alright so thanks for sticking with me and continuing to stick with me. im sorry if you dont like it or your expectations were subverted or if this isn’t what you’d hoped it would be after following and waiting around for so long but this was planned a long time ago and it took me a good year or two to recognize that I started writing this fic for me and now I’m going to end it writing for me and I hope yall can respect that

ALSO I asked my best BEST FRIEND in the entire world @cptnbvcks to collaborate with me for this after we both took a very long break from creating and she drew some GORGEOUS artwork for this chapter so it will be posted at the end, everyone please go follow her and say hello

ps brittany girl you’re a fuckin menace i had to use my own two ears and listen to ethan literally say the words “the mandalorian cums, hard” what the fuck was that im actually suing

anyways chapter below the cut lets get serious yall

---

You take two of them down before they even realize they’re being attacked.

Your aim is as swift and steady as if Din were behind your shoulder right now, calmly pointing out which stationary tree to hit next in rapid succession.  You’re positioned perfectly at the bottom of the ramp to take full advantage of the ambush, the only thing running through your mind is strategy and the constant calculating of angles and ricochets.  The other three troopers are trapped inside the open Crest and you’re right next to a large boulder that you can step behind for cover, but it proves unnecessary as the rumors were apparently true.

They’re… awful.

Not a single blaster is even fired in your direction—you think you see maybe one panicked red shot bounce around in the hull, but that’s it.  The troopers fumble for their guns and trip over each other at the unexpected attack—a few scream like children through the modulators, but you’re temporarily deaf to anything besides the screech of your weapon hitting its target and the crumpling of armored bodies.

Later on, if someone were to ask you to describe exactly what happened—who died first, who ran for cover, who cried out for help—you don’t think you’d be able to.  You don’t even really feel like a person right now.  The entire thing is cold, robotic survival instinct, pure ruthlessness rising in your soul for the first time in your life.  It feels sick.  Wrong in your bones.  Born from preemptive defense in fear of your life, but that doesn’t mean you stop.  Not until all of them stop moving.

You empty the entire fucking canister for a handful of stormtroopers, firing plasma and char marks across every square inch of the pristine hull even after the last one drops.  Your heart is beating too fast, your finger keeps pulling the trigger multiple times even after the blaster clicks uselessly, completely empty and beeping a warning that it must’ve begun emitting ages ago.  Being out of ammo scares you—you suddenly feel vulnerable, even though the very far away logical part of your mind reminds you that they have to all be dead at this point and no physical threat was ever able to graze you.

Regardless, you quickly spin behind the boulder and grab another canister from your belt, giving it a spare check for leaks while the empty one slides and drops to the rocky ground.  It’s the first time you’ve ever had to reload this weapon instead of just pointing and shooting, but the mechanics are relatively simple and your brain makes up for your lack of coherent thoughts with lightning fast perception.  What's difficult is that your hands are starting to shake now that you’re not aiming, you’re not breathing correctly because you’re not really breathing at all.  You can’t tell the difference between the adrenaline-fueled dissociative silence that muffles everything around you or if it really is just that quiet now.  No more clatter of armor, no modulated voices or terrified screams.  No blasters, no footsteps along the ramp, no birds singing.

You quickly pause to lift your elbow and check the enormous eyes blinking up at you, tiny claws still holding tight to the fabric of your tunic and completely unharmed, and then you force yourself to move.  The blaster is held out in front of you while you walk forward and your finger rests on the trigger, begging to be pulled again.  It’s suspenseful and terrifying in a different way than before—now it’s less about psyching yourself up for confrontation and more about the fact that any sudden movement could mean your very swift end.

Silence.  Silence.  You’re numb and raw at the same time, walking up the ramp as your eyes fly everywhere, not even registering the blood or gore, just searching for movement.  You don’t know if you feel like a predator or prey, you’re that much more brutal and inhuman because of how fucking terrified you are.  You count four stormtroopers in the hull laying crumpled and still on the metal floor, but the one in the far corner only has blood on his shoulder.  You quickly swing the blaster around to remedy that, but then—

“P-Please don’t kill me!”

His words remind you of something.  Reality, maybe.  A world outside yourself and the kid’s survival, the living beings behind the bloody armor your enemies wear.

It’s a miracle your finger stays hovering over the trigger, and you watch him throw the blaster at your feet with a clang and scramble to show you his empty hands.  “Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me—I’m not loyal to the Empire, I don’t want to be here, please, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die—”

Behind the mask, your expression furrows.  Stormtroopers are loyal to the bitter end, what is he saying?  They embrace their expendiality, it’s the only thing that makes them any sort of a real threat.  Kuiil told you horror stories about them during your childhood, the cloning facilities and the propaganda they’re force fed since infancy.  It’s nearly impossible to find one who hasn’t been raised from birth to serve the Empire, no matter how crumbled and trace its remaining authority may be.

No, this is a trap, it has to be.  Your expression twists with dread after hearing him speak, readjusting your aim with the blaster and preparing yourself for the years of nightmares that’ll follow—but then he cries out, “Wait!” and then removes his helmet with trembling hands.

You pause, staring down at him in shock.

It’s him, you recognize him immediately.  It’s the same face from a hologram puck you bore into your memory, spent multiple days staring at so you’d be able to spot him under any disguise or circumstances.  Oshua Ryler.  Your quarry, the fifth puck, the one Din was out Maker knows where searching for before this entire mess happened.  A stormtrooper?  His puck said nothing about the Empire, this doesn’t make any sense.  What is he doing here?  Stormtroopers don’t have pucks, they don’t have bounties or relatives or loved ones searching for them.  They’re brainwashed, replaceable, faceless soldiers in suits of armor and they don’t even have names.

“Please don’t kill me,” he begs again, staring at you with wide eyes even as he cowers.  “I have a family, I-I just want to go home, please—”

“Shut up.”  You can’t think straight with him crying like that and you’re wasting so much time just standing here trying to process when your brain had to literally shut itself down to even do the things you’ve already done.  You have to kill him and escape, you have to—you can’t trust this complication, not with the tiny claws currently digging into your back and reminding you of your purpose, but it was so much easier when he had on a helmet.  You hate looking at his face.  It’s going to haunt your dreams now, just like the man you stabbed on Corellia.

“Please don’t kill me—please don’t kill me,” he screws his eyes up and breathes over and over instead, and your stomach wrenches with disgust.  His posture and expression are so fucking pitiful, you can barely keep your eyes on him through the overwhelming nausea and aversion that climbs up your throat.  He’s with the Empire, and they’re looking for the baby.  You know what needs to be done.  Pull the trigger, just one small movement from you and it’ll be all over.  It would be the easiest thing in the world, it would be so easy.

But then instead, you ask, “Why are you a stormtrooper?”

“I’m n-not—I hate the Empire—”

“The Empire is ashes.”  You don’t know if you’re yelling or whispering with how much blood is roaring through your ears.  “They hold no power anymore.  Why are you with them?”

“Because the one thing they have left is money!”  The quarry shrills the words at you, ghostly pale to the point of turning green.  “Th-They buy troopers now—they opened up a whole new market for the smugglers, there’s a base nearby that’s used for training and…”  He stares wide eyed at you and gulps.  “C-Conditioning.”

Your brain is already going a trillion lightyears an hour and it doesn’t have the capacity to empathize or understand anything beyond the child’s survival and the relevant details right now.  “Were they expecting the baby?”

“W-What?”  He squeaks up at you.

“Was the bounty put out on you a trap set by the Empire?”  You ask him, lifting your free arm just enough to flash him the tiny child clinging to your side.  “He said they’re coming after the baby, so tell me if this was planned from the beginning.”

“Who is ‘he’?”  The stormtrooper asks, furrowing his eyebrows and looking around.  “What are you talki—”

“Tell me if the bounty on you was a trap to take this baby!”  You roar, your blaster shaking as you aim it down at him.  Your mind is acutely focused on the tiny claws hanging onto your tunic, the continued safety of the kid and the life or death situation facing him that you were given absolutely no information about.  “Now—”

“If it was I didn’t know!”  He quickly cries out, pleading with you and clamping his eyes shut in terror under the barrel sight.  “I don’t know anything about a b-baby, or a bounty!  They just put blasters in our hands and told us to search for a ship and to bring back anyone we find alive, I swear!”

You’re silent for a moment, biting your lip under the mask and caught halfway between discerning and stalling.  You could still kill him.  You should still kill him, time is ticking down and more troopers could be heading this way any second.

Shit.  “Who put the bounty out on you?”  You ask sharply.  It might not be a completely fair question, but he can’t exactly blame you for not feeling completely fair right now.

“I—I don’t know,” he gasps, clutching his bleeding shoulder.  “Could’ve been anyone—my mother, Cyra, o-or my dad, Obediah, or Thia, or Benja, or S—”

“Thia,” you interrupt his rambling, catching the slurred word and repeating it back to him.

“Yes!”  Oshua jerks his head up, tears and hope immediately filling his eyes at the sound of her name, “Yes, Thiadura Celi Ryler, that’s my sister!”

Maker, if he’s lying, then he’s fucking brilliant at it.  You look towards the cockpit of the ship, biting your lip under the mask.  Get to Nevarro, tell Karga and he’ll… something.  Din was cut off before he finished.  Help?  Know what to do?  You’re lost, but you have a clear directive and the precious seconds are sliding by.  The controls are right up there, two steps to the ladder and less than a minute until you’re rising into the atmosphere.

But then you think back to the terror in Din’s voice.  The blistering panic that made him speak faster and with more urgency than you’ve ever heard from him.  Get to Nevarro.  Tell Karga.  Get to Nevarro.  Tell Karga.

You look back at the quarry.  “How many of you are there?”

“At the base?  Around three hundred,” he immediately spills.  “Half of us are in the hole right now getting brainwashed, they do it in shifts, but they can be mobilized in a few hours.  There were a lot of bodies outside when we were ordered to split off, maybe a third of our squadron, but the rest were still shooting at whatever was—”

“So around a hundred left,”  You finish breathlessly, almost wanting him to speak faster and cut to the chase so you can calculate quicker.  “How many were dispatched on the search?”

“Uh, there were eight groups of five sent in each major direction,” he informs you, still trembling on the ground.  “Told us not to come back until we covered the entire sector.”

Of which, four you’ve already taken care of.  In other circumstances, you’d be nauseated at the thought, but right now, it’s just another number to subtract, just more panicked math in Din’s frightening absence.  That leaves at least sixty troopers left wherever the base is, minimum, and likely a couple more hours before they’ve combed the sector.  If this wasn’t a preconceived trap purposefully set for the kid, then that means reinforcements haven’t arrived yet but likely will soon.  And if this is a base meant for training and conditioning, then that also means there’s a chance not all of them will be loyal yet.

You make the decision immediately.

“Okay,” you announce, clicking the blaster’s safety switch and holstering it, sounding lightyears more certain than you feel.  “Then you’re going to help me carry out a rescue mission, and I’ll take you back to your sister.”

“You…”  He looks uncertain, blinking at your blaster and slowly lowering his hands.  “You want to rescue the men?”

Ideally?  Sure.  Realistically?  You don’t say anything in response.  Instead, you kick his regulation firearm at your feet further away from the quarry just in case your judgment is flawed, and then turn around and grab one of the bodies behind you.

Your adrenaline is still blaring so fast that you only just barely note the severity of what you’ve just done and what you’re continuing to do.  The corpses aren’t real to you right now, they’re inanimate things that you need out of your ship before you can close the doors to it.  They are, however, heavy as fuck, but the only other adult here has a wound in his arm from the gun on your hip.  Regardless, you have experience with lifting dead weight without a big, strong, capable man to do it for you.

“Help me out here, kid,” you mutter over your shoulder, and in response, you feel his claws dig in and climb up just a little bit until he can peek out in front of you.  Thankfully, the burden is suddenly lifted and you can quickly slide the dead troopers down the ramp with ease.  It takes hardly any time at all—you just yank and haul and release and all four of them tumble the rest of the way all by themselves.

When you stand back up, Oshua hasn’t moved and he’s looking at you with a pale, queasy expression.  Glancing down, you see that your white robe is now stained with streaks and patches of rusty blood.  Instead of swallowing back bile at the sight and bolting to the shower to scrub off every last remaining trace, you breeze past it, noting nothing more than a change of color.  Dirtying your white, pristine clothing with the consequences of protecting this baby—you’d rather have blood-soaked fabric with an unharmed kid clinging to you than any other combination of those things.

“Can you make it up to the cockpit?”  You ask the quarry, kicking his rifle off the ship before closing the ramp and then gesturing up the ladder.  Your voice is calm and steady but your hands are beginning to shake again.  “I need as much information as possible about the base.”  You know that’s where Din is, judging from the wall of blaster screeches that drowned him out through the comm.  Logically, you know you could be headed right into a trap, and every instinct inside you wants to find safety, but… you just cannot imagine flying the ship away from this planet without Din onboard.  It isn’t fucking happening, you’ve made your choice.

Without waiting for a response, you climb the ladder and plop down in the pilot’s seat of the Crest.  While Oshua finds some way to clamber up the steps behind you in bulky stormtrooper armor with one good arm, you hold the kid closer on your lap and begin flight checking.  Din will be fucking furious, but the scolding you’ll be sure to get is the least of your worries right now.  Following his instructions and going back to Nevarro is just making shit infinitely more dangerous for him, turning what could be a potential rescue mission into an undeniable suicide mission.  Even if Karga somehow decides to send a few guild members along to infiltrate the base, it’ll be a war you want to avoid.

Besides.  What did you always tell him about running away from him, even when he instructs you to?

It’s just… not really your thing.

---

They’re everywhere.

They crawl like flies out of the base, and for every single body that falls, three more spill from the open doors.  Rapid fire plasma beams launch from the end of Din’s blaster, melting white armor with every twitch of his gloved finger.  Their aim is terrible, as is to be expected, but the sheer number of them more than makes up for it, as is by design.

Din’s heart pounds with exertion, his breath comes in ragged huffs through the modulator as his helmet identifies and isolates which body is closest to him, which body he needs to bring down next.  His blaster is so hot it nearly burns his hand, even through the thick gloves he wears.  When he runs out of ammo, he holsters the pistol and swings his rifle from around his shoulder, spinning to catch a handful of troopers behind him in the obliterating blast.

He’s not thinking much.  He can’t think, even though your safety and that of his son is currently dangling by a thread.  If he focuses on that, he’ll be dead before he can even picture your faces.  He just reacts, he maims and kills without a single thought in his mind.  Blood splatters, screams and sirens blare as he becomes surrounded by more and more troopers.  Din can hear the sound of plasma colliding and ricocheting off his armor; every single one of them is a potential injury he could currently have but might not even be able to feel right now.

His helmet starts beeping rapidly and he turns just enough to see, highlighted in bright red on the screen, two enormous artillery turrets slowly rising up out of the roof of the imperial base.  He feels a fierce flash of anger burn in his chest, it’s like a lightning strike to his veins.

Din needs to go.

And yet… if he was another man.  If he wasn’t a father, or a husband, if he had no family and no attachments like the creed declared he should, he would go.  With just a twitch of his fingers, he could be launching into the sky and retreating as far away from this battlefield as he could reasonably get.  He’s never been the type to run from a threat, but this isn’t just a threat.  Dozens of troopers are gaining on him, they’re trampling their own dead to get within range.  Plasma pings off his shoulder, another one hits his back as they flank from behind.  He can feel the heat through the sizzling beskar, he can see them surrounding him on all sides, and the propulsion trigger for his jetpack is right there under his wrist.

Din holds his ground and continues firing, he plants his feet firmly to the dirt with only one thought in his mind.

Run, sweet girl.  Run.

---

You type in commands to scan for Din’s signal, quickly locating it through the Crest’s computer onboard.  Not far from here, three minutes or less.  The ship rumbles to life beneath you, slowly lifting off the rocky ground and rotating in place as it hovers.  It’s not on autopilot but you feel like you are, you can barely feel your hands as they move the yoke forward and the Crest takes off in the direction of Din’s blinking frequency.

“Tell me about defenses,” you instruct Oshua, restlessly bouncing your leg while the baby coos.

“Two plasma turrets on top of the base,” the quarry quickly answers.  “There’s usually guards stationed around the perimeter, but everyone who’s capable will be outside right now.”

Your mouth twists downwards under the mask.  Blasters don’t scare you much from this high up, but Din’s armor doesn’t cover every inch of his body, he’s not completely invincible.  Doubt churns in your stomach, but you have to stay focused on one task at a time so you don’t get overwhelmed.  The turrets, then.  “Are they automatic?”

“Manual,” he corrects with a shake of his head.

“Radar?”

“Old.  Only engages above fifty meters.”

You eye your altitude and dip the Crest considerably, beginning to weave through the rocky canyons and dodging crumbling cliffs while you travel.  “What about ships?”

“None,” Oshua says, “except for a passenger shuttle used for transport.  TIEs are flown in the Vesta sector, this base is remote and used for basic training only.”

“Anything else?”  You ask, stomach twisting with the knowledge that barely four questions is all you’ve got.  You’re planning to drop into an imperial base to save the man you love and you can’t think of a single other question?  

The quarry shrugs, and your heart slams, does somersaults in your chest at the mere notion that you could fucking die here.  Today, in two minutes or less, you could die here.  The child in your lap looking over the ship’s front panel with a quiet determination in his eyes could die here.  Din could already be dead—that signal broadcasts his location to this computer regardless of whether he’s still breathing or not.  He could already be gone and you’d be flying the baby right into a trap without knowing any differently.

Whelp, you think while taking a deep breath, some strangely calm existential acceptance beginning to flood your soul.  If he isn’t dead, he will be soon if you don’t make it to him on time.

You immediately lift your wrist and speak into the communicator.  “Mando?”  You have no idea if he can hear you, but you need to try anyway.  Your voice is still firm, there’s a strength to it you don’t feel in your chest, but it certainly sounds convincing.  “I’m coming to get you.  Less than a minute to your location, do everything you can to get outside.  If you can’t, I’ll just… uh.  Try to figure something else out.”

That’s it.  That’s it, improvise until you don’t have to.  Even if you’re lacking confidence, you can at least scrounge up some conviction.  Your arms gain feeling again while you veer the Crest through the stony terrain, the familiar reverberations under your feet begin to fill your body with a powerful sense of purpose.  Your breaths begin to come steady, every falling rock you see through the transparisteel feels like it drops in slow motion, allowing you to evade them easily.  It would normally be stupidly dangerous to fly this low with so many unexpected obstacles and hazards narrowly missing the ship, but considering what you’re flying into, a few boulders seems comical.

“Where’s your helmet?”  Oshua asks out of nowhere, and for a second, you don’t think you heard him correctly.

But then it strikes you all at once what he’s attempting to imply, and the sheer lunacy of the thought is enough to make you laugh while you clutch the controls.  “I’m not a Mandalorian.”

“You wear the armor of one,” he points out… rather fairly, you have to admit.  “You cover your face like one.  You have a blaster that fires Philithiorium, a rare and expensive gas native to Mandalore’s stratosphere, and you’re a bounty hunter—”

“I’m not a Mandalorian.”  Your words are short and cutting, you have a daunting task to focus on and don’t feel like having small talk right now.  “I’m not a bounty hunter, either.”

But then again, Karga made you a member of the Guild, didn’t he?  He handed you Oshua’s puck and said this one is for you to find, and you are technically part of a Mandalorian clan.  All of this seems like it happened without your knowledge.  You may be marrying a Mandalorian, you may wear his armor and mother his child and shoot a blaster with his signet branded into it, but war isn’t in your blood.  This robe was a costume when you first made it, this armor was a relic that was restored as a hobby.  In a sense, it still feels that way.  The mask covering your face lended itself to a temporary surge of bravery earlier, but beyond that, the only thing that’s keeping you moving forward now is your family.  The man you love that may or may not be alive right now, the baby holding tight to your leg while the ship sways and weaves through the stony landscape.

Your eyes quickly flick down to the child in your lap, both of his three fingered hands clutching onto the stained fabric of your knee without moving a single inch.  He’d know, you tell yourself.  If his father is gone, he’d already know somehow.  Din is still alive, and he’s counting on you.

---

There’s too many for Din to handle.

They swarmed him, overpowered his endless artillery with massive numbers and there’s nothing he can do anymore.  The backs of his knees are kicked from behind and he slams down to the ground with a clatter, his sizzling hot blasters are ripped from him, and Din folds his hands calmly behind his back even as one of the stormtroopers barks out, “Binders,” to another one, who disappears quickly in response.  In the meantime, a few of them apparently decide to just attempt holding his arms in place, and their measly combined grip is almost enough to make him roll his eyes under the helmet.  These imperial soldiers are even more pitiful than they usually are, but his silent resolve to stall to ensure your escape is enough to keep him stationary and compliant for the time being.

Eventually, a few voices call out from beyond the crowd and there’s some movement from the back.  Dozens of troopers with their blasters all pointed at him begin to shuffle to make way, careful to keep their barrels aimed at him while a path slowly forms.  The crowd of white parts and a stormtrooper with a singular red pauldron on his right shoulder saunters confidently towards Din as he kneels on the ground.

An officer, he assumes.  Conveniently missing from the firefight, the scanner inside his helmet would’ve caught the change in color and Din would’ve made sure to kill him first.

“Well now, what do we have here?”  Comes his thin metallic voice through the tinny filter.  The officer studies him curiously for a few moments, before slowly looking down by his feet, reaching out one cheap, plastic covered foot to gently nudge the body of a dead trooper on the ground with a sigh.  “What a shame.”

Coward, he thinks, his lip curling with disgust under the helmet.

“This is an imperial training base,” he turns his attention back to Din to inform him when he doesn’t immediately respond, rather stupidly he might add.  “How were you able to find us?”

Silence.  The grip on hands held behind his back is even looser now.  He just tilts his chin up slightly in defiance, the scanner inside his helmet locating each weapon strapped to the man’s body and highlighting it red.  Small text boxes blink into existence under each one with a manufacturer and classification—a BlasTech E-11 rifle, a Merr-Sonn thermal detonator, a Kolvo vibroblade—and Din is severely unimpressed with the quality.  The detonator is the only weapon that even catches his eye, and that’s only because the chamber inside that houses the explosive baradium has a release mechanism that’s completely dead.  Useless, then.  Good to know.

After a long moment of quiet tension where Din refuses to speak and the officer continues to confidently scrutinize him, in some strange sort of silent battle of egos that only one seems to have a genuine interest in, another stormtrooper makes his way to the front, shoving past his fellow soldiers to address the superior in charge.

“Commander, we’ve sent out an alert for an intruder,” he tells him, slightly out of breath from running through the crowd in the lightweight armor.  Din wants to roll his eyes, but what he says next makes him snap to immediate attention.  “The fleet informed us that Moff Gideon is currently on route.”

Gideon.  The last time someone spoke that name, it was a quarry on Coruscant and you just barely managed to stop Din from suffocating the bastard for even saying it aloud before freezing him in carbonite.  It would’ve meant half the return on a hunt that lasted nearly a month but he saw red and his hand was crushing his windpipe before he realized what happened.  But he’s dead, Din thinks with a clenched jaw and fists tightening behind his back, he watched that TIE fighter explode and slam into the ground, crushing the man inside it.  The wreck was unsurvivable, he can’t be alive.

“For what?  This Mandalorian?”  The trooper in charge scoffs in response, and Din remains completely mute.

“Yes, sir,” the other one confirms.  “Orders were to capture him, alive.”

“Hm.”  The officer turns his attention back to him, less analyzing and more musing while he tilts his head.  “I see,” he eventually says, and he sounds like he’s grinning, before strolling slightly closer as Din stays completely still on his knees.  “He must want the beskar.  I’m sure it’s worth more than this entire battalion combined.”

All of a sudden, a gloved hand carelessly catches the rim of his helmet and tugs, and Din’s movement is explosive.  He launches off the ground, arms easily slipping from the pathetic grip they were being held in and his fist colliding with the side of the officer’s flimsy white helmet, the plastic making a deafening crack against his face.

Multiple hands immediately rush forward to grab him and yank him back down again while the commanding trooper stumbles backwards in shock, and Din amicably drops to his knees and folds his hands behind his back once more like nothing happened at all.

“Binders!”  A trooper behind him roars loudly once more, and a few men surrounding him begin trotting away this time.

The officer in red stands a few feet away from him now, grabbing his helmet and twisting it back to its proper position on his head where it was skewed.  There’s a shattered hole near his jaw where the material splintered and busted like the cheap piece of banthashit it is, and while he might normally feel pleased with himself for being able to see his skin peeking through, it just fills him with more righteous fury.  It’s such a punchable jaw.

After a few awkward moments of silence, the other one clears his throat and continues.  “He… has inquired about the location and status of a child that should be accompanying him.”

Din inhales deeply through his nose and grinds his teeth.  He wants to snap their necks one by one for even just mentioning his son, but there are just too many, more than even his whistling birds can neutralize.  Still, he gave you as much of a head start as physically possible.  You should be rising into the atmosphere right now, making the jump into hyperspace towards safety.  Karga will know what to do—he’ll protect his family, separate you and the boy so the threat is evenly dispersed instead of collected all in one place, and arm dozens of trained hunters to keep watch over you both individually.  It’s the best Din can do, and it’s the only thing keeping his knees planted on the ground and his body completely motionless while they continue speaking.

“We are combing the sector for a ship with as many men as we can afford to lose,” the trooper in red says, but his voice filter is shattered and now sounds like a puny little droid with a broken voice box, “but our numbers are unimpressive.  Assistance may be required.”

It’s too late, Din thinks, mouth twitching under the beskar with a satisfied smirk.  They’re wasting their time, looking for a ghost.  You’re both long gone by now.  They’ve got no idea you even exist—

“He also spoke of a girl.”

And then he feels his heart stop in his chest.  Every single cell in his body turns to fire, it’s a fucking miracle he doesn’t move a muscle in response.  His sweet girl, the one so far removed from the nightmare of the Empire that she made best friends with the orphans of it.  How the fuck did he know?  He shouldn’t even be breathing, let alone gathering information about you, how did he know?

But then Din thinks back, remembering your makeshift bed on the floor, your panicked eyes and heaving chest as the quarry taunted him with a sick little smile.  Who’s this, Mando?  She’s just darling, isn’t she?  Does Gideon know your crew has a lovely new addition?

“A girl?”

The trooper nods.  “Moff Gideon insisted that if the Mandalorian did not have a child with him, then a girl would likely be protecting him instead.”

He’s going to kill them, Din decides.  Every single one of these imperial pigs, every single soldier standing right now is a dead fucking man.  The blood pumping through his body suddenly turns to acid, deadly black hate poisoning his soul.  His heartbeat morphs into a war drum, the armor strapped to his limbs is the barrel of a gun.  He’s going to fucking kill them and leave an imperial base full of bodies to greet his old nemesis upon his return, and he’s going to enjoy every single second of it.

Except, then—

“Mando?”  The sweetest voice in existence suddenly crackles through the earpiece under his helmet.  “I’m coming to get you.  Less than a minute to your location, do everything you can to get outside.  If you can’t, I’ll just… uh.  Figure something else out.”

And, as Din kneels there in surrender, surrounded by a crowd of enemies he thought he destroyed long ago, all the anger—all the fury and defiance and murder surging through his veins—suddenly morphs to fear.

The emotion is so foreign and old to him, it feels like a face he barely recognizes and a name he can’t remember.  He’s panicked before.  He’s been in situations where a threat has made him blind with rage, he knows what it’s like to look death straight in the eyes and say that he’s busy and to come back another time.  This is different.  This is ice cold that freezes over beskar.

He can’t speak out loud to warn you—he can’t move his hands to press the button on the back of his helmet and allow him to talk without detection.  There’s plasma turrets on the roof of the base, he can see them right now.  The helmet’s scanners say they’re manned and engaged, and though he is outside and this is how you retrieved him before whenever he needed a quick escape, he has fifty fucking imperial blasters trained on him and you know absolutely nothing about this threat.  You’re flying right into a war zone and if either you or his son dies, he won’t ever be able to forgive himself.

Behind the helmet, his eyes fly to each and every trooper, wondering which blaster will be the one to do it.  Which weapon is going to be the one he can’t block in time when you descend, the one that’ll kill him right in front of you.  Which turret will be the one to obliterate the Crest with you and his son inside of it.

“Maker, where are those fucking binders—” he hears someone behind him snarl, but the white noise of pure terror roaring through his ears drowns them out.  His chest starts heaving against his will, sheer panic begins to blur his vision.  For the first time in his life, his armor feels too heavy, his lungs feel like one of these boulders are sitting on them instead of beskar.

All too soon, his helmet starts making a familiar sound that signals quietly in his ear, alerting him of an incoming ship, and the only thing he can physically do is count down the seconds to prepare himself for what is to come.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two…

Like lightning, Din breaks the grip of multiple troopers and surges up, tackling the officer in red to the ground.  There’s a clatter as they both slam into the rocky floor, but in the ensuing scuffle, he easily snatches the thermal detonator from his side holster and holds it up for everyone to see, before pressing the red button on the front and hearing it begin to beep rapidly.

---

You’re right on time.

The Crest rises up through the rocky cliffs surrounding the base and you spot the turrets you were warned about.  Weapons controls are already engaged and you’re too low to be detected by radar—you fire once, twice, and blast both of them to smithereens from behind before they can even rotate around to target you.

Alarms start wailing but the guns are destroyed.  It’s not comforting, though; blasters won’t touch you up here, but that doesn’t mean they can’t fire at Din on the ground.  Your eyes dart across the sea of white, looking for a flash of silver anywhere, and then you spot him instantly in the chaos.

For some reason, the troopers in his vicinity all seem to be bolting away from him.  Their rifles are down, clutched in their hands while they nearly fall over each other to run away as fast as possible, and your heart soars when you spot his jetpack firing up.  Din launches into the sky while another trooper is revealed underneath him, seeming to juggle something in his hands and then throw it into the crowd of retreating soldiers, but the sight of the man you love rising into the air while a flurry of blaster shots from the far edges of the imperial structure follow him gives you the confidence to immediately turn the guns down towards the horde of troopers.

“Which ones are in charge?”  You ask Oshua breathlessly, who leans forward and points out the transparisteel.

“Red pauldrons—” he barely has time to say it before you aim and fire at one of the troopers wearing red that was closest to Din, the plasma beam launching from the Crest so powerful and devastating that it outright obliterates the surface he’s laying on.  Pieces of shattered armor fly and a smoking crater of rubble is all that’s left behind, but your mind is whirling and you’re already onto someone else wearing red at the edges of the complex, and then two more near the doors, and then another—

To their credit, you think the sixty or so soldiers in training seem to figure out that you’re not aiming into the enormous collection of them.  If you were, the damage would be catastrophic and spraying everywhere, but you’re precise and meticulous with your shots, and the only ones who are loyal enough to the cause to hold still and raise their blasters at the incoming threat tend to be the ones you need to mow down anyways.  The rest of them scatter in all directions, scrambling over each other to escape and then disappearing into the distant boulders surrounding the base—but you notice that not a single one of them runs back inside the safety of its open doors.

The hull dips with the weight of Din dropping in, and relief floods your soul even as you continue raining hell down on the superiors in charge.  Any flash of color you see is a target, your eyes lose focus of everything, your vision blurs and turns monochrome as you just search for red.

“Lift up!”  You hear Din’s voice roar from the hull.  You can hear his rifle unloading through the open door.  “Now!  We have to go now!”

You press the button to shut the hull door with Din inside and punch it, rising so fast that the shove of gravity makes it difficult to keep your head up.  Through the sudden surge of downward force, you just barely manage to raise your incredibly heavy arm to push the button that pressurizes the Crest and ignites the launch boosters, preparing the vessel for space travel.  Outside the transparisteel, the gray sky begins darkening as the atmosphere eventually disappears.  The ship’s engines roar, burning so much fuel at once that you’re actually accelerating through the climb, you’re boosting through the gradual ease of gravity as the planet’s curvature and glow becomes softer and softer below you.

As soon as the blackness of space begins to fill the windows, the slight subsiding of force allows you to plug in the coordinates for Nevarro with less difficulty, but you’re still moving, still rising, still escaping.  You can’t find it within yourself to slow down, but then something catches your attention.

Claws suddenly dig sharp into your thigh, sharp enough to sting and cause you to wince, and you look down to see that the kid has gone incredibly tense.  Deadly tense.  Your heart is still pounding even though you’re away from danger, you’ve got Din in the hull, everyone is safe, and yet—

It flickers into existence all at once.  One second it’s just space, just the endless depths of nothingness spread out for light years in front of you, and within the blink of an eye it’s suddenly there.

A star destroyer.

Your body freezes in horrified awe, having never seen a ship so fucking big in your entire life.  It looks like a massive satellite, the size of an enormous asteroid instantly appearing in your vision and dwarfing the vastness of space around it.  All the stars you used to dream about are suddenly blotted out within a fraction of a second, terror so immense seizes your soul that you stop thinking.  You stop calculating, you stop being yourself for a split second that lasts an entire lifetime.

Before you can move a single muscle, the computer beeps quickly and lurches the Crest into hyperspace.

---

The stars streak across the transparisteel like so many times before.  Utter silence nearly deafens you with how abrupt it is after so much noise, but the peace it used to bring does nothing to quell your fear.  Everything is the same as it always was, same bursts of light as you hurdle faster than it towards Nevarro, same quiet, same rumbling hum of the ship.  But now, everything has changed.

You hear the quarry next to you suddenly inhale and exhale loudly, and it shocks you a little bit, reminds you that there’s a person next to you and another is on your lap.  Other people exist outside of the vision of death that just flickered out of existence just as quickly as it appeared.  They’re breathing, Oshua is shakily unbuckling his seatbelt, life is continuing on in the quiet cockpit but you can’t seem to move like he is.  You can’t seem to breathe like he is.  It’s only when the baby slowly maneuvers himself around on your thigh and blinks up at you, placing a tiny hand on your stomach that you finally feel air enter your lungs.

After a moment, you reach down and click open your seatbelt with trembling fingers, scooping the kid up in your arms and slowly attempting to stand.  Everything feels wobbly and dreamlike, you have to brace yourself on the headrest to prevent yourself from falling back into the chair again.

“That was…” Ryler mutters, his voice sounding foggy and distant, “uh.  A close one.”

You look over at him, recognizing that he’s speaking but not quite able to understand the words right now.  Red catches in your vision, and you blink down at the way he’s clutching his left shoulder, the smear of blood darkening the white armor he’s wearing.  You blink a few more times at the sight of it, and though it feels like you normally would be sickened at the wound, somehow shocked out of your state of shock, it does nothing to you.  When you look back up at his face, his expression seems strangely grateful, even when it’s screwed up in what you know must be excruciating pain.    You did that, a quiet voice whispers in your mind, even though the rest of it seems incredibly blank.

Instead of responding, you stumble a few steps over to the ladder, spinning around and hesitating for a moment.  You’re severely lacking in coherent thought, but one thing seems to break through.  You’re not sure if you have enough coordination to do this safely right now.  However, when there’s movement in your peripheral and you look to see Oshua gently offering his right arm to you, seeming to understand you’d like to use both hands for this, you snap back to your senses just the slightest bit and hug the baby tighter to your chest.  Carefully, you begin making the slow climb down the ladder with the kid, still trembling with the aftershocks of adrenaline.  Your limbs feel extra heavy, but eventually the floor meets your feet.

Din is standing there when you slowly turn around, armor gleaming and still as a statue, but he has his back to you.  His helmet is tilted down at the ground, and when you follow his gaze, you’re met with the sight of the bloodstains of dragged bodies that leave dark red streaks all the way up the ramp.

You feel something this time.  It’s… cold.  A burning, searing cold that creeps into your skin.  Like your heart decides to pump nitrogen through your chest instead of warm blood.  You did that.

There’s a sudden urge inside of you to speak, to address him and inform him of your presence, tell him everything is okay, everything worked out, but you can’t find it in yourself to say a single word.  You can’t find a single word to say.  The kid twists as best he can in your clutch, his ears drag against your chest to greet his father, but for some reason, there’s still a strange sense of fear in your bones.  It’s enough to wake you up slightly, it’s enough to tell you it’s not over yet.  There’s a terror in your heart that hasn’t left since he first called over the comm and begged you to run, a crippling dread that you thought climaxed after seeing that star destroyer appear, but it’s somehow only increased after laying eyes on him like this.

You watch as his helmet turns, slowly meeting the pauldron on his shoulder, and for some reason, you feel yourself harden.  Your feet brace against the metal floor like this is another threat you have to face, you let its unyielding metallic strength transfer up through the souls of your boots to your heart in your chest.

But the second you hear cheap white armor clatter as the quarry steps down the ladder behind you, Din bursts into movement.  He suddenly spins and storms up to you in one single step while catching your holstered blaster on your hip.  It’s out and aimed in the blink of an eye, and it’s a miracle you remember how to speak before he remembers how to kill.

“Mando—” you warn, just in time for the quarry to land on the floor of the hull and turn around to reveal his face.

Din holds there for a second, his helmet locked on Oshua’s features.  His gloved fingers twitch wildly on the trigger of your gun held over your shoulder, like he has to remind himself multiple times not to.  You hear Oshua’s armor clack while he likely raises one good arm in surrender, but then Din’s helmet moves a fraction of a millimeter to your face and holds there.  He just stares down at you, and the air feels heavy, your body feels heavy, the feather light child in your arms feels heavy.

Slowly, he lowers his arm, lets it fall while he continues looking at you from behind the visor.  You look back at him, unblinking, unfeeling, and there’s a few seconds that last an utter eternity where nobody moves.  Nobody speaks, nothing happens, but then a soft coo comes from your arms before you can finally break eye contact, knowing there are still some things that need to be done.

You eventually turn around and lift your chin to address Oshua.

“You have to go into carbonite,” you inform him quietly.  Your voice sounds strange, like it’s coming from outside of yourself.  “We’re taking you to Nevarro, and then you’ll be transported to your home planet. When they unfreeze you, your sister will be there to collect you.”

He looks uncertain, one hand still raised while the other hangs uselessly at his side, and you don’t blame him.

But you also don’t feel like saying anymore, not unless he decides he doesn’t want to go in willingly.  Normally you might’ve tried to empathize, offer him further reassurance beyond just a couple short sentences, but you don’t.  Speaking feels difficult, thinking feels difficult.  You’re still in survival mode, not active but reactive.  There’s also no reason for you to lie to him about this, and you can see him glance at Din standing silently behind you, who hasn’t moved a muscle.

He eventually nods and you walk him over to the chamber without another word, watch him turn to face you as he backs into the opening while you reach up towards the control panel.

But then there’s a moment.  One where you hesitate slightly, one where your vision flashes back to the sight of those bloodstains on the floor, and that burning cold fills you again, so cold it feels completely numb.

“I’m… sorry,” you whisper quietly to him, though your voice sounds so empty.  There’s so much emotion that should be there but isn’t, so much regret and pain that should break through but can’t.  “I’m sorry I… killed your friends.”

Later, you’ll think about how you felt absolutely nothing saying it.  Your heart doesn’t constrict with remorse at the mere words leaving your mouth, guilt doesn’t flood into your soul, pain doesn’t wrack through your bones.  You could’ve been saying anything at all and nobody would be able to tell the difference.

He blinks at you, flicking his eyes between yours for a second or two, but then you press the proper button and watch the gas quickly freeze him where he stands.  He’ll be conscious the entire time, but Karga will send him to the correct location and you have no doubt that this elemental purgatory is leagues better than where he just escaped from.  It’s a benefit being the last quarry to be retrieved—he’ll only have to spend a few days trapped in here before being reunited with his family.

When that’s done and Oshua is a complete statue in front of you, bulky white armor now colored a dull metallic gray and frozen in time, you will yourself to finally turn around to face the enormous mountain of a presence behind you.  The baby gently reaches out for him, but Din doesn’t move from where he’s stood.  Your blaster is still clutched tightly in his hand, and he isn’t looking at you.

Slowly, you walk over and stop directly in front of him in the middle of the hull, blinking at him while the helmet subtly moves to lock onto your face.  The kid begins wiggling in your arms, making soft impatient noises while you both stand in complete silence across from each other.

After a few moments, you hear him flick your blaster’s safety on by his side and then toss it carelessly to the ground.  It skids along the floor, light enough to be mostly quiet.  Gloves reach out as he carefully takes the kid from you and settles him in the crook of one arm, and then he looks you up and down, still not saying anything.

Your eyes follow his movement, watching his arm slowly reaching out to you, and you think he’s going to cup your jaw, or brush your hair back.  Give you some sort of physical reassurance since he hasn’t spoken a single word of it.

Instead, Din suddenly grabs the armor clinging to your chest and starts ripping it off you with one hand.  It clangs to the floor so loudly in the silence of hyperspace, the kid’s ears twitch and flutter with each shattering bang.  You hold still while he does it, you barely respond except the unavoidable movement your body experiences as the pauldron is yanked from your shoulder and thrown against the ground.  The ammo belt is tugged over your head and hurled away, the thigh braces are snatched from your legs and they clang to the floor, and the pearly, opalescent fabric revealed underneath is stained in dead man’s blood, rusty and in such great quantities that it shows up as brown instead of red.

“Are you hurt?”

He sounds… dead.  So monotonic that you can’t possibly gauge his emotional state.  He doesn’t move.   His fists don’t clench, he says every single word like it means the same exact thing as the last.  If nothing at all was a person who could speak, they’d use his tone of voice.

“No,” you eventually whisper.

The helmet nods once, and then he spins around and walks away without anything else.  Without saying anything, without touching you, or double checking you for injuries in case you were lying.  You stand utterly still while Din climbs the ladder with the kid cradled in one arm, and you don’t even flinch when the door to the cockpit slides shut behind him.  You have no idea how long you stand there in the splitting silence afterwards, numb and unmoving.

You feel… nothing.  Absolutely nothing.

The hard defenses you strapped to yourself today to reconcile the things you had to do are still high and strong, guarding your soul even if he stripped away your physical armor.  Self preservation is still animating your body, and your facial expression barely changes.  Your first thought, as soon as you remember that you can have one, is that there are things that still need to be done.  Tasks to complete.

Alone, you shower the lingering traces of blood off your body, the normally clear and refreshing water running a sickly, toxic brown.  Alone, your stomach rolls and suddenly decides to empty itself of the very little that was in it as the scalding drops rain down over you—mostly liquid and bile that easily rinses down the drain.  The water is too warm, it beats down on you like blazing hot sand pelting your skin in the desert.  You feel like you did those first few months with Din, where the silence was suffocating, where you’d only interact with the baby if he was on a hunt or if you could tell he didn’t know how to calm him when he was fussy.  If you were in hyperspace, you usually spent time by yourself in the hull while he lived in the cockpit, and if he decided he needed to be in the hull for whatever reason, then you’d trade places with him.  It was… isolating.  Lonely by yourself.  The quiet used to haunt you before it became your cherished friend, but now it’s a betrayer, a ghost that whispers memories and nightmares in your ears.

When you finally finish rinsing the blood from your skin and get dressed, you see the sheets that used to make up your bed now have fried holes in them from your charred plasma marks, the inside of the hull is covered in them and the trails of dried blood where you dragged the bodies down the ramp.  Your armor is still strewn about the hull, the kid’s hovering shield lays dead in the corner.  Everything you meticulously cleaned and organized and collected and created, now the scene of a bloodbath.  One committed by your hand, your blaster still laying uselessly on the floor forever linked to this atrocity.

You spare a glance towards the ladder, but you don’t want to come face to face with Din yet.  You already knew he’d be furious, but… you had hoped that he’d at least…

What?  At least what?  Comfort you?  Coddle you after you deliberately ignored his instructions?  What exactly, in the past year or so of learning Din’s inner workings and intricacies, would ever give you the impression that he’d come give you a big hug after you purposefully defied him?  You flew the kid directly into an imperial base after being told to protect him, you ignored every order he gave to you in the moments he thought would be his last, and though you did it to save his life, you have a feeling that Din has never valued his life even a fraction of what you do.

The misery stabs at your soul, but your mind is finally beginning to process things logically.  He’s alive, the kid is alive, the quarry is secure, and you’re all onboard the safety of this ship hurtling through hyperspace where nobody, not even the Empire, can touch you.  You weighed the consequences before making your decision, you did what you had to do.  If he wants to be mad, then he can fucking well be mad and you’ll find some way to comfort yourself.  At least he’s here being mad, at least he’s alive and safe and breathing and mad, and your rare act of disobedience is to thank for that.

