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harveyb-wabbit92 · 2 years

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Submas Vampire AU: You get hurt.

Emmet:

[Afab/Drag king! reader.]

{Tw, stalking, blood, blood drinking, and stabbing.]

You winced in pain as you felt the stiches on your collarbone stretch under your shirt while putting on a T-shirt on, now regretting not letting the nurse help you get dressed, they told it was gonna be miserable! but in your adrenalin and pain killer fogged mind, you felt unstoppable and brushed off their assistance, but now ramifications on the whole situation was starting to hit you hard, you groaned in disdain eyeing the large bruise and band aid on your forehead. "Emmet's gonna freak!" you muttered warily, you know the hospital called him.

See what happened was You were at the cabaret bar this weeks theme was male video-game characters, everyone pulled a name at random, so there you were dressed as The sole Survivor from Fallout 4, while entertaining a group a girls, when closing time came around, one of the girls. (who you'd just learned just went through a nasty breakup.) had few tooo many and needed help getting to her cab.

So, you helped her get outside and you guessed it, her ex was there waiting! They got into it and you tried to break it up not seeing the knife in the man's hand, until...Well.... You aren't really sure what happened.

You remembered the girl screaming bloody murder at her ex and next you had a knife in you! You got pissed off! And somehow had grabbed the guy by the front of his shirt and headbutted him in the face, hard! He dropped like sack of potatoes as blood flowed like a facet from his nose! That was probably what the warm slimy stuff you felt dripping down your forehead was.

Meanwhile his ex-girlfriend continued to scream like an Aerodactyl, until some of your co-workers came outside to see what was going on? And understandably started freaking out over you! You kept telling them you were fine and were just gonna head home now, You even tried to take the knife out! Luckily your boss Troy (Real name: Trudy.) Stopped you as you reached for the handle and had you sit down on a bench, while their partner Madame Meringue (Real name: Marvin.} called an ambulance and the cops.

The doctor said it was good you were wearing that lifejacket (You were wearing a vault security costume, and needed a bulletproof vest for your costume, the real ones were too expensive so you improvised.) It took most of the damage so you only had a minor cut on your shoulder that needed a few stitches.

And after wiping the blood off your forehead revealed there was another small cut that was quickly taken care of, and as for the guy who stabbed you? Well, you learned later that your super effective headbutt, not only broke his nose. But also knocked out three of his front teeth and gave him two black eyes! And no his Ex did not go back to him, she may have been drunk, but she wasn't stupid! And his "grand gesture" for getting her back (Yes his dumbass though she'd left him for you.) just solidified her decision to stay single! Hopefully his stalking ass will learn something from this, though you doubted it...

It was around six am when Emmet showed up, you could tell he was pissed! You noticed his eyes first; surveying the people occupying the hospital’s lobby warily they had faint red glow to them, as a rare frown adorned Emmet's face.

His hand slowly rose to cover his mouth so not to show his fangs, he could smell your blood... too much of it! Emmet bit into his cheek as he spotted you being pushed in a wheelchair by a nurse to him a low barely audible growl emanated from his chest as took in your condition...He saw red.

He wanted the one responsible dead! The nurse started talking snapping Emmet out of his thoughts, the vampiric conductor's fangs retracted Emmet put his hand down and put on his best showroom smile as he vaguely listened to her instructions on how to keep your stiches clean, not that it mattered to Emmet, he was just going fix your shoulder at home.

The nurse then handed Emmet a small bottle with a couple pills in it for the pain and sent you both on your way, You let out a startled yelp as Emmet lifted you out of the chair and carried you to the car, you learned early on not to worry about your weight as Emmet's stated he's got scary cool vampire strength, you barely weigh anything to him!

{After one tense and silent car ride.]

Emmet had you in his lap as the two of you, sat on the couch, he had you tell him everything while he took bandages off your shoulder. Troy only gave him a vague summary of what went down, Emmet assumed you were mugged! The subway boss winced when he saw cut marring your skin, without warning he brought his finger up to trace it, causing you to shiver. "Sorry did that hurt?" he fussed watching your face for any discomfort. "Not really it just feels weird..." Emmet frowned it was probably going to feel more weird when he takes those stitches out!

"Anyway, like I said one of the girls I was entertaining was telling me A-ab-" You sputtered feeling Emmet's fangs slowly dragging along you shoulder cutting the surgical thread open, Emmet held you tight in his lap as you continued talking. "...her cr-crappy unhinged Ex and...." You felt Emmet slowly lick and lap at the cut.