Somewhere in the back of your mind, you realize it’s probably easier than it should be to reconcile the punishment.  Right now, you welcome the exclusion, the negativity and sorrow beating itself into your soul.  Four innocent people died today on this ship, gunned down under your blaster while they panicked and ran for cover.  You keep hearing their screams.

So you start to clean up the hull, needing another task to focus your thoughts on.  You work to erase every inch of the evidence of your deeds, make it disappear like the pool of blood Din once cleaned up while you were sleeping and never acknowledged again.  You only allow the bloodstains to fuck with your head for a single moment, and then you swallow back the nausea until you’re a blank slate again and sink to your knees with a rag in your hand.  After that, your vision stops focusing and it just becomes red contrasting against gunmetal gray, and you work tirelessly to get rid of all remaining traces of it.

Then you start on the blaster marks, you need them gone.  After a few informed attempts at mixing cleaning chemicals, you find one concoction that allows you to wipe them away like they’re nothing more than dirt that got tracked in.  The Crest’s oxygen recycling system works overdrive to constantly purify the air so you don’t get high or pass out, but your nose still stings.  It’s fine, it’s sterile, it burns a bit but it smells sharp and metallic and keeps you hyper focused on the task at hand.

After that’s done, you pick up the charred blankets and ball them up to throw into the trash vent.  You don’t feel anything as you do it.  You don’t think about how long it took you to collect these over months and months of being stuck on this ship, how comfortable they were when everything else was industrial and rigid, how many nights you spent with Din curled up in their softness while he breathed easy and warm.  Sheets are just luxuries, they can afford to be lost.

Next, you gather your armor and wipe it down with the rag, put it away along with your blaster.  The stained robe goes in the trash, along with the sheets and the blood soaked cloth you used to clean everything.  They’re all ruined, you’ll never be able to make them right again.

The hull is sparkling clean when you decide to take another shower.  Nothing on you is dirty except your hands, but you feel filthy.  Wrong, cold, numb, cold, stained, cold.

After scrubbing your skin raw under the water and changing clothes again, since you don’t really know what to do with yourself anymore, you slowly climb the ladder to the cockpit, keeping perfectly silent.  When you reach the upper platform and come face to face with the closed door, you can just barely hear Din’s whispered voice speaking quietly to the baby beyond it.

You raise your hand for a moment, hovering your knuckles over the metal, but then it eventually falls.  Instead, you look over and spot the corner, the same corner Din bunched himself into when he snapped at you for even suggesting going on a hunt with him, blew up at you for the mere notion of something happening like what happened today.  You back yourself into it in defeat and slowly sink down on the floor, resting your head against the metal and hugging your knees to your chest since you don’t have a tiny baby to take their place.

You can’t sleep.  You don’t even try, it’s pointless.  The concept feels foreign the longer you sit here by yourself.  You don’t hear Din or the baby anymore, but you feel… so fucking awful that it’s fitting that you don’t knock or go looking.  You don’t want to hold that sweet child with hands that were covered in blood just a few hours ago.  You killed more people than you can count on your fingers today, and of the ones who had done nothing wrong…  They screamed like younglings, ducked for cover and were able to fire off one single useless shot in the mayhem before you closed their eyes forever and left their bodies to rot in armor that wasn’t ever their choice to wear.

You didn’t know they were kidnapped and smuggled and forced into that situation.  You couldn’t have known, but that isn’t the point.  In this case, knowing doesn’t make one bit of difference.

You also can’t face Din yet, not like this.  You don’t want him to see you cowering, shattered with guilt over the decisions you made under pressure.  How will you ever get him to forgive you for not listening to him when you can’t even forgive yourself for the result of your choices?  Din is a hardened man who grew up in blasterfire and bloodshed, just because you love him doesn’t mean he’s going to magically become someone he isn’t.  You’re here letting guilt sink sharp claws into your chest over four dead men when he had a good fifty or more corpses scattered on the battlefield around him.  You decided to wear that armor, you decided to fly into an imperial base with the kid on your lap, and this is now your penance.  You’ll accept it with your back straight and your chin held high.

Figuratively, of course.  Physically, you’re smaller than you’ve ever been.  Crumpled up into a ball, taking up as little space as possible, curling up as tight as you can like an animal protecting all your vulnerable parts during a brutal attack.

So, since he isn’t here to comfort you himself, you just try to think about what he would tell you.  A long time ago, what would he tell you?

Din would tell you… that you killed someone.  Multiple people, this time.  He’d also tell you that it doesn’t matter what he tells you, what you could have reasonably foreseen or what you should have done.  The end result won’t change.  You own this now.  You’ll carry their deaths with you.

You take a few deep breaths, self-soothing with the undeniable truth that would be murmured matter of factly from his quiet voice.  He wouldn’t argue with you.  He wouldn’t deny the decisions you made or the consequences of them.  It happened, and at the end of the day, you either learn how to handle that, or you don’t.

And, for the four you did shoot, you were responsible for freeing ten times that amount.  You’re responsible for reuniting Oshua Ryler with his family, even if your place in yours is momentarily shunned.  You’d rather be out here alone than in there with the kid, wondering where his dad is or if he’s even still alive.  You rescued Din and now he gets to be here to shut this door on you, hold his son, and whisper calm reassurances to him.  If you listen really hard and imagine, you can pretend they’re for you, too.

That’s it.  Focus on them both, alive and well together.  Focus on the bodies wearing white armor that were moving, the ones that were bolting away from the imperial training base as fast as they could, free from the torture of imprisonment and conditioning.

Finally, you close your eyes and slip into unconsciousness.  It’s not a testament to your exhaustion, but rather just how long you’ve been left to sit here by yourself.  Hours, maybe.  Time is strange in hyperspace.

You dream of a faceless man ringing bells.

---

When you wake up, a small baby has been placed in your arms, and you’re being dragged into a strong, secure beskar hold on the floor.

“Din,” you suddenly lift your head as soon as you’re conscious and nearly bonk it into solid metal, apologies rising in your throat before you even remember where you are.  You did what needed to be done to keep your family alive and together and you’d do it a thousand times again if necessary, but that doesn’t mean you won’t apologize anyways.  After the deeds you’ve committed today, regret feels as natural on your lips as speaking your own name.  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I know you’re mad at me but I—”

“Shh,” he whispers, running his gloves through your hair.  He’s still wearing his helmet, he hasn’t taken anything off yet.  “Don’t say anything.  Just… stay here, stay right here with me.”

“I tried to save you,” you croak, tears instantly flooding your eyes.  You did save him.  You saved him and the baby and yourself but you’re so physically and emotionally exhausted that all you can recall is your intent.  “I tried.  Wasn’t gonna leave you there by yourself.  I tried to be brave, like you—y-you wouldn’t have left without me.”

His arms tighten around you, cradling you in such a strong embrace that you burrow into him, you find a place for your head on the hard metal strapped to him and bury yourself there, wishing that you had shovels of dirt being piled on you to justify the death you still feel staining your soul.  Your heart is starting to pound now that you’re remembering, your body is starting to shake with tremors of shock now that you’re aware of your own skin again.

“I was so sc-scared, Din, I didn’t—didn’t know what was happening,” you lament through watery eyes, gasping it out in hopes that it’ll relieve the slightest bit of the gut wrenching guilt just mercilessly crushing you.  It caught you before you could protect yourself against it, that armor you built around yourself isn’t on when you first wake up.  “I-I didn’t want to kill them, but they were already on the ship and y-you said—you said they were coming after the kid s-so I had to, I had to—”

“Stop,” Din whispers, voice so quiet that you can barely hear him.

“I-I cleaned up the blood,” you turn your face against the cold beskar to let all the positives you listed for yourself before scrape across your throat.  They don’t sound comforting anymore, they just sound like excuses.  “It’s gone, it’s like it never happened, everything is okay now, I got the quarry, I protected the baby, I saved a bunch of people, you’re both safe—”

“Stop,” he chokes out.  The modulator cuts off before you can hear his next breath, but you feel it shudder under your body.  “St-Stop it, please.”

Your eyes clench shut so tightly you feel like the streaking stars outside are behind them, tears drop down against his pauldron and you press your face tighter to it like it’s a wound, like the pressure will somehow ease the bleeding.

“Listen to me,” he says very quietly, and you instantly brace yourself.  The walls you just let down shoot right back up, your body physically tightens in preparation for another pain, another trauma, another scar you’ll carry, and you stop shaking.  You stop breathing, even when his hand comes up to ease your face away from his armor.

“You,” he whispers, holding your chin so you’re staring right at him, and your eyes flick fearfully in between his behind the visor, “are a sweet girl.”  Din’s leather thumb brushes along your skin, dragging over the tears below your puffy eyes.  “Not,” his voice catches, “a Mandalorian.”

Your heart goes cold.  Again, everything turns numb.  It doesn’t matter that you already said this yourself out loud earlier today.  It doesn’t matter that you acknowledged this fact, verbally insisted it more than once to hammer home the truth and felt some sense of comfort in it.  For some reason, hearing the words from his mouth is a fucking knife to your chest.

“I taught you how to fight, how to shoot a blaster,” he murmurs, thumb catching every single tear that continues to fall as he speaks.  “I taught you everything I know, everything that’s been taught to me.  I taught you how to defend yourself, how to protect yourself when you’re in danger.  I gave you your blaster, I gave you my armor, I gave you everything I could give you to keep you safe.  And when I thought you were ready, I let you loose on Sanctuary II.  Do you know why I did that?”  The helmet tips forward the slightest bit at the question, probing deep into the most shattered part of your heart.  “After all those months of fighting, and shooting, and training, do you know why I told you to run?”

You blink silently at him, a shaky breath quaking through you, and your expression wants to crumple under the reprimand.  You’re so fragile right now, taking hit after hit after hit to the softest parts inside you, and you want to just give up.  Let the guilt and remorse take you, let it wash you away.  But then, instead…

There’s a flicker of something inside you.  Something strong, endlessly strong, and it makes you want to revolt against what he’s saying.  It replaces the hurt and fear and desperation for comfort with a strange sense of insurgence, like it did earlier when you were hiding behind a boulder, cowering and trembling and not wanting to die.  You’re filled with a quiet urge to defend yourself in the face of this, stand up for yourself and refuse to be beaten down any longer.

“Because you needed to know how to escape danger,” he answers himself when you don’t.  “You needed to know how to disappear, how to outsmart any pursuer and find safety, even the trained ones.  Especially the trained ones.  Anything else was meant to be your last resort.  Not your choice.  Not something you chose.”

“I couldn’t leave you,” you admit to him quietly, voice shaky and tears still coming even as you try to speak up for yourself.  The regret you carry has nothing to do with this, and you decide right now that you won’t feel bad for saving him.  Your hurt comes from the meaningless things, the ones without any need whatsoever, not the necessary ones, and you tried.  You repeated his words to yourself over and over again, told yourself to run, told yourself to get to Nevarro, and it wasn’t going to happen.  “I couldn’t do it.  It wasn’t a choice.”

“It was,” he tells you.  He says it softly, whispers it like it’s the gentlest thing in the world, but the power and inherent distance of the armor strapped to his body finds its way into the words.  “And it was the wrong one.”

“What was I supposed to do?”  You ask, just a hint of that rebellion swimming to the surface now, rising out of the waves of self doubt, the one that feels like a spine growing in your back, an energy coursing through your veins that makes your heart start to beat faster.  Din’s hand slowly drops from your cheek but you don’t care.  “Was I supposed to run away and just let you die?”

“Yes.”  It’s quick and blunt and completely emotionless.  Delivered like a punch to the vulnerable parts of yourself he taught you how to protect, and the utter silence following this single word is comparable to the physical pain you learned to defend against.  It jabs hard against everything good and sweet and tender inside of you, and you’re left speechless even as he continues impassively.  “That’s exactly what you were supposed to do.”

It takes a second, but then that unfamiliar feeling suddenly surges up, breaches with the power of an entire ocean.  Your voices may be nothing more than whispers in the dark, you may be clinging to each other, holding each other with the softest, gentlest love in your hearts, but the strength of your conviction on this would rip metal apart.

“No.”  The word holds the might of your entire being, and it stands alone and defiant in the face of everything you fear, everything that threatens you, him, and this child.  Never.  You’ll die before that happens.  “I love you, and there’s nothing in this galaxy that would ever make me do that.  Not fear, not danger, not the Empire, nothing.  Not even you.”

Din stares at you.  His visor reflects your hardened expression back to you, the force in your soul and the purpose in your eyes, and you don’t even realize the gravity of what you just said because like your love for him, gravity is a constant.  It’s a fundamental truth cemented into the rules that govern your actions and it stays true no matter where you are, no matter what terror you face, or how scared you become.  You have him, you have this little boy in your arms, and if that’s all you have, then you have everything.

After an eternity of this, of feeling his eyes pierce deep into you from behind the helmet while you refuse to wither under his stare, you watch him slowly turn and look down, landing on the sleepy child tucked between you both.  He holds there for a long time, before finally whispering, so quiet that the modulator barely picks it up, “It was the wrong choice.”

You stay quiet.  It happened.  What’s done is done, you can’t change the past.  He can scold and reprimand you about this as much as he wants, but you did the right thing and that decision is the only reason he’s even here to be able to do so.  This exhausted child was reunited with his father because of your choices, and this exhausted father was reunited with his child.  You won’t argue anymore, but it’s a certitude that lives deep in your heart now, builds a home there right alongside the both of them.  Din eventually looks up, his eyes find yours again behind the visor, and his hand rises once more to gently cup your jaw.

“I… thought I’d enjoy seeing you in my armor,” Din finally whispers.  It’s not what you expected, but his voice sounds… weak.  Broken.  “You wore mine once before, and it was…”  He brushes his thumb along your cheek, and then his head shakes slightly, pushing the thought away.  “It wasn’t real.  It didn’t fit.  It dwarfed you, it made you look out of place, it made everything soft and innocent about you stand out.  I liked it because it wasn’t real.”

“Was it… really that bad?”  You whisper back, partially to ease the tension just slightly but quickly breaking eye contact with him when you realize it doesn’t land correctly, it just sounds self conscious and sad.  You try to find that conviction again, that strength and assurance that propped you up so sturdily before, but…  Not a Mandalorian, he’d said.  Of course not.  Of course not.

“It wasn’t the armor.”  Din gently tugs up on your face so that you look at him again.  “It was you covered in blood.  It was you purposefully putting yourself in danger.  You killed multiple armed soldiers of the Empire, you dragged their bodies off the ship.  And then you flew into an imperial base, where you killed the officers, too.  You…”  He shakes his head slowly at you while speaking, and although you can’t see his face, you don’t need to in order to hear the horror in his voice.   “You… collected a quarry… in the middle of a massacre, sweet girl.”

Not a Mandalorian.

“You don’t chase down bounties,” he tells you.  “You don’t fly into war zones.  You don’t kill imperials, you don’t collect quarries, you don’t sacrifice yourself, or our son, to save me.  You said you tried to be brave… like me.”  His fingers tighten against your cheek, he dips his helmet to make sure you understand.  “I’ll never ask you to be brave.  I’ll ask you to survive.”

“I’m… sorry,” you finally whisper, and his arm drops from your cheek to join the other in wrapping around you and holding tight.  They hug you and squeeze, encasing you and the baby in a beskar shield and staying there for a long time.  Long enough for you to tuck your head back into its proper place under his helmet, long enough to start to feel okay with the silence again.  It brutalized you the last time you were surrounded by it, it made you feel alone and desolate and barren inside.  You greet it warily now, settling into it for an unknown amount of time until it’s forgiven once more.

After a while, Din quietly breaks it.

“How many?”  He murmurs to you.  You already know exactly what he’s asking, there's no more clarification necessary on his behalf.

You slowly close your eyes and think back to the smoldering craters, the blood soaked ramp, the fear in Oshua Ryler’s eyes as he begged you not to kill him.

“That didn’t deserve it?”  You ask, clenching your eyes tighter at the memory.  “Four.”

And maybe, maybe six or eight months ago, you would’ve begged for some guidance on how to reconcile that.  Hell, maybe a few hours ago, you could’ve used his arms around you exactly like this, his low voice repeating the same things he’s already told you before, over and over again, if only for some semblance of stability when everything feels turbulent and uncertain.  You’ll never be able to change it, though.  This belongs to you now.

This time, all Din says is, “I’m sorry, too.”

And that covers everything.

The silence envelops you both again, but… there’s something else.  Something that still sits deep in your worries, an image that isn’t a scar of what’s happened but a dread of what’s to come.  You need to tell him.  You don’t feel like saying it, you don’t want to speak it aloud for fear of bringing it into existence, but you need to tell him.

“Din?”  You breathe out, and he makes a soft noise in his throat while cuddling you on the floor.  “I saw…,” you whisper, every word sitting tight and reluctant in your throat.  “Right when we made the jump, I was looking through the window and I-I saw…”

“A star destroyer.”  He says it like… like it’s the worst thing in the world and also completely expected at the same time.  He says it like he already knew, yet can’t even imagine.  You lean every bit of your weight against him since you can’t hold him in return, squish him as best you can against the small corner and curl up even tighter in his arms for comfort.

He takes a deep breath, a shuddery sound you don’t think you’ve ever heard him make before.  It holds untold anxiety, unsaid conflict, uncertain action, an unknown path forward.

“I don’t know what to do,” Din eventually whispers to himself, to you, to the baby in your arms.  His voice is barely a breath through the modulator, his fingers digging into your skin with how many emotions he’s repressing.  “What do I do?”

He sounds so distressed that you automatically feel your soul find the floor—instantly, you become steady and calm and you locate all that rationality that kept you going today.  All your worries still twist deep down, all the guilt and the turmoil wrestles with your soft, easy nature until you can only find bits and pieces of it in the most vulnerable places inside you, but if he’s struggling this terribly, then the least you can do is offer some good, true, unwavering faith in times of uncertainty.  You’re in hyperspace, everything worked out, and it’s going to stay that way for right now.  If he doesn’t know how to talk about it yet, then you trust him enough to wait for him.

“It’ll be okay,” you tell him with a newfound confidence and purpose, carefully easing the baby into one arm so that the other can find its way to the other side of his helmet and pull him closer.  Din tucks his head and allows you to brush your lips against the metal, whisper the words soft and steady to him.  “We’ll figure it out together.”

---

@cptnbvcks thank you so much for the incredible art!

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian x reader #din djarin #din djarin x you #din djarin x reader #mando x reader #mando x you #reader insert #fanfic #star wars #rough day #no-droids

[mypoisonedvine]

𝕴'𝖑𝖑 𝖆𝖑𝖜𝖆𝖞𝖘 𝖈𝖔𝖒𝖊 𝖇𝖆𝖈𝖐 𝖙𝖔 𝖞𝖔𝖚 | dark!eddie munson x reader

𝖘𝖚𝖒𝖒𝖆𝖗𝖞 | you always believed that Eddie would return... that he would escape, somehow, from the Upside Down and hold you again, tell you that he would never leave without his girl. well, something came back, that's for sure.

𝖜𝖔𝖗𝖉 𝖈𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖙 | 6.8k

𝖜𝖆𝖗𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖘 | smut (dubcon/noncon, really it's more like... noncon turned con?), extreme gore/violence, blood, vomiting (emetophobia tw), minor character death, vampire shenanigans, dark-ish eddie but it's complicated?, kinda stockholm syndrome-y, the most fucked up take on a "fix it fic" because it's me we're talking about here

this is a dark fic, do not hit 'keep reading' if any of the warnings would be triggering for you and/or if you are not 18 or older, thank you

You couldn’t count on all your fingers and toes how many times you’d pictured this: him, here; Eddie, on your doorstep, alive.  It hadn’t even been two days and you couldn’t count how many times you’d pictured this.  

“Oh my god,” you gasped, “tell me— tell me I’m not dreaming, Eddie—”

“I’m here,” he breathed, like he’d run all the way to your door— maybe he did.  “I’m here, baby—”

You cut him off as you jumped on him, sobbing as you wrapped him up in a hug.  You didn’t believe it when Dustin told you that Eddie didn’t make it out, and they all thought you were just in denial because you loved him so much.  But you knew… he wasn’t gone.  You would’ve felt it, the moment he left.  You knew he was alive, and you held him so tightly, making sure it was real and not just some delusion of yours.  But he felt real, he felt soft and hard in all the right places, his shoulders were strong and broad as you rested your weight on them— he even smelled the same if, maybe, not quite as good… running around in hell for a few days will do that to you.

There was one thing different that you noticed right away, though.  He wasn’t warm.

“You must be so— oh god, come on,” you stammered, letting him out of the embrace to drag him inside.  “You must be freezing— and so tired— have you slept?”

He shook his head.  He still seemed a little dazed, and you guided him to your kitchen, pulling out a chair for him to sit in.  He collapsed into it, leaning on the table slightly.  His clothes were stained with blood, and you couldn’t decide where to start— should you go for a blanket first, or your first aid kit, or just a glass of water— or would he let you start cleaning his face a bit?  Maybe you could run him a bath?

“Sweetie,” you whispered as you knelt down before him, holding his face in your hands.  His eyes were bloodshot and glassy; he still had blood on the corners of his mouth.  “I can’t believe you’re— you’re here.”

He turned his face as your fingers brushed over his cheeks, and started staring at one of your hands closely.  Slowly, he reached up to it, holding it as he leaned in and pressed his lips against your wrist softly.  You melted inside, and watched him take a deep breath against your skin.

“I-I’m gonna get you a blanket,” you decided, feeling how icy his grip was on your hand.  You stood up, but he held on too tightly for you to get away.  “Lemme go, Ed, I’ll be right back, okay?  I swear— just let me get you the blanket, and then some water.”

He relented, releasing your wrist and watching you cross the room, ducking into the hallway to grab the thick wool blanket you kept there.

“Here you go,” you smiled as you ran up to him again, draping it around him as he stared up at you.  You took the opportunity to give him another tight hug, but jumped back when you heard him hiss.  “Oh, god— am I hurting you?  Fuck, of course I am, you’re still injured— I’m sorry, let me give you some bandages, okay?  I don’t want anything getting infected…”

You trailed off as you spun around helplessly, trying to remember which cabinet had the antiseptic— eventually, you got down on your knees and found it on your second try.  There were bandages and gauze nearby, and you snagged those along with a rag to clean up the extra blood and some hydrogen peroxide while you were at it.

His eyes followed your hands as you set everything on the kitchen table, kneeling in front of him again and wetting the rag with some antiseptic to start.  “Okay, I’m just gonna… lift your shirt.  Really carefully, and you let me know if anything hurts, okay?”

He didn’t actually respond, or even nod, but you went ahead and gently peeled up the bottom of the shirt— the dried blood stuck to his skin, and you winced in fear that you’d made it worse.  But, when you glanced up at his face, it didn’t show any signs of pain… his stare was blank, and focused in on you.

You managed to get the shirt up, seeing more dried blood all over his torso.  “Oh, Ed, they really ate you alive, huh?” you whispered under your breath.  “This might sting a little… but it’ll hurt a lot less than these did.”

You swiped the rag over his skin, watching the stains of blood eventually start washing away.  You kept wiping and wiping, cleaning more and more, waiting to find the bites and open wounds that all of this must have come from…

Looking up at him, you tried not to show on your face that anything was wrong.  His face was still mostly expressionless; you shivered.

“Eddie…” you breathed, cleaning his entire stomach until there was nothing left to do but sit back and look at it— look at the impossible.  “Eddie, there’s no… there aren’t any…”

His torso was clean, all the blood washed away and only skin left— no wounds, no bites, not even a scratch.  Just the tattoos you remembered, the trail of hair leading to his belt buckle, that little scar he’d had as long as you knew him.  But no signs he’d ever been attacked at all.

As much as you never even thought to question Dustin, you wrinkled your brows together and looked up at Eddie quizzically.  When Dustin told you Eddie was dead, you knew he was wrong, but you didn’t think he was lying.  Dustin never would’ve left Eddie behind if he thought there was a chance to save him… right?  But you were forced to wonder how it was possible that Eddie was here, covered in blood and very much alive, if Dustin swore he’d died in another dimension.  “Did… did they…?” you began to ask gently.  “Did they leave you?  Did they try to hurt you— did something happen?”

Eddie shook his head.

“Then… what did happen?  Did the bats attack you?”

He looked confused now, too.  He thought about it for a long time.  “Yeah… yeah, they bit me.  A lot.  And I was bleeding.”

Okay, so it was his blood he was covered in.  But where did it come from?

“And I passed out.  I thought I was dying.”

“But you woke up?” you assumed.

He nodded.  “Yeah— they were gone, and I… I felt really sick, but I was awake.  And I tried to remember where the gate was… and I found it, and then I found you.”

Well, that made a certain amount of sense, but not quite enough.  “L-let me get you some water,” you offered, standing up quickly.  As you turned away, he grabbed you at the wrist again.

“No,” he blurted out, and you sighed with heartache as you moved close to him again. 

“Baby, what’s wrong?” you whispered.  “What do you need?”

“Hungry,” he finally said, “I’m hungry.”

You smiled, because you knew how to fix that.  “Okay— I’m gonna get you something to eat, alright?”

You opened the fridge and examined the contents under the yellow lightbulb’s shine.

“I’ve got fettuccine alfredo,” you listed, “and, uh, shepherd’s pie… half a cheese pizza… strawberry jell-o?”

You glanced over at him, waiting for something to work with.

“What sounds good?” you prompted him.

“Meat,” he answered flatly.

“O-okay…” you stammered, looking back into the fridge.  “I’ve got a chicken breast in here— I’ll cook that for you, okay?  It won’t take long.  I’ll slice it thin and it’ll cook fast, okay?  Does that sound alright?”

He hesitated, but nodded.

It made you feel better knowing you could finally do something for him; you offered for him to lay down or get in the shower while you cooked his food, but he just waited— you sliced the chicken and seasoned it while the pan heated, glancing over at him every couple of minutes.  Thankfully you’d convinced him to drink some water in the meantime, but he nursed it surprisingly slowly considering how long he must have gone without.

“You’re sure you don’t want anything else with this?” you asked, seeming to tear him out of a trance.

“Huh?” he mumbled.

“You know— I could boil some pasta, chop some veggies, something to eat with this?”

“N-no, just the chicken is fine…” he insisted.

“Well, it’s almost ready,” you smiled.  “Smells good, right?”

His nostrils flared for a second, and his eyes darted away.  You knew a no when you saw one… he reached up and covered his nose and mouth for a second, wiping the blood off of his mouth and chin— seemed like a good thing to do before he ate.

Sliding the food onto a plate, you waved a hand over it to hopefully speed up the cooling-off process; you cut one of the pieces of cooked meat in half, to make sure it was white all the way through, and sighed in relief when it was.  Last thing Eddie needed now was salmonella…

You felt like a proper housewife, setting the plate in front of him with a smile, taking your own seat.  “Here you go, bon appetit,” you beamed, placing the fork next to him just in time for him to snatch it up and dig in.

You brought your elbows up on the table and rested your chin on your fist, and watched him eat— maybe a little too closely… but you just wanted to see his eyes light up again!  You wanted to see him acting a bit closer to normal, and you knew how getting some food in your belly could do so much for your energy… especially after this long.

He carefully chewed each bite, swallowing thickly, like he could barely get it down.  You winced.  “It’s not too tough, is it?  Oh god, Ed, you know I’m not a great cook or anything— is it dry?  It’s dry, isn’t it?”

He shook his head, and you rolled your eyes. 

“Don’t spare my feelings,” you chuckled, “you like to lie about liking my cooking— but not right now, Ed, I can make you something else, I can go pick something up—”

You reached onto his plate and grabbed a cube of chicken, holding it with two fingers as you took a bite to prove that he was, in fact, flattering you and it tasted like shit.

But it was fine, actually; sure, not the most compelling dish, but not bland per se and not incorrectly prepared.

As you wondered why he was having so much trouble with it, he started coughing.  You leaned closer, reaching to hold his shoulders, but he brushed you away, turning to keel over towards the floor and cough harder and harder—

When he vomited the first time, you hadn't even noticed yet that it wasn't bile— you cooed at him sympathetically, squeezing his shoulder and trying to hold his hair back, and then froze when another stream of fluid finally caught your attention: black, nearly pitch black.  The puddle on the floor, you realized, was tarry and thick.  You fought the urge to grimace as you yanked your feet away; you didn't want him to feel self conscious, he'd been through enough, but…this wasn't right.

Vomiting on a near-empty stomach is bad enough… it shouldn't have been this dark, nor this plentiful.  He convulsed as another rush came out of his mouth, and you started to cry a little as you grabbed his hand and held it tight.  Your heart hurt to see him like this, but your gut sank with the knowledge that something was absolutely, horribly wrong… 

"What happened to you?" you whispered, not much of a genuine question because you knew he couldn't answer.  You didn't know much about the place he'd been— no one did— and he'd apparently been there for days.  You decided not to ask him what he did to survive, because it didn't matter: he was here.  You almost lost him, and you'd do anything to keep him here with you.  You weren't ready to lose him again.

“I’m sorry,” he finally choked out when he stopped, catching his breath and sitting back up.  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and when his eyes fell on you again, a chill ran over your spine.

“Eddie, don’t apologize— you don’t have anything to apologize for,” you assured.

“Not yet,” he replied, and you tilted your head.

“What…?”

You stopped yourself, because you saw his eyes fall on your exposed neck.  His mouth fell open slightly, his eyes went glassy again.

“Eddie,” you breathed— because you knew, somehow, that you needed to call for him.  That he wasn’t quite… here, even though he was right in front of you.  “We should go to the hospital… you’re sick.”

“I’m not sick,” he promised, “I’m just hungry.”

He leaned a little closer to you, and you stood up quickly.  “I’ll make you something else,” you decided, turning and walking to the fridge again— but then he was behind you, in an instant, so fast that you yelped a little when he pressed up against you from behind.

“I’m so sorry,” he said again.

“I told you not to—”

He grabbed you tighter, and as much as you’d longed for him to hold you again, you instinctively tried to squirm away— but he was too strong.  He’d always been stronger than you… this was different.  This was too strong.  “I’m hungry— I’m so hungry, just… just stay still,” he pleaded.

You whined when his fingers dug into your shoulders, his nose running over the skin of your neck.  “Eddie, I-I don’t… I don’t understand,” you whispered.

“I can feel your heartbeat, I can hear it,” he informed you, “I can… smell you.  You smell good.”

His mouth traced along your pulse, and you knew that this moment could easily be interpreted as foreplay— the compliments, the mouth on your neck, that was all pretty typical for Eddie when he was ‘in the mood.’  The thing was, it was so clearly not that, just from the way his voice sounded, from the way he held you against him painfully tight.  “You’re hurting me,” you whimpered.

“I’m sorry,” he said one more time, “i-it’s gonna hurt less if you stop moving, baby.”

You gasped as he started to bite down on you, much too hard already.  “N-no, Eddie—!”

Your voice broke and fell into silence when his teeth pierced your skin.  The pain shattered over your body like a crack in a windshield; it stole your voice, and when you tried to cry, there was only a silent tear that fell down your cheek and onto the tile floor.

His arms wrapped around you, and you went limp in them.  He stopped suckling at the wound he’d created for a moment, in order to let you fall just enough for him to catch you; he dragged you into the hallway where he knelt down and cradled you, holding the back of your head to keep your neck tilted just the way he needed to make the blood flow fastest.  He lapped at it voraciously, breathing heavier, but slower, than he had before.  Your body naturally tried to fight him, your weak arms pushing at his shoulders every time the pain throbbed in your neck, but soon the energy was quite literally drained from you and your arms fell limp at your sides.

It felt like it went on forever, your vision going blurry from far more than just the tears that filled your eyes, your fingers twitching through the pins and needles as you longed for the strength to push him away and run— but you were paralyzed, everywhere except your heart, which kept beating faster yet weaker by the minute.

“E-Eddie,” you croaked under your breath, the best you could do to beg for your life.  Amazingly, for how little it was, it seemed to work.  He broke away from you, and you saw his face appear above yours— his mouth and chin were soaked in blood, drops that had run down striping his neck.  He swallowed and started to catch his breath.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” he panted, “I didn’t— fuck, I’m sorry… you’re gonna be okay.”

You blinked quickly, trying to reach up to hold his collar— to tell him it was okay, you still loved him, even if you were terrified of him.  He looked like your Eddie again, he had the light in his eyes, the sweetness in his voice you were used to, and you fought through your exhaustion to smile weakly and blink the tears away.  “I’m… so tired…” you let out with each heave of your chest, too weak to really speak— all you could do was make the right movements with your mouth as you panted to shape each breath into words.

“That’s okay,” he nodded, “fall asleep.  I’ll be here when you wake up, and I’m gonna… I’ll explain everything.”

You sighed slowly, feeling your head roll to the side as you went totally lifeless— slumping onto the floor just in time to slip into darkness.

~

You startled awake, grabbing your neck instinctively.  It all felt like some horrible dream…

Until you turned and saw Eddie sitting at the foot of the bed.  “Hey,” he offered sympathetically, leaning closer; you scooted back slightly, and he sighed.  “D-don't be scared of me, please,” he begged, looking heartbroken, which broke your heart, too.

“I’m not scared of you,” you assured, “I just— is it really you?  You’re my Eddie, right?  Not some Upside Down version of him?”

He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck nervously.  “Uh— honestly, babe, I don’t know for sure.  I think we can both agree some things have changed for me in the last few days.”

You nodded.  “Just… tell me what happened.  Or what you remember.”

“Well... after I found the gate... I wandered in the woods, I was so lost and— baby, you can’t imagine how hungry I was,” he explained, pleading with you to understand.  “It hurt, I felt like I couldn’t even walk, it was like something was inside me trying to claw its way out… and there was this, um, deer.”

You choked on your own throat, because you already knew where this was going— if he asked you to guess what happened next, you wouldn’t be able to say it, you would say that you didn’t know… but you did.  You knew, deeper inside yourself than you were willing to look.

“I’ve never even shot a deer before or anything,” he reminded you, “but I caught it with just my hands— I chased it, and it wasn’t even that hard, really… I don’t remember it all that well… I just remember, um, feeding on it for a while.”

“Did it help?”

“Not as much as I hoped it would… I knew, by then, what I really needed.  I wouldn’t let myself believe it, I wouldn’t say it, but… I swear— I came here because I knew you’d know how to sort this all out.  I wasn’t going to… I didn’t want to do that to you.”  He whined slightly, letting his head fall into his hands as he hid his face.  “God, baby, I’m so sorry—”

“Eddie,” you stopped him firmly.  “Did doing that to me… help you?”

Even before he nodded shamefully, you knew the answer, it was obvious: he was acting normal again, acting like himself— if a little more serious than usual.  You recognized this Eddie, even when you were half-dead from the blood loss and knew that he was responsible for it… even then, it was him.

“You’re not hungry anymore?” you continued.  He shook his head.  “Then it’s okay… I told you I’d do anything for you, Eddie, that I’d die for you—”

“I won’t kill you,” he insisted.  “I can’t believe I ever hurt you— I didn’t know how to stop, babe, I really could’ve—”

“Shh,” you soothed, reaching up to stroke his face as his eyes started to water.  “It’s okay, what’s mine is yours.  Even my body— even my… um, my blood.”

It felt weird to say it like that, but it was true.  “I don’t know how long it’ll last,” he whispered.  “I don’t know if I’ll be that desperate again… what if I can’t stop myself next time?”

“We’re going to find you a real meal, Eddie,” you promised, “and maybe there won’t need to be a next time.”

~

“Guess you’re lonely without that freak boyfriend of yours, huh?” Greg snickered.

You looked away, holding your arms tightly across your chest.  “Y-yeah— I should’ve… left him sooner.  I didn’t know what he was doing— him and his, uh, cult…”

“Weren’t you in Hellfire?” Greg wondered, crossing his arms to match yours, which made the puffy sleeves of his letter jacket look even more ridiculous.  “We all thought you were his second-in-command— you helped hide him from us, didn’t you?”

“W-well, that’s why I asked you to meet me here,” you explained, “to apologize… for everything.  I wouldn’t have protected him if I knew he was killing people.”

You hated the taste of those lies in your mouth.  If this all went according to plan, no one would ever have to know you said those things about your Eddie, your angel— but could he hear you now?  It was so dark in the woods at night, so you couldn’t tell if he was in earshot.  If not, that would be in part a relief, but it would also be a problem since he wouldn’t be here to save you when the time was right.

“So, I’m sorry,” you concluded.  “I hope we can… be friends.”

You were looking down at the ground sheepishly, but in the edge of your vision, you saw Greg stepping closer.  “Now, what do you wanna be friends with me for?” he purred.

“U-um,” you choked, fighting the urge to step back as Greg stalked closer.  

“I think you might have a little crush, freak.”

Greg was right in front of you now, his sneakers just beside yours, and you found the courage to look up at him.  He had the most horrible smile on his face, raising a hand to stroke your cheek.  You weren’t much of an actress, clearly, because you couldn’t help but jerk away.

“Aw, don’t be shy now,” Greg frowned, “you’re the one that asked me to come see you tonight… at Skull Rock… alone.  I wasn’t born yesterday, sweetheart, I know what that means.”

You wanted to scream at him, I’m not your fucking sweetheart, but you couldn’t; instead, you stayed still and let his hands reach around to your waist.

Now, we need to establish some… ground rules, you heard Eddie’s voice in your head, memories from yesterday still clear in your head.  First rule is, you give the signal, and it’s over.  You don’t have to be a part of this if you don’t want to.

You were just as sure now as you were then that you needed to do this, even if, yes, it was revolting to have Greg Willis pull you closer and slip his hands far too low on your back.

"You know, I always thought you'd be pretty if you dressed more normal," Greg informed you.  "You know, ditch the ripped jeans and get a dress or something?  You could even be popular… if you went out with me."

Shuddering, you yelped in shock when he grabbed your hips and yanked them forward into his own.  His grin was shining in the moonlight, those perfect teeth in that megawatt smile.  You hesitantly reached your hands up to rest on his chest.

"What do you say?" he pressed.

"U-um, well, Greg," you stuttered, "the truth is, I'm not really interested in going out."

He laughed, and you blinked quickly.  "Damn, alright," he purred, "if you just wanna hook up, I'm not gonna say no to that…"

Second rule, don’t let him touch you too much… or I might try to kill him too early, and then it all goes to shit.

Your hands balled into fists when he kissed you; he tasted like toothpaste and coffee, and you were trying so hard not to grimace or shove him back so you could deck him.  He slipped his tongue in your mouth, far too aggressive, far too soon— you whimpered and pulled him back, the two of you stumbling together until your back was pressed up against the tree.  His hands squeezed your waist, then slipped down to grope your butt; you gasped and broke away, disgusted.  He didn’t seem to notice your disdain, or simply didn’t care, and reached up to brush your hair out of the way so he could kiss your neck.  Of course, when he saw the fresh scar there, he moved his head back.  “Wh… what happened to you?” Greg whispered.  “It was that cult, right?  Did they try to… sacrifice you, like they did to Jason’s girl?”

You pushed his hand away, but he just grabbed you again, tighter— you whimpered slightly and tried to writhe out of his grasp.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he cooed, “I’m gonna make it all better…”

He grabbed your jaw, about to force you to kiss him again, when a loud thud beside you made you both turn to the side; Eddie, finally, had jumped down from the tree and was standing there glaring at both of you.

“Sorry, Greg, but she’s spoken for,” Eddie grunted, pouncing on him.  Greg was well over six foot, star quarterback for the Tigers football team; Eddie knocked him down like it was nothing, sending them both flying back nearly two yards and pinning him easier than if he were just some puny kid.  You yelped and covered your face, shrinking down to sit on the ground.

Final rule, you remembered as you swallowed and forced your eyes shut tightly, when I… do what I do… don’t look.  I don’t want you to see me like that.

Memories flashed in your mind, against your will, of that look in Eddie’s eyes just before he bit you, of the way his voice sounded when he told you how hungry he was.  They were interspersed with memories of your Eddie, the way he used to be— when he would make you laugh and hold you close and make all your fears go away.  You’d been holding onto your dream that that Eddie would come back, but you could hear the sounds next to you— the muffled whimpers, the voracious growls, the… gulping.

You took your hands down away from your face, slowly; you had to look.  You had to know.

It was so dark, it was just shadows on shadows; you were able to make out Eddie’s wild hair first, then the general shape of him— he was straddling Greg, on top of him, and you realized then that the movement was Greg’s legs shaking.  Eddie’s rings glistened in the moonlight, his hand covering Greg’s mouth to stop him from screaming— all just below where Greg’s wide, white eyes suddenly met yours.  You’d never been horrified to the bone before by just one look from a man; you’d never seen a man begging for his life before, either.

Eddie suddenly sat up, tossing his head back, gasping for a breath.  He let his hand fall away from Greg’s mouth.

“Please,” was all the jock was able to weakly choke out, blood sputtering out of his mouth as he spoke.

Eddie leaned down again, and you heard two horrible things at once: Greg’s final, pathetic cry; and the sound of ripping flesh.

The only thing more horrible than that was the silence.  The heavy, abyssal silence of the woods— death didn’t make a sound.  Instead there was just the absence of sound, and the absence of life.

Greg’s throat was still between Eddie’s teeth, but Eddie was sitting up again, flesh dangling from his mouth.  He spit out the piece of viscera, bending down to lap and slurp at Greg’s gushing open wound.  Your eyes refused to tear away, even as Eddie feasted for what felt like hours, even when he wrapped his arms around Greg’s lifeless carcass and pulled his torso up so he could eat without leaning down onto the ground; he pushed Greg’s head back, until there was a horrific crack and his whole head was dangling off of what was left of his neck— Eddie nearly unhinged his jaw to drink from where he’d torn the boy open.

It was finally over when Eddie groaned loudly, a satisfied sigh, and dropped Greg’s body unceremoniously onto the ground again.  Only then did he seem to sense your eyes on him, and he turned around to look at you.  The lower half of his face, even his nose and cheeks, were dripping in blood that looked black in the dark of the evening; his eyes dilated, blown out until they were almost all black— actually, maybe there were all black… you couldn’t find any of that warm brown you were used to.  Even without irises, you could tell that those eyes were piercing right through you, and you froze under their weight.

“Thanks,” he smiled at you.  “You were right, that helped a lot.”

When you said nothing, only starting to cry, Eddie pouted slightly and tilted his head.

“Babe, what’s wrong?”

You dared another look at Greg’s body, his head at an impossible angle from being nearly decapitated, and back up to Eddie; he frowned and let out a disappointed sigh.

“I was afraid this would happen,” he admitted, “that’s why I told you not to look.  It was hard for me to believe that I could do this, too.  But this is who I am now.”

You shook your head, starting to crawl backward along the ground— sharp leaves and sticks poked your hands as you clambered across the forest floor, but you were ignorant to the pain.  “Then you’re not who I thought you were.”

“Don’t do that,” he warned, seeming frustrated as you kept trying to move back.  “Babe, really?  Are you gonna run away from me?”

I’m gonna try.

You fought to get up on your legs again, but they were shaking and your knees gave out instantly.  Resorting to attempting to crawl along the ground, you obviously didn’t make it far at all before he jumped on you; he was so fucking fast, how was he so fucking fast?

You cried loudly and kicked your legs to try to get him away, but he turned you on your back in a second and pinned you down by your shoulders.

“It’s still me,” he promised, but when he smiled at you, his mouth was still coated in blood.  “Baby, it’s still me!  Don’t be scared.”

You shook your head, tears already flowing down your cheeks.  “N-no, Eddie, it’s not.  You’re not a killer— you wouldn’t hurt anyone, ever.”

“Not if I didn’t have to,” he corrected sternly.  “But Greg was a piece of shit anyway—”

“He was a person!”

“You’re the one that picked him!” Eddie reminded you sharply.  And yes, that was true.  You’d seen Greg’s eyes on you more than once at school before, even though you were a freak and he was a quarterback; you knew he would meet you here alone if you asked him to.  You knew he was kind of an asshole— but you hadn’t really appreciated before what it would do to you to send him to his death.  That was your mistake, clearly; you thought you knew what you were doing, but you couldn’t understand it until you saw it.

“Eddie, this isn’t you,” you insisted, “you’re not you— I believed it, because I wanted to so much, but—”

“Stop,” he barked, glaring at you as his nostrils flared.  You shut your mouth quickly, afraid to anger him further.  “Do you need me to remind you?” he breathed.  “Do you need to remember how it used to be?”

He reached down to his belt.  “N-no,” you sputtered, “Eddie, please—”

“I’m sorry,” he sighed, ignoring you, “I haven’t been taking care of you since I got back.  I’ve been… distracted.  I’m thinking clearly now, on a full stomach and all.”

When you reached up and tried to push him off of you, his hands pinned yours down at the wrists, and you shivered as he squeezed them tightly.  “Eddie,” you panted, “y-you’re so cold…”

“You miss when I was warm, huh, princess?” he spat.  “I was so weak then, so… fragile.  Like you are now.”

He roughly jerked your arms up, holding both your wrists in one hand so his dominant hand could run down your body; it settled on your neck, squeezing it just enough to make you tense up and stop struggling.

“I mean, look at you, such a tiny little thing,” he cooed, “you could just… snap.”

You choked on a sob as his hand tightened on your throat.  He growled, low in his chest, and shut his eyes as he took a deep breath.

“I can feel your pulse, you know, I can hear it a mile away,” he informed you.  “It’s so fast now, is that because you’re scared, babe?  You don’t need to be.  I’m not hungry anymore… I think Greg’s gonna hold me for a while.”

He leaned in closer, taking a long inhale right beside your face as you bit your shaking lip.

“But it’s okay,” he whispered, “it’s okay to be scared.  I like it, actually… makes you smell even sweeter.”

His free hand moved lower down again, and roughly ripped your jeans to shreds— and only a split second later, carefully spread your legs, in a bizarre shift to delicacy; you didn’t resist anymore… there wasn’t much use.

“That’s my girl,” he praised, “see?  You remember better than you think.  Maybe it’s me that’s forgotten— it all feels so long ago now… but I’m gonna remind us both how much you need this.”

He wasn’t touching you anymore, he was opening his jeans and pulling out his cock, tugging on himself loosely a few times to make sure he was hard enough.  His tongue darted out over his lips as he looked down at you writhing under him— that, funny enough, reminded you of how it was before… except, you know, for all the blood and that you were in the fucking woods and that you just watched him murder someone with his bare hands— and teeth.  You cried a little harder as he pressed himself up against your opening.

“I’m not gonna hurt you, princess, okay?” he laughed— like it was funny that you were terrified.  “I’m gonna make you feel good, just like I used to.”

But good isn’t quite what you’d call the sharp sting of him pushing in in one go, splitting you open on his cock.  “Eddie!” you shouted; he usually got you ready first, helped you warm up so you could take him— it wasn’t exactly an optional step, with his size.  Your pain didn’t bother him much anymore, apparently.

“Ahah, fuck,” he laughed lightly through a sigh, “I remember this, actually— remember how fuckin’ tight you always were.  Like you never wanna let me go… sweet little cunt holding onto me so tight…”

He gave you another rough thrust with a grunt, and you whimpered, tightening your fists above where he was holding you down.

“So fuckin’ pretty,” he purred, “my pretty girl, so beautiful when you cry for me.”

“S-stop,” you gasped out, even though this was what you thought you wanted— even though your toes were starting to curl.

“I’m not gonna stop,” he panted, “I’m gonna fuck you, and fill you, again and again, until you remember—” he groaned and gripped your wrists tighter— “that you’re mine.”

And you hated that your back arched, that your body still responded to him in a time like this; he moaned proudly, watching you with those impossibly-dark eyes.

“I bet you thought about this while I was gone,” he assumed with a growl, “I bet you touched your lonely little pussy while you waited for me, huh?  Wasn’t enough, was it— ‘cause you need me, don’t you?”

This monster had all the memories of every time you and Eddie were together, of everything that you ever said, everything that made you fall apart, and he was using it to manipulate you… but fuck, he was right.  You used to say it all the time.

“This is how you like it,” he recalled, “nice and deep, right?  You like to still be able to feel me in the morning.”

He held his hips close to yours and grinded against you, forcing the tip of his cock to hit so deep it was like he was in your throat; your eyes rolled back, and he dipped down to lick a stripe up your neck.

“Sweet girl,” he cooed, “my needy little princess— are you feeling better now?  Not so scared, now that you know it’s really me?  Nobody but me could fuck you like this.”

Yeah, he used to say that, too, but it used to mean something different.  He pulled back and gave you a long but fast stroke, and you choked on a cry as your insides clenched.

“Y’wanna come, babe?” he encouraged.  “You’re close, your heartbeat’s getting fast again…”

It was so close, too close, and you wanted to fight it off— but your pleasure was so much stronger than you, just like he was now.  It kept your mind blank and your body weak as you started to convulse rhythmically, fighting against the words trying to escape your throat: the thing you always used to say when you came.

“Say it,” he teased— he remembered, too, what you always used to say.  You hissed through your teeth, but kept it down, even as the feeling started to make you shake uncontrollably and go blind for a split second.  “I wanna hear it, princess, just say it for me.”

You went limp beneath him, the sensation pulling away as fast as it had came, leaving you numb and lifeless— so to speak— as he fucked into you harder.

“I know you love me, baby,” he sighed, “c’mon, just say it.  Isn’t that what you wanted?  To tell me you loved me one more time?”

I’d do anything to have him back, you remembered praying, to anyone or anything that would listen, anything, I’ll give anything, just please bring him back to me.  It all came into perspective then, and your fear abated.  You sobbed harder, struggling under him more— but for a new reason.  “Eddie,” you cried, “please, let me go— please…”

He must’ve known it was different, because his expression changed as he carefully let your wrists go; you reached up and grabbed his blood-soaked shirt, pulling him down into you.

“I love you,” you told him, “I love you, I love you so much…”

“Shh,” he soothed, slipping his arms under you and hugging you, “I know, princess…”

“Don’t ever leave me again,” you begged, “never, ever ever—”

“Hey, hey,” he stopped you as your pleas became incomprehensible from your crying.  “I’m not leaving you, okay?”

“Ever?” you added, sniffling, and he released you partially from the hug to smile down at you softly.

“Ever,” he agreed.  “I’m so sorry that I had to go away before… but I came back, didn’t I?  I’ll always come back to you.”

You looked up at him, beaming even through your tears, and reached up to hold his face.  As your palm held his cheek, he looked at you and his eyes were his again, those same eyes that always made you feel so safe.  Your thumb stroked over his skin and he turned his face to give you a small kiss on your wrist; you gently grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled him down into a real kiss— sour and metallic with blood, which you chose to ignore.

“I love you, too,” he mumbled against your lips, “and I missed you so much.”

“I thought I was gonna die without you,” you admitted, and he stopped kissing you to laugh.  “What’s so funny?”

“I thought I was, too,” he replied, looking into your eyes again, “and babe— I think I did.”

#dark!eddie munson x reader #dark!eddie munson smut #vampire!eddie munson #vampire!eddie munson x reader #vampire!eddie munson smut

[halcyone-of-the-sea]

Callouses on his gentle hands was absolutely adorable! It kept making me thing of a continuation of the sorts where some years pass and the reader actually enlisted in the military earning the code name Bird too without Price having any knowledge. Only to show up when he's a captain maybe even to be part of 141 or something important.

Idk if this is a possible request as I don't want to bother you but it would be amazing if there was some well timed banter and just generally happy.

Again your writing is so good it leaves me speechless I love it so much! 👁️〰️👁️

Calluses and Milky Scars

Pairing: John Price x F!Reader

Synopsis: It's been years since you've seen or heard from John and yet you still can't get him out of your head. But can a chance meeting rekindle old emotions? (18+)

Word Count: 16.1k

Warnings: Angst, typical violence & gore, talks of human trafficking, vulgar language, eventual fluff, banter, smut, honestly I think I wrote switch!Price without even realizing it, p in v sex, fingering, teasing, breeding kink, etc.

A/N: Imma be honest I hate the first part of this duology - it was one of my earlier works - so I made this as standalone as possible. So if you don't wanna read the first part (please don't) you can still understand this one just fine by itself. (this is also an excuse for more smut practice). Anyway, enjoy! Part 1

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

They only saw the glint of a blade, the metal reflecting the light of a mist-filled night back into the whites of their eyes. You could see the result of your form in their terror-stricken visages as, one after one, they succumbed to the ministrations of your unyielding determination. 

You had forgotten when the act of taking a life had become so easy for you. It was as natural as breathing, now. Elementary. Your fingers could pull a trigger just as fast as they would raise for a handshake or a wave. There was little need to be shy about it – your days as a victim were far behind you, and ‘Bird’ was nothing more than a callsign uttered under hushed breaths. Said behind back alleys by Human Traffickers with fear-slick eyes. 

It was no longer uttered in a deep British accent, the word making your skin tingle and cheeks heat. No matter how much you longed for it to be.

You were a Captain in the military now. Working hand-in-hand with the CIA under the direction of a certain Kate Laswell. You even commanded your own Squad that specializes in getting others out of the very situation you had been in years ago with no mercy or hesitation. 

Revenge, you decided, was most likely why this was easy for you. 

You enjoyed it. 

“Perimeter clear, Captain,” Wren speaks into your earpiece as you step over the bodies at your feet, boots splashing through puddles of blood so starkly contrasting the grass it makes you smirk.

“Move up.” A balaclava covers your face, and sweat dribbles down your brow before you blink it out of your eye. 

Around your chest, the M4A1 sits with its familiar weight, and you wipe the life-fluid from your crude combat knife before sheathing it at your thigh. You had taken out three stragglers at the South End of the current Targets territory, your blood singing sweetly in your veins at the prospect of finally crossing another name off your list. 

“Eagle,” Your voice bounces off trees and low shrubs, and you continue forward as your fingers press the button on the old-issue radio. There were better versions nowadays, and you got teased for still using the ancient one you have currently strapped to your chest, but it was sentimental to you. An old friend had given it to you for safekeeping a long time ago…How many years now was it since you had seen or heard from John Price? Ten? Fifteen? Who could really tell, anyhow? Time moved quickly, and you ran through it even quicker. 

Your sharp eyes flick out over the view as you exit the brush, standing on the top of a large ridge – a series of warehouses lit up with large spotlights below your perch makes you frown. 

“Let’s get this started then, shall we?” You mutter, shifting your feet and rolling your shoulders. “Blackout in 3.” 

“Roger that, Ma’am.” 

You watch the guards walking like obsidian ants below, your predatory gaze missing nothing – you spot the mannerisms fairly quickly; who limps, who favors their left over their right. Who’s sleeping on the job. A first victim was almost immediately chosen as you tilt your head and feel the chilled breeze on your visible skin. Your Unit knows the procedures you’ve ingrained into them and they’re watching just as closely and predatory as you are. 

All four, including you, are stationed in a circle around the area, with Eagle, the man with the sniper rifle, taking point far off into the trees on a higher portion of the topography. Three seconds of prep time come and go quickly. And so do the lights.

A series of muffled pops and a shattering of glass break the night into chaos, and then the illumination goes out entirely. The area is plunged into an inky darkness of your own command – you revel in it. And then the screams begin. 

“Take ‘em.” You mutter through the open channel, and your feet then propel you forward, dodging trees and jumping downed branches as you skid down the slope. Your heart beats with adrenaline, the hunt making your nerves twitch. 

In your grip, you ready your weapon, flicking off the safety as shots begin to ring out over the land. Eagle was taking off the ones he could, but if you had to guess, Shrike was already in the fray, letting her face get bloody from the close quarters she favored. You only hoped the woman wouldn’t go overboard this time. Thrush was usually the one to help keep her head on, but the man was across the territory with his own hostiles to wipe the board of. 

You fire at the first shadow with a light finger, watching it drop and pivoting to pull the trigger at two more before they knew what was happening – too panicked by the sudden assault seemingly out of nowhere.

“Shrike,” Your voice wafts over the buzzing line, “mind yourself. I don’t need you put on Suspended Leave again.”

“Don’t worry, Ma’am,” Thrush’s light voice meets your ears as you take cover behind a vehicle directly in front of one of the warehouses, “I’m making my way to her now.”

“Ah, Fuck off, Thrush!” Shrike growls, and there’s a distinct sound of someone’s gurgling last breath in the background. It makes you let out a huff of demented laughter. “I know the limits!” 

“I don’t think she knows the limits, Ma’am,” Eagle grunts over the call, and a shot sizzles past your head and takes out a charging man that was making his way to your hunched and hidden form. “I really don’t.”

Rushing forward out of your cover, you chuckle breathlessly as Wren’s dignified voice pipes in.

“I’m making my way to the main building and getting set to download the data. Target’s nowhere to be seen, Captain.” Your lips thin under the fabric and you grunt, feeling a bullet graze your bicep. Ducking in an instant, you set your feet and fire, running past before the sound of the body slamming to the ground behind you can reach your ears. A burning heat enters your arm, but you barely acknowledge it. 

“Eagle, cover her until I get there.”

“Affirm.” 

“Shrike, Thrush, report. How’s the other warehouse lookin'?” Your body skids across the ground, and your hand connects with the warehouse you needed to clear before making your way to Wren and the Mainframe. 

Half of the Op was data retrieval, and the other was taking out a human trafficker only named in his file as Buck – bastard’s been running for a long time, and you needed to leave him a bloody mess before he kept his ‘business’ going. Laswell only sent in your Squad because she knew you could get it done with an efficiency no one else could. Nearly a perfect success rate got the attention of people worldwide; your waiting list was long of the places the CIA wanted to send you and your team. 

But you didn’t care, as long as your own list was getting checked off they could fly your ass to Antarctica for all it mattered. 

“Our warehouse is cleared out. Must not have expected us…they were running around with their heads chopped off.”

Shrike snickers. “Just like chickens.”

“Good. Join up with Wren and make sure she can get the download completed. Copy?” You grasp the large metal handle and growl, locking your arms and pushing with all of your strength. The weight makes your thighs shake, but you only open it enough for you to slip inside, gun at the ready as breaths puff from your mouth.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Boots shuffle over the concrete floor, and your ears twitch in the quiet darkness at the crunch of stray gravel underfoot. Your finger shifts slowly to the trigger, glaring into the nothingness. 

It was silent. 

You heard it then, like a spike to the heart – the panicked breathing; the sounds of shaking lungs and grasping hands. Sounds all so familiar it made you pause, mind for an instant blanking at the implications. 

There were people here. Drowning in fear.

You could see them in the corners, scores of bodies piled on top of one another to find some semblance of comfort. Their eyes wink in the moonlight of a single window in the roof, and the stench nearly makes you want to gag. Blinking, you lower your gun, feet shifting to stand straight like a statue; heart racing. These people weren’t supposed to be here, and already vicious comparisons to your own rescue by a certain man a long time ago invade your mind. Calluses seem to burn your hands under your gloves, and a gentle imaginary prod at an injury on your forehead makes the milky scar ache. 

He readies the wipe in one of his hands, the other coming up to your jaw. When you tense he freezes, but as soon as the hesitance leaks away from you like a wave, the slow motion returns to his limbs; his fingers come to grab at your chin, gently holding your head in place. When you place more weight into his hold and release a deep-chested sigh of content he quirks a dark eyebrow.

“This might sting, Doll,” John whispers.

“That’s alright,” You mutter back, staring into his beautiful eyes as the wipe comes into view in the side of your vision. “Not your fault.”

He only releases a puff of air from his lips before adding the smallest amount of pressure to your forehead, running the wipe over the red and swollen flesh. 

Taking a deep breath one of your hands goes to your radio stiffly. Eagle needed to know about this so he could send a message to Laswell – get an immediate Medical Evac for these people. 

In your hyper-focussed state, memories you wished would stay away rear their head; infect your intuition and common sense. You missed the click of the safety until the barrel of the pistol was level with the back of your head. Freezing, your fingers tense over the device, your body going rigid and muscles tight as the people in the corners gasp and cry out into the night. 

A panting man stands behind you and you feel his hands shaking as the barrel digs into the balaclava’s fabric.

Well, that’s unexpected.  

“Show me your hands,” He breathes heavily, and you feel his puff of air echo out over the open space. Tinged with fear. Dripping with adrenaline. 

Your lips pull back into a steady, hidden, smirk, head tilting as your hands slowly drift from your radio and let your weapon hang from its strap around your chest; feeling it bounce off the various packs and supplies you carry with pride. They splay beside your head, fingers lazily loose and leather gloves squealing into the night. 

Selene herself holds her silver breath, the winds sucked down into Hades as Cerberus breaks sinner’s bones with his savage jaws and blood-slick teeth. It was silent. 

Born and bred to violence, there truly wasn’t a better place for you to be than in the CIA. This was Hell, but you could play that black-clad ruler’s game just the same. You’d been dodging him for years.

“T-toss your gun to the floor.”

“You know that won’t matter.” You look behind you, side-eyeing that shaking would-be threat. Phobos lives in his very being. Coward. Pathetic. Red-hot anger lights your nerves, iris narrowing to black slits. This thing – he was little more than an entitled boy in a man’s body. Using others for his gain just like others had used you. This was your Target. 

This was Buck. 

“So this is the one who made an empire on the suffering of innocents.” You mumble, unafraid and unbothered with a scoff. “I really expected more than a man who plays with his food.”

Yes, the adrenaline was running in your veins; you were human. It was natural. But the way the wailing birds rampaged in your chest wasn’t – you should be afraid, not angry. Not enraged to the point you were shaking; fingers twitching for your knife. For spilled blood to coat the earth.

Phobos was this man’s ruler, but that Fear God’s father was Ares. And Ares was yours.

“I…I said drop your fucking weapon you bitch–!”

Your opposite hand knocks Buck’s wrist to the side and your body twists. In a single fraction of a second between the loud misfire that hits the floor and the ringing in your ears, the knife at your thigh finds purchase in his pliable neck. Crimson sprays over your eyes; staining the balaclava as your body falls to the ground as you jam the blade deeper – all the way to the crossguard. 

Buck grumbles wetly from under you, hands coming to weakly grasp at your arms and attempt to pry your unyielding body from him. His grip is as strong as a child’s, and as blood spurts from his mouth and entry wound, you slap your free hand over his face and twist the knife. Strangling the hilt in your grasp, you viciously jerk your limb, sending the edge sliding over his neck; cutting tendons and arteries. Creating a red-lipped smile from ear to ear that explodes with gore. 

Buck was already dead before the puddle over the ground grew an inch in diameter. 

Ripping your weapon out, you shove your boot into his chest and push off, stumbling to your feet as you stare down wide-eyed. Your digits shake, but the flickering of your gaze goes from the dead eyes to the open mouth of the corpse. Flicking your wrist, you splatter more blood on the floor to rid some of it from your blade before sheathing it. 

Gripping your radio, you speak clearly into the line. 

“Eagle this is the Captain – get in contact with Laswell immediately. Civvies in the far South warehouse. Ask for Medical Evac.” 

Say to bring only women, you want to growl but refrain. That was impossible to manage.

You stare at them now, the innocents, and see your own path reflected in the many colors and the feral glints in their irises. In the way their bodies huddle like cats with their backs flared. If life had been different, would you still be in a situation like this – waiting for your own John Price to break you out? It was a difficult question. Far more challenging to answer than why the body behind you was staining the concrete with blood and tears. 

…What would have happened if he had never kneeled down before you that day? Offered you his hand stained with calluses and gunpowder residue? 

You blink at the thin bodies, gaze flowing to each and every one in turn. With a slow motion you begin forward, hands at your sides and visible; you draw the memory to you. The one you think of often.

You had stayed there in fear, curled up in the corner, shaking like a leaf in the wind. Until John.

“Ma’am,” He had said, kneeling on one leg while his hands clutched his M16 to his chest, the muzzle still smoking, “I’m Lieutenant John Price in Command of Unit Bravo. You’re safe now.” 

Unit Bravo? Safe? You had wondered, looking up at the man with confusion. How can I be safe?

Nonetheless, when he offered you a hand, you had taken it, looking in awe at how gently he gripped your limb in his own; John’s limb completely swallowed yours and yet held you like delicate glass. 

You stopped before a woman far too young to be in a situation like this and kneeled. She watched you with a shaking body, the others curling away in fear. They didn’t know you, and so they feared you. Taking a breath, your hand raises, and the woman’s eyes are laser-focused on your form. 

I should make myself smaller, you think. And so you do. 

The fabric is sweat-heavy; laden with dirt and other substances, but you grasp it without hesitation and peel it off of you. It sits in your hand with the weight of the past in the thick polyester threads. Swallowing down saliva at the breeze that hits your face, you watch the lady blink at you, her gaze filled with confusion. 

An easy smile comes to your face; if they hadn't just seen you murder a man, they would not believe you to be the same person. Yours was not the face of a killer – of someone who twists the knife deep and revels in death. It was soft beside the scar above your eyebrow, easy to look at. Innocent.

A simple Bird, no. A vulture perhaps suited you better, if they were to get into specifics.

You clear your throat and they all flinch. 

“Ma’am,” Your voice carries. Again, not the voice of a monster. But even Ares marries a beauty. Could you not be a spawn of them? Beautiful and utterly bloodied by the rules of war? Oh, yes, that’s what you were, you had to be. Nothing else would make any sense. But they gravitate to you nonetheless – war and love often go hand in hand. Especially when one killed the ruler of their torment. “I’m the Captain of Raptor Squad. You can call me Bird, if you want. It’s alright. We’re gonna get you out of here and get you some help, okay? You’re safe now.”

The woman can’t help but nod sheepishly. 

Who says no to an offspring of Gods themselves?

—

The helicopter ride back was silent, with everyone tired and covered in more blood, dirt, and sweat than they can recall. Buck’s body was stuffed into a black bag and sitting in the walkway at your feet – you needed it for positive identification back on Base. You had shuffled back into the balaclava, taking comfort in the security and anonymity it lent. Below, your eyes watch the word whizz past, one foot limply hanging off the side thousands of feet above the ground; you swish it back and forth like a child and allow yourself to think. 

You had joined the military only a few years after John had rescued you – much against the wishes of your therapist, but seeing as you were of sound mind, it wasn’t that difficult to enlist. The brown-haired Brit had sent you letters for the first three months after you had left the Base you had been recovering at and then, inexplicably, they had stopped. No letters, no contact. The radio – along with you – was too far away to get a signal; that was how it ended.

Not with a kiss or a soldier’s goodbye, just nothing. Silence.

But you never held it against him. Perhaps, you reasoned and partially believed, he was already dead. At the end of the day, he had been a great motivator for you, and over the years your fists and skills had propelled you to top ranks. Laswell had been in contact soon after you had been promoted to Lieutenant and Raptor Squad had been formed when you had chosen the most violent and perfect bastards to join it. 

From there it was win after win and the CIA soon counted this team as one of the most lethal in its roster. You’ve been all over the world. 

More than I could imagine I would become in a concrete corner and locked in a cage. 

Your eyes watched the expanse of forest outside, but there was still something missing. Why had John just…stopped? It was the one question you could never answer. 

Did I really not matter to him at all? Around your vest, your fingers twitch as the helicopter bounces on airwaves. Blue eyes still haunted you – the ones that held silver starlight hostage. How they used to soften with care when they looked down at you. John shouldn’t have mattered this much to you. 

Why can’t I just let go of him?

You bite at your hidden lip with sharp teeth, peeling back the skin as Wren shifts in her seat beside you. She speaks into the comms to avoid yelling over the drowning sound of helo blades and you lock your eyes on her form.

“You might want to look at the info I retrieved from the Target’s mainframe, Captain. Didn’t Laswell mention she had a separate Task Force going after someone named Casilda Kalpana? She’s mentioned in this file.” Wren hands you her tablet, and you hold it in one of your hands as your hard eyes slim down the screen, taking in compiled sources. 

Casilida Kalpana was on your list of Targets to take care of, but Laswell had given the job to another Task Force – designated TF-141 – for the small difference that this woman had ties to multiple terror organizations. Raptor Squad was no stranger to that, but Kate had also stated that the Captain of that group had been incredibly instant on taking it himself. 

Your head tilts in memory.

“Kate, I’m not understanding why you think we can’t handle it.” You huff, shaking your head with an exasperated expression. “It’s no different than anything we’ve done before.”

“I have no problem with you participating, but the Captain pulled in a favor. Said he ‘felt obligated’ or something like that.” You pull a face, and Laswell glares at you from behind her desk. “Bird, I really don’t have the time to argue today – I’m stuck with stacks of papers because Keller decided to get himself lost again.” 

“I’m not trying to argue, Kate.” Holding up your hands you chuckle and roll your eyes. “The only thing that matters is that the Target ends up six feet under at the end of the day. You know what it means to me.”

The Agent looks up from her papers and pauses for a moment, a pen placed between her digits, and her eyes soften around the gray edges. 

“I can personally assure you, Captain, that this Task Force will see it done…Now hurry up and get ready for your own mission – I hear South America is warmer than usual this time of year. Pack a cold drink.”

The words in the file make your stomach churn; leading to your eyes widening. You flip the tablet back to Wren and radio Eagle who’s blankly watching Shrike and Thrush play rock-paper-scissors across from you.

“Eagle,” the man’s head snaps to you and he blinks, “Patch through to Laswell. Tell her to gather Task Force 141 in the meeting room on Base and wait for me. Under no circumstances should they be allowed to leave on the Op for the HVT Casilda Kalpana. We’ve got vital intel.” 

Eagle nods and gets to work on a secure call to Kate, as you turn to Wren, clapping her on the shoulder and leaning close to speak into her ear over the noise. 

“Good work, Sergeant. Get all that transferred onto a flash drive for me, yeah?”

“On it, Ma’am.”

This just keeps getting better, doesn’t it? You sigh deeply, tilting your head back as the sun starts to slowly rise over the land, bathing it in an orange glow that spreads out like fire. The large Cargo plane following behind the Helicopter would carry the innocent victims of Buck back to Base, and you fight the urge to get in contact with the pilot's headset to ask how it was going for them. It was hard to not get attached – especially when you knew what was probably going through their fear-stricken brains. 

Left wondering in silence, your fingers pick at themselves over your gloves, peeling at frayed threads and durable fabric. As the minutes stretch into hours, you lift a hand and run a digit over your scar, caressing the skin as the forest pulls back and buildings emerge. Turbulence overtakes the helicopter, and your hand grabs the net on the side of the wall to steady yourself as the descent begins. 

Settling your nerves, you wait until the ‘all good’ from the cockpit before you hop out, signaling with your finger for your Squad to follow close behind. Someone else would come and grab the body bag – it wasn’t your problem anymore. Your feet pound the Tarmac, and you can’t help the look you send up to the sky, watching the cargo plane on the horizon as it comes closer. Frowning under your covering, you re-focus. 

I need to stop thinking about it – I always get like this with civvies. 

It was hard not to. You only wanted to bring them the same comfort that John had brought you. 

God, stop fucking thinking about him! His phantom haunts your every step like the two of you were Orpheus and Eurydice – only one of you wasn’t dead in the first place. One had left; abandoned you to the wolves. You had said you held no bad feelings towards the Brit but was that true? And if he was really dead, would you ever even know it?

Your feet carry you forward as the helicopter blades slice the air, making your clothes ruffle and shake under the combat vest and around your ankles. 

The last time you had contact with the brown-haired man, you had been reading his letter in a free-of-charge home given to you until you could get on your feet and secure a job. John had been sent back to the UK on another assignment, leaving you a nervous wreck surrounded by people you didn’t know the intentions of. You had been excited to go to the mailbox at the time – even if being outside still made you nervous. Everything was just so big to you back then. When your fingers had opened the small metal box and found the white letter with the elegant script on top, you felt a smile rip open your face. 

But the contents had been less than they usually were. Stiffer; formal in a way you had yet to associate with the man. He had always been nice to you. But maybe he had grown past that – you feared that thought.  

“This’ll be my last letter for a while, Bird. I’m going Black. Make sure to remember to go outside and drink water for me, yeah?” 

-Price

There had been the start of another sentence before it had been scribbled out and then had been it. No updates; no return address this time so you could write him back. And then you had bever received another letter until you had gotten fed up with your life going nowhere and enlisted. John Price had disappeared, and whether he was dead or halfway across the world you knew not. 

He had been the only man you had trusted until Eagle and Thrush had become a part of your group. Still, even now, the opposite sex made you hesitant – you didn’t like being alone with a man you didn’t know. Your line of work didn’t help that notion, either. 

“Bird,” Shrike’s voice brings you back, and your eyes slide to your side to look at the smaller woman. You hum in question. “What was in the file Wren downloaded? And who’s Task Force 141?”

“All in due time,” You mutter back, your hand opening the front door of the main building. No one was bothering to remove their gear or clean themselves – they all understood from the way you were walking faster that this was important. “And as for TF-141, I have no idea. Never met ‘em.” 

Wren coughs, and Shike looks over as Thrush and Eagle listen silently, the former handing a cigarette over to the other.

“One-Four-One is a Multinational Special Operations Unit comprised of operatives from all over the globe. Much like what we do, but on an infinitely larger scale. I believe Laswell asked our Captain to join it a year ago…” Wren trials, not bothering to look up from her tablet where she still reads through files and other intel from the mission.

Thrush’s eyes widened. 

“Holy shit, really? And you passed it up?” 

“Obviously,” You snort, itching at your bicep where the bullet graze still sits in dried blood and dirt. You repress an annoyed hiss of pain. “Why do you think I’m still stuck here with you lot?” 

“Awe,” Shrike coos, scrunching her nose, “She loves us.” 

“Loves to hate us,” Eagle whispers. You send a half-serious glare as Wren chortles to herself. 

“I can always ask Kate for the offer again.” A loud uproar makes people in the hallway turn and stare, and you laugh under your face-covering, chest light. 

You all arrive at the meeting room door and you don’t bother knocking, shoving your way inside with Shrike still giggling behind you. There’s the presence of five others in the room, and one stands at the head of a large table, a blank projector behind her in dim lighting. You don’t bother looking at anyone else – still keeping that habit of being nervous around new people. 

Laswell sighs as she looks you over, crossing her arms over her blouse. 

“We're all here, Captain. What was so urgent that you had to show us?” You slip past her and head to the computer atop a wooden stand, hearing whispers and muttered comments as your groups disperse around the room. Heavy stares that peel back skin like batter nearly make you sweat. They were boring into you, making your heart race. 

They’re waiting for us, you remind yourself. 

“Wren.” You call steadily and a second later you’re catching a well-aimed flash drive without looking and plugging it into the computer. 

Before touching anything else, your hands reach up and grasp the balaclava, tearing it off your head in one quick motion and hooking it onto your belt. It was rare for you to wear it on Base.

A sharp inhalation of breath makes your fingers over the keys pause, but you only blink and return to typing – pulling up file after file. The air in the room was already tense, but whatever had just happened was setting off alarm bells. 

Who are these people? What just happened?

Nonetheless, you get to work and turn to Laswell with the intel on screen.

“You’re going after a useless player. Casilda Kalpana is only a pawn in a much larger scheme.” Kate’s eyes snap from one digitized document to another as you continue, staring at her and no one else with a blank expression. “If you had sent your Task Force, they would have died. They already knew you were coming.”

“Well,” a distinctly Scottish accent makes your fingers twitch, but still you don't look as a comment is said into the air, “I’d have to disagree with that, now, Hen.” 

Blood and sweat stain your skin, and you’re covered in more of it down your gear. Your gloves are stiff with dried crimson and even the small amount of interaction you had on the computer left stains over the keys. But you still find the energy to roll your eyes. 

“Can you fight off upwards of one hundred hostiles while trying to sneak through a city so inhabited that it's practically a human ant hill? No offense, but if you answer that with ‘yes’ you may need a psych eval done.” 

There’s a pause before a small masculine snort echoes out. 

“Shut your gob, Garrick.”

“Laswell,” you remain on topic and the woman looks at you with inquisitive eyes, “The only way forward with this is cutting the head off the snake. I say we go one above Kalpana and take out the ring leader.”

“Abel?” Kate’s eyebrows raise, “Bird we’ve been looking for him for years – I don’t know what you expect us to do with noth–”

Your finger hits a key, and the next document pops up. 

“You can thank Wren for compiling the sources. Lots of emails to go through on the helicopter ride. Some not as fascinating as finding coordinates for a Target.” 

“You can say that again,” said woman huffs from the back of the room, “you know how many kinky photos these people send to one another. Shit’s disgusting.” 

The Scot speaks up again, “really? On a scale of how bad it was – one to ten, Bonnie.”

“Fifteen. I need my eyes bleached.” 

There is a gaze that doesn’t leave you; it hadn't since you had walked through the door. It is hard and unrelenting. It does not falter or blink away. 

It makes you nervous. 

Sucking down a deep breath you try to focus on what everyone is saying, but it becomes more difficult with every second. Your hand reaches up to your head, scratching at your scar as the presence follows your actions. 

Who is this? You wonder, but clench your jaw and listen to Laswell speak.

“--reliable is this source?”

Shrike answers from near the door, chuckling, “very, Ma’am. Rarely do these people sugarcoat things. Small brains, you understand?”

“...At the very least I need more than a location and a vague date. Bird,” your head turns slowly away from the floor, “can you give me a week?”

The hairs on the back of your neck stand.

“A week?” You frown, eyes narrowing at the blonde, “He could be off in the wind by then. Do you have any idea how much this guy runs – I’ve been tracking him down ever since I joined, Kate. This is the most I’ve gotten in that entire time.” Splaying out one of your hands for emphasis, everyone hangs off your words. “He’s the source of all of it. When you cut a snake up, the head can still bite, sure, but at least you know where not to step. Kill Abel now, and all of them are left bloody in the dirt. Ready to be picked off.” 

Before the stoic agent can say anything, the radio on your chest sizzles to life and you forget about the hot eyes and the thick air. 

The people from the warehouse. 

Hand snapping up, you turn your head down into it, facing forward as your eyes stiffen. 

“Cargo plane is clear for landing, Ma'am. Just thought I’d let the Squad know.” 

“Thank you, Cadet. I’ll be there momentarily to help out…” You blink, “Try to make sure only female medics work on them but make do if you have to.” 

“Copy that. I’ll spread the word.”

“Rog.” You don’t bother to take the USB from the computer before you turn away – they’ll all go over it while you see to the Civvies. 

“How many this time?” Kate asks seriously as you slip past, her body pivoting to orient herself as you pass.

“Warehouse full.” You grunt, itching at your bicep and shuffling to the exit. “Less than last time.” The agent knew better than to try and stop you. 

“That’s an old radio you’ve got.” The British accent makes you falter for a second; it was deep, aged like a fine wine that coated the vowels with clipped authority. Familiar for some reason, but you took no notice of it. “Must be one helluva long story, eh?” 

“Very long,” You say as your nimble hand connects with the door, “Unfortunately, I don’t have time to tell it–”

Your body freezes as you send a quick glance to the voice’s owner; stance suddenly locked tighter than a bank vault as your optics find familiar blue eyes. 

…John? There was suddenly a violent silence in your head, a sheet of white paper held in front of your brain to block it from firing. 

He looked older, but then again, it had been years. Many years. But the build of his face hadn’t changed so much to a point you’d be unable to recognize those blue eyes. Oh, that blue. Like deep water and sea foam on a cold shore. Was it possible to know someone only by their eyes? You had to argue that, yes, you could. Because the man sitting down at the table, flanked by three others that all watch the interaction with confused eyes, is not the Lieutenant you remember.

The beard was new – shiny brunette like his hair under his bucket-hat-covered head – along with the stature. Before, Price had been large, sure, but now he was built like a bear. Your tense eyes slip over the tight compression shirt covering his arms, the bulk of his thighs as he shifts in his chair to stand up firmly. John clears his throat, and your face heats under the flesh, but upon the doorknob, your fingers strangle the metal. He was taller. 

In your chest, the aggressive pounding of your heart rivals a cheetah.

What the fuck is he doing here? You can’t help but glare when the man frowns, his eyelids half-down in a studying look as his eyebrows push in. Like he was just as surprised as you were. Hesitant. But I’m not the one who disappeared. I’m not the one who made the other think they died.

When your face shifts to anger, John freezes, his hands coming up to cross and grip the collar of his beige combat vest looking about as awkward as he can. When you huff out a breath through your nose, his feet shuffle shoulder length apart. Ever the soldier – waiting for a lip-lashing. You watch the wrinkles on his forehead with growing hatred. 

“Bird, I…”

Breathe.

“Well, this just keeps getting fucking better and better.” Without another glance, you wrench the door open and shoulder though, tossing it back with a decent enough force to make the wall rattle as you disappear down the hall. 

But he won’t leave your thoughts. John Price. Alive. Here. 

What kind of game was this? 

Your hands are shaking at your sides when the door, already far down the hallway, opens quickly. But the feet are not heavy. Wren slides up next to you, her feet pumping. She doesn’t say anything, just walks next to you as your eyes shutter closed and you take a deep breath. 

“You up for helping out in the med ward?” You force yourself to say, hoping to distract yourself as your face once more moves back to a picture of innocent calm. 

How can he be here? Fuck…h-how? John was part of the 141 for this entire time? Did he know I was here? He couldn't have, no. But what if he did…

Why didn’t he say anything?

“I’m certainly more inclined to lead my abilities to the nurses, Captain. You’ll find no resistance from me.” You liked that about Wren. She never pried about things she knew you didn’t want to talk about. 

“Good. They’ll need them.”

—

“John!” You laugh, hands coming up to your head where the Lieutenant had placed his beanie, the chill outside had made your nose hurt and your breath puff out in clouds. 

Standing just outside the main exit of the medical ward, you grab the fabric as your face turns up to the tall man at your side. He had just shown up from a meeting, and the door closed behind his back as he locked his arms on his vest collar and set his feet shoulder length apart. 

“Well now, what’re you doin’ out here?” It was rare for you to be out of the building – open places still scared you. “You alright?” 

But you needed to think. 

Stiffly smiling, you try to hide your running thoughts from the man who narrows his deep blues at you. He shifts closer, and you can feel his heat melt into you, making your shivering slow for a moment. He made all of it better.

John huffs.

“You’re about as easy to read as anyone, Bird. Go on, then.” 

“It’s really not that big of a deal,” You play with your fingers, skin pulling tight. “I’m just overthinking everything.”

“You’re nervous.” He states, glancing ahead with a tilted head and a raised brow at no one. 

Under your feet, the snow shrieks as you shuffle, looking to the ground and sighing deeply. There was no point in hiding anything from him and his damn hawk eyes. 

“It’s just…I’ve missed so much, y’know?” Your teeth bite your lips as you feel his firm eyes on you, locked onto the side of your face and caressing your visage with their path. You blink out over the base, seeing everyone move from one place to another with a purpose in their steps. “I have no idea what I’ll do with myself all alone.” 

Whispering out the last sentence, you look at the ground, lips in a line. 

It’s a good while before the Lieutenant speaks, and he sighs deeply before he does. You don’t suppose he’s ever had to deal with something like this before. But he’s learning. All the others at Base and in Bravo Unit had been surprised that the two of you had formed such a tight bond in the limited time you had known each other. John Price wasn’t known to be the easiest person to speak to – especially when traumatized victims were on the other end. His stoic and quite confident attitude was the main deterrent, usually, but his hard eyes and face that rarely showed any emotion were a close second. 

But to you, he was the nicest person you had ever spoken to. He never made fun, poked, or prodded, and he certainly didn’t act mean or bossy toward you. John was kind and warm; gentle when you got to know him. 

And you quite liked his company. 

John’s sigh puffs out over the air, and you grab the sides of his beanie and pull it farther over your head to cover your ears. You send him a curious glance and watch his fingers tighten, one eyelid creasing farther than the other when he looks at you in turn. Locking eyes, you can’t help the small smile that twitches your lips, liking the natural handsomeness of his face. You wonder what a full beard would look like over his cheek beside the current scratchy stubble that you had always known.

His eyes flick to your lips, and his teeth grind against each other for a moment before they snap back to your face. 

“They’re sendin’ you out in three days, yeah?” John asks, scratching at his jaw with three fingers before settling his hands back into his vest. 

“Yeah.” You affirm, smile turning to a frown. The man tenses minutely beside you before clearing his throat.

“Well, where they shippin’ you off to? Someplace nice I’d imagine. Heard somethin’ about bloody Oregon, but they wouldn’t give me much more than that.” You tilt your head at that, expression turning amused.

“You asked?” 

“‘Course.” He raises a brow, and his eyes crinkle down at you. “You expect me not to?”

Face suddenly hotter than the sun, you blink rapidly, snapping your head to look out at the base once more. You may have imagined it, but John’s chest jerks in velvety chuckles you miss due to the ringing in your ears. 

What was happening to you?

A small silence wraps its arms around you before you gather the ability to speak again.

“I think it was Washington, actually.”

“Hm, that it?” John frowns to himself, “Lots of people, Love. How are you feelin’ ‘bout it?”

“I don’t really get a choice,” you chuckle, licking your chapped lips as your pulse rises, “whoever has space was kind enough to offer it, how can I say no to that?” 

“By tellin’ ‘em you don’t want to.” Price shuffles so he’s standing in front of you, blocking the people you were watching. He splays his hands at his sides and waits, blinking with a loose jaw. You nod an approval, though feel confused. 

His hands go to rest on your arms, holding them incredibly light; barely applying pressure but you lean into him anyways. You enjoyed it when he touched you like this – the only person you would allow to do so besides nurses. Your tension softens into pliable clay when he watches you. 

You could get lost in them, you knew, his eyes, if you stared for too long. There was an undeniable attraction to the man that you wanted to push away, but couldn’t help yourself. John was everything to you – he brought you books to read, sat with you as you ate in the cafeteria; he sat up with you when you radioed him about nightmares in the small hours of morning. 

That memory made you giddy. Price would stay in his barracks – unable to leave because of curfew – but would speak to you over your shared channel. Use that soothing tone of his to make your eyes flicker back into slumber until he hears your soft breath over the line and sighs. 

John’s throat releases a grunt, bringing you back to the present. He was staring at you softly, a small smile on his lips. You try not to suck in a soft breath. How long had you been staring at him?

“Focus, Bird.” You can’t stop the mute giggle on your tongue. 

“Sorry.” 

The Lieutenant's head tilts, and his usual expression shifts back. He studies your face, eyes sliding over to the bandages above your eyebrow. 

“If you don’t wanna go, tell ‘em, okay? No one can force you to do anything.” He sighs. “I need you to understand that.”

“...Where else would I go?” You mutter, keeping your eyes locked. “It’s not like I have a home, John.” 

His eyes snap away to look at the wall behind you, narrowing. The expression makes you grin, finding it funny when the man thinks so hard. John blinks, cycling back to stare at your lips. 

The air heats and in your chest, you feel your heart beat just a tiny bit faster. Grumbling, Price peels back and releases you before his hands travel up to his beanie. He pushes it down farther, lightly ruffling your head in the process. 

“Hey!” You huff, annoyed. Your hands flap above your head, shoving his digits away as his chest jumps in low chuckles. “Jerk.” 

You shove the fabric from your eyes and beam. 

“Couldn’t help myself, Love. Here, let me.” John’s hands find your chin, fingers so delicately, brushing the chilled flesh that immediately warms at his work. One limb stays, while the other goes to fix the position of the hat.

Sucking in a slow breath, you look up into his eyes and blink as he focuses on your head with a concentrated furrow in his brow. How did he always manage to make you feel safe? Take away your worries as if they had never existed? If there was one man on earth that could make all of this better, it was the one standing right in front of you.

It would always be John.

“Will you keep in touch?” You whisper, nervous for the answer, and his eyes momentarily snap to yours as his motion slows. A pause.

“Do you want me to?”

“Yes.” 

“Hm, well then, I'll write ‘til you tell me to stop.”

—

The reports make you want to bash your own skill in. In the dim light of your office, you sit into the deep hours of the night in your chair, spare reading glasses on your nose to help you force away the blurriness from fatigue. You had spent the whole day with Wren in the medical ward helping the civvies get settled and the nurses with the workload. Such a large influx of patients had set them back for weeks, but it couldn't be helped. They weren’t the people to push anyone away – you knew that firsthand. 

You were still in contact with a few nurses from your own stay all those years ago. Good people.

Swishing another of your signatures on a confidentiality document, you slide it to the side and stifle a yawn with the back of your hand before picking up the next file. Your fingers flick the manilla paper open to where you plan to write gruesome details into the blank lines of the sheets inside, and you just begin to let your ink bleed into the paper when your mind suddenly runs to a brown-haired Brit. Pausing, you blink sleepily before pulling the pen back and setting it on the table with a long sigh. 

“Fucking hell.” A groan escapes your lips. This had been going on for hours. You’d try to start something and then the thoughts would get blocked by that damn man. 