You let out shuddered breath your shoulder felt like it was on fire, as the skin began to slowly close weave itself back together. "He was waiting for h-her, they st-ar.. Started yelling and I-I got between them to tell him to get lost." Emmet suddenly stopped his ministrations, and stared at you in disbelief, Emmet was clearly processing what you just told him, before you could ask him what was up?

Emmet suddenly flicked you in the forehead. "Y'know, I was fix the scratch on your head too, but now? I think I'll just leave it there as a reminder of your own dimwittedness." he huffed while you begged him to reconsider, how were you supposed to know the guy had a knife?! after Emmet was done fixing your shoulder, He spent the next couple days giving you cold shoulder. but eventually cracked cause he missed cuddling you.

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Warden Ingo:

[Animal attack, blood, blood drinking, suggestive.]

{Fem/ Bi reader!}

"This is all Melli's fault!" you wailed running from a pack of angry and hungry Ursarings! You weren't sure what you did to set the flamboyant Warden off this time. Maybe you accidentally splashed some mud on his clothes, maybe he heard Adaman say something nice about you? Hell.... For all you know he was just mad that you were breathing in his general presence! All you knew is one second he's leading you around Wayward cave and the next he's gone!

You tried going back to the entrance but found some of the torches were moved or put out and the ones that weren't just lead you into dead ends. You were probably turned around in that cave for two hours before finding the way out, Then you found out Melli also removed the markers on the trees directing you to the Base camp! And you didn't have your Pokémon with you, cos you stupidly let Melli take them, he said he was gonna heal them.

"Argggh, I really hate that man!" you growled kicking a rock in frustration, the rock flew far into the darkness where you heard it something... followed by a low growl... "U-um" you stammered and squinted, you saw a mass with bump on it's head, the mass slowly started to shift and rise up from the ground and started walking towards you, You felt like throwing up when you locked onto two angry red eyes of angry alpha male Ursaring staring down at you." Urrr" he growled while licking it's jaws hungerly....

Then the other Ursarings started coming out the woodwork... "Shit." with that you took off running, you weren't sure where you were going, and frankly you didn't care! As long as it got you away from these hungry Pokémon the better! *"C'mon Y/n, yer faster than this girl, work it!"* You yelled mentally in a feeble attempt to motivate yourself, when the inevitable happened, You tripped!

You yelped as you lurched forward and rolled down a small hill and lost a shoe on the way down, You groaned as you pulled yourself up and saw the Ursarings were still behind. "They just don't give up!" you tried to stand only to gasp as a sharp pain shot up your left thigh, you put you hands around you leg and felt something warm and wet seep through your legging, it was blood! Even in the dim light you could see the gash on your thigh. "I- Dammit, dammit!" You hissed forcing yourself up, and started to limp away but you walked right into a dead-end! You turned around and saw the Alpha Ursaring closing in claw raised high above it's head ready to strike! You closed your eyes waiting for it to end...

But after a few seconds nothing happened, you opened your eyes and were shocked by what you saw! It was Ingo standing in front of you his silver eyes glowed red, mouth contorted into a feral snarl. He was holding the alpha Ursaring's paw in his inhuman grasp, causing the large Pokémon to growl and wince in confusion as it tried to pulled it's paw loose, from the vampire's grasp, only for the poison type Warden toss the alpha like ragdoll! it's body slammed into the cliff wall and fell limply to the ground as Ingo turned his sight towards it's startled pack, a low threatening growl emanated from the warden; daring them to come forward, instead the Ursarings did the smart thing and ran for the hills with what little pride they had left.

You almost collapsed from exhaustion and relief, but Ingo was by you side in seconds and caught you. "Tha-" You were cut off by the warden pulling you into a intense kiss while holding you close. "I barely made it!" he gasped resting his forehead against yours, causing his hat to be pushed up a bit, You were tongue tied between saying something witty or stay quiet, but the sharp sting in your legs caused you gasp and you remembered your thigh! Ingo looked down saw the blood flowing down you legs and with out a word he picked you up and jumped up the cliff ledges before landing on one that out the way from Pokémon and people.

You knew what Ingo intended to fix your leg as he done it countless times for you whenever you've gotten hurt in the field, alight blush adorned the warden's cheeks as he reached for hem of your tights. "May I take these off?" Your face felt hot as you shyly nodded Ingo swallowed and pulled your ruined tights off, he pulled your leg over his shoulder as he examined the cut for moment luckily it wasn't to deep, though there might still be a scar.