He was even more handsome than you remembered him. Lightly tapping the tabletop with your nails, you can’t deny the heat that had entered your body when you had seen John again. The coarse beard. The writhing muscle of his thighs paired with that tapered waist. 

He had aged beautifully down to the very atoms of his makeup to a point it made your breath go thin; pupils widened in a primal display of need. It was pathetic. But the carnal attraction had always been there along with the normal crush. There was something you had learned a million times over – it was never going to be anyone else but John Price. Even so, it wasn’t for a lack of trying. You’d had plenty of boyfriends throughout the years – small flings that never lasted. 

None made you feel as secure as the once Lieutenant’s simple presence had. Wren had told you in the med ward that he was a Captain just the same as you, now. Captain Johnathan Price. If anything, it made you mad that the title had a nice ring to it.

Your face twists into thinly-veiled annoyance. What gave him the right to come waltzing back? You thought he was fucking dead. Instead, you had been ghosted so bad you joined the goddamn military to help cope. Fuck, maybe your therapist had been right all along.

You’re just about to let off a spring of audible curses when a knock on your office door makes you flinch, eyes scrunching before sense finally finds you again.

Can’t I wallow in peace? You ask yourself, hoping Shrike hadn’t gotten into a fistfight at the local bar in town again. I swear I need to put Thrush on watch duty for that woman. Maybe Eagle’ll convince him for me. 

“Come in.” You stand as the door opens slowly, hinges echoing out as you slide the reading glasses off your face and toss them down. “I swear if Shrike got suspended again I’m going to hit her over the head with the code-of-conduct manual.” 

Snapping your fingers and cracking your neck, you huff when no one responds before turning to the door.

“What’s going–Oh.” 

John stood in the doorway, wearing nothing more than a thick black cotton shirt that covered his large arms and hugged just the perfect amount over his triceps. It showcased his large shoulders before being tucked into his cargo pants. For once in your life, you think you’ve seen him without some sort of hat on his person. 

Freezing, you stare wide-eyed at him. John frowns from where he lets the door automatically shut, nodding his head towards you firmly in greeting as your heart kickstarts. His large hands enter his pockets like some guilty teenager as you gape at him. 

John clears his throat. 

“Bird.”

“Get out.” You deadpan, not bothering to hear the man out. Price groans, head tilting to the side to glare at the wall as his jaw clenches.

“Love, would you let me explain–”

“No. Frankly, I’ve had enough adrenaline rushes for one day, you damn jerk. Now, get out of my office.” You begin making your way from around the table; pulse flying through every point in your body. 

You can’t be here, John, you clench your fists, please, you can’t be here. 

Annoyance sparks in those blues that you love to stare into, but all you do is go to stand right in front of the man with a violet frown that he mirrors. 

“Bird.” He says again, setting his feet.

“John.” You raise a brow and cross your arms. The Brit growls, gaze flicking away with a heat to it before wafting back like fog over water.

“What’re you doing here?” He says slowly, trying to keep the peace between the two of you.

“Well,” under your arms, your hands shake, “what the hell do you think? Working the same as everyone else. Or at least I was trying until you showed up.”

“That’s not what I bloody fuckin’...” John trails off, closing his eyes before taking a deep breath and letting the tension in his shoulders loosen. His hands exit his pockets, and you stare as they splay by his waist. “Please, Love. I’m not trying to argue with you.” 

“Arguing is the least of what you should be worried about.” Grumbling under your breath you lick your lips as his eyes lock with yours. 

There was something there you couldn’t name, but it sat on the tip of your tongue – perhaps close to the emotions of guilt and horror that left the Brit’s jaw tight and his eyebrows constantly furrowed. Had he really never expected to see you again? 

Yes. You figure with a heavy heart and a spark of hurt. Had you really been so discardable? In your mind, you had thought that you meant something to him. But maybe that was just another lie. 

Letting out a scoff, you roll your eyes before looking away.

“Weren't really many options for me.” You concede a small portion of yourself if only to get him to leave so the way he makes your lungs sputter and face heat can cease. The others would make fun of you for this. A pointless crush on a man you hadn’t stopped thinking about for ages and held a great deal of resentment toward. When would the self-sabotage end with you? “Thought it was a better way to help others like me.” 

You turn back and raise an expectant brow. “Happy now?” 

John just continues to stare, lips thin and pulling under his beard hair as he raises a hand to itch at his jawline. A growl digs at your throat. 

“John. Leave.” Not able to help yourself, you spit out, “if you wanted to quit talking to me all those years ago – you could have just told me instead of making me think you were fucking dead.”

The man’s head immediately flinches back, face scrunching in genuine confusion as his mouth parts. Under his shirt, you see his heart skip a beat.

“What are you sayin’ Bird? I never did anything fucken’ like that. What are you on about?” He shakes his head, “you stopped answering me.”

“The fuck are you saying? No, I didn’t!” Reeling back, you throw your hands above your head in a display of surrender; about to slink back to your desk and try to forget the heat of John’s body and the blaze of his eyes. “God, I give up on you and your stupid accent. I have reports to get done without your presence making me want to vomit.” 

“Oh, my presence,” The Captain throws out a humorless chuckle that makes you want to cry. “Eh, you’re angry at me – you have every right to be, Love. I fucked up,” He growls, teeth gnashing, “But don’t fuckin’ lie to me. That is not what bloody happened – I never stopped writing you.”

“What the hell do you mean that’s not what happened?!” Your scream surprises you, with your voice bouncing off the wall like a demented banshee was in the room. You snap back around on quick feet and stalk over to the man. John’s eyes widen at the enraged tone and he blinks in shock as you continue, backing up a single step when you get in his face. “I waited and waited for you to send another letter – I waited months for nothing! Do you know how that felt, John? To-to go over in my head that maybe you never made it back from that Black Op at all? That you were dead somewhere in a fucking jungle or a desert or anywhere? I tried to get in contact with everyone, and nothing panned out. They wouldn’t tell me shit. So don’t stand there and say it never happened like that, because that is exactly how it happened!” 

You don’t realize you’re crying until the tears are dripping down your chin, hitting the floor with muffled plops.

 John is slack-jawed, eyebrows all the way up on his forehead and orbs stuck on you – on your obvious panic. His breath is heavy, and you feel it spread over your face from how close the two of you were; you had ended up pointing a finger right into the Captain’s peck. Under your harsh press, your flesh felt his pulse flying off the rails. Your nose scrunches as you sniffle, aggressively ripping your limb back to your side. Oh, but he had been so soft under you; his skin beneath that fabric reacting to your own by pulsing to life. John’s tongue wetted his lips. 

Scoffing, you take a step back, but the man speaks before you can get far enough away. It was quiet, how he said the words, and his expression was one of genuine confusion and concern. His eyes were brighter than the moon – that gray space rock put to shame by the rolling beauty of his optics that reflect light far better than she ever could. Gentle Selene, how did it feel to be beaten by a man covered in more death and blood than anyone? Who’s skin is tough and callused so perfectly that a child of Ares wants to feel those fingers caress her in forbidden places. Oh, to be kissed and loved by him. To be worshiped like a god. 

“What in the hell are you talking about?” It was nothing more than a gasp, and you see his fingers twitch to touch you; to hold you to him as if nothing had ever happened.

“John, I’m not repeating myself.” You sob down a breath, looking away and shrugging pathetically.

“Bird, listen to me. Eh, eh. I…I never stopped sending you letters, yeah?” Blinking, you turn back to him and frown dumbly, your eyes furiously dancing from one wrinkle of his forehead to another. A minute passes where you feel more tears drop to the floor. 

“...What?” Confusion laces your eyes, “but I never got anymore after…” 

You trail off, letting the sentence die as your heart does. 

What does he mean he kept writing letters? I…I waited and I never got any. None of this made any sense, but the man in front of you was never one to lie. Ever. 

John takes a step forward and you tense. He freezes, face hard and jaw set beneath his beard. You can tell he’s still confused – just as you are, but his attention is fully on you.

“Can I touch you?” He asks lowly, hands outstretched but never even grazing your shaking shock-filled form. His thick fingers are all separated, the digits lightly curled inwards to the palm. Those hands. Would they even feel the same as they did back then? 

But did that matter? Neither of you was the same person anymore. Both of those people had been lost in the annals of history – their story was already over and done. The pages turned. Cover closed. 

Those two kind people had died. They were buried together under the ground, bones turning bleach white and wrapped in vines; nothing more than a ghost of a dream.

“Bird?” John whispers, his head tilting down to look at you closer as his chin bumps his chest. His feet move carefully as his hips shift and you feel his body heat like a noose around your neck. Your resolve was slipping, but it had already been fraying when you had first laid eyes on this changeling – this person wearing the Lieutenant’s face and eyes. 

John.

You nod without looking at his creased eyelids, and he slips you into his firm hold without a second thought. 

“Oh, c’mere, Love.” Standing heavily, you breathe in a deep breath as your head meets his chest, body wound tight. How many times have you dreamed of this? Finding him again despite all of it? It felt…wrong. 

You had been sure he was dead. How was he not dead? 

“Little Bird, I’m so sorry.” Your eyes widen, and a sharp gasp is ripped from your mouth; lips instantly begin to shake and pull tight. 

No, you want to scream, no don’t say that to me, John. Don’t do that to me.

But he mumbles it again into your hair as his hand cups the back of your skull, weakly swaying back and forth in this dim office surrounded by blood and death. His body is like a rock all around you, and as your arms rise to wrap around his waist, you hear his breath shutter down over your forehead; his lungs hitch. 

“I thought you died.” You hate the whimper that gets muffled by his shirt as you nuzzle into it. Hate it with a burning passion. When was the last time you had let yourself break like this? Left staining someone's shirt with tears and muttering fears into their chest. But this wasn’t someone, this was John – John had promised you he would come back for you, always.

And so John just holds you tighter and kisses your forehead. He lets you cry. He makes you feel safe where no one else ever could. 

The man – a triumphant Orpheus – keeps you close until you can breathe firmly again. Only then does he carefully peel back, and you catch a glimpse of his soft face. The face that you missed ogling as you walked beside him. His hands go to cup your cheeks, thumbs slipping to wipe away tears that clog your vision with his quick eyes falling to study your visage; you liked when John took care of you, even if you knew you could handle it yourself now. 

He made everything better. 

Peering into his eyes, you catalog the new aspects of his face as your breaths mingle, bodies close and intimate. He had more wrinkles than you remember, and his eyes were even more cold. John’s beard was perhaps the change you liked the most besides the nicely trimmed head hair. 

“MacMillan.” He grunts out and you frown as he continues with a sigh. One of his arms goes to slither around your waist, pulling you even closer as if he couldn’t be separated for one more second. “He didn’t like that I was writing you, Love. Said I’d been too distracted. Must have stopped the letters from gettin’ out…bloody fucken’ bastard, he is.”

You hum, content for the first time in a long while. John’s chest moves against yours – pressing into it and making you ache with every fast puff of air. Noticing the rapid movement of his heart, you look deeply into his expression and find his pupils blown wide, a deep heat taking root around the room. 

“If I had known, I would have found a way to give ‘em to you myself.” Your body tingles, and your fingers dig into his skin from around his waist as your noses nearly brush. He doesn’t pull back. “You know that, don’t you? I’d have hopped on the first damn plane – shown up on your doorstep. Gear and all.”

“Now, I would have paid to see that, Captain Price.” He purrs, and the vibrations of his chest make your eyelids flutter. “Standing on my porch like a husband who came home from war. Pity.”

Chuckling breathly, you can’t help but giggle back, leaning into his hold on your cheek. You don’t remember ever feeling this happy. 

A moment of stolen breaths and wandering touches ensues; beating hearts that make muscles writhe and inner tensions reach a breaking point. Finally together again after so long apart – there were so many things to say to each other. 

“Hm, Love?” John mutters as his nose bumps yours, making your head lightly tilt to the side to make his lips brush yours with every panted gasp. You lick your lips and accidentally slide your tongue against the side of the Brit's mouth; you watch his eyes darken with a smirk. 

“Yes?” You wonder aloud, eyes hooded, and his gaze narrows on you – a blatant enticing accusation making John’s skin thrum with electricity. 

“Can I kiss you?”  A breathless grumble. 

“Yes.”

Your lips meet with a clash of hellfire and a song of lust, sparks like jumping embers lighting across lit flesh. Digging into his waist, you enjoy the way John’s ribs flare with large lungs as his teeth clatter into yours, the way his grip on your face trails to your neck, digging and making you gasp into his mouth when he slightly presses into your pulse point. 

He chuckles pridefully before reconnecting his face to yours, feeling your heart pound outside of your body. The two of you were so close to one another that it was nearly like you were trying to melt into one being – an amalgamation of calluses and milky scars; violence and unspoken words. 

The both of you had been waiting for this for years. Ages.

A swipe of his tongue over your lips and suddenly your mouth is wide open, letting the muscle delve into you before retreating once more; leaving strings of saliva as you let him separate. Face hot and breath panting, you both stare at one another with swollen lips, red and bitten. There’s a small moment of quick inhalations and banging chests before your nails suddenly dig into the small of his back, dragging him forward once more as he heaves under your hold. 

No need for talking, you could get everything you wanted to say across just by how you bite into his bottom lip, how your knee brushes his crotch and leaves him jolting into you. Groaning into your mouth. 

John’s fingers kneed your flesh, every brush like a cattle prod. Without even realizing it, both of you had started to back up, your feet skimming the floor as one of your hands went out behind you to connect with the desk edge. 

“Lift.” You mumble into his mouth, and not a second later the man’s large hands grope at your thighs, squeezing once before he effortlessly manhandles you upwards. Your legs spread and go to wrap around his waist, locking at the ankles and producing a deep churning in your gut.

When your backside lands on the desktop, your lips have traveled to lay nipping kisses on John’s neck and under his ear; hand now over his abs and dragging down while your nails leave him shivering. He grunts and clenches his jaw when you bite into his flesh, the delicious tickle of beard hair brushing your nose as you watch with feral satisfaction upon the flush on his complexion. 

The Captain’s hands run up and down your hips fervently, mapping out the flesh above your loose sweatpants. Before long there’s the feeling of pressure forming above your core, a deep imprint of tented cargo pants leaving a familiar feeling of passion leaking out into your panties. The both of you were utterly addicted to the other. 

“Eager?” You breathily wonder, teasing, leaving another hickey on John’s pulse point as he side-eyes you with blown pupils. Your gaze only catches a flicker of a smirk before his hands suddenly bore down into the skin of your thighs and his hips cant into your core. 

Gasping out a moan, your fingers twist into his shirt, face falling onto his shoulder. 

“J-jerk!” You keen, face hot, and mouth open to help you suck down air before he does the same motion again, liking how you look when his erection rubs the right spots. Shaking, you feel John leaving hot open-mouthed kisses on your skin, beard coarsely stimulating your already warm skin. Under his unrelenting hold, your legs quiver to try and move faster.

Smug bastard, he was enjoying this.

“Now, then, who’s eager?” A confident superiority was stuck to the tone like the slick was making your underwear stick to your slit. It felt dirty, but you liked when he talked like that – tried to use your words against you as his own pleasure was making him go slack-faced. 

How would it feel to have him moving inside of you? Leaving you sobbing from pleasure as your shared release dripped over the floor and his veins caught your ridges just right? 

Your back arches into him, eyes wide and staring at the ceiling as his hand presses into your tailbone to angle you upwards into him as he groans into your shoulder and stutters his animalistic pace. The feeling was unlike any other you had experienced; you could feel the electricity every time he stimulated your clit, leading to involuntary jerks on your part and thin breaths. There was barely time to suck down air over the lightheadedness. 

“I-” Your voice cuts as cold wetness slides down your folds, and you shiver despite boiling. “I think you’re the one rutting into me like a bitch in heat, John.”

“Well, you’d be right,” he growls, and your fingers slide down his shirt before you can slip into his pants. The Brit sucks in a sharp breath and his other hand, once on your thigh, goes to slam onto the desktop in a quick motion when you play with the strap of his boxers. “Fuckin’ minx.”

You smirk, angling your head to the side to watch his normally stoic face begin to break when your nails trace the trail of hairs that lead down. Close but not close enough to where his cock strains violently; twitching as the telltale leak of precum stains his underwear and pants. You doubt your appearance down there is any better. Everything sticks to each other so tightly that you were slightly worried your desk would need a deep clean. 

John’s eyes are closed tightly, teeth clenched tight when your nails trace circles along his prominent ‘V’ line while his abdominal muscles tighten to an attractive degree of internal yearning. Around his waist, your legs are vibrating with eagerness, your skin so sensitive it was like every nerve was being fired. Oh, you liked that look on his face more than anything.

“You’ve got to say it, Love.” You watch as his biceps tighten and strain, hand over your desk clenching into a fist behind you. Your hand dips lower in his boxers as your core begs for something to fill it – anything to make the cum drip out of you and give overstimulated aftershocks. Your other limb goes to pop the front button of his cargos as your sweaty face angles itself to connect your nose with the Captain’s larger one, smashing against it desperately. “Open your eyes, John. Tell me what you want me to do.” 

Breathing over his visage, he flickers his eyes open with a small struggle and you almost moan at the heaviness of them as they gaze at you. He says nothing to you, but his digits at your tailbone leave their position to mirror your own actions. Your confidence stutters when John deftly pulls at the string and slips his rough pads under your panties, stopping on your body where you wait on his. 

Your eyes slightly widen and your heart beats impossibly faster. 

So that’s what this is…some kind of cat-and-mouse game? Alright.

The desk is uncomfortable under you, but you find you don’t even care anymore. Staring into John’s unblinking eyes you raise a brow. 

“Not saying anything?”

“I’ll leave it to you. Do what you wish, Princess.” Your fingers experimentally skim to the base of his cock, playing with the hairs and feeling his fingers mirror, stopping just above your aching clit and barely touching you. This would be easier with the clothes off, less awkward angles if you would just fuck each other like you both desperately wanted. Raw and fast, no time to breathe before starting another round to make up for lost time until the two of you were too tired and sensitive to even rut into each other without passing out. But the two of you were too currently obsessed with battling wills – this was a game that made you even wetter, and him harder. 

But, fuck, it physically hurt not to have his dick inside of you right now. Maybe a substitute could work? 

Your fingers grip him inside his boxers, and before you can laugh at his throat-strangled moan of carnal pleasure, his own are delving into your drenched heat relentlessly. 

“Fuck!” You whimper, hips jerking as your mouth falls open, eyes rolling back. He has the audacity to steal your laugh from you and throw it back as it puffs out over your cheeks. 

When John feels the drowning wetness stemming from your slit and he curls his digits, he can’t help the vile smirk that infects his lips; a raised eyebrow, and a comment on his hot breath.

“All this for me, hm?” You don’t answer, too lost in the blue of his eyes and the sparks that emulate at having another living being pulsing over your tight walls. 

“S-shut it.” Groaning, you pant trying to move your hips before he growls in front of you, making you pause as your hand around his cock twitches.

“None of that, now.” There was no amusement in his eyes, but a steel-like determination and a demented tilt of his head as his forehead connected with yours. “We’re gonna help each other, yeah? Make it a little game of who can get off first. Can you do that for me, Dear?” 

Where has your confidence gone? Has it leaked out of you? 

You whine as your eyes crinkle, desperate for something on your clit despite the feeling of being stuffed by two of John’s large fingers. John frowns, and his thumb hits the perfect bundle of nerves like he could read your mind. Writhing, you feel your eyes wet with pleasure-tears.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Your mind is going so fast that it’s blank, only able to focus on John and how his hips sputter to try and fuck himself on your hand. He was just as needy as you were, skin flushed and muscles tight under his clothes.  

“C’mon, Love.” He groans, nipping at your wet and red mouth and pulling at your lip as his calluses rub in small sparking circles, trying to get you to respond. Your hips careen forward to chase him. “Where’s my sweet Little Birdie gone, eh? She’s so wet for me, can’t have lost already. Listen, now, okay?” 

He begins to fuck you with his fingers, moving painfully slow in and out, pushing and prodding as you moan and gasp when he runs over the tense walls. But you do listen – God, how couldn’t you? 

“You hear that?” Your eyes widen and your hand tightens over his cock like a vice. Your own cunt was so soaked that every motion of John’s fingers made an obscene squelch, and your walls tighten in retaliation around him as he groans deeply, feet shoulder length apart. “There she is.”

You match his pace with your hand, collecting his precum at the tip and spreading it down the shaft as you both get each other off with fast breaths and locked eyes. 

“T-that’s a girl.” John can’t help the way he moves faster, eager to release the strain on his balls, his fingers rapidly moving and thumb pressing tightly as you squeeze around him. “Fuck.” He growls, hunching over you and taking a peek down to where your sweatpants and panties strain to hold his hand inside as you work him. “Fuck,” he repeats, “such a lovely fuckin’ cunt of yours. Grippin’ my fingers like a damn noose, you are. Can’t wait to—”

A strangled whine breaks through his clenched teeth when you twist your hand, creating a rhythm of your own that makes sweat break out on John’s forehead. 

“Bloody…” his head falls to your shoulder, where you lick and bite at the side of his ear with hard teeth, thighs burning as you jump every time his thumb weakly stutters over your clit. Your ankles dig into his tailbone. 

“C’mon, John,” you gasp, sweat trailing your spine and soaking into your clothes as the sound of rabid slopping echoes off the walls along with loud moans and guttural grunts. “This is what you wanted, right?” He bites into your shoulder through your shirt. 

The Brit was close, you could feel it in the fast careening of his hips; the way his dick in your soft hand was twitching and covered in just as much wetness as your splayed slit was, where John’s fingers continue to spread you violently wide. But his motions had faltered, but still, that tightening in your belly was there even as he slowed at his impending release. Your pleasure stemmed from seeing him lose it under the twist of your wrist and the lick of your tongue under his ear.

His groans were getting louder, body hunching in around you as the desk knocked into his knees. 

“Little more,” you like the way his beard burns your neck flesh, how his body pulls you even tighter against him so you won’t take away his climax at the last second. “C’mon, let me feel it.” He gasps and twitches a whine stuck deep before it is expelled from his lungs as he shakes like a leaf against you. 

He shoots his cum down to stain his boxers and cargo pants and you look down in a daze to look at the patch, but his locked fingers inside of you involuntarily curl all the way up, pressing into that spongy spot as you clit it pinched so tight your eyes widen. Before you can stop it, you're moaning out loudly and breathlessly, back arching and releasing just like that. Spazaming, it’s cutting through you like a knife, filthy stickiness coating John’s hand in a thick layer in an instant as your walls clench.

The both of you shake into one another, bodies coated and clothes wreaked – fingers and hands not willing to part from the other's wreaked pants. 

Whining, you force your flicking eyes open and feel John breathing heavily into your neck. Sucking down fast breaths, you lick your lips and state, perhaps a little smugly, “I…I win.”

A panting moment of sweat-coated silence. 

John starts laughing, deep bouts of shaking movements that make you follow. In the dim office atop a ruined desk, you both lean into one another, clean hands digging into the others’ clothes and hair. The lingering pleasure was addictive. 

“Fucken’ hell…yeah, Love, guess you did.” The brown-haired man pulls back, and your hand falls from his cock and lands in your lap. You unlock your ankles and shiver when his fingers brush inside of you when he takes them out, teasingly running over your overstimulated clit and huffing, amused when you whimper pathetically and slap his hand away. Glaring, he smirks and you roll your eyes. Raising a brow as sweat falls from your nose, you shift over the wood and stare at John as his hidden emotions wash over you in the form of blue water.

You can’t really think that I’m done with you? You want to say.

“What do I get, then?” Your thighs twitch, legs still splayed around his wide hips. He frowns teasingly.

“What’s that?” 

“I won, didn’t I?” Staring intensely, both of your hands go to hold you up behind you, leaning back so you can place weight on them. Already, your slit is aching again, your navel pounding as the room smells like sex and messy release. “I want a prize.”

“That how it works, then, Captain?” John sighs, crossing his arms and puffing his chest as your leg moves up and down his thigh, “You expect to be rewarded? Hm, you’re in the wrong profession, you are, Love.” 

“No,” you smirk, “I’m not.” 

Reaching, your fingers grasp the bottom of your shirt, feeling John’s eyes bore into your skin as you pull the article over your head and let it hit the floor. You hear his breath get shallow, and, disliking how the cum staining your lower body feels, you lift your hips and slide both your panties and sweats to your ankles with a quick motion.  

Looking up at John, you smile innocently, only clothed in a bra.

“Take off my shoes for me?” His blue eyes are barely visible anymore, black already taking over as his piercing look stays on your shiny cunt like a dog with a bone. You see his breath get shallow and the hard-on under his clothes once more grow larger. “John?” Prompting him to move, you take one of your hands and spread your folds. 

The man’s hands twitch, feet shuffling, but other than that he stays stone still until you speak once more, even if he’s almost physically vibrating at the sight of you. 

“I’ll let you clean me up if you hurry up and get my clothes off.” His large hands snap to your laces, untying them expertly and pulling them from your feet so they clatter to the ground. The remaining fabric follows. 

Giggling, your breath gets caught when John’s fingers trail up your ankle, his free hand going to lay firmly at your opposite knee. Using one of your hands you reach up and unclip your bra, slipping it off your shoulders. The reports on your desk are all most likely ruined – you’ll need to rewrite them tomorrow – but for right now you’re transfixed on the sight in front of you. 

John looks into your eyes and utters, “you sure you know what you’re doin’ Sweetheart?” 

“Take off your shirt.” You smile in return, your fingers going to slip into your eager cunt, still burning from John’s long-gone relentless digits. Your eyelids flutter at the fire. “And your pants. I wanna feel your muscles movin’ when your tongue cleans up my cum.” 

His chest is heaving like a wounded animal, and you whine when you curl your own fingers in your heat, wishing it was John’s dick. Fuck, you needed him to hurry up already. Your digits couldn’t satisfy you as he could – when you had been stroking him you had marveled silently at the girth, the sizable veins that pulsed in your grip when you squeezed. 

Watching like a hawk, John slowly moves and pulls off his shirt as you lazily fuck into your wet entrance. You spy his large pecs and nicely shaped waist as chiseled abs make your mouth water and lips part in soft puffs of breath. The coarse hair over him was the same shade as his beard, and you followed the trail with greedy eyes until it disappeared below his unbuttoned and stained pants. 

Your chest gets just a little bit together; cunt tightening dangerously.

“You’re droolin’, lovely,” John smirks down at you, “careful now, don’t wanna finish on yourself. Just makin’ more of a mess for me, hm? Naughty.” He strips off his pants and boxers, kicking his boots off, and you stare wide-eyed at the spring of his dick, noticing the way it hits against his stomach with a molten red tip. 

You would have gotten on your knees and sucked him off, but he beat you to it. 

The Captain forsakes his own needs and does as he’s ordered – he kneels to the ground and levels his face where your cum stains your skin and nudges your fingers out of the way. He begins to lick along your thighs as your wet hand goes to slick his hair back, gripping the strands and observing the phenomena below you with a slack jaw. 

Oh, hell. 

He stares at you as he does it, cataloging the flesh that makes you jump and the places that leave you shaking with need. His tongue sucks and bites, but never goes where you want it to, instead, he just spreads your legs farther and makes comments as you grunt above him.

“Such a mess, Princess…I’ll have to take care of you.”

“That’s it, Love, fuck my face – try and get off. Good girl.”

“Fuckin’ delicious, that is, eh? Here, have a taste.”

You’re left a shaking mess by the time the remnants of your orgasm are traded for saliva, his muscle slurping up every droplet without complaint as his fingers leave bruises in your thighs from how tight he has to hold them to keep the limbs apart. This wasn’t going to plan for you. 

Whining and whimpering, you ache for him, your lower body throbbing as more slick begins flowing. At this rate, he was going to suck you raw and leave beard burn all over your inner thighs. 

“J-John,” you plead, disheveled as your hand grips his hair tighter, biting into the brown whisps. You were going to climax without him even entering you.

“Hm?” He groans out, licking a long stripe over your entrance but never sinking into it. Your body shivers and jolts, chasing that friction but he moves away too soon. You nearly sob. No, no, no. I can’t take it. “What is it, then?” 

“Fuck me.” You feel the twist of his lips more than see it.

“Yeah? That what you want?” 

“I swear to God, John–!” He stands so quickly that you yelp, legs wrapping behind him as his arms go around your backside and hike you into his hold. 

Moaning loudly, you feel the press of his cock over your slit, whining and immediately trying to shift in his grip to attempt to slip him inside of you with a twisted face. But the Brit’s hand on the small of your back is tight, keeping you trapped against him. 

“Not yet.” He growls in his ribcage, and you connect his forehead with yours and force yourself not to beg as he narrows his eyes at you. But you're not a fool, you can practically hear his cock trying to move against your heat; his thighs quivering. “Fuckin’ hell – you’re impatient. Your whole squad like that?”

“You’re a damn tease.” You huff, rubbing and pressing your nipples over his chest hair to stop the throbbing in them. “Ruder than I remember. Didn’t even let the girl suck you off.”

“Then you’re gonna hate what I do next.”

Your confusion bleeds into your expression as he situates himself in your desk chair, leaning back into it with a groan and squeezing you in his arms. His dick slaps at your backside when he lets you go and just stares. Furrowing your brow, he tilts his head down at you as your arms rest on his pecks, playing with the hair there and tracing scars.

“Go on.” The Brit prompts with a tilt of his head toward you, a nonchalant expression on his face that makes him look more like he used to – outwardly not caring but studying every move and twitch of your body.

He watches you like a wolf.

“What?” Questioning, your head pulls back as your legs fall limp at his sides to dangle above the floor.

He huffs. “You said you wanted your prize – take it, then.”

“...b-but…”

“Go on. Don’t make me repeat myself.” 

You glance down, utter exasperation showing on your face, “how am I supposed to…?” 

“I’m sure you’ll figure that out, Love.” John’s hands go to sit on the armrests, fingers swishing as they hang off the ends. Your face burns, annoyance filtering into your veins as your eyelids crease. 

Trying to prove a point, you stave off the awkwardness of the angle and shift upwards, using John’s broad shoulders as a way to lift yourself up. Taking a shallow breath, your breasts are shoved into his face when you free one of your hands, going to grasp him to line the joining up. You feel him distantly nipping at the supple flesh, his hands over the rests jerking as his legs open wider under you. When you grab him, he grunts, and your nails leave crescent marks on his skin as you clench your jaw as it rests on his head. Huffing, you jerk him off a few times to make his body writhe before, in one fell motion, letting yourself fall onto his dick. 

You both let out sounds that are more animal than human, deep wails and keens that shake the office walls. 

“Fuck, John,” you make noise like a damn porno, head slotted in his neck as you shake and jolt this way and that with rapid nerves that shoot down your arching spine.

He was tearing you open – ripping you apart with the spearhead that curves so deeply you struggle to breathe correctly. Jesus, was he in your throat? Gasping, you feel so full in such a unique way it leaves you addicted, your cunt so tight around John’s cock that the walls inside of you quiver with every small movement. When he gasps out breaths with his closed-tight eyes, you notice the way your body convulses, red-hot pleasure rocketing to your brain and pumping endorphins before clenching around him. 

Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck. Shit, I can feel his goddamn veins digging into me! Your small mewls of pleasure spill out even as you both stay still to adjust. Sex had never felt like this before.

John spasms, hands immediately snapping to your thighs to keep you there as he wheezes. 

“Fuckin’....christ!” Blinking rapidly, you bite into John’s neck to ground yourself, hips rocking despite his pleas. “So tight. Squeezin’ my cock just perfect. Take it, Love. Fuck, c’mon, take it.” 

Your slick and his precum make it easier, the wet squelching once more resuming at a faster pace than before. You release his skin, intent on chasing after the orgasm building around this man’s dick that hits every spot like it was target practice.

“John, feel so good,” you moan, breathing loudly as the Brit watches you take him like it was nothing. 

“H-hell.” He groans long, hands helping you jump when your legs shake too violently every once and a while. He’ll have blood dripping from his shoulders from how hard you dig into him, but watching your cunt swallow him over and over again is payment enough as a ring of milky white forms at his base. “Look at you. Fuckin’ good girl. Keep it steady, now.”

“P-please,” you sob, eyes shiny as your walls ache – your needy clit was burning. John watches wide-eyed; blues boiling. “Clit. I need…” 

Trailing off you connect your lips to his when one of his thumbs goes to your nerve bundle, quickly working at it in tight circles that molds your lips onto a silent scream. John whimpers when your pussy clamps, his senses all covered in you – your scent and how your tits bounce so beautifully – a second later he can’t help himself any longer. 

His feet plant themselves to the floor, and he’s slipping his tongue into your mouth as his hips rapidly thrust, skin on skin the only sound above high moans and muffle pleas of release. 

It was far past words anymore, just feral animals seeking an earth-shattering orgasm at the other’s hand. Drool was slipping down both of your lips, splattering down chests and cheeks as sloppy kisses miss marks. 

So close. So close.

The snake was coiling, walls shaking and alternating between squeezing too tight and letting John hit as far into you as possible. You suddenly wail into his hot mouth, eyes rolling back when he angles his thrusts back towards himself as he slouches in the chair.

“There it is. Bloody bastard.” John hits it again, leaving you collapsing onto his chest as his hands go to wrap around your back, large arms using you to stay still as he pants ferally, eyes wild as they stare down at your blessed-out expression. Fuck, were you even able to speak anymore beyond whines and gasps? The clench of your pussy?

“Don’t worry, Love,” One thumb still plays with your overstimulated clit, making tears splatter his chest hair and get stuck as every sliver of skin that’s coated in sweat and joined slick. “I’ll make it up to you, yeah, I’ll fuck you proper later.” 

Your eyes roll back, back arching into him. God, was this not fucking you properly? But then again, John was a gentleman at the end of the day – his idea of proper was probably a bed and a glass of water on the nightstand. 

But this was so much better. The neediness of it, the emotional release besides the physical. John could fuck you anywhere at any time, as long as you got to hear him speak to you like that. Breathless, whiny like he never was and probably never will be outside the company of just you – even after being separated, you knew he was never one to do things like this.

“Tell me you’ll let me cum inside this cunt, eh, Love,” his accent is stronger as he gasps, raspy, with muted growls, before his head tilts back behind the chair’s backing. He speeds up until you were sure the chair was going to break in two, the material squealing. “Let me breed you like I always wanted to, yeah? Watch that spent cunt drown before I pump back in and stuff you full again. Please, Bird, let me…Let me…!”

You're about to lose it, hands raking down his chest and legs numb before you can gasp out a single sentence before the rope snaps.

“God, John, don’t…don’t let any go to waste.” You moan and slot your head under his jaw, feeling his beard bristles burn your nose when you finally let the snake strike. 

Freezing, your lower body jolts as if connected to an electrical line, walls constricting around the foreign entity inside of you as it continues to chase its own high. One firm thrust, two sloppy ones, before a groan so loud you feel it reverberate in your heart enters the heavy air. There is an undeniable fullness to your womb that shoots deeply into your being, splattering your thighs and staining John’s abdomen. From there it’s small instinctual thrusts as your ringing ears twitch at the sound of cum dripping on the floor. Panting, you can’t help the fucked-out way your mouth parts to release a satisfactory sigh at the feeling of euphoria in your brain and cunt. 

It felt like you were floating on air when John finally started rubbing a hand up and down your back, shaky fingers hard and sure as they trace old marks. 

Still short of breath, the two of you revel in each other's company with palpitating hearts and half-lidded eyes. Still slotted under his jaw, the brown-haired man mutters softly.

“New?” As he taps a bullet wound on your right side that’s been healed for years now. 

“Hm,” uttering softly with a hoarse voice, you smile weakly with warm cheeks, “old. Three years.” 

“...I have a lot to catch up on, then, yeah?” 

“Very much. But don’t worry, I’ll be patient.” He chuckles, making your form move with him. You take a deep breath, finally feeling yourself come back to earth, albeit on unsteady feet. 

A good bout of calming silence forms before you speak through a haze of fatigue. It had to be late by now – incredibly late. Maybe just using the pullout bed would be better than doing the walk of shame back to your barracks. John could join you here, you decide internally. 

“How did you know I’d even speak to you in the first place?” You ask as the man shifts under you, lightly lifting your black and blue thighs as you begin to whine quietly; he shushes you with a calm presence. Delicately pulling out, he lets his spent cock exit your red and swollen hole as more combined fluid falls from you to run over his hips and pool below. Resettling you, he brings a hand to the back of your head and presses a kiss to your forehead.

“The radio. You kept it.” You grin shakily, feeling him run his fingertips down your spine, finding more milky scars and caressing them with callused hands. 

You’d have to tell him all of your stories later, and in turn, he’ll tell you his. There was a lot to learn, but this certainly wasn’t a bad spot to start. Nuzzling farther into his neck, you sigh dreamily as his pulse sings you to sleep like a lullaby. Before you drift off you whisper out a reply that leaves John shivering. 

“...I guess I did, didn’t I?”

TAGLIST SIGN-UP || Here

TAGS:

@blueoorchid, @jxvipike, @revrse, @shuttlelauncher81, @bruhhvv, @kittiowolf210, @antigonusyuki, @aerangi, @spikespiegell, @lora21, @330bpm-whiplash, @michirulol, @john-pricee, @cl0wncxre, @jade-jax, @anna-banana27, @lothiriel9, @halfmoth-halfman, @ghost-with-a-teacup, @1234ilikecowsthanyoumore, @bespectacledhuman, @uberraschungg, @neelehksttr, @wolfyland07, @shoe1412, @jaimiespn, @dilfsaremyfavourite, @astronaut2029, @shmaptin, @levietc

(if anyone has any idea why some aren't working I would love to know lmao)

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[golbrocklovely]

hunger // colby brock

A/N: this may or may not be based on a daydream i've had for a while. or honestly, a fic that i would love to write a whole story to but probably never will. vampire colby will always be my favorite. hope yall enjoy and lmk what you think ! happy haunting !

prompt: you wake up in an unfamiliar place. seeking shelter inside of a castle, you suddenly realize that everyone you know is a vampire, and you are the only human around. no one is going to save you, especially not the prince. || fem!reader x colby brock

trigger warning: angst, cursing, waking up in an alternative universe, you and snc are/were friends, and now… they don't know who you are, vampire!prince!colby, blood drinking, mentions of manipulation powers (but they don't work on you), being aggressively manhandled a bunch, you are treated like shit by everyone for the most part, weird flirting???, overall some sexual undertones, passing out/almost dying, twist ending?

word count: 2970

I was running as hard and as fast as I could through the thick forest. I had no recollection of how I got here. The last thing I remember was going to bed, then suddenly I awoke surrounded by trees as far as my eyes could see. I wasn't even in the same clothes I went to sleep in. I was now in an off-white dress that stopped just above my knees, sprinting bare foot through the woods. I could hear voices around me, almost getting closer any time I would stop. It's like they were toying with me, forcing me to run any time I felt like stopping. My feet were on fire, most likely bleeding, but I couldn't stop. I knew that if I did, I would be done for.

I would have screamed out for help, but it almost felt as if doing that would draw attention to me; attention that would get me sooner killed rather than saved.

I squinted up ahead, a clearing coming into view. A huge dark grey building of some sort was getting closer. All I had to do was get to it and maybe I would be safe.

I prayed that this was a dream, and I would soon wake up, but as the cuts in my feet told me otherwise. This was no dream. This was real, and I just needed to keep going.

I finally rested against a tree for a moment right at the edge of the building's property. As I caught my breath, I realized this was no ordinary building - it was a castle. Stone walls rose high into the sky, tiny windows adorning the tops of the towers. The doors to the castle were unguarded, at least from the outside, and the big iron doors beckoned me in. Seeking shelter or help was my only option. I knew staying in the forest wasn't safe. But something in me churned at the thought of what could be beyond the castle walls.

I trudged over to the doors slowly, glancing around me. No one was in sight, and I couldn't hear anything from outside to indicate there was life inside. But there had to be.... right?

I grabbed the handle, pulling open the door with all of my might. Medal cranking noises sounded off, reverberating inside the room. I stepped in and closed the door, turning around. No one was there. Not even a whisper of a soul.

I walked up the carpet that led to a thrown, embellished in gold and black accents. The plush carpets felt amazing against my sore feet. I observed the massive room, noting the other doorways and stairs leading to who knows where else in the castle. The marble floor sparkled in the light coming in through the stained-glass windows. There were gorgeous paintings hanging along the walls, assumingly of past rulers. What was odd was how almost gruesome the paintings were - depicting beheadings and blood and gore. Not only that, but every single ruler had red eyes. Some even had blood dripping from their mouths.

One painting in particular caught my eye. It looked recent, and the man was sitting on the same thrown in this room. His was not as gruesome as the others, but something in his eyes was colder than all the rest. He didn't have to have the blood or gore to come across as scary. He just was. But his face... it looked eerily familiar to someone I knew. Someone that was my friend.

There was no way it could have been him. It had to be someone else.

"Hello, precious child." A voice rang out sinisterly, causing chills to run up my spine.

I spun around, my eyes landing on a man. He was tall with dark hair, and his clothing was formal and royal in dark blues and blacks. His eyes were almost neon red. His wicked smile gleamed in the light; fangs sharp as knives glaring back at me.

That couldn't be right...

"Boo." Another man's voice whispered behind me. I jumped, ready to scream, but a hand covered my mouth. An arm wrapped around me tightly, almost taking the air out of me as he squeezed. The person holding me laughed maniacally, finding it hilarious as I struggled against his hold. He was taller than me as well, and from the corner of my eye I could see his dark red hair hitting his shoulder as he held me.

"Now, now, Theo. You know how he will feel about us playing with our food." The man in front of me stated nonchalantly, slowly walking towards us.              

"But Alek... she smells so good. It was so much fun chasing her outside," Theo snickered behind me. He pressed his nose against my neck, breathing in my scent deeply. "God, what I would do for a bite of her right now."

"I know it was, but you know what Samuel will say." Alek rolled his eyes, placing his hands on his hips, "And not to mention what he'll tell the prince."

"Screw them both! We found her first. We get first dibs." Theo growled bitterly, gripping me harder.

"Her fear is palpable.... that makes her blood all the more yummy." Alek's eyes danced across my body, his gaze lingering on my neck. "I not only thirst for your blood, sweetheart, but you.... have made me lascivious."

"Fuck you!" I spat, thrashing forward in Theo's arms.

Alek reeled back and slapped me, my face almost slamming into Theo's shoulder. "What a depraved mouth on such a tiny, little thing. For that alone I should drain you dr-"

"Are you two done yet? Because it is exhausting hearing you speak sometimes." Another voice cut through, sounding all too familiar.

All our heads turned towards one of the entrances. Standing there in all his glory, was Sam. My friend. But he looked... very different. He was a vampire, much like Theo and Alek. His hair was slicked back, and his clothing was similar to theirs, except in red and black with silver accents. His eyes were on me, but there was no sign he knew who I was.

My eyes widened at the sight of him, my breath hitched in my throat. "S-Sam?"

He cocked his head, raising an eyebrow at my voice. "How informal of you." He glanced at Theo and Alek, "Release her."

Theo's arms dropped me, my body almost crashing to the floor. Sam suddenly appeared in front of me, his hands grabbing at my wrists. He kept me close as he looked into my eyes. He searched my face for something, but I couldn't tell what it was.

"What is your name?" He asked calmly.

I thought for a moment of saying it but held my tongue. I grimaced at him, remaining silent.

"Oh, so now the wench has no words?" Alek snapped, grunting behind me.

"If I were you, I would be more like her." Sam narrowed his eyes at them both, "You as well, Theo."

"What did we do?" Theo barked, whining.

He blinked, annoyed. "You had plans to hide her away and feast upon her. You know the rules. The prince gets first taste."

"But we hunted her down. We found her in the forbidden forest." Alek argued, his voice hanging like venom in the air.

"And you allowed her into the castle when you should have been standing guard. You let a human in just to be food. We do not run our kingdom like that anymore." He gazed over at Theo, his voice just as pointed, "And your little comment, Theo… you are lucky King Henrik is not around. That sass alone would have gotten you beheaded instantly."

"May he rest in peace." The men behind me mumbled.

Sam finally turned back to me, a polite smile that did not reach his eyes resting on his face. "Where are my manners? My apologies. We were having a conversation. Now again, what is your name?"

I turned my head away, not knowing what else to do.

Sam hummed, his one hand leaving my arm. He brushed a finger against my turned cheek, forcibly turning my head back to him. "I'm doing everything in my power to remain kind to you. Don't push your luck."

"Fuck. You." I whispered harshly, a quiet tear streaming down my face. I didn't even realize I was close to crying, or that tears had welled up at all.

"You have guts, sweetheart. Too bad those with guts are killed first." Sam spoke softly, but with a vicious tongue. "The prince will be here shortly. Hold her."

Theo and Alek each took an arm of mine, holding me tightly. I tried to shake them off, to no avail. In a loud booming noise, the doors behind the thrown opened widely. A tall man walked through; his head held high. His eyes narrowed at the sight of all of us. Royal garb adorned his body, all black with gold detailing. As my eyes fell upon his face, my mouth gaped at him. It was Colby.

"What the fuck?" I uttered, stunned.

"Is that the only word you know how to say?" Colby questioned coolly. He stopped in front of me, taking all of me in for a moment. "Ever since you stepped foot into my castle, all I've heard from that pretty mouth of yours is 'fuck'."

"Bow before the prince, harlot." Theo hissed.

They dropped me onto my knees, forcing me down. My knees banged against the marble floor, a wince falling from my lips.

Alek snickered, getting low and near my ear. "Right where all human women belong."

Alek suddenly began to choke, his hold and Theo's letting me go. I picked my head up to see Colby choking him, his hand tightening to an almost death grip around Alek's throat. He looked bored, glancing around the room unamused. "I am exhausted by the two of you and your crude comments. Not only did you hunt this poor girl for sport, but now you have left me with no other choice but to use my powers on her or take her life. Cleaning up your fuck ups is the last thing I want to be doing."

"But sir, she just-!" Alek gurgled out.

"Speak another word and I will snap your neck like a toothpick, so help me God. Do you understand me?" Colby's cold voice made the hairs on my body stand on end.

"Yes, Prince Cole." Both Alek and Theo nodded.

Colby released Alek, his attention turning back to me as if he hadn't just choked out a man. "Now.... let me get a good look at you."

He bent down, his hand cupping my face gently. His gentle touch surprised me, my eyes fluttering. He studied me, his striking blue eyes taking me in.

"How come your eyes are blue?" I inquired lowly.

I heard Sam let out a soft laugh, Theo and Alek remaining silent.

An almost smile came to his lips. "My eyes are only red when I'm hungry. But I also have a lot of strength so I'm able to hide when I am hungry."

"Are you... hungry?" I gulped.

"I knew the moment you stepped into my castle because of the cuts on your feet. So yes, I am very hungry, darling." He gazed directly into my eyes, a sort of playful tone I was used to coming through. "Why, are you offering?"

My cheeks heated up from his intense stare. Dear heaven above, this was not the time to be blushing!

"You always knew how to make the ladies swoon, Prince Cole," Sam teased jokingly. "Maybe you can get her to say her name."

He turned his gaze back to me. "You haven't said your name yet? Why is that?"

"Is it really all that important if you plan to kill me?" I remarked rudely.

"I don't have to kill you. That's a last resort option," he replied sincerely. "So, why don't you tell me your name?"

"After everything I just went through, I'd rather not." I deadpanned.

Colby's gaze caught mine, his eyes flashing red. "Tell me your name, now."

I felt an electric surge course through my body when our eyes met, something deeper than just surface level. I could almost feel him in my body, in my soul, for a moment. But once the current dissipated, I was left still not wanting to say my name.

"No." I dissented.

All the men around me stepped back, mumbling incoherently. For the first time since he came into the room, Colby looked startled. Almost scared.

"How is that possible?" Sam questioned, amazed.

Theo whispered. "Witchcraft."

"There's no way your powers didn't affect her!" Alek exclaimed.

"Quiet," Colby hushed everyone, scooping me up firmly. He pushed me onto his throne, barricading me in with his arms. His eyes narrowed as he glared down at me. "How were you able to do that?"

"Do what?" I gasped.

"Block my powers. I come from the longest living vampire lineage in history, spanning thousands of years, and somehow.... my powers have no effect on you." He scanned me once again, his eyes lingering longer on my exposed skin. "You are nothing more than a human."        

"Lucky break, I guess." I sneered.

Colby scowled; his voice low. "Don't play cute with me, darling. You will not survive if anymore quips fall from your mouth. I am a patient man, but an indignant ruler."

"I don't know! I don't even know how the fuck I got here! I woke up in the forest and ran from those two lunatics and now I'm here getting berated by a bunch of vampires! You tell me how this make sense." I ranted, getting close to his face.

Sam chimed in. "Cole, she might be telling the truth."

"There's no way. Clearly she is a witch of some type. Or has her own abilities that are somehow stronger than mine. She might be a spy from our opposition." Colby argued, gesturing towards me.

"So, our only option... is the last resort." Sam breathed, glancing at me hesitantly.

I was going to die. There was no way around it.

Theo whined, "If you're going to kill her, can we please have a bite of her, sir? We are the ones that caught this intruder and-"

"You were the ones that let her in!" Colby thundered, his eyes red.

I jumped out of the throne, running towards the open doors behind me. I barely got close, being taken suddenly into Colby's strong arms.

I screamed, pleading with him. "No! Please let me go! I'm not a spy! I- Please!"

"There's no use fighting me, sweetheart. This is the only option left." He spoke calmly.

I shook in his arms, doing my best to fight against his hold. "Please don't do this to me! No, Col-"

"I will make it painless and quick if you want." He assured.

I raged, thrashing back and forth in his arms. "Fuck you! Let me go!"

He pulled my hair so my neck was on full display for him to bite into. "What a pity. I'm sorry, sweet girl. There is no other way."

Colby's teeth sunk deeply into my neck, my body freezing against his. The shock of the bite sent my body into overdrive, tears flowing down my cheeks as I begged for my life.

Sam, Theo, and Alek watched as Colby drank from me slowly. Theo and Alek glared but gazed at my neck hungrily. Sam observed, a sad expression coming across his red eyes.

Colby pulled away from my neck with a sharp inhale, an almost moan. "Oh Lord, her blood is divine. Unlike anything I've had before."

He plunged his teeth back into my neck, my eyes drooping from the blood loss. He sped up his motions, draining me faster. I kept trying to fight, but my limbs grew stiff and tired. My tears had slowed down and my voice wasn't as loud as it once was. I was inching closer to death. Black dots filled my vision.

"Please, Colby. Stop." I whispered, my breaths extremely shallow and labored.

He froze at the sound of his name. He removed his mouth from my neck, spinning me around in his arms. The world doubled, tripled, in my vision. My head whirled as I felt like I was falling.

He brought me down to the floor softly, cupping my face just like he had before. "What did you call me? Say it again, darling. Say it!"

"C-Colby. Pleaseeee." I slurred, my eyes unable to stay open.