Your breath hitched as Ingo slowly ran his tongue along your wound lapping up all the blood seeping from the cut, You covered up a up moan by throwing your hand over your mouth as you felt a pleasurably shock of heat shoot up your leg from the wound rapidly healing, Ingo's grip on you leg tightened as he pulled away from your thighs, he had a dark carnal look in his silver eyes that told you he wanted more then just blood right now...

[pov change]

Cut to the next morning where a nervous Melli was out looking for Y/n, after Adaman and Mai gave him an ear full for abandoning her with no protection out in the fields! Needless to say, the electric warden was stumped when he couldn't find her in Wayward Cave and went searching out in the quarries, where he found one of Y/n's shoes? His eyes looked around the area warily before he noticed the large trail of red droplets on the ground.

Melli followed it and felt his stomach drop into his feet when he saw trail ended where a knocked out Ursaring laid, Thinking the worst Melli's jaw hung open and legs began to shake as he thought about what he was going to tell Laventon and Adaman? When someone cleared their throat, Melli yelped and whirled around to see Ingo standing behind him with Y/n sleeping on his back.

Melli swallowed nervously as Ingo eyed him sternly, the poison type warden held out his hand while staring at her shoe, Melli went to hand it to him, when Ingo grabbed him by the front of his tunic and lifted the shocked man off his feet. "Pull a stunt like this on Y/n again and I Will Kill You... I am not joking. I will throw you off this fucking mountain Melli, Do you understand?" He snarled flashing his fangs at the terrified Melli who nodded and with that Ingo dropped him while taking Y/n's shoe back. "What's going on?" Y/n croaked waking up briefly as Ingo shushed her. "Nothing dear, go back to sleep." Y/n complied as Ingo brought her back to base camp, Let's just say Melli was little more tolerant towards Y/n since then, least he suffers Ingo's wrath.

#pokemon x reader #vampire au #Vampire subway bosses #warden ingo #subway boss emmet #subway boss emmet x reader #afab reader #fem reader #subway boss ingo x reader #Vampire subway boss Ingo #TW: blood #tw: blood drinking #tw: stalking #tw: stitches #tw: stabbing #tw: hospital #submas #submas x reader

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andipxndy-writes · 2 years

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stitches

fandom: alex rider warnings: tw: blood; tw: injury; tw: stitches requested by: anon word count: 3.9k

cross-posted to ao3

summary: “Is this it?” The words came from your mouth like you were talking to your brother, like you already knew that the answer was ‘no’. Because there was no way an injury like this came alone. When Alex didn’t answer, you looked him in the eye. “Well?” He pursed his lips, as though he didn’t want to answer. As though he wasn’t going to answer. But he must’ve seen something on your face, because then he was looking away, almost embarrassed. “No,” he mumbled, and you sighed. Of course. “Alright, take off your shirt.” He gave you a look. “You really—” “Shut up. Take it off.”

Or: The first time you see Alex hurt, and you don't like it at all.

stitches

People often said that you had a strange taste in men.

It was something that you’d experienced for as long as you could remember, probably since you were in your early teens and your first crush hadn’t been the captain of the school football team, nor of the school rugby team, but on the weird emo guy at the back of the class who didn’t really listen in any of your lessons. You preferred the guy who avoided all social contact to the one who openly flirted with you and would make any typical person feel incredibly flattered.

You didn’t feel bad about it at all. It made for awkward situations, definitely, when guys flirted with you and you weren’t interested in them, but you didn’t feel bad about it. You had your taste, a very specific tase, and that was enough. It wasn’t up to other people to dictate what your taste would be, no matter how many times so-called “friends” tried to make you “convert” your attraction to someone more conventionally attractive.

You were glad that you shook off the bad friends and stuck with the ones who accepted you for who you were, albeit reluctantly.

Anyway, it was your attraction to the marginalised that meant that you spotted him in the middle of a crowded bar. You didn’t know why you’d agreed to go to the bar in the first place, because you’d never usually been the kind of person to actually go to a bar. If anything, you preferred curling up in bed with a good book. But for some reason, you thought it would be a good idea to get out for once, and you humoured your friends. One night out at a bar with music and dancing and alcohol wouldn’t be that bad, right?

You realised as soon as you got there that you were very, very wrong.

Regardless, you ended up sitting firmly at the bar and away from the dance floor, awkwardly trying to keep up conversation with the bartender as they served drinks to every other alcohol-fuelled person that turned up beside you. It wasn’t that the bartender was awkward, mind you — they tried their best, and as soon as you found out their name, they were actually interested in having a conversation with you. You just weren’t a good conversationalist.