The last thing I saw were his blue eyes, deeply worried about me.

~~~

"Take her to my bedroom, call Magnus. Tell him to heal her, quickly. Now! And if you harm a hair on her head, I'll stake you where you stand." Cole ordered, glaring daggers into Theo's eyes.

Theo took Y/N into his arms, running her up to Prince Cole's room hastily. Alek followed suit, disappearing with him.

Samuel grabbed onto Cole's shoulder, pulling him out of his thoughts. "She called you... Colby. But the only person that ever called you that was-"

"My mother. And she passed when I was a child. There's no way anyone knew of that name, but her." Cole's breathing picked up, his mind racing a million miles a second.

"Do you think this is the sign she meant to send you? She told you all those years ago she would send someone just for you." Samuel responded, looking into Cole's eyes.

For the first time in hundreds of years, Cole was unsure. And he would never admit it to anyone, but he was petrified too. "I-I don't know. But I have to find out."

#colby brock #colby brock fanfic #colby brock fic #colby brock fanfiction #colby brock x reader #colby brock vampire #colby brock oneshot #colby brock one shot #sam and colby #golbrocklovely's 13 nights of halloween #colby brock angst

[januaryembrs]

LAST KNIGHT IN SOHO | Steven Grant x Reader [1]

description: Steven finds his life slowly turning upside down when the man in the mirror starts talking back, he's sleepwalking all the way to the Alps, and the woman he's besotted with from work finds herself more caught up in all of it than he'd ever wanted. [Last Night in Soho inspired]

word count: 11.1k

trigger warnings: gore, blood, swearing, reader has a dark past that will be explored more read at discretion, third person & no use of Y/N, death, reader will become an avatar eventually,

main masterlist | series masterlist

Authors note: I have been in love with this show since I watched it and have finally started the fic I’ve been wanting to since it came out! The chapters are going to be long and readers backstory is dark but this is a piece very personal to me and I hope you enjoy!!!

She felt someone picking up her limp body. The museum lights had long since been shut off, but through the darkness of the exhibition she caught a tall figure standing over her. Her lids were heavy, vision bleary, yet she blinked a few times to try and straighten her mind that still felt like it was pulsing stiffly in her tight skull. Her voice was no better, the only sound she could let out was a guttural whine as the stranger pressed hard on the three deep lacerations on her abdomen that were now gushing blood like a scene from a 90s slasher movie.

They were broad, blocking out the minimal slither of light as they crouched over her and seemed to be yelling something. Probably scolding her for getting copious amounts of thick blood over the freshly mopped floors, she thought numbly. The sound came to her in something akin to static, a muffled string of nonsense. All she knew was they were talking loud and fast. Or maybe she had a concussion too? That thing had thrown her through that glass wall pretty hard. 

She couldn’t see a mouth moving, nor could she actually see their face, just two beams of white blinking down at her. 

This couldn’t be happening, this couldn’t be happening for real. She thought maybe someone had slipped something in her drink when she was at the club, but that was two days ago. There would be no reason for her to be feeling the effects only just now. And when she had been jumped on by one of those things she’d sure as hell felt it. She'd seen it with her own two eyes the way her clothes had been ripped as something plunged its claws deep into her, heard the air whoosh out her lungs as it hurled her through the partition wall. 

She’d felt, still felt, the open wound seeping so harshly that she knew it was going to be fatal. 

There was no coming back from whatever fever dream this was. 

She blinked again up at the mystery guy who seemed to be holding her heavy head gently, but the hot, red wetness on his hands that smeared on her cheek said he also knew how fucked she was. He was muttering something, was there someone else here? Oh god, where was Steven? 

“Stev-” Came her broken murmur, but the metallic taste crawling its way up her throat cut her off as a blob of viscid blood rolled down her chin. 

“He’s here, he’s okay. It’s gonna be okay,” Said the voice back to her, his grasp on her hair tightening as she garbled. The breath, life, was leaving her now. Every time she tried to get air into her lungs, she was met with more of the thick liquid spraying into her mouth, her chest retching for oxygen.

She didn’t have long left, she realised numbly. 

The room was blackening round the edges even more now, sped up by the way she felt her hands grabbing his arm in a panic. She’d thought she would welcome the cold hands of Death, it wasn’t a stranger in her home. Death rooted himself in her very soul, and yet as it dragged her under consciousness, she couldn’t help but feel like a scared little girl and she tried to cling onto the mystery figure as if he could keep her from Death’s greedy clutches. 

It was sweet poetry, knowing she was drowning from the inside out. She had always known her biggest monster lay within her, in her every cell, festering and rotting her, since the moment she was born. There was really no other perfect way to sum up her whole life than it ending this way, choking on her own body. Grabbing onto a stranger, trying to plead for help as a few precious tears wet her face and she realised she was crying. Scared, vulnerable to her own demise like she had always known she would be. 

How do you fight off a monster coming from within? You don't. You can’t. So she didn’t. 

No amount of soft words or desperate touches on the figure helped her, it only made the departure messier, a bigger pool of blood for them to find her in.

The world felt surprisingly calm the moment she was snatched ruthlessly into Death’s open arms.

FOUR DAYS EARLIER

“Come the fuck on, Steven” Cursing under her breath, she cradled the two disposable cups of coffee tightly, her rosewood coloured lipstick surrounding only one of the lids. The London air whipped her coat around her shins, frigid and unwelcoming as it was even on a good day. 

As per usual, Steven was late for work. The two of them had an agreement to meet each other outside the museum every Wednesday and Thursday, which meant his lateness slid in her own time. She could of course just meet the undoubtedly dishevelled man inside, but what kind of a friend would she be then? Leave him to face Donna’s wrath on his own? No, if he was in for a bollocking then so were she.

Friends didn’t exactly come easy to her nowadays, either. So if waiting in the bitterness for another five minutes meant she could keep this one, then so be it.

She had even taken the time on her commute to work to grab him a drink, the thin, black ink on the sticker reading: LATTE, + CARAMEL, -XTRA ESPRESSO SHOT, -XTRA HOT. she had banked on him being late despite the fact she had left him three messages this morning asking if he was awake (he wasn’t) and called him last night before bed to remind him not to sleep in. 

A minute or so before she would have figured he was just calling in sick today, she caught sight of a slouched figure dashing off the bus, the grey knitted cardigan belonging to only one person his age in London. His thatch of messy black curls were a next dead give away, as well as the bags under his eyes that never seemed to budge even if he were to sleep two days in a row. Yet, she couldn’t help but smile at the way he seemed to apologise to a flock of pigeons he nearly trampled on in his haste up the many steps leading to their workplace.

“Donna’s going to serve our heads on sticks to scare away rude customers, you know that right?” She said, handing him his drink, now lukewarm, as he nearly crashed into her own body.

“Thanks, Dove,” He said absently as the two of them headed quickly to the entrance, “Yep, I’m aware I’ve buggered us. Bloody weird dreams again,” Steven shook his head as if to rid himself of the odd thoughts. “Sorry though, love. You must be freezing,”

She was freezing, but the way he was quick to worry over her warmed her insides more than she’d care to admit. The nickname crafted just for her, the bird symbolising ‘Quiet innocence’ in Ancient Egypt, as Steven had once told her. Sure enough, the endearing term had stuck quickly, and it warmed her to know she had a special enough place in his life to have a pet name. 

It was plain to see just by looking at the twenty-five year old she was smitten with her co-worker. No sane person stands outside in Brittain’s April winds for just a friend. But Steven was different, which she knew was what every naive young girl said about their work crush, but he truly was. Steven had a kindness she had never known someone to offer without wanting anything in return, which he didn’t. He was so sweet to her she understood why he loved the sugary caramel syrup in his coffee so much, she thought often it glazed his every word with a honeyed tone. His face was a blend of a greek god and a lost puppy, a combination she never would have banked on being so damn attractive until she met him. 

Even his smell alone of a quiet library, a rain soaked meadow and freshly brewed coffee had her inebriated. 

“It’s fine,” The woman reassured as she cut through the main lobby where it was already lively with school kids. A few queued up at the gift shop to pay for their treasures; she smiled when she saw a girl with an Anubis plushie tucked under her arm. “I’m sure she would have found a reason to snap today anyway,”

She adored her job, she really did. Graduating university with a degree in Ancient Languages, working in London’s heart of archeological texts had been a linguist’s version of Broadway. Sure, her talents were beyond soured working in the gift shop, but anything was better than the life she’d fled to get here. 

No amount of sneers and dry remarks from Donna could ever drag her kicking and screaming back to that time before she left for Soho. 

“What did you dream about this time?” She asked, her black, kitten heels clicking against the freshly polished marble floor. 

A ghost of a smile spread across his face, and her eyes couldn’t help but linger on the way his brows lifted, giving away his amusement at his own head. “It was the weirdest thing. I felt like I was flying over London, but not, like, in an aeroplane or anything, like I was flying. Like, me. No wings or anything. Like I’m bloody superman or something.” Steven shook his head again and she gave a small laugh.

“Certainly beats getting the underground. You know, I saw a rat the size of a dachshund this morning, swear on my life. I thought it was about to ask me for spare change,” Steven smiled at his colleague as they entered the Ancient Egypt area. She took a sip of her own hot latte, sweet cinnamon with whipped cream that had long since melted, the liquid already half devoured when she was waiting for him to show up. 

“Don’t you ever have dreams like that, then? That feel so ridiculous. It's like, how can my head even come up with it?” Steven asked, and her smile wobbled a little as she saw her manager set her predatory gaze on the two of them. The people pleaser in her wanted to cower at Donna’s furious expression. 

In all honesty, she wished for dreams as ludicrous as flying over Piccadilly like a Mary Poppins wannabe. She wished she had Steven’s innocent look on life, that the world around her didn’t terrify her, that it could be as gentle with her as he was. 

But that was not real life. 

Her dreams were not filled with silly fantasies of flying like heroes. They were filled with dark monsters that looked too much like men to be supernatural, that managed to catch her no matter how many times she ran, begged, screamed. They always caught up to her. Always. Leaving her clawing at the duvet, drenched in sweat and a pulse that could challenge a hummingbird’s. 

“Brace yourself,” She ignored his question, muttering the words to him as the blonde came strutting over to them with a daggers look. Ah, Donna. The woman that made her job so joyful, so easy, a delight to be around.

Donna hated her almost as much as she made it clear Steven was on a metaphorical hit list the moment he stepped foot into the museum. 

“You pair better have a good explanation,” Donna snapped, dumping a tower of boxes in Steven’s arms. 

“Bus times-” Steven said at the same time she came out with:

“Road works-” 

They both stopped, hesitating a glance to one another. The blonde looked between them, shaking her head with a furrowed brow and a scornful sigh. 

“It’s like tweedledum and tweedledee having you two together,” She muttered, nudging the younger girl towards the stands in the middle of the gift shop, “Dum, you’re stock shelves today, love,” The term didn’t sound nearly as friendly coming from her mouth, nor did it make her chest flutter like it did when Steven said it. It was condescending, rude. Made to make her feel inferior, which it did. She pointed at the man then, shoving a basket of insect themed sweets to him behind the till, “Dee, you’re selling these.” 

Donna looked between the two of them one last time, her steely blue glare never wavering, as if checking they could be left alone together without wasting company time, before going to set her unforgiving jaws on some other poor creature.

The girl set her bag behind the counter and got to work organising the merchandise, twisting the ceramic scarabs to all be facing the front. 

It was a menial job at best, being stuck stacking shelves as mothers and fathers reached over to inspect the new stock, most of the time messing up the meticulous order she’d put them out in. Kids got their grubby mits all over the glass pyramid paperweights, making her eye twitch since she knew she’d need to polish them up again, only to flash them a smile and ask them kindly if they had the pocket money to pay for it. 

They didn’t, kids just liked to fiddle with priceless things and their parents were too busy on their phones to notice. 

She was half way through showing two young girls to the sarcophagus themed pencil cases when she caught sight of Dylan at the front counter, leaning in to talk to Steven. 

Dylan was a nice woman to work with. She was one of the only people who’d tried to coax conversation out of the greenie the first week she started there, which had been painful for both of them since she had never been known to be sociable. Companionship did not come easy to her and it was only by sheer luck that Steven seemed so similarly awkward in a charming way that she was able to feel comfortable around him. 

It was childish really, a silly work crush that she had no intention of ever letting slip. He was too good for her anyway. He was sweet and kind, gentle, innocent. Everything she was not.

Steven Grant deserved someone who could give him the world. Which is why it shouldn’t have come to too much of a stab to the chest when she heard what the two of them were talking about. 

“We still on for seven tomorrow?” Dylan asked, her hair falling in those beautiful, tight curls over her shoulder. Dylan was the type who showed up to work every day looking effortlessly gorgeous which clawed at the younger girl more than she cared to acknowledge. She liked Dylan, she really did. She was friendly in a way that was genuine, didn’t have her second guessing whether she meant the compliments she gave to anyone. 

Some days she wondered if Dylan pitied her. A plain Jane girl with no family to lean on, trying to make ends meet in a city as extortionate as London and chin deep in university loans. It was enough for any attractive, confident adult woman to kiss their teeth and “Awww”. 

The girl watched the two of them, waiting for the teenagers to decide which stationary sets they wanted. They were looking for ‘different but matching’ they had said, not that she was paying much attention to them. Steven’s face was the picture of lost as he stared at the grown woman, seemingly entranced with her face. And she couldn’t blame him. Dylan flashed him a teasing smile, brilliant white teeth poking out from behind her luscious dark lips. 

“Seven tomorrow?” He asked, despite nodding happily as if he understood what she was talking about. But his friend didn’t miss the confusion blaring on his face, his eyes as brown as the coffee she’d bought him scrunched up slightly in bewilderment. 

“Best steak in town?” Dylan prompted, her smile not faltering though she seemed to also be slightly thrown off that had forgotten. 

Their unknowing audience kept her head down, not wanting to watch for a second more of their conversation. She didn’t need a degree to see the way Dylan had leaned in, her body language turned completely towards him as if to tease him with what could come if their date were to go well, her own almond eyes trailing over him with the air of confidence her younger counterpart lacked. 

“Oh right, yeah. Yeah,” Steven replied. She could tell he still had no clue what Dylan was talking about. 

“Yeah? Okay,” Dylan replied, oblivious to his dilemma, and stepped away from the desk to go tour the new group of school kids waiting in the hallway. 

Steven followed her trail hotly before she could leave, “Sorry but,” He stepped towards her to talk a little quieter, almost embarrassed about how forward he was being, “Are you asking me out?” 

Dylan stopped, reeling slightly in shock before she wagged a finger to him and chuckled. “You’re funny. I’ll see you then.” She seemed unbothered by his ‘joke’ though she could hear in his own voice he was muddled. The woman walked away with a sultry looking smile, her eyes flicking to her where her other coworker silently arranged the pencil sarcophaguses. “Morning, babe,” She gave the girl a friendly squeeze on the upper arm as she passed. It only made it more difficult to writhe in jealousy knowing the woman he was seeing was downright lovely.

“Morning, Dylan,” She returned the smile, though the bitterness festered inside her. She had no claim over him, and she really couldn’t blame the two of them for gravitating towards one another. Not only was she merely twenty-five, a decade under Steven and Dylan’s thirty-five years, but Dylan was sexy, confident, flirty. Knew what she wanted. She was incredibly smart too, not an airhead like some other people trying to live the big dream in London. Dylan was a tour guide at the British Museum, and what was she? A graduate with a dead degree, pun intended, and a job that could be done by any wannabe walking in here.

Taking a moment to rearrange her feelings, shoving down the way her heart wriggled in her chest as the little green monster worked its way through her veins, pumping disappointment around her body like a drug. 

The two young girls seemed to only then decide which pencil boxes they wanted, unbeknownst to her inner turmoil, and she remained silent as she led them over to the till to talk to Steven, more for her own benefit than theirs. 

“I didn’t know you’d asked her out,” She said finally, though it came out as a croak, which she cleared from her throat quickly. Steven scanned their items as the girls both fiddled with ten pound notes, the great Queen Elizabeth staring at the woman from their hands as if she even knew how childish she sounded.

“Neither did I,” Steven replied honestly, printing off the receipts for them, “And you would think for a woman like her there’d be no chance I’d forget a date, you know what I mean?”

Ouch. She smiled tightly, waving the younger girls off as they caught up with Dylan’s tour group. The woman of the hour. Of course he’d be elated at the sound of that, what man with eyes wouldn’t? Anyone would count their stars lucky to be given a chance by a temptress like her. 

“Must have needed that coffee today after all,” She joked, though she couldn’t bring herself to smile properly, instead finding a middle ground between a grimace and a simper. 

Steven chuckled at her, shaking his head. “Must have. What would I ever do without you?” She grinned painfully at him, looking away to try and hide the way her face grew hot at his thoughtless words. “Am I still walking you home tonight?”

Another of their routines. She lived closer to Islington than the lovely apartment Steven had in Whitechapel. Despite paying a lot per month to live so close to the city centre, some areas of London like the borough she lived in was still ridden with some of the highest crime rate in the county. Steven was more thoughtful than anyone she had ever met, a rarity in this place, and on the days they were at work together he would ride the underground home with her before detouring around to his own apartment even further away. 

“Uh, no,” She replied, busying herself with unloading one of the boxes Donna had dumped in Steven’s hands earlier. She loved spending time with Steven, loved it so much that she felt guilty of lusting over him without his knowledge, but she couldn’t bear to hear any more about this date that he would no doubt want to pick her brain apart over. He’d want to ask what to wear, how to style his hair, if he should buy her chocolates and flowers even though she already knew he would. And the whole time she’d be hoarse in the throat from holding back the urge to say Date me instead, I’m begging you.  “No, I have a date of my own tonight,”

Liar. Liar. Liar. 

It was like their monarch Elizabeth was still glaring at her, judging her through her inky lashes and driving the dagger in further at the fact that this kind of behaviour was exactly what made her too immature to be considered for a real date with Steven.

He raised his brows, surprised. It wasn’t uncommon for her to have an occasional fling with a guy every now and then. But none of them really progressed to a date, just a single night of passion to groan over in embarrassment when Steven asked how her weekend went. 

“Oh, who’s the lucky guy?” Steven asked, nudging her shoulder in a tone that was nothing but teasing. 

“No one, just someone I met on tinder,” She brushed off, the lack of excitement making the man stop trying to pry a smile out of her. 

“What’s the matter?” She shrugged at him, not coming up with a response in time. What he took as nerves was in fact guilt and disgust feasting on her insides at the fact she was lying to him. Lying. There was no mystery man, no one coming to save her from this awkward display of what pure jealousy can do to a reasonable person. “You can always cancel if you don’t want to go.”

“I just…” she trailed off, stuck for what to say. He was looking at her with those puppy eyes no grown man should be able to perfect. And yet he was patiently waiting for her to stumble on the right set of words, his entire focus on whatever it was troubling her. That was another thing, for as chatty as a person as Steven was, he was just as good a listener, and she could tell he gave her everything every single time they would talk.  “I just don’t know what to wear, is all,” 

He seemed content with her answer as his eyes trailed down her body. She squirmed under his gaze but hid it well (not at all) by pulling her cardigan sleeves over her hands and balling her fists to fidget with, “Wear what you’re wearing now,” He said simply, as if it were obvious.

She looked down. A large top and casual jeans did not exactly say date worthy, though she wasn’t sure if there were actual rules to hypothetical dating, seeing as her man was fucking imaginary. 

She giggled at him nonetheless, shaking her head, “These are my work clothes, Steven. I can’t go like this.”

“Why not? I think you look lovely,” Steven’s comment was passing, tiny in the scale of things. Yet it sent her heart scrambling for a grip on reality. He was just her friend, complimenting her on her perfectly ordinary clothes. Nothing more. 

It wasn’t until she found herself smiling at a set of metal Pharaohs that she realised she needed to get a date for this evening fast. If Dylan and Steven could find someone in this wide city, surely it couldn’t be too hard for her to.

Sound was the first thing that came back to her. The crappy animated kids show she had been watching out of pure boredom last night was still playing after being left on all night. No doubt running up her already high electric bills. The exaggerated, slapstick bangs blared through the speaker. That caught her attention, drawing her into the awake like a fog horn from shore. The midday sun slipped through the open curtains, flicking over her lids and coaxing her to open them. She did so gently, lashes batting over her cheeks as she tried to make sense of where she was. 

Her sofa. 

The two empty mugs glared back at her from the coffee table, making her eyes wince in confusion. Why was she making tea so late last night?

Then the stench hit her. The smokey yet overwhelmingly powerful smell of a gentleman caller named Jack Daniels wafted up her nose and brought back a panorama of memories flicking through her head; The date. A real date that had been scheduled since Thursday. A completely ordinary blonde named James. The restaurant. Him being almost too charming. Fake laughing at his jokes she had already seen on Twitter weeks ago. Him touching her thigh every chance he could get. Suggesting they go to a club. Dancing. Shots. More dancing. Sharing a beer she pretended not to think was the most horrendous thing she’d ever tasted. More shots. More dancing. Him grabbing her hips. Her waist. Him kissing her neck, cheek, lips. Him grabbing her more, something she would find sleazy if she wasn’t desperate to force Steven out of her intoxicated brain. 

Which led to her apartment. The sofa, as classy as it sounded, was seemingly a better option than her bed. She had been quick to shut him down when he suggested moving it to her room; that was too intimate. That was her space, which would only be tainted by this stranger wanting to bend her over. So the sofa it was. 

Whiskey served in old mugs she got from the gift shop being chugged for Dutch courage. The same mugs she had bought with Steven as part of a set. They had taken two each, promising that they would be used whenever the other visited. 

She had given him Steven’s mug out of spite, even in her vodka riddled brain she was burying her feelings six feet under. 

Her hand shot out when she heard her phone buzzing, not wanting it to wake up her actual gentleman caller. 

The phone was clumsily brought to her ear, not even bothering to check who was calling before she swiped the green icon.

“Hullo?” It came out a horrible croaky mess and had her coughing the second she’d asked. 

“Hi, Dove! Just called to see how your date went.” Steven’s voice blared through the speaker, which only served to have her pulling it away and groaning. “And also to tell you about my dream, I think it was the weirdest one to date!”

“Woah, slow down, Steve-” She tried to say, but the man had clearly a mouthful to tell her and continued on regardless.

“I was in the alps, but it was all so real. There was this group of people taking it in turn to hold hands with this weird American guy, and then I got into a high speed cupcake-van chase with the lot of them because they started saying I’d stolen this little scarab thing from them, I don’t know where I get this stuff from-” Her eyes scrunched together in pain, though she lay in the quiet and tried to gather her bearings. She sat up from the sofa, shivering when she saw it was around midday outside and she had forgotten to close the window. 

“Sounds intense,” She mused to keep him talking, pulling a blanket over her still nude body as she stood to close it and preserve the heating. Her head spun as she stood, a rush of bile rising to her throat dangerously, which she choked back down and looked around the room. Quickly realising she was alone in her flat, she shuffled over to the kitchen in her blanket cocoon to find her purse to see how bad the damage her little excursion had done to her limited stash as any responsible youth did after a night out in London. 

“It was! I swear it was like I could feel the cars smashing into me- Oh right! How was your date?” 

She blanched, head still pounding, “Uh. Yeah it was great.” It was average at best. “He was super funny,” For a Twitter fraud. “So romantic,” If romantic was the new word for ten minutes of missionary and not even making her cum. “He took me wine tasting,” She was sure she’d be tasting the wine she’d bought at the club any second now judging by the way her head spun, “Yeah, he was great,” He wasn’t you, Steven.

“I’m so pleased for you, love!” Her best friend cheered, a part of her writhing in repulsion that she had lied to him again. Though maybe that was the wine begging to make an appearance. She stuck the lever down on the kettle to get the water boiling, sure that a fresh cup of strong tea would be the only thing to pull her through this hangover.

Part of her, the dark, twisted part, wanted him to be jealous. Wanted to make him as frustrated and envious as he had unknowingly made her. But he would never, could never. Steven was tender and good. He was too sweet to ever think a single bitter thought towards her, towards Donna even. Which only served to make her feel even more rotten inside. 

“How was your date with Dylan?” She forced herself to ask. It was selfish for her to think, but she wished more than anything for him to tell her that it went horribly. She hated the part of her inside that sang with glee at the idea of him hating his date. She truly was wicked inside, and the idea only reminded her more of why she would never be asked on a date by him. Maybe he could see it too, how sick she was for wanting the world to suffer if she couldn’t have the one man she’d ever truly wanted. 

“That’s not until tonight, love, remember?” He said casually, as she fumbled around her kitchen for her handbag. She locked eyes on the little black clutch sitting on top of the counter. Her brows furrowed in confusion, she could have sworn Dylan said they were meeting Friday, two full nights ago. Her heart plummeted, maybe it was a second date. 

Ofcourse it was. Ofcourse they hit it off, who wouldn’t. He was as smitten as anything and Dylan wasn’t that kind of woman that was too afraid to tell him exactly what she wanted. If she wanted to see him again, then Steven would give her exactly what she asked for.

“Tonight?” She asked, squeezing the phone between her shoulder and her head as she popped open the clasps to her bag. 

“Yeah. I wouldn’t forget a woman like her twice in a row,” Steven joked. But what should have made her gut curdle in pain only fell on deaf ears. 

Her purse was gone. Her purse that never left her damn bag, that she had stuffed her rent money in as soon as she’d gotten it was missing. 

“I-I’m gonna have to call you back, Steven,” She uttered through the heart sized lump in her throat. Her palms were already clammy with sweat, both from the drink and from her sheer panic, “Good luck on your date,”

“Alright, gators!”

She barely got a chance to murmur their goodbye back before she had thrown her phone down on the plain, white counter and dumped out the contents of her bag. 

Hair ties, the odd two pence, a pen she stole from the bank. But no purse. 

She turned her coat pockets inside out, the blanket falling down her waist and exposing her round breasts to the cold air. But she couldn’t care less. The goosebumps slithering up her arms did nothing to fight the hot panic as the sofa cushions were thrown off their frame, the young girl still turning up empty handed. 

Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck. 

This could not be happening. She hadn’t opened her bag all night, even when she got out of the taxi she had her phone readily in her hand and the bag tightly closed. Someone could have taken it in the club, sure, but that made no sense seeing as her bag was definitely still heavy with the wallet when she had gotten home, not near empty like it was now. 

Which only meant…

Her date had fucking stolen from her. 

“FUCK!” She yelled, throwing her vacant bag across the room with tears brimming her eyes. 

It seemed life had been digging a trench underneath Rock Bottom reserved for her at a time like this. And she was left clutching at the muddy walls, trying to drag herself to safety and anywhere that wasn’t her shitty situation where she pined over a man she could never have, where she was still walking the line between sane and whatever else was brewing inside her, fighting against tendrils of hatred and chaos, malignance, that wrapped around her organs and reminded her where she came from, what she was. A life where she got mugged by the men she fucked at her expensive pity parties. 

She just hoped Donna wasn’t too hard on her tomorrow after this shit show of a weekend. 

“Late, again,” Came the chiding voice the moment she stepped in the building. 

Sweat dripped down her back from her long trek through London to get to work. 48 minutes of power walking is what she had been reduced to, unable to get the bus or underground for lack of money. 

And she was still late. She was expecting a nice, fat kick to the teeth any time now.

“It’s five minutes, Donna,” You pleaded, yanking an earphone out. Music was the only thing that could block out the thrum of anger and agony she was in from the weekends chaotics. 

“Even Stevie-”

“Steven,”

“-Was on time today and he’s the worst for it,” Donna snapped, and the young girl could do nothing but slump in defeat. 

“I’m sorry, Donna. It won’t happen again.” She promised. She wasn’t sure if she meant it yet with her lack of transport, but she couldn’t lose this job. She didn’t even know how she was going to pay for this month’s rent let alone catch the bus, breakfast itself had been skipped in an attempt to conserve food. Her stomach ached from the exercise, crying out for anything to fill its distressed cavern. “I got robbed yesterday so I walked,” She murmured, avoiding the blue eyes that had narrowed in on her. She hated feeling pitied, feeling as though people were sorry for her. But it was the truth, and the truth sucked sometimes. 

She wasn’t sure what beam of light had shone out of Donna’s ass this morning, or whether she really did look just that pathetic, but the blonde woman just sighed and nudged her towards the gift shop.

In perhaps the nicest tone she’d ever spoken to her, Donna quietly said “Last warning, girl, alright?” The younger woman thanked her quickly, her small voice sheepish. Her boss looked down at her in discontent, “Alright, get going. And you’re on inventory with Steven tonight so best behaviour, I mean it,”

She nodded, turning on her heel to speed towards the gift shop. 

Turning from the main lobby to enter the Ancient Egypt exhibits, she’d not gotten halfway there when she’d caught up to Steven seemingly helping a customer. Odd considering the fact he wasn’t even in the shop yet, but knowing Steven he’d probably stopped to chat the guy’s ear off about something he knew too much about to be just a giftshoppist. 

She went to wave when he looked up and met her gaze, but the forlorn, scared expression she found there had her already negligent smile drop completely. Steven seemed relieved to see her, too nervous to say anything to the man himself as he stood too close for his comfort.

Her eyes fell to where the stranger held Steven’s hands tightly, murmuring something to him that seemed to have her friend freaked out. The whole sight threw her for a loop, and she called his name on instinct, the new man’s head shooting up to stare at her blankly.

Speeding up her pace, she met the two as Steven pulled away from the stranger’s strong grasp. “Steven, are you okay?” She asked gently, looking from her friend to the lithe figure of the man. He wasn’t tall by any means, but his presence, the way he dressed and held an intricately woven cane seemed meant to make himself superior. His hair was long and greying, still young enough to be attractive but probably a bit older than Steven. A neat sort of scruff sat on his chin, and old blue orbs took her in head to toe where she stood. Not out of lust, but out of intrigue.

“We were just talking, weren’t we, Steven?” The man said calmly, seemingly sizing her up himself. She looked over her shaken friend quickly, the alarm written over his face that had near brought him to tears telling her all she needed to know. 

This man was no friend. 

“Sorry, I don’t remember asking you,” She snipped in the cold politeness English people all knew how to enact, bringing her friend’s hand into her soft one for reassurance. Steven had never seen her so infuriated. And perhaps it was the weekend she’d had or the way the man so gentle he refused to kill insects seemed to be trembling beneath her hand, she wasn’t sure, but a fierce frown was deep set into her face that dropped into concern the moment she looked back to him, “Are you alright?” 

“Can we go, please?” His round, nut brown eyes were soft and welled up as he quietly spoke, as if asking for her permission to be away from here despite being the older of the two. Her heart dropped at his sad expression, and she felt him squeeze her hand as if needing to reassure himself someone was there to save him. 

She had no time to note the way the butterflies swelled in her stomach as he did so, focused on getting him away from the strange man. 

“Ofcourse,” She said softly, turning to direct him to their little corner of the museum, hoping that the stranger would get the hint and just leave them be. 

That seemed short lived when a cold hand wrapped itself around her lower arm, a gasp drawing its way from her lungs. She could feel the panic of being grabbed by the unfamiliar man crawling up her spine, her limbs going numb, her hearing dipping in and out of static at the adrenaline flushing through her system. 

She heard Steven say her name as her head snapped to where the man’s strong grip tightened around her wrist. He seemed to stare at her with something calculating, and she wished she hadn’t run her mouth despite the fact she did so to protect the same person who was now behind her, a deeper sense of panic blaring in his eye than before. 

“Let go-” Taking a deep breath to overcome the bubbling fear rising in her chest, her only words were cut off by a much clearer voice. 

“There is a darkness in you,” The stranger said, as if he knew it for a fact. 

Her heart plummeted. 

Was it so obvious? No one had ever been able to see it, she buried it so deep in the hopes no one would ever get a glimpse beneath her kind shell. But it was a facade, and even he knew it. The shock must have read clear on her face as he pushed on, as if to reopen scar tissue with his bare hands.

“And chaos, oh there is chaos.” Her lips quirked between her teeth as she tried to stop them from trembling, “A shadow looms over you, little dove.” She felt Steven pull her closer to him, but this man had her every morsel of attention. How did he know, if he knew then surely Steven knew too. Knew she was born so dead she felt she was living a lie by being here. The man laughed to himself, just a small breath but it was enough to break her spirit, “What is it those witches say about Macbeth? Something wicked this way comes.” He asked though he already knew the answer, as if to entrance her with his own spell, “And I see you are truly something wicked.” 

Her breath left her chest. The voice escaped her throat. Every intention of protecting Steven had practically evaporated out of her body as her co worker tugged her arm hard enough that the stranger let go of her. 

“Leave us alone or I’ll call the police, alright?” Steven murmured with a new sense of courage, “I don’t care if you’re friends with the security here, you leave us alone,”

But the man’s eyes hadn’t left her, as if he knew just how deep his words had struck with her. He wormed his way into her brain even as Steven led her away with a kind hand on her back, his own words of reassurance coming to her as if she were underwater. As if she were being dragged under a current.

“He has no clue what he’s talking about, love. He was trying to get into my head too,” Steven said, but he could tell by the lost look in her eyes it was barely being registered. 

“Who the hell was that?” She asked after a moment, the feeling in her fingertips just about awakening once they were far enough away to be considered safe.

“You won’t believe me if I told you-”

“Steven, please,” She begged, looking up at him with a desperation he had never known from her. That man, Harrow, one of the women in the alps had called him, had truly shaken her up with the near omen he had given her. 

Steven couldn’t understand why, she was possibly the loveliest girl he had ever met. There was no one who so much as held a torch to her light in Steven’s eyes. She was kind. Gentle. Good. This Harrow had no idea what he was talking about saying she was wicked. She was anything but. 

Steven sighed, looking at her gravely. “Remember yesterday when I said I had that dream the other night. When I was in the alps, and those men were chasing me for some scarab I’d stolen,” 

She blinked at him emptily. In her defence, her brain had still been riddled with alcohol when he’d been rambling, and she had gotten caught up in her own personal issues since then to take much notice. But the scenario sounded familiar as she wracked her brain for the information, some light sparking in her eyes when it clicked to their phone conversation the day before. 

She stayed silent, eyebrows furrowing, “You said that was a dream, Steven. That man is very much real,”

“I know, I thought it was a dream,” Steven explained, “But now they’re here, and they keep saying I’ve got this scarab and what not. I don’t understand any of this, love. I’m sorry. I just know he’s dangerous and we need to stay far away from him,” 

The younger woman looked at him sadly. He was clearly in distress himself, and she felt a flash of sympathy run through her at his lost expression, yet his eyes were full of concern for her well being. 

She knew what it was like to struggle to know what was real and what was not. What it was like to feel as though you're barely keeping your head above the waters of reality. Yet she trusted Steven would tell her if he knew what was happening. 

She knew he was more honest than anyone she’d ever known, so she didn’t push. 

“Alright,” She said with a heavy sigh, rubbing her eyes to relieve the pressure building in her frontal lobes, “Alright, let’s just steer clear of him, okay? And if he comes back, we go to the police together.”

Steven seemed relieved, which wasn’t a surprise since he knew it was a big ask to have someone trust such a ludicrous story. Yet he didn’t know why he doubted her. She was loyal and would never dream of ridiculing him like other people might. She just took his word as gospel. 

She was too good to him. 

“Okay, yeah. Good plan,” He said, nodding and checking behind him to see if the guy was still after them when a smaller body pressed its way into his chest. 

She didn’t know why she did it, whether it was for his benefit or hers, but she hugged him. Tightly too, as if she had been holding back for a while (she had). They hugged all the time, when saying goodbye at her train stop, when they saw each other on a morning given they weren’t running late. But it never felt like this, so intimate. So much like she needed him so desperately. 

Perhaps it was childish, but the way he drew her closer, resting a head on top of hers as if he needed the contact as much as she did made her heart flutter even with the strange circumstances. For a moment, they both felt safe, like Harrow couldn’t get in their heads entirely because they had each other to ground them, reassure the other that they were not alone in the web his ominous words had spun them into, and that was enough for now. 

Yet the two of them barely spoke all day. 

Whether it was they were too busy with their actual work, or they were both in their heads thinking just what Harrow had meant by his prophesying. 

It wasn’t until inventory was nearly done that she spoke first. 

“We’re going to be alright, aren’t we?” She asked, his head cutting to hers from where he was scanning some Beefeater Rubber ducks. He seemed to notice the slight glint of fear in her tone, “As in, they don’t know where you live do they? Or me?” 

“No love, of course not,” At least he hoped they didn’t. Steven realistically couldn’t promise anything, he had no idea how far this Harrow’s network of followers ran. But he knew for certain he couldn’t stand to see her so scared. It ran a streak of anger in him that was unusual. Steven never found himself particularly angry, but it had run red hot when he saw the way Harrow had grabbed her and knocked the soul out of her with his words alone. “If you want, you can stay at mine tonight? I’ll take the sofa, you can take my bed,” After he’d swept away the giant ring of sand of course. 

She smiled at him finally, maybe the first proper one she’d shown him all day. And he couldn’t help but feel his chest grow lighter that he had done that. Gods be good, she was pretty when she smiled, he thought. 

“Thanks, Steven,” She said quietly. He was confident the two of them could figure this out together, and if he was sure of her, then how wicked could she truly be? 

She knew it was a cop out, that she hid so much from him that he didn’t know the real her; that if he did he would turn tail and run as far as he could from the monster in front of him. That he would curse himself once he realised Harrow was right; she was polluted down to her marrow.

“I’ve only got this box left to do, love, then we can get out of here,” Steven promised, his eyes flicking over where she collected two half full crates of merchandise and headed out of the gift shop to the stockroom. 

“I’ll take these out and meet you in the lobby?” She called over her shoulder, hearing him agree as she walked away to the area meant for employees only. 

Sighing deeply, she put the crates down gently, sliding them into a bottom shelf out the way of clumsy feet (most likely her own). A thought jumped in her tired brain, and she was quick to turn out her pockets for any spare change she could use for the train fare back to Steven’s apartment. 

Just as she suspected: empty. Because why would she be so lucky as to have anything good happen to her. She could always try and persuade Steven to walk home and save the embarrassment of revealing what actually happened to her Saturday night, but she knew the pitiful look he would give her if she told him the truth of her date. The sad eyes that would flash that neither of them needed after a morning of such anguish. 

They didn’t need another of her pity parties today, and she grimaced at the thought of how horrendously the last one ended. Though she knew Steven was different, that he would never do anything so cruel to a stranger let alone herself. 

It only made her heart yearn for him more.

Sighing, she thought on her feet as to what to tell him as she left the stockroom, locking the door behind her with the key Donna gave them all a copy of. Her heels rhythmically clicked on the freshly polished floor that reflected her frowning face back at her as if to remind her to stop looking so tormented. 

She saw the light of the main exhibit at the end of the darkened hallway, heading towards it at no rush since she figured Steven would likely just about be done himself. Lost in her own head as to what excuse to give the man she called her only friend, she almost missed the deep sound snarling in the shadows behind her. 

Whipping her head around with a wide eyed expression, her eyes flicked around the hallway for any glimpse of what made that sound. 

But she saw nothing. Not in the way shadows were nothing, dark patches of nothing, as in she saw nothing there. Had anything been lingering behind her, she would have at least caught or heard any movement. 

She paused for a second to take another look, only to still come up empty. Her foot warily continued its original path, figuring the sound must have been the cleaners dragging something against the floor. 

“Hey, Steven,” She called upon approaching the lobby where he’d be waiting, “Do you reckon I could owe you a coffee for my train fare? It’s just-”

Her voice cut out when she heard the low growl again, much louder this time. Loud enough to have her wince and stop in her tracks in the centre of the room. 

She caught sight of the navy blue jacket she knew too well walking backwards slowly, his eyes trained on something in the adjacent corridor. 

“Steven-” She whisper yelled, his panicked eyes snapping to hers, “What the hell is that-”

His arm raised out to point at the shadow illuminating the wall. Her gaze fixed on the shadow of a wild dog of sorts, its snout long and open in a fierce grin. She could practically see the outline of the drool dripping from its sharp teeth, at least she hoped it was saliva she thought gravely. 

Her breath left her instantly. What the fuck was that? Her knees felt as if they were about to buckle underneath her, calves going numb as the adrenaline flushed over her body in tidal waves. She was always a dog lover, she’d had two as a kid, but something told her whatever kind of beast this was, it was not nearly as friendly as a tamed canine would be. 

And it seemed Steven realised it too as he was quick to cower behind a display of an ancient relic clutching his bag to his chest tightly. 

His frantic eyes pleaded for her to move, but she seemed frozen to the spot. 

The overhead tannoy rang melodically, as if God was preparing to make the announcement that they were truly fucked, something she didn’t need a bulletin to know. 

“Steven Grant of the gift shop.” The sound of that familiar voice had her heart plummeting into her gut that twisted painfully. Did this guy have attack dogs or something? How had he gotten them past security? They looked huge. “Give me the scarab and the two of you won’t be torn apart,”

The scarab? Everything Steven had said about his dream was true. And if that was true then that meant this guy was a nut job capable of having his entire team hunt her down for so much as associating with poor Steven who looked as lost as she felt. 

The shadow moved, shifting around the corner of the hall to enter the open lobby. A scratch-like sound found her ears, as if someone were running knives over a cold slab, and she realised with a shiver this thing must have claws.  

And they were approaching. 

An open mouthed growl echoed through the room, which only served to confuse her even more. From the volume alone she knew the thing was big, and in the very same room as her. Which meant she surely should be able to see it as she could see the entire length of the room it had to be walking down. 

But that was the thing. There was nothing there. 

“Steven,” She whimpered quietly. It was stupid, making that noise and attracting attention to herself. But she was scared. She wanted to know what to do. Wanted comfort that she wasn't going insane, that maybe this was all a practical joke and there really was nothing there. 

A second set of razor sharp nails entered the room from the same direction, yet again she could only decipher that on sound alone. The chorus of snarls that only got closer did nothing but have her step back on instinct. 

“Steven-” She said again, only to see him standing in a rush. 

“RUN!” He yelled, taking off towards the exit. 

She didn’t need to see the dogs to know they were in the way of her and the same route Steven had taken, so she settled for scrambling back the way she came. The black heels she wore for work to seem professional only proved to be useless when running from wild animals, it seemed. Who’d have thought it? 

Her feet pounded down the maze of exhibits, trying to make it to the exit where Steven had headed towards. But for every one step she took, two paws advanced on her like an apex predator heading for its kill. 

Which she no doubt would be. 

Turning past the Anubis exhibit her stomach dropped when she heard a strong body colliding with the same wall she had practically skidded past. Her lungs burnt with effort, her breaths coming out in wheezes. She had one last turn and before she would be seconds away from the fire exit that she could barricade from the outside. 

The feeling of the dog’s hot breath on the back of her ankles had her pushing herself harder, too scared to look over her shoulder. She was coming up to where the hallway split into two and she headed for the right where she was sure the back exit was. She couldn’t help but wish Steven was able to outrun the mutt on his own heels, having not heard from him since she had taken off in separate directions. 

Taking the turning past a remaining chunk of what was once a Cleopatra statue, her eyes adjusted to the dark corridor. Where were the slab paintings of the sphinx? Where were the memorials to King Tut? They should be here, they’re always next to this exit-

Her chest constricted when she realised her mistake. Her grave mistake.

In the panic of escaping the creature, she had taken the wrong turning. She should have gone left. 

Yet judging by the way the animal grunted with the effort of the chase, she had no option but forward. 

Forward to a dead end. To the Setekh exhibit room. 

The walls were alive with paintings recovered from ancient tombs. The god of Storms, among other things, was feared through all of Egypt in the later dynasty. He was associated with all things evil, mysterious and disordered. The huge altar that held the statue of Set, his long face foreboding and as cold as the stone it was preserved in, looked down at her in almost malice as her feet took her into the one place she had left to go. 

It wasn’t until she felt the walls surrounding her, the penny dropped how fucked she was. There was no way out, no cutting back the way she came as the creature ran into the vast room with her. Dodging one of the plinths containing statues of the demon god, she had barely a second where her pace slowed down as she considered how she was going to turn back before she felt it. 

A force stronger than a freight train hit her from behind. She heard every molecule of air get pushed from her lungs at the sheer weight of it, her throat audibly yelping. Its body collided with hers with a weight that she was sure must be pure muscle, and she was thrown to the hard floor with less effort than a child tossing a ragdoll. 

The impact had her ribs rattling in her chest, brain bouncing against her now bleeding forehead. The cold floor was harsh against her raw skin. Her nose made a loud pop as it smashed against the marble, a hot sting erupting over her entire face.

But the worst was yet to come. 

There was a moment when she was collecting her thoughts, head spinning from the collision. She was sure she’d damaged something in her skull as it pounded, harder than it ever had with any hangover. 

She’d give anything to be back on her sofa feeling sorry for herself. 

She hadn’t the time to pick herself back up when she felt something large do it for her. It must have been eight feet tall with how big its behemoth paws were as the one grabbed her leg and dragged her on her stomach towards itself. Like a cat playing with a mouse. Not ready to devour, not yet. Just playing. Torturing. Tormenting. 

Then came the claws. Her eyes looked down at her ribs, the thin air surrounding them making her cry out in horror - there still wasn’t a fucking soul in sight. No dog, or animal. Or human even. Nothing. Yet her shirt ripped almost too easily as it let out a deep hiss of what she would call a near laugh and sunk its talons into her side. 

That was when she started screaming. 

Her throat hurt from the volume alone, a banshee shriek akin to a horror movie. It reverberated through the museum halls, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care. 

Vision started slipping then. Whether it was panic or her mind protecting her from what was coming next she didn’t know, but all she knew was everything felt weightless for a moment. 

She thought maybe she was dying and ascending at that moment there and then. But she wasn't so lucky. She was still being made this creature's bitch as the God of chaos watched. What beautifully horrible irony.

It was then that it clicked in her stress-addled brain that she was not in fact weightless. That the reason she felt so was because she was now being suspended midair by the thing that had her in its vicious grasp. 

It took shockingly little effort for the creature to throw her through the wall-sized fortified glass surrounding the monolith and for her whole body to crumple to the floor. 

Steven slammed the bathroom door shut with a panting “Oh God”, his coffee brown eyes never leaving the thick metal that shook with the weight of the monster throwing itself at it violently. 

What the fuck was his next move? What even was that thing? He retreated further into the bathroom with a lost expression, clutching his arms for a semblance of comfort. 

“Steven,” The man in the mirror spoke in the same American accent he’d been hearing in his own home. 

Looking at his reflection, he was agog to find the man identical to him moving on his own, as if independent from Steven himself. That was not his reflection, he knew that much, no matter how much it looked like it. “Steven, I can save us,” He said darkly, his eyes and frown much meaner than any expression Steven would ever wear. 

The way he stood was entirely different too, as if he were bigger in stature despite being encased in the exact same body as Steven was. 

“W-What?” Steven whispered, backing away from the door that weakened by the second. 

He thought of Dove. Had she been able to get away, run out the front door and get help from anyone who would believe her? He hated the thought of those adorable little heels she wore clattering against the floor, he wouldn’t be surprised if they’d slowed her down. He always heard women complaining about walking in heels let alone running from fucking monsters in them. 

Where was she?

“But I can’t have you fightin’ me this time,” He had felt like he’d been playing tug-of-war with his body for some time. But against what, he hadn’t known. His own reflection? This man staring back at him in the mirror with a scowl he knew wasn’t plastered on his own expression? “You need to give me control. You understand?”

He swivelled on his heel to see the man in the full length looking glass behind him, who seemed to tower over him in frame. 

“No, what? Control of what? What are you talking about?” Steven bumbled, his eyes looking over the stranger’s shoulder to see the door shaking on its hinges now. Dents were appearing now where the monster was caving its way into the bathroom, and one look at the length of its claws told Steven all he needed to know. He stood no chance against this thing alone. 

“That thing’s about to break through the door. We’re out of time.” The man said, realising their predicament as much as he did. This couldn’t be real. This had to be a dream, the lot of it. The entire day. From that Harrow guy to the idea that he could possibly lose her to some ancient wild dog. 

“No! No!” Steven cried, flinching as the door clattered one more time, the frame whining with the effort at which it held the assailant at bay. 

“All right, hey. Listen to me,” The mirror man tried to reason, but Steven was panicking too much to hear him. 

“Dammit, no! Stop it!” Steven slapped himself around the face a few times, begging with anything listening to wake him up from the worst nightmare he’d had yet. The image of her being chased by that thing wouldn’t leave his welled up eyes. He wanted to run to her, god knows he would have if that thing hadn’t been stood in between the two of them, blocking his way to her. “This is not real! You’re not real!”

“This is real. I’m real.” The man spoke calmly, as if a diametrical opposite to his own mood. He seemed to know more about what was happening, what that thing was, what it could do. Perhaps that was why Harrow had been chasing him in the first place.

Either way, Steven didn’t care. Not now at least. When the only person outside of his parents that he had ever held affection for was in danger. Imminent danger. 

“No! You’re not,” Steven yelled back at his reflection through tears. 

It was then he heard the screaming. A howl of visceral pain enough to rattle his bones at the familiar feminine tone to the voice. 

It was her. 

It was like nothing he’d ever heard, like an animal in a slaughterhouse. He trembled in his place at the thought. She was in danger. Oh god it had her. 

“I’m gonna die- She’s gonna die-” Steven whimpered, the tears rolling down his olive cheeks at the thought. He really was useless. 

“Steven, look at me.” He finally listened to his reflection with a pitied sniff, “You’re not gonna die, I can save us. But she is if you don’t give me control right now. Let me save her, okay?”

That was the straw that broke Steven’s resolve, the idea of her dying. He had never found it so easy to concede.

He just hoped the man using his body got to her in time. 

She felt someone picking up her limp body. The museum lights had long since been shut off, but through the darkness of the exhibition she caught a tall figure standing over her. Her lids were heavy, vision bleary, yet she blinked a few times to try and straighten her mind that still felt like it was pulsing stiffly in her tight skull. Her voice was no better, the only sound she could let out was a guttural whine as the stranger pressed hard on the three deep lacerations on her abdomen that were now gushing blood like a scene from a 90s slasher movie.

They were broad, blocking out the minimal slither of light as they crouched over her and seemed to be yelling something. Probably scolding her for getting copious amounts of thick blood over the freshly mopped floors, she thought numbly. The sound came to her in something akin to static, a muffled string of nonsense. All she knew was they were talking loud and fast. Or maybe she had a concussion too? That thing had thrown her through that glass wall pretty hard. 

She couldn’t see a mouth moving, nor could she actually see their face, just two beams of white blinking down at her. 

This couldn’t be happening, this couldn’t be happening for real. She thought maybe someone had slipped something in her drink when she was at the club, but that was two days ago. There would be no reason for her to be feeling the effects only just now. And when she had been jumped on by one of those things she’d sure as hell felt it. She'd seen it with her own two eyes the way her clothes had been ripped as something plunged its claws deep into her, heard the air whoosh out her lungs as it hurled her through the glass wall. 

She’d felt, still felt, the open wound seeping so harshly that she knew it was going to be fatal. 

There was no coming back from whatever fever dream this was. 

She blinked again up at the mystery guy who seemed to be holding her heavy head gently, but the hot, red wetness on his hands that smeared on her cheek said he also knew how fucked she was. He was muttering something, was there someone else here? Oh god, where was Steven? 

“Steve-” Came her broken murmur, but the metallic taste crawling its way up her throat cut her off as a blob of viscid blood rolled down her chin. 

“He’s here, he’s okay. It’s gonna be okay,” Said the voice back to her, his grasp on her hair tightening as she garbled. The breath, life, was leaving her now. Every time she tried to get air into her lungs, she was met with more of the thick liquid spraying into her mouth, her chest retching for oxygen.

She didn’t have long left, she realised numbly. 

The room was blackening round the edges even more now, sped up by the way she felt her hands grabbing his arm in a panic. She’d thought she would welcome the cold hands of Death, it wasn’t a stranger in her home. Death rooted himself in her very soul, and yet as it dragged her under consciousness, she couldn’t help but feel like a scared little girl and she tried to cling onto the mystery figure as if he could keep her from Death’s greedy clutches. 

It was sweet poetry, knowing she was drowning from the inside out. She had always known her biggest monster lay within her, in her every cell, festering and rotting her, since the moment she was born. There was really no other perfect way to sum up her whole life than it ending this way, choking on her own body. Grabbing onto a stranger, trying to plead for help as a few precious tears wet her face and she realised she was crying. Scared, vulnerable to her own demise like she had always known she would be. 

How do you fight off a monster coming from within? You don't. You can’t. So she didn’t. 

No amount of soft words or desperate touches on the figure helped her, it only made the departure messier, a bigger pool of blood for them to find her in.

The world felt surprisingly calm the moment she was snatched ruthlessly into Death’s open arms.

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[weretheones]

All You Got | Part 13

Part 13: Strangers

Plot: Daryl Dixon hadn’t known much beyond anger and loneliness his whole life, until he found family at the end of the world. Everything he grew to care about was ripped away the day the prison fell; so when he recognized you, an enforcer of his loss, hiding in that cabin, he almost pulled the trigger. But after you end up saving his life, he couldn��t find the indifference to leave you for dead, even if you’d been on the Governor’s side. (Mid-Late Season 4)

Series Masterlist | AO3 Version

Paring: Eventual Daryl Dixon x Reader Word Count: 3.8k Warnings: typical twd content. claimers: a warning in of itself. references to attempted sexual assault. lots of gore and blood. A/N: hi again! excited to be posting this part :) its been a long time coming... happy reading!

A low fire flickered just past the trees. Maybe fifty feet away. 

“You think it's those men?” 

“Could be.” Daryl shook his head. “Could be anyone.” 

Despite walking all day and most of the night, you hadn’t been able to escape the threat of people. Even if that fire on the road hadn't been set by those men— and from the lack of cruel laughing and bruising punches, you figured it wasn't— it still meant people. Strangers. Bodies of unknown, with all the potential to be as twisted and cunning as the Governor, or as kind and loyal as Daryl. 

The small fire crackled. 

“What do we do?” 

“Can’t take a good look without riskin’ them seein’ us.” 

You bit your lip. Maybe you shouldn't have stopped moving, after all. 

There was a bush ahead. The branches looked loose enough that you could peak an eye through and take a better look at the strange fire and the stranger people. In a bush that small, it would be a tight fit, but you could do it. 

Your eyes flickered back to Daryl and those broad shoulders. He definitely couldn’t. 

So without another thought, and maybe not much choice, you crouched down. “Wait here.” 

You'd managed to move about a foot when his hand inevitably caught your wrist, and his rough voice hissed your name in warning. 

“Just trust me,” you mumbled, almost as quiet as the soft cricketing of the night air. It all seemed to drown out at the sight of that sharp caution in his eyes; blue darkened by the night and the weight of the world that rested on his shoulders. You blinked, and then your free hand was wrapped around his, the pad of your thumb brushing along his rough skin. “I don’t want them to find us, either.” 

The tension melted away like slow dripping wax; the look in his eye softened, his grip relaxed. 

You could guess that weight on his shoulders hadn’t quite lifted, not when those people were still so close and so unknown. But once his hand loosened enough for you to pull back, there was a patch of cold along your wrist where he'd held you tight. Where you'd felt the heat of adrenaline coursing through his veins, warming his skin. Daryl tried to swallow his concern as you finally slipped away and into the bush. 

You kept your head as low as possible. Crouched down and moving slow, like a wolf sneaking on its prey, though you weren't feeling quite predator-like. Not when you still had that swinging ball of anxiety slamming back and forth between your heart, lungs, and ribs. You thought of the gun at your hip. Four bullets left— no, three. You'd used one yesterday. Shit. 

The branches were thin and dry. If you pushed them too far, they'd snap in half. Some leaves rustled off the bush as you snuck your way inside. You kept your hands close, only drawing down that last branch an inch so you could peek past. The flames of the fire were the brightest thing around, even if you could tell it’d been made in a way to keep it as small and unsuspecting as possible. But smoke still drifted away in long strands, floating through the night, invading the forest air. The fire cracked, now and then, as a shadowy figure sat beside it. His head was hanging down, a lock of curly brown hair falling across his forehead as he chewed at something in his hands. A bone, maybe. 

Boots clicked along the pavement as a woman approached from the beaten-up blue truck to the right. She walked toward the fire with a languid stride. You could only see her silhouette backdropped across a glow of orange light. Her hair fell down her back in thick, black strands and something long and thin stick crossed over her back. 

You waited a moment or two, but the pair of them never gave a glimpse of their faces, and no one else seemed to be around. Still, the two strangers on the road didn’t seem to be a part of that group you came across earlier; you doubted that men like those would let a woman tag along. 

Finally free from the dying bush, you snuck back to Daryl. 

“There’s a woman,” you whispered when you got close enough. “It's not them.” 

“Just her?” 

"No, there was a man, too." You shook your head. "Maybe more in the truck." 

"You get a good look at 'em? They got guns?" 

"I couldn't see their faces. The man had a gun, and she had something on her back. It could have been a—" 

There was a laugh, then. 

A familiar one. 

Then another, and another, and they all overlapped until you could almost see that blue truck again, trunk open and all your supplies thrown around. Fear slammed back into your chest. You could’ve sworn you were back at that tree, pressed between Daryl and the rough bark, skin smoking with that fiery panic that caught right where your heart was supposed to be. 

“We gotta go.” Daryl's voice cut through the yells and fear like a dull blade. His tone was hard. Almost as stern as you remembered it from all those weeks ago. 

You nodded slowly. Smoke tinged the air you inhaled and your thoughts wandered back to those people. That woman... Unsuspecting. 

Daryl grabbed your wrist and brought you to a stand. But the forest floor had turned into quicksand, and you couldn't move yet.

“Those people on the road—” 

His jaw locked. 

“’S too late for ‘em.” His narrowed eyes flashed toward the road. That usual shade of blue was now dark and threatening as the laughter only grew louder. 

They were already there. 

He tried to move forward, to drag you out of that quicksand pit of empathy that might finally suffocate you, after all, but you didn't budge. You couldn't. 

“You heard what they’ll do to ya,” Daryl growled as if you needed a better reason to go with him. 

Instead you twisted out of his grasp. “They’ll do the same thing to them.” 

Of course, he knew that. There was a string wrapped around his pounding heart, pulling tighter and tighter because those people on the road didn’t deserve what was coming for them. No one did. But then there was you. With those big eyes, wide and glistening with fear even beyond that stubborn glow, and he hated it. Hated that he could recognize it so easily. He never wanted to see your features twisted in pain again. If those men got you— if a walker got you— if anything happened… 

"We— we have to help," you rasped out, even if instinctive fear seemed to be winning over your empathy as the seconds ticked by. Perhaps you could hear what he was thinking. The possibilities that ran through his mind and made his jaw lock he thought he might break a tooth. "We can try." 

His grip was back at your wrist, but this time it felt deeper. As if his fingers were melting into your skin, the thump of his heartbeat drowning into your own. 

“It ain’t worth losin’ you.” 

It was silent. Tension rising into the air like the strands of smoke lifting off that small, almost forgotten fire. It started as a soft wisp of burning wood, until your brain seemed to process what he'd said. Those words surrounded you, filling your lungs with that bittersweet burn, deeper and deeper with every slow, conscious breath you pulled in. 

You swallowed. It seemed to soothe the tension, an inch. 

Now wasn’t the time.

You opened your mouth to spill another retort because you’d changed these last few months, had become the type of person who would stand up for what they thought, scared or not. But before you could say a word, another ripped through the air. A guttural yell. 

“Carl!”  

---

After months of your blood-stained hands digging their way through Daryl’s tough-as-steel exterior, praying for a moment to prove yourself worthwhile of all the chances he'd given you, it was here. They were here. His people. 

Carl was in the grimy hands of one of those men with the bellowing laughs. Joe— the leader— had his gun to the back of Rick’s head. The woman you’d seen on the road, you didn’t remember her name, but you knew there was a gun on her too. There had to be. 

And Daryl went to them, leaving you in the bushes with his last words still ringing in your ears.

“Listen to me. If shit goes south… I don’t give a fuck what happens to me, you run, y’hear?” 

“Daryl—” 

“You run.” 

Your hands shook like those dead leaves on the bush, heart pounding so loud you could barely hear the click of your gun’s magazine releasing. You counted the bullets, even if you already knew how many were there. 

You hadn’t even realized you grabbed his hand. Not until his eyes flickered between it and you. 

You whispered... maybe whimpered, “I can’t just—” 

Two in the magazine. One in the chamber. Three bullets for five men— that you knew of. 

The skinny one was missing. Len. Maybe he’d finally been beaten to hell, himself. Maybe they'd left him behind. 

“I can’t do this knowin’ that those assholes might find ya.” 

Your eyes shimmered with a concern he was still getting used to receiving. He blinked, then squeezed your hand back. 

“You run,” he repeated. 

Daryl moved through the shadows of the forest like he’d been doing it his whole life— and God did it feel like that, the stretch of time filled with more yelling and pleading and laughing while he moved closer to the spot where the forest broke open. 

What the hell he was planning on doing when he got to the road’s edge, you had no idea. The mere thought made your heart squeeze tighter than Daryl had your hand. 

A shadow moved behind him. 

You gasped. Raised your gun as if it wouldn’t be the stupidest thing in the world to fire it at only a glimpse of a figure. A waste of bullets on shadows. What was likely nothing more than a lone walker, wandering with nothing but the road’s sounds to lead its path. And with all those cruel men so close, they'd come running at the shot’s echo. But just as you were about to rush out, knife in hand with nothing more than a hope that you could make it on time, the shadow raised a bow of its own. 

Not a walker. 

Your fingers fell off his. 

The softest of whispers, “Just come back.” 

Sometime between sneaking up on Daryl and when they finally broke from the tree line, Len had taken the crossbow from him, slinging his compound bow across his back. The crossbow was easier to aim at Daryl’s head while they walked onto the road.

“Found another one’a them!” 

Quiet. For a moment. 

Daryl and Rick's eyes met for the first time in months. They both had weapons aimed to the back of their heads. 

From that angle, you couldn't see Daryl's face. Only the shift in his shoulders, dropping barely an inch as he stilled. A slight wobble in his stance. Across the road, recognition sunk into Rick’s features, but they never quite found the relief you hoped to see when this day came. Of course, you had always imagined it under vastly different circumstances. Finding them on the road. Maybe at Terminus. Not in the dark of night, surrounded by men who wanted to kill— and worse. 

“Fool thought he could sneak up on us,” Len chuckled. 

He only let Daryl pause for a second before he grew bored and kicked at the back of his leg, and Daryl crumbled like a straw-man released from its post. His knees scratched along the cold concrete, palms flat for the second it took for him to regain his senses. To get that breath back in his lungs after the gut-punching sight of his friend's faces, the ones he dreamt about night after night. 

“Hey!” The one with a gun on the woman— what was her name again?— yelled, “Those arrows look familiar to you?” 

Len looked down to see the same green shoots on the crossbow’s bolts as his own compound's— the ones he'd stolen from the car earlier that day.

“Holy shit,” Len exhaled. “That was your car, wasn’t it?” 

Joe laughed, a hearty, full-lung chuckle, “Shit! And here I was thinking of turning in for the night on New Year's fuckin’ Eve!” 

“Settle a bet for us, why don’t ya? You were traveling with a woman, right?” 

Even with all the trees between you, you could see Daryl’s jaw clench. It only spurred Len on further. 

“Mhm. I bet that bitch is out there, too. Hiding in the bushes, like a little rabbit?” He knelt as if to take a closer look at Daryl’s quickly retreating composure. The vein popping in his forehead, the red tint to his cheeks. “I love me some rabbit. ‘M real good at huntin’ ‘em down.” 

Daryl’s heart was pounding hard, face flush with the anger racing through his veins like bad moonshine, turning him blind to the reasonable course of action. Keep his head down, wait for his chance... But how the hell could he do that when the road was burning hot underneath his palms? When he could see red— the red of your blood— pooling below? 

Then Len leant in even closer, and then all he could think about was rot; the smell reeking from the yellow of his teeth when he grinned, the black tar that soaked his soul. The way he wished he could see the dead rip into the bastard. 

“Think I can make ‘er squeal?” 

Daryl jumped up. He landed a punch right on Len’s nose. There was nothing quite like the smooth relief that pumped through his veins when he felt bone crack underneath. 

Len fell back. Blood coated his mouth and chin, shining in the moonlight like a damn spotlight, begging for another hit. But for all that asshole’s undeserved cockiness, he still had the numbers to back him up; another one grabbed the back of Daryl’s vest, pulled him away from a stumbling Len, and threw a bruising punch of his own. Before you could even aim your gun, Daryl was back on the ground and kicked in the gut as a third man joined in. 

“Kill ‘im! Fuckin’ idiot.” Len snarled, throwing a punch after he was done cradling his face. Daryl was dragged by the men and tossed on top of the car's hood like a doll. Fists slammed into his sides, his back, his face. Any punch he threw back was quickly met with two more. 

“Listen, it was me, it was just me,” Rick yelled out, his voice a rumble of pleading and hopelessness. He shook his head, his son pressed against that big man with the sickening grin on one side, and Daryl taking fist after fist to the jaw, eye, stomach, and shoulder on the other.  

“Oh, don’t worry. We can settle this, we’re reasonable men.” 

Your finger twitched along the trigger. From the depths of your memory, a word echoed. 

Liar. 

Joe continued, “First, we’re gonna beat your friend to death. Then, we’ll have the girl, then the boy. Then I’m gonna shoot you and we’ll be square!” 

The gun felt lighter. Those three bullets suddenly etched with the names of these men— Joe, Len, that fucker with the knife on Carl. 

“Let him go,” Rick shuttered out. The rumbling anger in him began to leak like a dam about to burst. Somehow, those three words huffed into the night air, even with a gun at the back of his neck, still managed to sound like a threat. 

And they were. 

You flinched when Rick threw his head back to collide with Joe’s face. The first shot rang out as he stumbled, clutching his face with one hand and letting his smoking gun fall with the other. Time slowed, but Rick was even slower, blinking and shaking his head as the ringing must've trapped in his ear. A bloody Len looked over with Daryl's bow in hand once again as Joe coughed, blood leaking down his face, too. In the time it took for him to stand straight again, Rick had managed to get up and punch him. 

Joe punched back harder. 

Rick fell to the ground like a bag of bricks. 

“I got him. Go find your rabbit, Len.” A groan left both of them as Joe forcefully kicked his boot into Rick's gut. “Oh, it’s gonna be so much worse now.” 

There was no doubt about it. Joe’s words echoed into the dark night, muddled with the sounds of whimpers, groans, skin rubbing against concrete. This was headed as far south as it could, tunneling straight to hell from the sounds of it, and a heavy shadow wrapped its slimy, inescapable arms around you. 

“Come on, already. Get up. Let's see what ya got," Joe taunted as he circled Rick, who couldn't seem to find his balance. 

With the back of his hand, Len wiped his bloody chin before he turned toward the forest line. A look in his eye even darker and slimier than that shadow. 

If you had thought about it first, you would have stayed still. But staggering backward felt more like instinct than thought, something you hadn’t realized you were doing until a branch snapped under your foot. 

A tense second hung in the air between you and this man, wondering if he could pinpoint the small crack amongst all the muffled cries and painful groans. 

He smiled a sickening grin. 

A chill down your back as your breath caught in your throat. His eyes narrowed in on the section of woods Daryl left you in, eyeing between the branches like you really were a little rabbit, and he was fucking starving. 

Run. He’d told you to run and here you were, frozen with uncertainty. Where would you run? How could you live with yourself, leaving them for dead? What if you shot and missed, three times? What if—

"You leave him be!" Rick yelled when Carl cried out. 

Finally, Joe caught Rick. He laughed, "The hell are you gonna do now, sport?" 

A new scream. Not from Carl or Rick. But before you could tell from whom, it had morphed into gurgling and choking, instead. 

Then Rick spat. 

Len turned around, and without those predator eyes on you anymore, you saw it. The way Joe's body turned limp, his hand grasping Rick's collar the last thing to give out before he fell to the ground. A mess of blood spurted out of his neck until the red skulls on his shirt melted into the red that poured down his body. 

From his mouth to his chest, Rick was covered in the same colour. 

It took a moment for everyone to realize what had happened. That Rick had bit Joe’s throat out like a fucking walker. An air of shocked silence lingered until a few gasps made their way around the road. By the time Len began to raise Daryl's crossbow in Rick's direction, a choice had been made, and you stepped from behind the bush. 

Gun raised.

Len's head snapped forward with the impact of the bullet. He crumbled to the ground faster than Joe, crossbow buried underneath his limp limbs. The woman used the second air of shock to grab the gun pointed at her head, twisted it to the man holding it, and fired. He fell, too. 

You stepped out of the tree line. Smoking gun and narrowed eyes exposed under the moonlight. Their eyes snapped to you, unsure only for a second before you shot the men at Daryl's side. One in the head, the other in the throat. He fell back, grabbing at his leaking neck until Daryl threw him down and stomped on his windpipe to finish the job. 

One man was left. He'd put a knife to Carl's throat amid everything, grabbed the boy to his chest and promised he'd kill him if you did anything. The woman had already aimed her gun at him, and you knew yours was empty by now, but neither stopped you from aiming yours, too. 

"Put them down!" He yelled, eyes snapping between the pair of you. The knife inched closer to Carl's neck. "I'll do it!" 

Rick stood up. Joe's knife was in his hand as he stalked toward the man and his son with nothing more than a growl. 

"He's mine." 

The man's eyes widened. "S— Stay back! Please—" 

Rick drove the knife into his chest. Once. Twice. Then dragged it up and down and you should have looked away. He was snarling like a wild animal, staring that man— that monster— right in the eye. Unleashing every drop of that boiling rage inside of him. You knew it was because of what he tried to do to his son, but something in you almost felt as sharp as that knife, stabbing over and over. And maybe that was why you couldn't look away, because the hot gun in your hand suddenly felt so light. 

Empty. 

Maybe you should have saved a bullet in case Rick tried to gut you next, for what you had done to his son, to his family. 

Just as those dark thoughts wrapped around your mind, familiar fingers did the same at your wrist. You blinked, finally tearing your eyes off of all the blood and guts only to notice that you hadn’t dropped your gun, that you were now aiming it at Rick’s head. He’d given up on his assault, dropping the mess of that dead monster to the ground with nothing more than a heavy thump. Now he was facing you, eyes narrowed and unreadable under the moonlight as Daryl's hand lowered your gun. 

The second you turned to him, you let it fall to the ground, lost in the red splattered across his face, the cut above his eyebrow, the puffiness of his right eye. 

Red, red, red. 

Something squeezed your hand. His fingers were still wrapped around you. 

You blinked, and the red cleared a bit. Enough that even in the dark of night, you could still see the shimmering blue of care, of concern, of Daryl. 

Daryl. 

Bruised but alive. Touching your skin. Drawing you back with every thump of your heartbeat.

And just like the gun, you let go of the fear, too.

————————————————————

A/N: if you’re reading this, thank you! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. please feel free to leave feedback, it helps so much and I love to read it. have a lovely day <3

AYG taglist: @fuseburner @itsmeatballworld @rickysgrimes @stevenknightmarc @huffledor-able541 @your-shifting-gurl @hopefulatrocity @strnqer @dreamtofus @fillechatoyante @suniloli @kiaslily @poubxlle @normanplusdaryl @sseleniaa @wanhedavaliquette @murdadixon

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[kokomyass]

Megumi Fushiguro ☆ Overwork

Megumi x Fem!Reader

Genre: 🥀/☁️

Word Count: 2673

Trigger warnings ⚠️: a bit of swearing, themes of overworking to the point it is damaging. depression, some gore and violence.

hey ya'll!! this is a request from the sweetest person alive who dm me just to say my Megumi content was good so love you lots @bqvs !! 💜💜🎵🎵

anyways I hope you enjoy!! mwah!

also I haven't edited cause im a lazy bum :P

Second Person POV

All your life, you had felt lesser than everyone else. No matter what you did you would feel like you weren't good enough for anyone.

However, instead of being the type of person to sit around and wait for something to magically happen, you would work towards what you wanted, even if it meant losing sleep and your health being at an all time low.

Obviously things did not change when you joined Jujutsu Tech…yes, there were way less students which helped, but the students were also exceptionally strong, you felt like a puny little shrimp compared to them. Especially Megumi.

When you first joined you were really laid back, you really got along with Megumi, Yuji and Nobara but of course you had to mess up on your first mission together.

Which resulted in you being saved by Megumi and it seems being saved by Megumi was a common occurrence (by common occurrence you mean every mission)

Of course, you ended up falling hard for Megumi after all the times he acted as your Knight in shining armour along with his redeeming qualities. You also envied him and wanted to be as strong as he was and make him acknowledge you and maybe even love you…

As much as you liked Megumi, you were getting more depressed each day. You were completely and utterly useless compared to him. It seemed that Gojo also noticed you struggling a bit more than the others…so he began pairing you with stronger sorcerers to protect you and even then you would be pretty useless there too.

So in the end, not only are you spending less time with Megumi, but also being basically useless on all your missions.

No matter how hard you worked, you wouldn't improve. No one even notice the amount of effort you were putting in.

Usually you would hang out with all the students, especially Megumi, you were used to putting a facade on. Pretending that you weren't depressed and low…but even masking that was becoming difficult.

You had lost weight from not eating properly, you were always tired, you had lost your usual energy and you were extremely slow and sluggish, which further impacted your performance in missions.

You had been sent on a mission by Gojo to defeat a curse with Nanami. Yet another mission with an adult…

"Y/N, you think you will be alright on this one?" Gojo asked seemingly noticing something was wrong too.

You sighed, but immediately tried to put up a fake smile. In all honesty last night you were training so much that you didn't get any sleep and had to drink about 5 cups of coffee to keep you awake.

"Yep! When will I be able to go on a mission with Megumi again…"

You missed spending time with Megumi incredibly.

"Soon! Anyways off you guys go!" Gojo waved you off as you and Nanami began your trip.

You had been on many missions with Nanami (mainly due to protection reasons) so he knew you well, which also meant he knew something was wrong.

"Y/N, are you well and able to do this mission?" you were walking behind Nanami dragging your feet from tiredness as his question made you perk up slightly.

"I'm fine! I'm actually feeling much better I think I'll be more useful today!" you laughed.

That was all a lie. You felt like shit. But, knowing Nanami, if he knew that he wouldn't let you try at all.

When you found the curse and began fighting it, your tiredness made you weak and slow. You were barely dodging the attacks. At some points, you would shut your eyes and they wouldn't open again.

"Y/N! Fall back! Stop fighting! You will get hurt!"

Nanami's warnings went over your head as you went in for another attack. You felt a sharp pain in your side. You looked down to see your side stabbed and blood spreading through your clothes. Your breathing hitched as you fell to the ground with a thud, everything going black around you.

All in all, Nanami defeated the curse and you were just another failure.

When you both made it back to Jujutsu Tech. You had been treated by Ieiri (who had grown accustomed to seeing you) and you were resting in the infirmary.

Megumi POV

I know something is wrong with Y/N.

The day she joined I felt an unusual attraction to her. The way she smiles regardless of the situation and the kindness she shows to everyone around her��

Y/N is the closest anyone has gotten to me and I do have feelings for her as much as I want to deny it.

However, I've seen her health plummeting, she sleeps in class sometimes, constant injuries after missions…something wasn't right and I knew it even if no one else did.

One night, I heard constant banging noises and when getting up to find out what it was I saw Y/N, punching her punching bag like there was no tomorrow.

Her knuckles were bleeding, each hit she gave her legs quivered from tiredness, her heavy breathing sounded as if she was having a heart attack. My heart clenched to see her in this state.

Why is she working herself to this extent? Why is she doing harm to herself? That was when I truly knew something was wrong.

After the mission she went on with Nanami I decided to go and speak to Nanami myself to find out what he thinks, but to my suprise he approached me first.

"Megumi, I have been looking for you. Have you seen Y/N yet?"

"No? Why?"

Nanami sighed as if he was struggling to say something.

"She sustained an injury when we went on our mission, she got stabbed in the side. But her condition is stable and Shoko has treated her."

My eyes widened as a lump formed in my throat. How could she be so reckless? Before I could run off, Nanami stopped me.

"Megumi, please find out what us wrong with Y/N because I fear next time the injury she sustains might not be so treatable…"

I nodded, I agreed with Nanami. I ran as fast as I could to the infirmary. Whatever she was doing was putting her life in jeopardy….

Second Person POV

"Megumi is never going to like me…" you mumbled looking down as suddenly the same person runs in.

"Y/N! Are you okay?! What happened!" Megumi came in shouting. He look horrified as if you had died.

Even though it shouldn't have, your heart fluttered at the thought of Megumi worried about you.

He placed his hands on the sides of your arms making sure not to be to aggressive. You smiled softly at him as much as you could despite the sharp pain in your side.

"I'm okay, I just got caught in an attack but Ieiri said I'll be fine!" you giggled and placed a hand on Megumi's head, ruffling his hair as he sat down on the chair next to the bed sighing.

"Well, next time be more careful because if your not something bad will happen, okay?" Megumi placed his hand on yours making you blush slightly.

"I'll be fine, don't worry, I'll be stronger soon too!" you lifted up your arm and flexed as a joke as Megumi smiled slightly, still looking perturbed.

"Y/N, we need to ta-"

Before Megumi could finish his sentence Nobara and Yuji burst in dramatically.

"Y/N!!!!! What happened!!" Yuji said as Nobara was checking every inch of your face to make sure you were okay.

"I'm fine, just a bit tired…" you all talked about random stuff as Megumi stayed silent and distant.

Truth was, you were very very tired and you hadn't fully recovered but you needed to start working again if you wanted to catch up to Megumi and be the girl he wants, and just like that the evening arrived and you were sneaking out to go and train.

You practiced with your jaw clenched the whole time to reduce the pain you felt in your side everytime you moved, but it was worth it. All for Megumi, and to be able to protect him like he has done to you.

Time Skip

It was morning and you were walking at snails pace to find Gojo to ask if you could go on a mission with Megumi.

You made the best poker face you could to hide the pain lingering in every step.

"Gojo! Please can I go on a mission with Megumi." you said smiling as much as you could, griping your bruised and wounded knuckles together to beg him.

"I'm sorry Y/N, but you got injured and until you feel okay I can't send you out…" Gojo said as you immediately came up with a response.

"Gojo sensei, please believe me I feel much better it wasnt a bad injury I've had worse, I promise!" you we practically on the floor but eventually he sighed and said you could go on a mission to fight a 1st grade curse with Megumi.

Despite the pain, you smile a real genuine smile for the first time in a while at the thought of being alone with Megumi and spending time together.

Time Skip!

"Y/N, why are you here? You got injured. Stop over working yourself."

This isn't the way you thought spending time together would go.

Megumi had been telling you off the whole time you walked to your destination as you tried your best to explain that you were fine (which you were not)

"Megumi, I'm fine, I'm just tired."

"You always say that. Do you not sleep?"

Your worst fear was happening. Megumi was becoming suspicious and instead of being honest all you could do is get mad.

"I do…why do you keep asking questions?"

"Because whatever your doing needs to stop….MOVE!"

Before Megumi could finish his sentence the sharp arm of the curse you were meant to fight came between you two nearly stabbing you before Megumi pushed you out of the way.

You tried getting up but your previous injury hindered you from doing that.

"Stay back Y/N! You'll only distract me…" your heart shattered at his words as tears pricked your eyes and you scowled.

"I'm not a distraction, just watch!"

"Y/N! No watch out!"

Before you could even realise what was happening, a large tree branch pierced your stomach as you stared at Megumi with your eyes wide before looking at the branch stuck in you.

Oh how much you regretted everything. You wish you had listened to Megumi. You wish you listen to Nanami. You wish you weren't even born.

You stared into the sky as you looked down at the large tree branch that had gotten stuck in you.

Blood started pooling from your mouth as you recounted all the times you wished you had lived your life more.

You wish you could confess your love to Megumi and get married and have 3 beautiful kids…a smile graced your lips at the thought.

"Well, I think this may be it…"

Everytime you blinked, it felt as if 10 minutes when by.

You heard Megumi shout at you begging you to stay awake as he defeated the curse. You felt him cradle you in his shaking and bloody arms.

"Y/N, just wait someone is coming to get us. Hang in there." You smiled and reached for Megumi's cheek. Even though your vision was blurred you could feel the tear drop from his eyes.

"Please don't cry…" you smiled as you hand started to go limp and you couldn't stay awake any longer.

Time Skip!

You groaned in pain as you awoke to a bright light. You body ached at any slight movement and as your eyes adjusted to the light you realised what had happened and you sat up looking down at your stomach.

You sighed, thankful to still be alive.

Unbeknownst to you, Megumi was sat down next to you, asleep with his arms crossed, under his eyes had a tint of red, most likely from crying.

You put your hands through his hair combing your fingers through it, smiling at the sight of him asleep.

He stirred awake and you removed your hands from his hair. When he awoke he looked shocked to see you awake. He immediately hugged you.

"I thought I lost you…" you could tell he was being careful making sure not to hurt you as your rubbed his back before pulling away.

"I'm not gone quite yet!" you laughed as Megumi gripped his trousers, clenching his fists.

"Y/N, this isn't funny. You nearly died." Megumi looked down mumbling as your smile dropped yet again to see Megumi scolding you.

You placed a hand on his to comfort him, "Megs, look I'm fine and it wasnt even that ba-" Before you could finish he flung his hand away.

"Wasn't that bad?! Don't be stupid…you nearly died! You think I don't see you every night training until your whe body gives out? Or the amount of weight you lost or even the stumbling in your walk from lack of sleep?"

You gasped and squinted at him.

"Were you spying on me, Megumi? So what if I want to train? I'm only trying to better myself, why won't you support me?!"

"I'm not supporting you? Y/N I have always supported you through thick and thin but what could possibly be making you want to work so hard that you get yourself killed?! Tell me, please enlighten me!"

Megumi was stood up at this point and you could see people through the door window but you didn't care. You were hurt.

"You, Megs, it's you! I feel like a useless person who can't do anything right. Every mission we have ever been on you have had to save me and I want to be as strong as you. So forgive me for putting in some effort!" you shouted at him with tears streaming down your face and your voice cracking.

"I love you the way you are Y/N! I have never once looked at you as if you are useless. I think you are funny, smart, cute and the kindest soul alive! Why would I want you to change? You are working youself to death, that's the least I want! I love you!"

Everything was silent as Megumi dropped to his seat cheeks flushed from his angry confession as you stared at him teary eyed.

"You…you love me?" you asked genuinely shocked he could love someone as weak as you.

"Yes Y/N…I have ever since I met you. I never hated you just please stop hurting yourself like this-"

Before Megumi could finish his sentence, you pressed your lips on his. You pressed your palm onto his cheek as his thumb whined away your tears.

You pulled apart, out of breath as you both had a faint blush on your cheeks.

"I love you too Megs." you pressed your body into his chest as he wrapped his arms around you softly.

"Y/N…I will never ever hesitate to save you and I would do it over and over for you."

You smiled and inhaled his scent. A sense of relief washing over you. Something told you that from now on life would be much easier to live…

A lil bonus:

You had recovered and you were at a dessert shop with Megumi for a cute little date.

"Would you save me if I was like…a worm?" you giggled taking a bite of ice cream.

"Well I suppose, I would try to turn you into a human…so yes?"

"You don't sound to sure Megs…I'm feeling quite unconvinced…"

Megumi sighed putting his spoon down.

"I would save you and give your worm body a massive kiss. Happy?"

"Perfect answer!!" you laughed kissing him on the cheek as he just smiled lightly.

i hope you all enjoyed that especially my girly that I wrote it for, I hope you loved it 💜💜🩷🩷

#anime #anime fluff #jjk #anime x reader #jjk x reader #megumi fushiguro #fyp #megumi x reader #megumi fluff #jjk megumi #megumi angst #megumi x y/n #jjk angst #jjk fluff #anime angst

[dovithedarklord]

Stucked - Part 5

You're trapped in a game and a new threat is lurking.

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Pairing: John "Soap" MacTavish x reader, Simon "Ghost" Riley x reader

Tags: Mentions of death, Mentions of blood and gore, Blood and Violence, Sexual Scenes, Alternate Universe, No use of Y/N, Not Beta Read, AFAB Reader

Trigger Warning: Contains blood and gore, violence, injury, some body horror, description of dead bodies and viscera, and some dubcon (lightly). Please, keep that in mind!

⚠️MDNI⚠️

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Author's Note

This part is starting to get gory, so be prepared!

The world is expanding, and maybe new threats arise. Maybe someone nice and kind appears for once. Or not :D

Have fun! :D

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

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The familiar sounds of the night surround you with deceptive peace as you lean up against the musty wall of the woodshed, as if you wanted to melt into the cool embrace of the shadows. And without a doubt, you would give everything for the darkness to engulf you, because if you were swallowed up by the desolate unknown, then at least you would be safe there from the threatening presence of predators stalking you. Because even though you managed to disappear from their sight temporarily, you know that it won't last forever, and you can't hide from them here all night, because you're offering yourself up to them on a silver platter. The game has ways of forcing you to take action, and it’s not so kind as to give you more than a brief glimmer of hope.

You carefully sneak out from behind your shelter, your fingers gripping the rough wood with an almost painful force, the splinters straining against your palm like a thousand tiny needles, and you're almost happy that the sharp pain penetrates the restless nervousness that settles in your mind. Your every nerve is sharpened and tries to observe the terrain in front of you, and you aren't fooled for a minute by the unmoving calmness that greets you when your gaze sweeps across the yard behind the house. You know that they have already broken through the barricaded border of your room and discovered that you have left. And it's only a matter of time before they chase after you and find you. And you can't be sure for a minute that the cursed wooden structure hasn't already poured them out of its rotting mouth, because you know how imperceptibly they move. You won't see them until they want you to, so your survival becomes a gamble. But you have to try everything to beat this damned place.

You count to ten in your head, gathering the strength of the fear tingling in your limbs, which would drive you impatiently towards escaping, but you cannot be thoughtless. The few seconds that pass before you reach zero are almost excruciatingly slow, and then, swallowing the bitter taste of uncertainty in your mouth, you push yourself away from the protective arms of your hideout to head toward the depths of the forest with nimble steps. For a long time, you wondered where you should go. You went through every single moment you spent in this hellish maze, and you realized with a cruel force that there was no safe path that would serve as a way out for you. But the dense thicket of trees is the only place where you have a chance of disappearing from their sight long enough to find clues. Because even though you can feel the blood-soaked breath of the killers on your neck, you know that this is the real key to getting rid of it all.

With the tense attention of a hunted animal, you keep an eye on the open space bathed in moonlight, in the middle of which the inviting shape of the house stands out like a festering wound. Like an apple, under the wax-soaked, flawless skin, a rotting ulcer is exposed, and even you yourself admit how apt the analogy is. Because that can be said about every damn corner of this demonic game. You hurriedly cross the few meters between you and the protective vegetation, and you can almost feel how the windows of the house, like shining yellow eyes, follow you, as if they would only observe your fruitless attempt to slip away with sickly calmness. And the screeching noises echoes in your ears almost like contemptuous laughter, brought to life by the lazily swaying of the cold breeze between the carved walls. But you merely cast one last disdainful glance at the cursed thing and let yourself be slowly consumed by the blessed, vague darkness cast by the bushes and foliage. That goddamn house can fuck itself because you're going to prove that you can win.

You have rushed through the sea of untamed plant life thousands of times since you came here, and although each time your adventures were cut short by some horrible surprise, now you aren't filled with fear of the dangers lurking within. Because, if nothing else, the memory of the torments you suffered here now guides your way, and you wildly hope that all the vile traps and terrible tricks have remained the same as before. You hope that the game has at least this much compassion in itself, and that if everything turned upside down, at least its torture devices remained in place.

Under your careful steps, the dry leaves welcome you with a soft crunch, but they only reach your ears as a dull noise through the buzzing of thoughts descending on your brain. You know that the hours you can spend in this imperceptible calm are numbered, so you have to use every moment wisely. And even though fear rages through your body with an unbridled rush, which puts dampness under the soft fabric of your t-shirt, you know that there is a clue hidden here, which forces you to delve deeper and deeper into the forest. Because there is something waiting there that could be the light at the end of the tunnel full of the smell of corpses and viscera. Just get there, take it and you're on track. From then on, you'll have something in your hands that will help you start again.

You take every step and meter with tense anticipation, and even the hooting of the owls seems like an ominous melody to your senses, sharpened by stress. Like an eerie background music that vibrates through the stout trunks as you walk, letting you know you're not alone. But even without it, you feel the invisible gaze on you, as if a pair of watching eyes were hiding in every dark corner, just waiting for the moment when you're careless enough to sink its jaws studded with razor-sharp teeth into your supple flesh. And you're not afraid of wolves, but of those wild beasts who disguise themselves by wearing a human face, hiding behind friendly smiles and sweet words. And you're sure Johnny can't wait for you to squirm under his hand and start begging for your life.

You can't tell how much time passed as you wander through the uninhabited trees, but the apparent ease with which you move makes the grip of anxiety tighten around your stomach. Your mission is going far too smoothly, and your brain can't shake the suspicion that you'll pay dearly for it. Because nothing is free here, and every uneventful and blissful moment will later avenge itself as a bloodier punishment.

But, when the long-awaited goal appears in front of you, the debilitating voice of trepidation disappears from your head, and in its place comes urgency, which automatically directs you to the bizarre structure. Even the first time, when, bursting into the forest, you came across this grotesque shrine just as you were running from one of your pursuers, the sight of it filled you with sinister foreboding, despite the killer lurking at your heels. The deteriorating frame built of twigs stands out like a broken skeleton at the base of one of the trees, and the bony fingers tightly weave the small den that rests under the ruined structure in a carrion-smelling embrace. Like a ribcage, in the torn cavity of which the underworld opens up like a gaping hole, from which, like the breath of death, an absolutely stomach-turning stench creeps out, like the sting of the sickly sweet smell of fruit rotting in the summer sun. It climbs into your nose, down your throat, and into your stomach, stirring up its pitiful contents with such violence that you try to fight off the first wild wave of nausea by swallowing the bitter saliva that moves into your mouth.

Still, you pull yourself together and only acknowledge the little dolls swinging on the weathered branches with just a quick glance, deliberately not paying attention to how the necklace of teeth strung on human hair is wrapped around the little bodies made of sticks. It's not worth pondering why this monument was put here, and what kind of satanic creature they may worship at its feet, because it's just a clever distraction from what lies in the endless blackness dug into the ground, nothing more. And you, overcoming the resistance of revulsion, which causes all the little hairs on your back to stand up, crouch down on the ground covered with slimy mud, and smoothing one of your palms into the dirty dead leaves, you lean forward to venture closer to the hollow opening between the twisted twigs. And you stifle the cursing that wishes to surge to your tongue, as your free right-hand reaches into the mysterious pit, and your fingers touch the animal remains piled up there, which slide apart like slippery worms under your searching hand. It takes what seems like a thousand years before you finally find what you're looking for, and when you feel the rough material of the worn paper, you grab onto it and tear the treasure out of the hole with such speed, like a snake ambushing its victim.

And although you shake off the filth of remains stuck to your hands, soaked in dark juices in disgust, the disbelieving joy rises in you much more strongly when you take a look at the small folded piece of paper filthy from the soil. You open it with almost hasty excitement, and you feel a heavy weight roll off your heart when you discover the map outlined on the stained page. The horrible world of the game unfolds in the drawings scribbled with fading ink, and the suffocating feeling of happiness rises in your throat with an almost ridiculous force from the crimson dots resting on the shapes resembling a child's doodle. Because you know that each red mark hides a potential clue, and despite the horrors of recent events, this is the first hopeful turn that might lead you to your escape. You've tried to get hold of this wretched map many times, but every time you've failed, and if by some miracle you managed to get your hands on it, the monsters stalking you killed you immediately before you could even put the little object in your pocket so that it wouldn't be lost. That's why you gave up on it, because wandering around in the night looking for a damn piece of paper seemed like too much of a risky venture. But right now it's the only thing that can help you.

You turn all your attention to the map, and after you identify the familiar shape of the wooden house, the dark, tangled mass of the forest stretching around it, and the line of the dirt road that winds through it, you discover something quite strange. And you swear that the last time you took a look at this sketch, then there wasn't a lake gaping like a blue puddle in the middle of the thick line of trees, and there certainly wasn't a square-shaped, gray brick building resting in the corner of the page. You run through your memories, and you become more and more certain that these are foreign elements, and that they didn't even exist in this terrible universe until now. Now, however, they stand there so cleanly, blending in so naturally among the tattered drawings, as if they had always belonged there. Maybe the changes affected the entire game? Have new locations been added? Along with it, you can get new clues, but also new threats…

You're too deep in your thoughts to hear that tiny crack that cuts through the quiet night, loud with the hum of bugs, like a sick scream. But at the second snap, you come to your senses and freeze as suddenly as a deer in a spotlight. And fear moves into every single paralyzed cell of yours at the same time, as you slowly turn around and see the tall figure emerging from the shadow cast by the leaves, whose terrifying aura you would recognize out of a thousand.

The masked killer steps out almost lazily from the cover of the bushes, and as the huge blade of the hunting knife glints in his hand, you can feel it sinking into your throat. And the screaming ringing in your skull warns you that if you don't start running immediately, you can soon feel the deadly kiss of that knife on your skin again. And it's enough to meet his eyes for a split second to know that even though the man seems motionless, this is only a passing state, because the dark eyes under the skull-like mask promise nothing but excruciating suffering.

And as the adrenaline rushing through your veins moves into your muscles with agonizing pain, you hurriedly crumple the map into your pocket, and suddenly your body bolts, almost desperately throwing yourself into the lush vegetation. And you begin your desperate rush that fills your lungs with burning dryness and your limbs with frightened energy. Under your shoes, the twigs drifting in your path give in with loud crunching, and although the branches of the bushes full of thorns bite into your skin, the stinging doesn't reach your brain blinded by panic. You should have known this was going to happen, that the simplicity with which you had gotten this far was no more than a flitting illusion, and as soon as you put a finger on something good, something far more horrible would grasp you, dragging you back into the claggy hell you fell into when you became a prisoner of the game.

Your pulse is pounding wildly in your eardrums, and with each step, you feel it's getting closer and closer to breaking through the bony wall of your chest. But you can't stop, because then you voluntarily offer yourself up for slaughter, like a rabid animal that doesn't even feel when it dances into the mouth of death because of the disease that consumes its brain. The plants passing by you only reach your consciousness as blurred spots, and even though you try to find a hiding place from your pursuer, you're afraid to stop and try to climb into any of the small corners that present themself. It would be futile anyway, because this beast would be able to drag you out of the deepest recesses of the other world to cut your stomach open.

Maybe it's your haste, maybe it's the stress clouding your senses that causes you not to notice the rotting root that emerges like a gnarled stump from under the carpet of decaying leaves, but when your foot gets stuck in it, it's too late. You fall to the ground almost helplessly, and although you instinctively try to dampen the force of the fall with your hand, the small pebbles drifting under your palm cut your skin like blades and plow bloody trenches into your forearm as you sprawl on the moist soil. Air is forced out of your chest as you collapse on the hard ground, and small dark spots begin to dance in front of your eyes as you blink in confusion, trying to understand what just happened. But even despite the vibrating dots in your field of vision, you see the small, white sign on one of the trees, which seems to have an inscription on it. Quiet lake? What the hell…

With a hiss, you try to gather yourself, when the fog of surprise clears from your brain, and you realize that you have to get going, but as your trapped foot moves and you pull it out from under the root, you clench your teeth to stifle the tortured scream that is about to break out of you. Because the hot pain radiates through every single cell of yours with such force, as if someone had dipped a knife between the tiny bones, only to twist it and cut open the web of flesh and tendons.

But before the aching has a chance to clear your mind enough for you to assess how much damage has been done to your ankle, a large hand grabs you suddenly and flips you onto your back as easily as if you were nothing more than a rag doll. And you feel infinitely small and vulnerable, as you look up in alarm at the huge figure leaning over you, under whose body swelling with strength, the fear of death nestles in every fiber of you. And almost instinctively, the black mark on your stomach starts to burn, planting a bitter reminder in your mind, which makes you understand a painful moment later that if you die again at the hands of the masked murderer, you'll be stuck here forever.

However, even if this realization takes hold in your head, as soon as your wounded leg moves, the pain radiates through you, seeping into your bones, and now you're unable to hold back the painful whimper that escapes from your lips. It seems that this grabs the man's attention as well, because he just tilts his head lazily to the side, directing his gaze to your throbbing ankle, and your blood runs cold when you feel the caress of the cold metal on the swollen skin slowly enveloped in purple petals. And although the cool touch eases the sharp pulsating pain, your eyes are still fixed in horror on the knife, the tip of which slithers almost teasingly along the small, tortured surface emerging from under your jeans. And there is something strangely, morbidly tender about the way the weapon begins its terrible path and slides along your trembling legs with a feather-light touch. As if it were just caressing its lover with its icy fingers, but you feel the threat hidden in the delicate touch, which tells you, just a bad move and that kindness will disappear. That's why you freeze and let him explore every unwilling corner of your body, shaking in terror, and even though you know you should be thinking about escaping, you can't take your eyes off the blade, glimmering in silver beneath the moon's pale hands. Because you're afraid that if you lose sight of it even for a minute, the next time you'll see it sinking into your heart.

But when the metal reaches your belly, then, wincing in agitation, you turn your gaze at the killer, and even you're shocked by the mesmerized fixation with which he regards the terrified tremor of your stomach. And as the weapon wanders for a moment to the hem of your shirt and pushes the soft cotton aside, then for a petrifying moment the pressure of the blade intensifies and bites into the tissue of the delicate skin, and you flinch in fright from the lightning-like, stabbing pain. But it worries you much more when you see the man's dark eyes zero in on something, and your brain only catches onto what he might have found when you see the amused wrinkles gathering around the painted skin. And there is something upsettingly familiar in this small gesture, as if you've seen it somewhere before…

"I like it." The man speaks up suddenly, and the deep voice coming out from under the mask is so unexpected that for a minute you can only blink at him, like a miserable fish washed up on the shore. But even to your fear-numbed brain, it's clear what he's talking about, because such rapturous glee shines in his eyes, which makes the icy arms of dread tighten around your insides with crushing force. As if some horrifying softness would move into his tone, and for a moment you're not sure if you heard him right or if it's just your imagination playing cruel tricks on you.

But it doesn't matter, because when the knife begins its journey again, and it slowly moves up to your chest rising and falling from your frightened little breaths, reaching one of the soft mounds there, then the air, that you were trying so desperately to suck in, stops midway in your trachea. And even through the fine textile and the thin material of your bra, you can sense the pressure of the cool metal, tracing the line of your breast, and you feel almost naked under the man's leer, which hungrily follows the work of his hands. And as he finds your nipple under the fabric, you can't suppress the scared whine that rises in your throat, as the small bud hardens. And this is enough for your attacker to snap his eyes on your face with the speed of a wild animal ready to jump, and as he surveys the quivering line of your lips and the ghost of tears stinging your eyes, you already know that you're not imagining that he's smiling. Because you can see how the line of the grin that spreads under the mask reaches his eyes.

"I can see why Johnny likes you." He notes, and you don't understand what he's talking about for a minute. But then you feel as if a piece of a puzzle has fallen into place, and your mind is finally able to piece together through the curtain of disorientation why the thick accented voice was so awfully familiar to your ears. And even though the material of the mask muffles it, you still hear the hoarseness under his words, and suddenly you feel infinitely stupid for not realizing it sooner. After all, Simon appeared after the masked man killed you and his black mark took shape on your stomach. How ridiculously clear that the killer who has murdered you so many times is the new stranger himself. What a despicable move from this godforsaken game…

"Why don't you kill me?" The bitter question bursts out of you, and you don't even try to stop it from coming out of your mouth. Yet you have to know what this whole cruel farce is for, because the doubts in your head are trying to find some logic in the terrible comedy that is happening to you.

But you're completely unprepared for the chuckle that resonates through the man's chest, and the confusion penetrates even your fear. Because it's too surreal how cheerfully his voice sounds, as if you weren't exactly in the dark lap of the desolate forest. And it occurs to you that maybe you too would be in such a bright mood if you were the apex predator in this miserable jungle.

But what is perhaps even more unexpected is how suddenly he kneels over you, and your frozen brain just follows helplessly as he nestles himself between your legs with his thick, muscular thighs. He forcefully makes room for himself with his strong body, and as your ankle moves involuntarily to pull away from him, agony shoots into your tortured limb, and this breaks you out of the helpless immobility of terror. Your hands instinctively shoot out towards the man, and as they strain against his broad chest in protest, you feel the hard curve of the muscles tensing under the touch. However, your opposition doesn't deter him, and you can tell from the raspy sound that escapes from his throat that he's extremely amused by the pitiful force with which you try to keep away his body slowly descending on you.

But it seems that when your resisting hand finds his face to try to push him off, fingers getting caught in the mask, his patience runs out and you go rigid in fear when the hunting knife digs into the mud next to your head. Because you hear the wet crunch of the ground as the metal sinks to the hilt into it, and your mind involuntarily feels the pain, imagining how the deadly weapon could have drilled through the border of your skull into the soft ridges of your brain. And you understand the warning, because you doubt that it was an accident that he missed the target. And as your hands fall limply to the dirt, your frightened eyes meet his, and you see the glimmering light of anger dancing in the bottomless pits of his dilated pupils.

"Enough!" He snaps at you, and his command reaches your ears as such a dangerous whisper that your body, immersed in the deadly mouth of fear, obeys him almost automatically. "Be a good girl and take it… let me warm you up for Johnny by the time he gets here."

And this one sentence serves as a signal for you to know that you won't be alone for long, and panic permeates every cell of yours, because if the other monster strays there, then all your chances of fleeing from them will be lost. But even though you know you have to do something, when you feel the man's hardness pressing against your clothed core, your brain shuts down with almost ridiculous speed, and you can't help but gape up at Simon in horrified surprise. Because you can almost make out the thick line of his cock pressing against your pussy, rutting against it with such cruel slowness that you're unable to suppress the low, alarmed yelp that escapes from your lips, a sound akin to a wounded little animal. And the movement with which one of the man's gloved hands smooths on your face is almost evil, because there is a kind of condescending tenderness in the gesture, as if he were really trying to calm down a small bird with a broken wing before crushing its spine with his razor-sharp teeth.

But there's not enough mercy in him to take pity on you, and you let him slowly set warmness into your belly without resistance. His thumb strokes your trembling lips with mocking softness, and maybe, if you were more naive, you'd think that there is something loving in this movement. But you know that he's a monster, and there is no beating heart in his chest, only an ulcerated scar, whose insatiable hunger can only be alleviated by the suffering of others. And as he breaks through the line of your teeth, your mouth is filled with the taste of dried blood embedded in the rough fabric, through which you can also feel the saltiness of his skin, like some vilely lurking disease. And as his crotch rubs against your clit hidden under the jeans with a slow rocking of his hips, his finger presses down on your tongue with a warning force, and you powerlessly let those pitiful moans emerge from your throat, which the treacherous lust awakening in your core settles on your vocal cords.

And you know he's satisfied with your surrender, because he brushes against your lips almost gently with his mouth, as if he just wanted to reward you for how the power of fear and confused desire has made you so willing for him. And as he leans on his forearms and buries his face in the graceful valley of your neck, you shiver involuntarily as his hot breath caresses the vein in which your pulse beats with desperate quickness. As his strong body weighs down on you, every firm thrust of his hips presses you into the hard ground, and you're almost dizzy from the way the bitter scent emanating from him fills your nose. And as a deep groan breaks out of him, a shiver of fear instinctively sweeps down your spine, because it sounds much more like the growl of a starved animal that is about to eat you alive.

And through the dullness that descends on your head and the miserable desire that rises in your body, you become aware that it will happen. He’ll devour you until you breathe, sink his claws into your warm flesh, and close his jaws around your still-beating heart so that you can never escape this endless nightmare. But even though you're tempted by the formless heat that slowly begins to tighten between your legs, waiting for the cruel play of his cock grinding against you to finally release you from the torment, you know you have to escape. You can't let it happen, no matter with what devilish techniques the game and the monsters it created try to divert you from it.

Therefore, your eyes, breaking through the veil of darkness, run along the sea of twigs and yellowing leaves spreading around you, and it takes a few agonizing seconds before you notice the stone that peeks out from under the pile of dry branches as a saving solution. And as your fingers begin to inch toward it with excruciating slowness, all your nerves sharpen and focus on the man moving above you, because you know that one irresponsible move is all it takes, and the knife resting next to your face will find a new home in your head next time.

But as soon as your hand finds the damp stone, you grasp it with cold determination, and perhaps hesitate for a fleeting moment before making up your mind. The speed with which your arm swings towards Simon is unbelievable even to you, and the dull, familiar thump with which your weapon meets the man's skull is deafening. He almost freezes above you in surprise, and his body falls limply on top of you, and you whine in pain as the leaden weight of his heavy body presses you down. However, you don't have time to complain about how the solid muscle pressing against you crushes your ribs against your lungs, thirsty for air, because you know that the advantage you have gained is only momentary.

Gritting your teeth, you push the man off you, and when he finally rolls off of you and lies unconscious in the dirt, you find the trunk of one of the trees and stand up despite the burning misery in your legs, desperately inhaling the air through your nose, hoping that the fresh oxygen will help relieve your suffering. And you don't dare look at your ankle, because you're afraid that if your eyes could see the damage, you'd be unable to move because of the shock. And you have to go, because time is running fast, and with each tick of the clock, the end is getting closer and closer.

You make a quick decision, without delay, and as your gaze finds that worn little sign again, the pointed end of which beckons you towards a new danger, you don't have the energy to deal with the risk that might be waiting for you there. Leaving behind even the last grain of uncertainty, you let go of the tree that has been supporting you until now, and it takes all your strength to be able to overcome the dancing, bright spots that appear before your eyes, when you finally set off limping. And although the ache in your leg twists like a knife during the first few steps, the adrenaline slowly flows through your body and climbs deeper through the tangled network of your blood vessels into your muscles, soon easing the protest of the damaged tissues into a steady, dull pulsation.

You hurriedly drag yourself forward in the dark night, only the moon guiding on your way, and with each meter you take, the landscape becomes quieter and quieter. As if the birds had fled and the crickets had disappeared, an unsettling silence moves into every desolate corner of the forest, filling the air with such an eerie emptiness that it sends a frosty numbness into your fingers. Even the phantom gaze of the eyes watching from the shadows seems to fade away, as if the bloodthirsty monsters stalking you have retreated from the ominous, milky white fog that slowly rises above the ground like a thick curtain. And you would swear that the anxious beating of your heart is the only thing that makes noise in this terrible soundlessness, like a rhythmic drum that beats between your ribs and tries to keep you on the edge of consciousness.

And as the trees thin out, the darkly rippling body of water comes into view in front of you, the inky black surface of which almost swallows the pale light that falls on it. There is something otherworldly in the way the wide border of the lake stretches out on the lap of the forest rising around it, as if the peaceful, calm water would be a passageway to the dead, and the image instinctively makes goosebumps prickle on your skin. But before your mind could weave the thread of your thoughts any further, and you could even think about why this location is here, an earsplitting roar interrupts the sudden quiet, and you jerk your head around in fright, looking for its source. And although you don't see anyone moving behind the fog, you know exactly that the beast you left behind with so much effort has returned. And this gives you enough motivation to search for shelter, looking around desperately, so that when you find a steep stretch of shore rising above the lake, you rush into the water. Although you don't know what might be hiding here, the uncertain horror is better than what awaits you when the angry monsters find you.

Defying the sting of the icy water, you wade forward through the waves and stir up dark clouds as your shoes are violently torn from the greedy pull of the mud with every step, but you're unable to focus on anything other than reaching your hiding place. The cool embrace of the lake swallows you up to your waist as you stumble to the shore smelling of wet sand, and the musty smell creeps into your nose as you crawl between the roots emerging from under the sand, almost lying flat against the damp earth. And although the coldness sneaks to your bones, relief also breaks through the shivers moving through your limbs, as the shadows rising above you welcome into their embrace. And you tensely fix your gaze towards the forest, forcing yourself to remain motionless with every nerve cell, because your attackers could arrive at any time. Your only chance is to risk hypothermia and stay here as long as possible, and then maybe you can survive the night.

And at first, you think that maybe a curious fish swam closer to you, when you feel something bump against your leg, but when you look down, you see nothing, just a distorted blob swimming lazily closer to the surface. You forget about the predators lurking in the woods, as you squint, trying to identify the unknown newcomer, and it takes an uncertain second before you recognize what is slowly drifting upwards. But as the round figure tumbles over the border of the gently sparkling water, and the lifeless eye sockets opening from the decomposing flesh stare at you, and you see the snow-white teeth lined up in the mouth frozen in a silent scream, then you feel how the horrified terror tightens your insides, trapping the air in your lungs.

But the skull doesn't stay lonely for long, because it seems to call its companions to itself with its worldless gaze, and you watch in shock as the remains of the tortured and twisted bodies emerge from under the water, stirring up the peaceful waves. Suddenly the air is filled with the stomach-churning smell of rotting flesh, but the strain of nausea that moves to your stomach doesn't reach your brain, because it's paralyzed with elemental force, as the bones meshed with decaying muscles gather around you, as if the lake had just opened its putrid mouth to pour out the flayed carcasses of his victims, leaving nothing but skeletons covered in red slime.

But it cuts through on your shock when something quite different stirs on the other side of the sea of mangled cadavers. And as a tall figure slowly appears from the cursed depths, although you recognize the terrible strength that lies in the muscles under the taut skin, you're unable to focus on anything other than the smoldering gaze flashing from behind the hood covering the creature's head. Because in those eyes glowing like molten lava, you discover an absolutely horrible curiosity as they find you trembling against the sandy wall. And when the wet fabric flutters and the wet, glistening tentacles emerge from under it, the air stuck in your chest is able to break through, and even your ears ring from the scream that rises in your throat and finally breaks the silence.

#call of duty #simon ghost riley #john soap mactavish #cod #johnny soap mactavish #simon riley #cod ghost #ghost call of duty #cod mw ghost #ghost cod #ghost simon riley #ghost x reader #ghost #simon riley x reader #simon riley x you #simon ghost x reader #simon riley ghost #john mactavish x reader #john soap mctavish #soap mw2 #soap cod #soap mactavish #soap x reader #ghost mw2 #ghost x you #soap x you #horror #alternate universe

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Dream Warriors Chapter 2

Title: Dream Warriors Chapter 2

Summary: Dean suggests a possible explanation for the reader’s dream. The couple and Sam head out on a potential case.

Characters: Reader, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, other original characters

Word Count: 3,992

Warnings: Angst, mentions of a miscarriage, canon typical gore

Author’s Note: If miscarriages are triggering, I would proceed with caution.

Read Chapter 1 here.

“So, let me get this straight,” Dean starts, pouring a cup of coffee. He’d just gotten you calmed down enough to move to the kitchen of the bunker. While you’d filled him in on the dream you’d had, he fixed a pot of coffee. He brings two mugs over, setting one in front of you, before sitting across from you at the table. “No monsters. Our families were alive. You were married to some douche of a professor. Had a baby girl with said douche. We were just friends. And you’d just found out that your husband was cheating on you?” You nod before taking a long drink from the mug. Setting it back down, you sigh.

“It felt so real though. And I believed this, my life, was a dream,” you tell him, staring at the mug in your hands. Dean reaches over, his hands wrapping around your own. You’re fighting not to lose control as the memories of the dream rush back to you. “My family was alive, Dean. I – I got to hug them again. And – and my brother was married and they had a son.” Dean squeezes your hands as the tears overwhelm you again. “And Ella…”

“The baby,” he says softly. You nod, another sob escaping you.

“She was so beautiful, Dean. So beautiful and perfect,” you cry. He gets up from his chair and makes his way around the table quickly, pulling you into his arms as you break down.

“Of course she was,” he whispers, kissing your hair. You continue to cry into his shoulder for a few minutes before finally calming down a little. You look up at him, a few tears still falling. He smiles softly as he wipes at your cheeks gently.

“She called you Bean. And she had your eyes,” you tell him. He raises an eyebrow at you and you shake your head. “Well, not your eyes. They couldn’t have been. They were green like yours though.” He nods then runs his fingers into your hair.

“Well, I think it’s safe to say we know what caused this,” he says. You look at him, curiously. “You know what today is, right?” He asks. You shake your head slightly as you try to recall the date. Early May maybe. The realization hits you like a ton of bricks.

“Oh,” you breathe. Dean nods again.

“Today was your due date,” he says. The tears well up again quickly. Dean sighs and wraps his arms around you once more. He kisses your hair as he rubs your back soothingly. “I’m sorry, Sweetheart. I’m so sorry.” You shake your head, pulling away from him.

“Don’t. Stop,” you tell him, wiping at your eyes. He frowns as he watches you.

“Maybe – maybe you should see someone,” he says. You stare at him for a moment.

“What? Like a shrink?” You ask, disbelieving. He shrugs slightly. “And tell them what, Dean? ‘Three months ago, a demon attacked me, and I miscarried our baby. I’ve sorta had a hard time dealing with it.’ No.”

“Y/N,” Dean starts but you cut him off with a sharp look.

“No,” you repeat. He runs his hands over his face in exasperation as Sam comes into the kitchen now, his open laptop in his hands.

“Hey, guys,” he says before stopping in the door, sensing the tension in the room. “Everything okay?” He asks. You look at him and nod as Dean rises to his feet.

“What ya got, Sam?” You ask. He glances at Dean before speaking again.

“Ummm – potential vamp case about 6 hours from here,” he says. You nod and stand from your chair. Dean looks at you and frowns.

“Are you sure you’re ready to get back out there?” He asks. You look at him and roll your eyes.

“I’m fine, Dean. Ready to kill something,” you tell him, heading for the hall quickly. You hadn’t been on a hunt since you’d found out you were pregnant about 8 months ago, staying back at the bunker and doing research when the guys called. You might be a little rusty but the last thing you wanted to do was sit around the bunker and think about that dream.

You knew Dean was right. Your subconscious had created an alternate reality as a way to escape the inevitable pain of today. You and Dean shouldn’t be at the bunker right now. You were supposed to be in the hospital, giving birth to a beautiful baby girl. One who, you were certain, would have looked just like little Ella from your dream. The two of you had been nervous, of course, about bringing a baby into this life but Dean was determined you could make it work. And you had for a while.

You had gone out for a simple grocery run to the local market. The bunker was running dangerously low on the necessary essentials; coffee, pie, pickles. Broad daylight in a crowded parking lot, a man sunk a knife into your pregnant belly. His eyes flashed black as they met yours before he ran away, other shoppers rushing to your aid. An ambulance was called and you were taken to the hospital but it had been too late…

“Y/N,” Dean’s voice cuts through the memories. You blink back tears as you look over at him. He sighs and makes his way across the room to where you’re standing. Shaking your head quickly, you walk over to the closet, avoiding him.

“Which suit do you want to take? The black one or the blue one?” You ask, flipping between the two. His hands come to rest on your shoulders and you immediately tense up.

“You don’t have to go,” he says. You swallow thickly and nod, turning to face him now.

“I need to go, Dean. I can’t stay here by myself. Not today,” you tell him, your eyes landing on the door to the room across the hall. He follows your gaze and frowns before nodding.

“Okay. But – will you at least stay in the room? You haven’t been out in a while and I – I can’t risk losing you too,” he says, his voice quiet. His pleading eyes meet yours and you nod your head once in response. He lets out a breath before stepping away from you. “The blue one’s fine.”

Five and a half hours later, Dean pulls the Impala into the parking lot of a motel. It was a typical stay for the three of you; not too shabby but definitely not five stars either. Sam climbs out of the backseat to go into the office. He leans down to your open window and looks in at the two of you.

“Two rooms?” He asks. You hold back a frown as you look at your hands in your lap.

“Just the one,” Dean tells him. The younger brother glances between the two of you before rising to his full height and making his way to the office door.

Before the accident, you and Dean always had your own room. It wasn’t long after the two of you had gotten together that Sam made the suggestion. You and Dean were very much in love and expressed that love regularly (and loudly according to Sam). It was really no surprise when you’d ended up pregnant. But ever since you’d lost the baby, Dean had barely touched you. Kisses were few and far between. You fell asleep facing opposite walls. He didn’t even look at you the same anymore. And you couldn’t blame him.

“Y/N?” Dean’s voice breaks through your thoughts. His hand reaches across the front seat of the car and clasps one of yours. You pull it away almost immediately.

“I’m fine,” you tell him, reflexively.

“You’re crying,” he says, his voice concerned. You shake your head and wipe at the stray tear quickly.

“I’m fine, Dean. Sam’s done,” you say, pointing to the other Winchester as he starts back to the car. You slip out before Dean can say anything else and Sam tosses the room key to you.

“Fifteen,” he says. The two brothers get the bags from the trunk of the car as you unlock the door to the room. You step inside and take a quick inventory. It was nearly identical to the hundreds you’d stayed in before. Nothing remarkable. Sam and Dean come in behind you and Dean deposits both of your bags onto the far bed.

“Hit the morgue first,” Dean says, mostly to himself, as he pulls his fed suit from his bag. You glance at Sam as he does the same before making your way across the room to your own bag. You quickly pull out the black pencil skirt and white button-up shirt you always took on hunts and turn for the bathroom. “What do you think you’re doing?” Dean asks, not looking up from his bag.

“I’m getting ready to go to the morgue,” you tell him casually. He sighs and you watch his hands clench into fists.

“We agreed you’d stay in the room, remember?” He asks. You glance at Sam before taking a step towards Dean.

“It’s just the coroner’s office,” you tell him, your voice soft and almost pleading. He looks up and you can see that he’s torn. Sam clears his throat from the other side of the room.

“You two go. I’ll see what I can dig up on the town,” he suggests. Dean shakes his head slightly and Sam laughs. “You know you can’t stop her.” You watch as something crosses Dean’s face briefly and for a moment you think he might lock you in the bathroom.

“99% of the time, nothing ever even happens at the coroner’s office, Dean,” you say. He lets out a small, sarcastic laugh and nods.

“It’s that 1% I’m worried about,” he says before sighing. He reaches into his bag and pulls a familiar fold of leather before tossing it to you. You catch it and raise an eyebrow at him. Unfolding the leather, you find the fake FBI badge of your favorite alias. “I know you better than you think I do,” Dean says, still riffling through his bag. A wide smile spreads across your face before you take the few steps towards Dean. You place a hesitant kiss to his cheek.

“Thank you,” you tell him. His eyes meet yours and he smiles a small smile. Not long ago, you both would have taken the opportunity to steal a kiss, a quick nonverbal reminder of your love. Instead, you turn quickly, moving into the bathroom to get ready.

Within an hour, you and Dean are pulling up in front of the small police station. He parks the car outside and the two of you make your way to the door. You’re met by the stereotypical small-town sheriff, a rather large man, close to his retirement for sure. He looks the two of you over briefly.

“Feds?” He asks, crossing his arms. Simultaneously, you and Dean pull your badges from your pockets and flash them.

“I’m Agent Wayne. This is my partner, Agent Prince,” Dean introduces, gesturing towards you. The sheriff nods his head once in acknowledgment.

“Sheriff Donald Anderson. You lost?” He asks. Dean lets out a laugh and runs a hand over his jaw. You glance at him before smiling at Sheriff Anderson.

“We heard you had a few strange cases pop-up. Just wanted to see if we could help out any,” you interject, your voice sweet. Dean tenses up next to you, but you ignore him, continuing to smile at the sheriff as his eyes roam over you once more.

“Well…” He pauses, considering. “A few fresh eyes probably wouldn’t hurt.”

“Could we see the bodies?” You ask. He nods and offers to show you the way. Dean rolls his eyes once the old man turns his back and looks down at you. You smirk at him as you take a step to follow Anderson. “I don’t wear this skirt cause it’s comfortable, ya know,” you tell him in a hushed tone. His eyes run down your exposed legs and he smiles before following you.

Sheriff Anderson leads the two of you down to the basement while filling you in on the details of the case, most of which you already knew from reading the reports. Three dead Jane Doe’s all killed in the same fashion, throats slit and blood drained.

Stepping into the cooler room, you immediately notice a covered female body lying on the table. A young woman, petite and blond with striking green and blue streaks in her hair, is sitting at the desk in the corner.

“Kaylee, this is Agent Prince, and ugh…Agent…” Anderson trails off, looking at Dean.

“Wayne,” Dean tells him, forcing a smile. The sheriff nods and looks back over at the medical examiner.

“Right, right. Wayne. FBI. They’re here to look into the Jane Doe cases,” he tells her. The woman nods and begins to shuffle through some papers on her desk. Sheriff Anderson excuses himself as you and Dean make your way towards the table. Kaylee rises from her desk and comes over, three files in her hands. She hands them over to you and you set two aside, opening the first. Dean looks at Kaylee, sticking his hands in his pockets.

“No I.D.’s yet?” He asks. She shakes her head, pushing her hair back from her face.

“The investigators are looking into missing persons in the local towns but nothing’s turned up,” she tells him. You read over the description of wounds. No defensive marks. Single slice to the throat. Circular incision (?) in the abdomen.

“What’s this?” You ask, pointing the incision comment out to her. She nods and reaches for the sheet, pulling it back. You frown as you take in the poor women’s neck before looking at her stomach. Just above her navel is a perfectly circular hole.

“All three have them,” she tells you both. You look at Dean and he merely shrugs, pulling his phone out to send a picture to Sam. You turn your attention back to the file and skim the rest of it quickly. Three words catch your attention. Fetus heart missing. The file nearly slips from your hand. Dean looks over at your sharp intake of breath.

“What?” He asks. You set the file down with the other three slowly, your hands trembling.

“She was pregnant?” You ask Kaylee. The coroner nods, a sad look in her eyes.

“They all were. And all three of the fetus’ hearts were missing. The police kept that from the newspaper. Thought it was a little too gruesome,” she explains. Dean holds an arm out, reaching to steady you as you take a step backwards.

“I – I’m gonna go call Sam,” you tell Dean, turning for the door quickly. “Get whatever else we need.” You push your way through the door and start up the stairs to the main floor of the building. Stopping about halfway up, you sit down. You squeeze your eyes closed and take a few deep breaths, trying to keep the walls from closing in on you. Your ears start to ring and it isn’t long before you’re sobbing for the second time that day.

A moment later, the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs draws your attention. Through teary eyes, you can just make out Dean’s form as he takes a seat on the stairs next to you. He wraps an arm around your shoulders, pulling you close into his side. Your head comes to rest on his shoulder and he presses a kiss to your hair.

“I’m sorry, Y/N. If I had known, I wouldn’t have let you come,” he says, his voice soft and comforting. You shake your head slightly, unable to form any coherent words at the moment. “You wanna go back home?” Sitting up quickly to look at him, you shake your head again. He smiles gently and reaches up, wiping at your cheeks. “I can take you home then come back and help Sam finish the case up.” You swallow thickly and take a shaky breath.

“No. I – I want to stay and – and help,” you tell him. He nods and leans in, brushing his lips against your forehead gently.

“Then let’s get back to the room and see what Sam’s got,” he says. You nod and wipe the remnants of the tears from your cheek.

“Do I look like I’ve been crying?” You ask. He smiles and shakes his head.

“Nah,” he says. You let out laugh as you rise to your feet.

“You’re a terrible liar,” you tell him. He stands as well and takes your hand firmly in his, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“I’m a professional liar. I’ve just never been able to lie to you,” he says. You manage another short laugh and look down at your hands as he pulls you the rest of the way up the stairs. Biting your lip, you carefully pull your hand out of his. He looks at you as you reach the door.

“Probably lose my pull with the sheriff if he sees us together,” you explain before slipping through the door. Dean sighs and shakes his head as he follows.

The two of you quickly get copies of the police reports before heading back to the motel, stopping at a diner to pick up some dinner. You unlock the door and push it open for Dean to go inside.

“Hey,” Sam says, glancing up at the two of you as walk in together. He’s sat at the table in the corner with his laptop and John’s journal open in front of him. Dean sets the bags on the table.

“Got anything?” Dean asks, pulling out two burgers. You take one of them before reaching into the other bag and getting Sam’s salad out. He smiles at you as he takes it and nods, switching screens on his laptop. He turns it around towards the two of you to reveal an ancient painting depicting a creature of some sort that was seemingly split in half.

“I think it might be a Manananggal,” he says. You and Dean both look at him, raising an eyebrow. “It’s kind of like a vampire from the Philippines.”

“Seriously?” Dean asks, pulling his suit coat off and tossing it onto a chair. Sam nods, spinning his laptop back around.

“Yea. Lore says that they look human but split in half. Their upper torso then flies with bat-like wings during the night to prey on victims. And they’re meal of choice?” Sam trails off, leaning back in his chair. Dean frowns.

“Let me guess…fetal hearts?” He asks. You sigh and sit in the chair across from him, kicking your heels off. Sam nods opening the lid on his salad.

“They apparently have these long, tube-like tongues that can suck them out,” he says. You frown and set your burger down on the table.

“There went my appetite,” you say. Dean smiles a little and pats your shoulder before leaning back against the window sill.

“What else?” He asks his brother. Sam shrugs slightly.

“Ugh, they typically prey on sleeping victims, which would explain the lack of defensive wounds. They do feed on blood as well,” he tells you both. You run your hands over your face.

“Does it say how we can kill it?” You ask. The younger Winchester nods, switching tabs on his laptop.

“It does, actually. Ummmm – the lower half is the more vulnerable one. It says sprinkling salt, garlic, or ash on the lower half can keep the upper half from reattaching and it would die in the sunlight,” he reads. Dean nods, taking a big bite of his burger.

“Sounds easy enough,” he says, his mouth full. You pick at the bun of your own burger, still looking at Sam.

“Now how do we find out who it is?” You ask. Sam’s face falls slightly.

“That’s where I’m stumped. It just says that they’re usually, and I quote, ‘scary, hideous, females’,” he says. You sigh and shake your head, picking up the file with the police reports in it.

“Well we have to find it. And figure out where it’s taking these women from. Three pregnant women up and disappear? Someone has to be looking for them,” you say, opening the file. Dean reaches over and takes the file from you.

“It’s late. You should eat and try to get some sleep,” he tells you. You frown at him. “Y/N, please.”

“I’m not hungry, Dean,” you assure him, reaching for the file again. He pulls it away quickly. “Dean.”

“This will still be here in the morning. We aren’t going to make any major breakthroughs tonight. It’s been a long day. It was a long car ride and then earlier at the coroner’s office. Plus, that dream you had,” he says. You shake your head again, rising to your feet quickly. “Where are you going?” He asks.

“To bed apparently,” you snap at him as you make your way across the room. Grabbing a pair of shorts and one of Dean’s old shirts from your bag, you turn and go into the bathroom. You look at your reflection in the mirror and sigh. You’d already cried off most of your makeup so you wash your face quickly with some warm water.

You begin to undress slowly, taking your time. You run a hand down your abdomen and over the scar across your stomach. The nurses had told you what products to apply to it to help it heal but you’d never used any of them. A part of you didn’t want it to heal, afraid you might forget if it did. You take a deep breath, determined not to cry again and slip into the clothes you’d brought in with you.

As you’re standing over the sink, putting some toothpaste onto your toothbrush, a wave of exhaustion rushes over you. The toothbrush falls from your hand as you brace yourself against the sink to keep from falling over. Your mind begins to fog over and you swear you can hear a baby crying. Shaking your head, you reach over and pull the bathroom door open before stepping back into the room. Dean looks over and rises to his feet before starting across the room towards you.

“Y/N,” he starts but you hold up a shaky hand, cutting him off.

“Did either of you hear a baby crying?” You ask, causing Dean to stop dead in his tracks. The two brothers exchange brief looks before Dean closes the distance between the two of you, taking your arms into his hands gently.

“You okay?” He asks. You look at him as the exhaustion slips up on you again and frown, struggling to keep your eyes open.

“I – I think you were right. I – I must just be – be tired,” you tell him. He nods and slips an arm around your waist, carefully leading you to the bed. He helps you under the blanket as your eyelids quickly become too heavy to keep open any longer. The last thing you feel are his lips against your forehead as the baby’s cries begin to get louder and louder…

“Y/N, Ella’s awake,” you hear a man calling out to you. Ella’s awake. She’s crying. You rub at your eyes as you slowly sit up in the bed before looking at the baby monitor on the bedside table. The door to the master bathroom opens and Jackson steps out.

“It’s about time you woke up. She’s been crying for five minutes,” he says. You stare at him for a moment, trying to process everything. You were back in your bed. Your bed in your house. Not at the bunker. There is no bunker. There are no monsters. There’s just a beautiful house. A beautiful daughter. And a cheating husband.

***

Forever Tags: @roseblue373

Dream Warriors: @aylacavebear @winharry @djs8891 @suckitands33 @rickgrimeswifeu @deans-spinster-witch @jackles010378 @foxyjwls007 @alisyacsa @cutiesarah @urinternetmom @justrealizedimmascifygurl l @kr804573

#fanfic #fanfiction #supernatural #spn #dean winchester #reader insert #dean x y/n #dean x you #dean x reader #supernatural fanfic #supernatural fanfiction #dream warriors

[cemeteryspider]

Dearie~ Part 3

Alastor x Singer! Reader

Summary: You and Alastor are reunited, that doesn't come without consequences.

Trigger Warnings: Violence, gore, blood, injury, manipulation, emotional distress, abuse, physical restraints

Word Count: 1638

Previous | Next

Vox left you with Velvette to try on outfits for the show and to get ready for the runway you would walk later today. Velvette was not in the mood to take any shit, so Vox knew you would be on your best behavior while you were with her. You had been on the receiving end of Velvette's show day tantrums many times before.

Walking up the stairs to Valentino's room he recognized shouting and many things, most likely expensive things, breaking. Taking a deep breath he opened the doors to see Val seething. The air in Valentino's room hung heavy with the acrid scent of demon rage, shattered glass crunching beneath Vox's shoes as he entered. It turns out Angel Dust was at some hotel, and Val wanted to go after him himself. 

After Valentino was coaxed off that precipice of fury, an uneasy calm settled over the room.

"There's someone else at that hotel, whatever it's called, Hazbin Hotel" A glitch crossed Vox's face when he heard the word. Something he taunted Alastor with a long time ago. He regained his composure quickly.

"What, someone who owes you money?"

"Someone who owes us a lot more than money... the Radio Demon"

In that moment, Vox's composure shattered like glass, a buffering error adorned his screen momentarily before showing off a darkened expression.

"How in the infernal realms is he back? It's impossible." Vox's mind raced, the return of the Radio Demon dredging up memories and fears he thought were buried.

"Maybe not because no one has gotten involved yet"

"What does this mean for us, Val?"

"It means that maybe we SHOULD send a message after all"

~~~

A simmering inferno surged within Alastor, threatening to engulf every fiber of his demonic essence as he inspected his Darling in chains. His Darling was displayed on every single screen across town. Velvette's newest lingerie, a silk veil of temptation, clung to her form. The worst part is the chains around her wrists and throat held by none other than Vox himself.

Vox's smile flickered like a dying ember, a harbinger of the storm that loomed within. Vox knew he was back in town and would do anything to get under his skin. The Radio Demon had to plan his next steps very carefully so as to not get his Darling hurt anymore than this silly picture show campaign already has.

Others have seemed to notice the provocative ads. Lesser demons took pictures like they were in fear that somehow they would never be able to see them again. Little did they know Vox would never allow that to happen.

~~~

"See sweet thing, was that so hard?"

Vox smiled at her place on the ground. Her body was covered in bruises from the hellish chains wrapped around her body. Valentino clapped from his director's chair.

"Look at you! You would look so good in my next movie, Dollface!"

Vox's gaze snapped upward, a storm of anger and defiance brewing in his crimson eyes.

"Valentino, that was not the deal. This is the only public ad campaign that she will do for you and Velvette's line currently. Until I say otherwise! Is that clear Val dearest"

Val nodded, his eyes rolling with a theatrical flourish, "Well, I must be going, other things to do and all that. Tata"

Val left the studio leaving you and Vox alone in the room together. The chains dissipated and you were left to sit up on your own accord.

"What would you say to dinner, Sugar?"

~~~

Alastor did his best to keep tabs on you, but Vox's security made it incredibly difficult. Not impossible however.

"Hello, Angel, how are you on this hellish day?"

"Heaven, Smiles what do you want"

"I was wondering if you had any idea what Vox wants with this dame?"

It took nearly all of his strength not to call you his, in that moment, but nothing could jeopardize getting you home and safe at this point.

"Her? Oh Vox's plaything... all I saw was her leavin' the studio with him. She had this look in her eyes. Nothing good when it comes to the Vees that's for sure"

"Any ideas on where they were going?"

"Vox was talking to some lady about a reservation. Something fancy I assume, Rosie's something"

With that little bit of knowledge Alastor made his way to Cannibal Town.

~~~

"Why did you wanna come here, Sug, this place is not quite your scene"

"Just a place I used to frequent"

You played aloof. Vox didn't know about your ties to Rosie, and if you played your cards right Rosie would understand the dire situation and get Alastor down here swiftly.

"Well I suppose coming here one last time wouldn't hurt, ay"

Your brows furrowed together and you silently wished this wouldn't be your last time here. After all, you and Rosie were practically inseparable before the deal went down.

The server made eye contact with you and recognized you immediately. Quickly the cannibal scurried off, with all the hope in your black heart to find Rosie.

Without a minute going by Rosie made her way over to your table. Luckily Vox was rambling on about some sort of angelic security and hardly noticed your lack of a response.

"Hello Darlings, I don't think I've had such overlords grace one of my tables in quite a while, hm"

Her eyes darted towards you after addressing the first comment to Vox. She scanned your body and quickly found the many dark marks marring your frail flesh.

"Yeah well, Dearest here wanted to see this place again. Must have some good food"

"Yes well, I like to think so, what can I do for you"

"Whatever she'd like, I'll stick with the... atmosphere"

He started to tap away on his phone. Probably firing someone for a poor job. Better that then in person.

"The usual please, Rosie"

"Of course dear, it'll be done in a jiff"

With a swift motion, she darted off to the kitchen. As the door closed, you released a small, relieved sigh.

With Vox's back towards the door he didn't even notice Alastor waltz in. Once he made eye contact with you he made a show of walking into the back. The very lounge that you had shared so many cups of tea and spilled so much more.

"Vox, I really must go use the ladies room"

"Don't be long, don't want to send a search party"

He chuckled but the look on his face told a completely different story. If you try to run away there will be consequences.

Calmly you stood up as Vox went back to his phone furiously tapping away. You rushed to the back room where Alastor had just walked into and closed the door quietly behind you.

"Oh, mi amor, what have they done to you?"

His arms wrapped around you and you allowed yourself a moment of real vulnerability you haven't felt since Alastor left town.

"Oh Darling, how happy I am to see you. I've missed you so"

You knew you only had a few minutes together before you would have to go, but you savored this time.

Words spoken and unspoken drifted between the two of you before a familiar chain wrapped itself around your throat, and pulled you back from Alastor.

Regaining his composure he tried to help you when the door burst open to reveal Vox. Rosie was on the floor behind him, a pink handprint visible across her cheek and an immense look of sadness across her features.

"I should have known. To think I was doing something nice for you, and you t̴͊͜u̷͕̅ȓ̶̠ṅ̷̖ ̶̩̄a̸̼͋g̴̱̓a̶̙̾ḭ̷̓ṅ̴̜s̸̥̐t̷̅͜ ̵͙̉m̵͖͠ē̸͉ ̶̭͝"

The chain shortens until your throat is encased in Vox's fist. Alastor goes to summon his tentacles, but Vox just tuts reminding him of the deal.

"Allie, my dear, she's in capable hands," Vox taunted, his fingers tightening, suffocating breath and igniting tears in your eyes.

Alastor's mind raced, a tempest of thoughts seeking an escape route from this infernal contract. His beloved was caught in the crossfire of their shared history, a pawn in Vox's grand play. The radio waves that once echoed with whimsical tunes now crackled with tension, mirroring the turmoil within the Radio Demon's heart.

Yet, within this maelstrom of despair, a spark of defiance flickered. Alastor's gaze met Vox's with an unwavering intensity, a silent promise that echoed through the tangled threads of their shared past.

"Leave, Al, and I will make the punishment merciful" Vox's voice dripped with disdain, each word carefully enunciated as if savoring the bitterness.

The silence stretched, a taut thread ready to snap, as Alastor and Vox locked eyes. The weight of their shared history hung in the air, a storm waiting to break.

Aware of the impending defeat, Alastor retreated, vengeance echoing in his mind, a dormant storm waiting for the right moment to strike.

~~~

As he walked the dimly lit streets of the damned city, Alastor's steps were heavy with the weight of uncertainty, his once confident stride now faltering with doubt. The neon lights flickered overhead, casting eerie shadows that danced along the cobblestone pavement, mirroring the disarray within his own fractured psyche.

The air hung heavy with the weight of his decision, a silent acknowledgment of defeat that reverberated through the empty streets like a funeral dirge. Yet, amidst the despair, a spark of defiance flickered, a stubborn refusal to surrender to the whims of fate.

For as long as there was breath in his lungs and fire in his soul, Alastor vowed to fight, to defy the shackles of fate and reclaim what was rightfully his. His Darling deserved better than to be a pawn in Vox's twisted game, a mere puppet dancing to the whims of a malevolent puppeteer.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #hazbin hotel alastor #hazbin charlie #hazbin angel dust #radio demon #alastor hazbin hotel #alastor x reader #hellaverse #alastor #hazbin #valentino #vox #hazbin hotel vees #hazbinhotel #hazbin hotel 2024

[underscorewriting]

Never miss.

Simon ‚Ghost‘ Riley x Reader

Warnings: mentions of character dying, angst, gore? but not really

Word count: 2 173

bang.

as soon as his bullet left his gun he knew something was wrong. He couldn’t describe the anxiety that was blossoming in his stomach but he knew, whatever it was, was going to be fatal.

A quiet gasp broke him out of his stare, out of his feelings, feelings he should not have at this very moment. Your hands were clenching your stomach tightly, blood oozing.

It didn’t make sense to him… why were you bleeding?

The dots connected and his eyes widened. Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley never misses… until now. The man he tried to kill, decided to kill him. Decided to pull the only thing that could make him, make Ghost loose all senses of life or death, in front of him as Simons finger pulled the trigger.

When had you gotten here? His heart was beating fast, he didn’t understand what just happened. His hand was shaking, his gun was shaking. It wasn’t before he was sure. His aim wasn’t off he knew that.

His eyebrows furrowed as he took in the scene. It felt like hours were passing as he watched you fall to the ground.

It has been five seconds since his bullet hit you. Since he signed your death.

Simon felt like he couldn’t breath, like the air he was breathing was mocking him, telling him that you won’t be the only thing to die today.

The man had already gotten away. He did not think that his plan would work, after all ‘Ghost’ was known for his coldness, he didn't think the deadly soldier would stop in his track for a mere girl. But this wasn’t ‘Ghost’, not in this exact moment.

The moment he saw the blood, your blood, in comparison to your skin, he was Simon. Your Simon.

His eyes were glued to you as your form was about to hit the ground, the dirty ground who is not worthy of your being. He felt like he was going to throw up, was this normal? He wanted to forget what fear tastes like, he thought he did forget it.

Has it always tasted this bitter?

He couldn't remember. He felt numb, felt. Not in this very moment though. As if something snapped inside him, his feet carried him towards you in an instant, his strong arms catching you before the damned ground could even think about touching you. His teeth were gritted, anger and anxiety climbed their way up his throat like bile searching for a way to torture him for the crime he just committed.

"Lieutenant..?" Your voice was weak as you looked up to him, shock clear on your face, lip trembling and paling. He wouldn't let you go, not like this. You were going to be okay, he knew it. Fuck, he was going to do everything to make sure that you survive this.

"Y/N..."

Who was this talking? How did he feel his lips move, but not his voice coming out? Who was this man talking?

His voice was unsure, shaking almost. If he was in the right state of mind right now, he'd have called it 'whiny' maybe even annoying.

A soft smile pulled at your lips, before you winced quietly. "Hey at least you didn't miss completely?" You couldn't help but giggle weakly as you squeezed your eyes shut. Your skin burning like you were set on fire.

Never had Simon wanted to bathe in something so pure and innocent as your laughter, he would be on his knees begging for you to laugh carefree in this exact moment. For your eyes, how he wish you would open them right now, he couldn’t get enough of them. The way you expressed everything, every little emotion, through your eyes made him feel dizzy at times.

Fuck, not only at times. Every time he found himself staring at you he wished he could've stopped. He wished he could've forced his eyes away from you, from your smile, your eyes. Your everything.

Right now he was too scared to even look away from you.

"Don't say shit like that." His voice was barely above a whisper, he was scared. Scared like a kid, like he was as a kid. "You were just starting to like me, Gh-." He shook his head.

He never even disliked her to begin with, how could he? You were everything he could ever long for, but he couldn't have you. He couldn't infest your pureness, but now? What was all of his protection of your light from his darkness worth if you would die, because of him?

"Stop saying that shit right now, Y/N. I never once disliked you, angel...." His voice broke slightly. He had to call you this at least one time, even if it would be the last time.

"Ghost-" "Simon. Call me Simon, angel..."

How was he ever able to call her something else? Calling you 'angel' felt right, it felt like it already belonged to you ever since you stepped into his life, annoying the shit out of him.

"Simon..."

A weak smile formed on your lips. They were tinted with your own blood, tears gathering in your eyes as you coughed up blood.

The blood splattered onto his masks, marking him with the blood of his victim.

He felt sick to his stomach, he couldn't care less about the blood on his masks. The emotions were too much for him, how could he survive with the guilt if he was already suffocating?

"It's okay, Si... I'm okay." You had always wanted to call him that, now seemed like the right time.

"N-no you're not, love."

He reached for his pager. "Man down, sent medical troop to location." His voice was shaking as he informed the base of your situation. "They're gonna get here soon, okay? You just stay with me, okay?" Simon was panicking.

You couldn't help but look up to this wonderful asshole above you.

Your eyes felt heavy.

As soon as the doors opened your eyes closed.

As the medical team arrived they saw the silhouette of Simon and you. He was holding your wound and caressed you hair softly, you head was rested on his lap. His hold on you was tight, protective. No one could hurt you anymore.

"Her pulse is weak." He said cold and low. His eyes not darting away from your blood covered face. "Take her to the base and treat her." He picked you up with ease before handing you to someone he trusted.

Simon didn't look back at you.

A few weeks later you were finally able to leave the hospital bed to walk around a bit. Luckily Simon didn't hit any important organs, but even if he did, they said they still would've been able to save her.

Counting the days you waited for Simon to visit you. He didn't, not once, nor did anyone mention him asking about you. You still looked rough, your rib cage still bruised from the impact of the shot, the shot wound wasn't completely closed yet, but it was covered by a bandage.

Looking at the wound it caused something inside you to go into a state of shock sometimes. It reminded you of death, made you taste the foul taste of dying over and over again.

It reminded you of the pain, the pain you felt knowing that Simon would have to live with the guilt of killing you if they wouldn't have been able to safe you.

Walking around the halls you can't help but notice that somehow Simon wasn't here either. Normally you'd be able to find Simon wander around the halls every minute of the day.

The hope was starting to leave you, had he forgotten about you?

As you walked into the group room you couldn't help but smile slightly. He was there. He was sitting with König and Soap. Walking towards them you smiled exhausted.

It’s as if your presence upset him, because the moment you were in front of him, Simon got up brushed softly against your arm and left. His whole body was tense as he brushed past you.

Why?

Why were you being treated as if you did anything wrong?

Anger flared up in your stomach as you turned away from Soap and König, quickly following Simon.

“Get lost, Y/N.” He sounded rough. His voice raspy and hoarse.

“No. What’s wrong with you?”

You arrived at his room door and he sighed leaning his forehead against it. “Nothing, just get lost.”

He wouldn’t look at you.

He just couldn’t.

“Why didn’t you visit..?” Your voice was quiet, vulnerable. You had wanted him there, wished he would’ve been there for you.

Treating your wounds alone hurt so much more than it did whenever Simon helped you.

Dealing with pain was so much worse than it was when Simon was there to annoy you with his sarcasm.

A low sigh escaped Simons lips as he shook his head.

“Don’t even try saying the ‘you were busy and you couldn’t’ bullshit. Because we both know you could’ve.”

Simon chuckled dryly.

“You shouldn’t be close to me.”

Your features softened as your lips parted in a silent gasp, immediately understanding what he meant.

“Simon…” Your voice was soft. Compassionate.

“I almost fucking killed you.” His voice was shaking and unsteady.

“But you didn’t, Si.“

“Whenever I close my eyes I see you laying there… in your own fucking blood. My bullet dragging its way through your chest”

His words left a burning sensation in your chest. You should’ve known it would be bad for him, maybe even worse for you. But you hadn’t thought that Simon, the Simon even you knew to be cold towards who he shot or killed, would be close to tears at the memory of you laying in your own blood.

Almost dying. Almost.

„Simon look at me.“

Your voice was determined. You wanted him to look at you, to see and realize that you’re still here.

That he did not kill you.

His hands were trembling as he held onto the doorknob. He shook his head. He couldn’t.

„Simon.“

You could hear him curse. He was fighting himself. He knew he shouldn’t be close to you, shouldn’t even be breathing the same air as you.

But he had to know. He had to make sure you’re okay and see that you’re still alive. That you’re here and breathing.

Simon slowly turned around, it was visible on his face that he was fighting against the fear, the guilt.

As he turned around you slowly walked closer to him, wanting to make sure he feels you being here as well.

His eyes would focus on every part of you except your eyes, he would not look into your eyes.

The moment he first looked at you, his shoulder suddenly stopped feeling so heavy. His heart sped up. His eyes felt weird, he didn’t like how they felt.

„I’m here Simon…“ Your voice was quiet, gentle, as you reached up and softly touched his cheek, leaving him enough room to pull away.

You saw his eyes filling with tears as they finally connected with yours a quiet sob which you barely caught made your lips part as you looked up to him with admiration.

„I’m so sorry, angel…“

His voice broke as he held onto your hand on his cheek, tears hitting your skin leaving a burning behind.

His eyes held so much pain it hurt your heart. It made it unbearable to look at him but somehow it made your heart grow even fonder of him in this special moment.

„I know…I’m not angry at you Simon.“ A soft and gentle smile graced your lips. „I never was, I don’t think I would’ve been if you did it on purpose. That’s how much power you have over me…“ The last few words just slipped out of your mouth, but oh did you mean them.

A quiet chuckle came from the man in front of you. „You got me crying in the hallway in front of my room, angel. Think about how much power you have over me…“

His hand came up to your cheek caressing it softly, the calluses on his hand felt rough, leaving a tingle in its awakening.

Closing your eyes you leaned into his touch, feeling protected and safe.

„I never thought I’d say this, but I’m happy you shot me, Simon.“ Your voice held a teasing tone as you heard him huff in mock annoyance at your words.

„Fucking hell, maybe I should’ve aimed better- Hey!“ A chuckle erupted from his chest as you hit his shoulder, looking up to him in mock anger.

His arms wrapped around you like he was a touch starved little boy. His embrace felt warm, safe. He rested his head on top of yours closing his eyes. A soft sigh of relief left his lungs as he squeezed you softly, being sure to avoid your wound.

„You’re here…“

„I’m here.“

#simon ghost riley #simon riley smut #simon riley x you #simon riley x reader #simon ghost x reader #ghost cod #ghost mw2 #ghost x reader #ghost x reader angst #angst #simon riley angst #simon ghost riley x you

[angelic-dew]

yandere kokushibo headcannons !

✧༉‧₊˚୨ 📎 ୧・author's note; ooooo~ I haven't made a banner in so long- I hope this came out decent lol

✧༉‧₊˚୨ 👁 ୧・request :: " Hiiii :) Idk if you take requests for this fandom but please do either Kokushibo or Inosuke yan hcs please! btw love your work <33 "

✧༉‧₊˚୨ 🍙 ୧・pairing; Yandere ! Kokushibo x G/N reader ( with you/your pronouns.)

✧༉‧₊˚୨✖୧・trigger warnings; yandere behavior (obviously), possessive nature, stalking, kidnapping, mentions of human flesh/organs, cannibalism, murderous tendencies and motives, delusions, eye puns, jealousy, small mentions of sexual intercourse but not detailed, grammatical errors and descriptions of gore. if you are sensitive towards this content, please dni for it will be mentioned.

⚝. Just a reminder I don't tolerate nor do I encourage the following topics in reality; I like keeping it strictly to fiction.

ॄ⿻🍙 | Oh my, this was certainly a new feeling, wasn't it? it's been centuries since he's ever felt this way; so passionate, so needy, his eyes filled with pure desire and want for his precious angel. In fact, he recalls never ever feeling this sort of emotion even in his human life, he has never felt this way; surely, this feeling he was getting had a reasonable answer, right?

ॄ⿻👁 | Whenever he saw you passing by from within the shadows, the heat suddenly rises to his face and creates such an adorable, faint yet visible blush to the naked eye which tints his pale cheeks rather nicely. It could've just been particularly hot out! that's the explanation. Or maybe how his heart tends to skip a beat every now and then, maybe even getting a playful swarm of butterflies to cheerfully waltz around in his stomach each time he catches a mere glimpse of your angelic, seraphic smile. He didn't know what to make of himself in those moments indeed. It was probably due to the fact he hasn't been feasting enough! That's a reasonable explanation.

ॄ⿻🍙 | Still! the demon could not bring himself to come to reasonable terms with all of this pandemonium brewing within him. The eccentric, yet painstaking feeling of utter lust coursing through his veins at each passing moment of each passing day. It was beyond repulsive towards him, disgusting, terrible. However, as much as he attempted to fight the urge within he was weak. Pitiful. Even deficient in his trials to forget about you. You were a necessary staple in his life.

ॄ⿻👁 | He needed more of you! just a small glance was worth a hundred years off his immortality and so it would be worth it. Just to see your majestic, soft locks of hair gently sway in the wind as your nose crinkled up like paper from your adorable, genuine smile; it was truly, a sight for sore eyes and indeed a sight that should only be put on display for him and for him only.

ॄ⿻🍙 | He would stalk you, if it wasn't obvious by now, always keeping a close but distant eye(s) away from you during the periods when the luminescent moon would shine the brightest in the ebony, galactic ether. Watching your motionless body rest ever so peacefully, observing your physique for all your features. Your curves to your smallest noticeable features. Even counting your breathing patterns by the second as you lay there, unaware but peaceful.

ॄ⿻👁 | Heavenly, was the only word to describe your appearance to Kokushibo. Your looks were unmatched by another, everything about you was absolutely divine and exquisite. Your skin was so perfect, your hair was always the most gorgeous sight to intake, your soft locks always complimented your body nicely; your eyes as well, they were truly breath-taking. You were just an angel sent from heaven, for him.

ॄ⿻🍙 | Kokushibo would also take it upon himself to gain entail on your interests, hobbies and routine, but of course, in doing that, there will always be an obstacle to overcome. The worst part per se. There's always those disgusting, foul humans that try to talk and get close to his angel, do they even know they're infecting you with their filthy nature? Those mortals didn't even know the upper rank 1 placed his eyes on you first, his precious, and he won't let anything be a problem when it comes to you. He can't afford for it to happen.

ॄ⿻👁 | Although Kokushibo looks solemn through it all, his blood is at boiling levels your mind would not be able to comprehend. If looks could kill, daggers would be piercing those repulsive creatures left, right and centre by now. However, he must refrain from taking action at that point in time, patience is key. Especially in daylight where he watches from the shadows, it makes him feel tedious when he sees those interactions between his angel and those pesky parasites.

ॄ⿻🍙 | So for inraging the upper moon 1, he takes matters into his own hands and prepares a full night of torture for his most unfortunate victims who cross paths with you. He loves to use his bare nails to ever so slowly create gashes within the poor human's flesh before tearing a limb off clean from its socket. Kokushibo absolutely adores the screams and cries of pure agony they make from the immense torture but that's only the beginning, for the fortunate victims.

ॄ⿻👁 | I do like to imagine he has performed a 'surgery' on one of his most pestilent 'patients' who flirted with you that faithful day. It was rather fun and such a bloody sight! Sharp, quick tears of human flesh being split open under broad, soft moonlight through the thick canopy of trees. Having a marvelous display of the human anatomy, from the muscles to the ribs of the person. It seems as if Kokushibo skinned them alive.

ॄ⿻🍙 | With their muscles being torn open slowly with the assistance of his powerful jaws; revealing the skeletal structure as well as slimy organs pulsing. Only an expressionless look could be found on Kokushibo's face as his mouth is drenched in the blood of his victim's. Finally, to end this suffering once and for all, he caresses the human's heart before gouging it out completely with one tight pull.

ॄ⿻👁 | For days! screams of pain, sorrow and agony emanated from the dense forest. Corpses and mutilated bodies were the only things left behind afterwards. It was the act of a malicious creature indeed.

ॄ⿻🍙 | With time you became paranoid that you'd be next on the hit list since others whom you loved and were with you always vanished, the only last traces of them being their unrecognizable corpse after. How sad. Little did you know, the person who was causing these disappearances was growing tired of having you by yourself. He needed to have you, feel you, touch you, be with you.

ॄ⿻👁 | So thats what he did, after one night of finally holding your limp body fast asleep within his strong arms and which were much dirty from previous matter, he finally had you in his grasp. And it felt amazing! The mass amounts of waves of pure pleasure flooded over him at the simple touch of your bare skin, it was great.

ॄ⿻🍙 | Soon after, you awoke when the sun just peaked over the horizon, confusion looming through the atmosphere. You weren't in your room, you weren't home, you were unfamiliar with everything in this place. Surely, it looked cozy and nice but you were horrified. What could this place be?

ॄ⿻👁 | You did some exploring of the cozy home and found and exit, opening it to only be revealed to upper moon one. And he was touring and big compared to your built. His blank stare was cold and you could feel shivers and cold sweat running down your back gradually. He smiled softly. Your blood ran cold as he spoke up to introduce himself to you, before laying down some ground rules.

ॄ⿻🍙 | You weren't a pet so that was utter crap! no matter how many protests you put up he always was calm and eerily quiet about it. However, that doesn't mean you'd get off scot-free, your punishments were never usually sexual, that was used as a reward; if you were comfortable with it. But they did consist of you being isolated for extended periods of time without food and barely any drink or you were forced to eat cooked flesh from your own kind.

ॄ⿻👁 | He would never hurt you though but don't test him too much, his patience isn't to be taken for granted. Attempt one slick move and a bone will be broken to prevent further instances. Isn't that fair darling? He's only giving you what you wanted; anything you could possibly want from the prettiest clothing to the shinest jewelry to the most delicious food. He can do it all, just love him!

ॄ⿻🍙 | Muzan would probably not care about his newfound obsession. For the most part, he'd encourage Kokshibo to be with you, only feeding into his tendencies; as long as it does not disturb his work. So, there's really no happy end, for you, however, he does have a different story to tell. Maybe you'll love him, cherish him like how he does with you. Show him the affection that he's always dreamed of! Be his. He'd do anything to protect his angel.

ॄ⿻👁 | And for the record, there are all six eyes on you, I suggest you don't plan on anything foolish.

© angelic-dew, please don't reclaim or translate without permission <3

#headcanon #yande.re #demon slayer #kimitsu no yaiba #yandere demon x reader #yandere demon slayer #yandere kokushibo #kokushibo #upper moons #tw: yandere #tw: gore #male yandere #yandere kimetsu no yaiba #kokushibo x reader #kokushibo x y/n #kokushibo x you #kny x y/n #kny #yandere blog #aaahhhh #yandere kokushibo x reader #yandere x reader

[foressfaction]

:Ticci Toby:{A Rewrite}

WARNING:: This story contains EXTREMELY triggering topics such as Domestic/Child/Substance abuse, Death, harsh language, GORE and dissociation triggers.

This story mentions mental illnesses and disorders such as Depression, PTSD, ADHD, and Tourette's Syndrome.

!!TICS MAY BE TRIGGERING!!

Prologue

So it begins. The boy tugged on the skirt of a middle aged woman. She was his mom. Her hair was short, cut into a nice layered bob, though it had grown over time, it at one point was a pixie cut. She had diamond shaped ruby earrings on, in an attempt to look formal. Her name, it rolled off the tongue very smoothly, Connie Rogers.

"Why are there so many old people here?" The brunette boy asked. Connie's son, who's name also seemed pretty vague. Tobias Rogers.

The woman was quick to correct him, shushing him loudly while murmuring under her breath with a hint of embarrassment on her face. "Toby! Haha, I'm so sorry about him," she yearned off the stares she got from her son's odd choice of a question. And a rather rude one too. Toby had always been quite the weird kid. He said what was on his mind, whatever it was, and when he wanted to say it. Maybe the question would've been better at a funeral, or a grandma's birthday party. Do grandma's have birthday parties? Toby wouldn't know honestly. He never did meet his mom's mom. That's a funny way to put it.

The two were currently at a 'meet the teacher' day. Y'know, the day about a week before the first day of school. For Toby, he will be starting the 6th grade. To him, school has always been a joke. He barely passed 5th grade and was one point away from having to be stuck doing summer school. He had never been a people person either, especially with other kids his age.

"Are any of these people actually going to be important?" Toby asked, earning a glance from his mom. Her dark circles are more visible than ever.

"I'm sure they will be, look, that's your principal, you should probably go say hi, or....something. I have a lot of paperwork to fill out. Go have a look around, stretch your legs, we've been walking all day."

Toby made a spitting noise as if he thought that was one of the most boring things she could've said. He bared his braced teeth. Meet his principal? He didn't realize going to a different school would be so tiring. Toby eventually left her side, wandering out into the empty halls. Oh so that's why there was a big sign on the door that read 'staff only.' Not like that mattered to him, no one saw, no one had to know. Despite it being a day for his entire grade to be here, it was almost like the halls were abandoned. His mind was always a little trickster, it would make him believe something when that 'something' isn't in existence. Toby took some steps forward, then found himself walking further away from the chattering of the people from the room he was just in. His entire body felt cold, chills running up and down his broken nerves.

It was kind of eerie, not gonna lie. The only thing Toby could hear was the pitter patter on his own shoes, the same old shoes he's had for years. Honestly surprised the souls haven't torn off yet. The boy found himself turning multiple corners and met with endless hallways of lockers. He's never seen a locker before. There were thousands of them, atleast, that's what his mind was showing him. 'Did I take my medicine?' was the first thing he thought to himself as he continued down these narrow halls. He was over thinking the reason why his mom shooed him away, probably because he was a distraction, or knew he needed one. As uncanny as this felt, Toby found himself quite occupied. He had started counting the lockers, every one of them, and remembered the exact number of lockers on the 8th hallway.

That's suddenly when he saw that one part of the hallway's lights were off. It was right smack in the middle of the hallway, so why did those lights not work? Toby grew curious so he started to inch towards the area. That's when he noticed they weren't just off, but flickering a little.

He knew this feeling a little too well. That feeling of being watched, judged. He couldn't quite put his finger on it. He felt the air grow thick around him, as if gross, slimy water had just been poured onto him, soaking him to the heavy weight of being drenched. This of course actually didn't happen, but it felt like it did.

Toby turned around quickly, hearing something behind him, then again in front of him. He thought he was going to give himself whiplash from all of the darting of his head. Nothing was there though, nothing of sight, atleast. When Toby looked back to the hallway where the lights were supposedly off, he noticed they were working now. This caught him a little off guard, but as he looked closer, he could see that even further down than before, lights were off.

It was leading him further down the hallway?

Toby shook his head. "No that's not real." He whispered. "That's not r-real," he once again whispered with a little more voice. He felt that if the longer he looked, the more that feeling of tightness would increase.

Toby turned his back to the suffering lights, inching his way back to the room he was in not too long ago, with his mom. He turned the corner, only to nearly run into the frantic woman. "There you are, goodness, I thought you left this building." She spoke in a rather worried tone, taking his hand into hers, her rings were cold against his fingers. "You're really warm, are you okay? Are you sweating?"

Toby looked at her quickly, confusion sweeping him. "Am i?" He asked out while taking his free arm and wiping his forehead. Behold, bits of what felt like condensation rubbed off his skin. "Well we can forget meeting your teachers, I have your schedule here. I don't want you overheating again in all those layers, you know you can't feel temperatures to an extreme, you know this." She slightly scolded. Toby was just confused. He didn't feel too hot, he didn't know he was sweating. He does struggle with a certain disorder where he could technically place his hand on a lit stove and not feel a thing, despite his flesh melting off and severely damaging his hand. If anything it would just feel warm.

It was sad to be reminded he wasn't like the other normal kids in his grade, and certainly wasn't looking forward to another year of the constant reminders either. "I will be more aware next time." He stated, tone sounding a bit degraded.

It wasn't long before the two brunettes were on their way home. Toby was gazing out of the window, sitting in the backseat with his legs pulled up into a hug. The ride was silent, but his mom had never been too talkative after the last few months. Things weren't too good at home. Though he was going to go to a different school, they still lived in this dump of a house. Denver was a nice city, but in winters it was hard to stay warm, and in summers it was hard to stay cool. The house overall just about had it.

And the family knew that.

Toby finally broke the silence as the car hit a few road bumps. "There's exactly 286 lockers in the school." There was a moment of silence, but when he expected an answer there was nothing. "Mom?" He called out, not moving from his position but did lean his head over to try to peek into the rear view mirror that hung on the roof of the car.

He could see makeup running down her face, hands clenched onto the steering wheel tightly. If he listened closely, he could hear sniffling.

Toby knew better than to barge into questions but this time he knew the answer. He would have the same reason to cry, but lately he hadn't been able to feel much emotion at all. He, again, only saw life as a joke, nothing was real, no matter how hard he pushed away the reality. A 20 minute drive full of sniffles and awkward silence finally ended as the brown Subaru pulled into the cracked driveway to an old two story house.

The thing looked as if it was gonna fall in at any given moment. On the inside it was pretty big, still had carpet though it was old and stained, very stained.

A couple of whistles left Toby, followed by a few uncomfortable popping sounds from his neck. He had something called Tourette's Syndrome which caused the boy to jerk and tic uncontrollably. It was very uncomfortable for both him and those having to witness it. If he wasn't careful, he could accidentally hit someone, or himself. Which he does occasionally. Toby stepped out of the car to see the man standing on the porch, cigarette in hand. Seemed like he didn't see them pull into the driveway. Toby knew he did.

Toby noticed his mom left the folder of his school rules and other stuff in the car on the dashboard. He opened the door to reach in and grab it, his hand slipping with a slight tic, accidentally honking the horn, making the woman jump.

"Fuck- sorry, fuck! Sorry!" The boy jumped to coo out as he held the folder up. "Got it-"

Toby quickly closed the door to head inside, hearing the man spur something up. "Fuckin' boy." He muttered in a southern accent.

Toby paid no mind as it was something he was used to, rushing into the house and sitting the folder onto the counter, opening it and looking at all the papers. "Oh there were 287 lockers..I was off by one." He had his finger on where it stated the fact. He didn't understand why he was so fixated on the locker count. Gave him a distraction probably.

Toby moved the papers just enough to peer at his schedule, something he didn't have at his old school. "Wait mom? Why did you sign me up for public classes?"

The folder was snagged away from his hands, probably giving him a paper cut. "Stop complainin' and suck it up, it's about time you learn with other kids." The man scolded. Toby could see the vein popping from his forehead. The same shaggy blond buzz cut blanketed the man's head. His dad; he carried a name that would make anyone grimace just hearing it, Jacob Rogers. "Dad!" Toby tried to take the folder back but that only earned him a smack on the hand with the rather hard plastic outsides of the yellow folder.

Toby glared slightly as he took a deep breath.

The brunette woman strolled in, setting her bag down on the small island counter as she rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Look, Toby, I tried to suggest special education, but they said that it was time for you to get to know your grade better, plus wouldn't it be great to hang around people who...Actually respond when you talk to them?" She spoke out, slightly raising her voice.

"But they were nice to me," Toby added, narrowing his eyebrows, taking glances at the folder in his dad's hands. "Can i atleast see it closer? Again?" He eyed the man after asking.

"Your sister takes public classes, so can you. It's time we stop babying you, you're 13 years old for fucks sake. Act like it."

"Jacob!" Connie shouted with an offended tone. She knew the man was an asshole but she usually tried to defend her kid's opinions. Their marriage hadn't been the best lately, especially after her husband started to waste their money and abuse alcoholic substances. Speaking of which, the blonde man held a dark green bottle in his hand that wasn't clinging to Toby's school information.

The second Toby noticed that his mom saw the bottle, he knew they were about to bicker.

He just didn't want to be in the middle of that, excusing himself from where he took a seat.

Toby disappeared upstairs to one of the rooms he called his own. It wasn't much, just a carpeted floor, a dark blue rug with matching bed sheets. Completely unintentional. His shelves consisted of vintage toys he never touched, books, a lamp, and other nick nacks. He only ever kept one thing out, a stuffed cow. Why? He honestly grew an attachment to it. The poor thing was ripped up in many places, had patches on the stomach and left side of the head. It looked derpy as hell but he loved it to death.

Sometimes though when he holds it, he can't help but remember the time he 'played tug-o-war' with his dad who eventually ripped the head completely off while trying to take it from him. His only reason was because 'he was too old.' No one is too old for a comfort item.

Toby crawled onto the bed and took the cow plush into his hands and stared down at it. He gently gnawed at the inside of his cheek, a habit he developed a while ago. "Today isn't the best day, Mr. Cowbells, will you make it better? At least until Lyra gets home.." He hugged the stuffie to his chest and stared down at his sheets. It wasn't long before what he assumed would happen started up. He heard their loud voices downstairs. He knew it wasn't going to be too long until he heard thrashes and door slams.

It was like this all day, everyday.

All day, everyday.

••••••I

#creepypasta #slenderverse #foressfaction #ticci toby #toby rogers #ticci toby creepypasta #ticcitobyrewrite #creepypastarewrite #fanfiction

[virtualreader]

a new ally

daryldixonxfem!reader

summary: after her father's death, the reader wanders the woods of Virginia for a while. she survived by collecting food and supplies from abandoned cabins. when her resources ran out and her end seemed to be near, a certain archer finds her just in time to save her.

word count: 1k.

warnings: blood, gore (twd typical stuff)

a/n: i wanted to remember y'all that my requests are open, don't hesitate to send yours and i'll do my best to write it!

blood covered your hands as you stood frozen in the middle of the room. your pulse was high, heart felt like it was going to jump out of your chest. there you stood, right hand still gripping firmly the small dagger, in front of the lifeless body of your dad.

he had protected you since the beginning of the apocalypse, finding food and shelter to keep you both alive. he had become your only ally in a world that had turned against you. but you knew you had to do it; it was inevitable. the fever had already settled in when you had found him, and the virus quickly took him away from you.

you took a deep breath before stabbing the sharp instrument into your father’s skull.

the dry leaves crunched under your feet as you walked through the woods looking for your next meal. to be honest, hunting was not exactly your thing. you would manage to catch some rabbits from time to time, but it was not enough to feed you properly.

if you kept up this pace, you doubted you would not make it through the autumn. you had run out of canned food two weeks ago, which forced you to use the little knowledge you had on hunting.

you sighed as the deer you had been tracking for two hours ran away. with your attempts to find something to eat proving useless, you returned to the small cabin you were staying in. you didn't want to waste any more time or the little energy you had left. at this point, you had gone three days without eating anything.

as you continued walking, you suddenly heard a sound behind you. you turned around quickly, only to find a crossbow aimed at your head. "don't move or I'll shoot an arrow to your skull!" a voice said. you slowly raised your hands, heart racing with fear.

“drop your weapon” the long-haired man demanded, ready to press the trigger if you tried anything.

as you released your grip on the bow, you felt it slip through your fingers and hit the ground with a loud thud. your legs were shaking so badly, it felt like they were made of jelly. you knew that your weakness was due to the malnutrition that had been plaguing you for weeks. you had been surviving on very little food, and it was starting to take its toll on your body.

"please don't kill me,” you said, your voice shaking with fear. “I was just looking for something to hunt." your knees finally gave up, leaving you kneeled in front of the stranger.

“any other weapons on ya that I should know of?” inquired the man as he kicked the bow away from you so you couldn't reach it. you shook your head to this, hoping he would believe you.

"you look awfully pale," the man said, lowering the crossbow. "what's your name?"

you hesitated for a moment, wondering if you could trust him. but you didn't really have a choice. "y/n," you answered, still feeling weak and dizzy. he seemed to sense your vulnerability and lowered his guard a bit.

"name’s Daryl," he said, offering you a hand to help you stand up. “ya on your own?”

“yes, yes I am.”

"when did ya last eat somethin’?”

“i don’t really remember,” your brow furrowed in concentration as you tried to recall the events of the past few days, but your mind was too foggy. “a couple of days ago, maybe three.”

Daryl looked at you with concern. "c’mon," he said, "let's get you something to eat." he led you back to his campsite, where he had a small fire going and some food cooking. as you sat down and started to eat, you couldn't believe how good it felt to have a hot meal in your stomach.

as you sat by the fire with Daryl, you found yourself opening up to him about the events that led you to the woods. you told him about your father and how you had to put him down when he turned into a walker. tears streamed down your face as you spoke, and Daryl just sat there quietly, listening to you.

when you finished, he put a hand on your shoulder and said, "it's not your fault." his words brought you a sense of comfort that you hadn't felt in a long time.

you spent the next few days recovering in Daryl's camp. he had been kind enough to share his food and supplies with you, and you couldn't thank him enough.

as you started to regain your strength, you found yourself drawn to him. there was something about him that made you feel safe and protected, and you couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to stay with him longer. however, you knew that the apocalypse was not a place for romance, so you forced yourself to push those thoughts out of your head.

you stayed with Daryl for a week, and during that time, he taught you how to hunt and track. he also showed you how to defend yourself against walkers and other threats. you were grateful for everything he had done for you, but you knew you couldn't stay with him forever.

one morning, as you were packing your things, Daryl approached you. "listen, I know you gotta go," he said, "but I just wanted to say...you're a good ally." you smiled at him, feeling a sense of warmth in your chest. "thanks," you said, "you're a good ally too."

with that, you said your goodbyes and headed back into the woods. as you walked away, you couldn't help but feel a sense of sadness. you had grown attached to Daryl, and you knew you would miss him. but you also knew that you had to keep moving forward, one step at a time.

#daryl dixon imagine #daryldixon #daryldixonxreader #twd #twdxreader #twd x reader #thewalkingdead #the walking dead #amc #norman reedus