You spotted him at the other end of the bar, trying to look even more invisible than you wanted to be right then. Sure, he didn’t have long dark hair, or wear stupidly dark clothes, and from what you could tell he wasn’t wearing any sort of makeup (a stereotype, you knew, but the men you’d seen with dark makeup was surprisingly more than most expected); but there was something about him that drew you to him straight away. It made you slide off your seat, ignoring the way the bartender watched you with a smirk on their face, and head straight over to him.

He barely looked up when you sat down.

“I’m guessing this isn’t really your scene, huh?” You didn’t know what came over you, but the words were suddenly flowing out of your mouth with a level of confidence that was so unlike you that your friends wouldn’t believe it was you saying it. But you were saying it. You were saying it and it was too late to back out now.

He didn’t look at you at first — in fact, you were wondering whether he had actually heard you, or whether you’d spoken loudly enough for him to hear you over the din that was the music in the bar and people with terrible singing. But then his head turned ever so slightly, and his eyes shifted to meet yours, and you knew. You’d caught his attention. Where everyone else in this bar had ignored him, and he’d probably made himself so that everyone else would ignore him, you were the one person who’d approached him like he was anyone else.

You were beginning to wonder whether he actually wanted someone to talk to him.

But he didn’t say anything about that, nothing at all, instead offering you a small smile. A small smile that hinted there was a lot more to him than just that, but very few people made it past the smile. “Not really,” he admitted, and his voice was lower than you expected, but it was soft. Like he was used to speaking quietly so that people had to get quieter to hear him.

That kind of person was interesting. Not like your usual type, you had to admit, but… interesting. You found yourself drawn into wanting to know more. That’s what pushed you to talk more, to ask more, to learn more.

“What’s your kind of scene, then?” you asked, trying to sound curious. You were genuinely interested, but your friends had told you lots of times before that you didn’t sound it — like you intended to sound rude or wry or some sort of strange other emotion that you didn’t think went with your speech patterns.

He took a moment to think, like he was in some sort of interview trying to give the right answer. Or maybe he was debating over the sort of answer he should give. Either way, it concerned you a little when he took so long to respond to what you fully believed was a perfectly answerable question.

And then he spoke.

“Not here.” He pushed himself up a little, as though he was going to stand. “But I can show you.”

You didn’t even need to be asked whether you wanted to go along, instead just following the guy out of the bar. (You’d respond to your friends’ comments about stranger danger another time, this guy was cool from what you could tell.) But you definitely didn’t expect to be led up to the rooftop of a decently high building not too far from the bar, with a view of the nightlife of the city. Well, some of the nightlife. The shining lights of the city below coupled with the low hum of late-night cars still driving about was enough to make it a wonderfully scenic view, something that you wanted to take a photo of and remember. Because you weren’t sure that you were ever going to do it again.

And that was when you watched him head over to the edge of the building, hesitating for the briefest of moments before climbing onto the wall surrounding the edge of the building.

And sitting on it.

It was enough to give you a small heart attack — you didn’t know the guy, but he was almost going to die in front of you and that was not okay — and you almost ended up running forward to stop him from falling. When you realised he was balancing well, you let out a small sigh of relief.

He looked over his shoulder at you, raising an eyebrow. “Are you just going to stand there?”

You weren’t sure you really wanted to go anywhere close to the edge of the building, not when you knew that it was going to be a long way down, but you gradually made your way over, deciding you were better off leaning with your elbows on the wall around the edge of the building instead of sitting on it, like he was.

One glance down was enough to tell you how stupidly reckless this was.

“How the hell do you do this?” you asked, and you heard something like a soft laugh come from his mouth. He didn’t even give a real response to your question, his small laugh fading off into silence as he stared out over the city ahead of you both. The scene was something out of a picture, perhaps a stock photo or something like that. If you weren’t so terrified of dropping it, you would’ve pulled out your phone to take a picture.

Him speaking again startled you out of your thoughts. “My name is Alex.”

The introduction was startling, unexpected, and you almost asked him to repeat it before the words registered. Alex. Alex.

That wasn’t a bad name.

You held out your hand for him to shake, a small smile growing on your lips to match his. “Nice to meet you, Alex.”

***

That definitely wasn’t the last time you saw Alex. You didn’t know what to expect, considering the kind of evening you’d had — you ended up staying out late, chatting with the guy on the rooftop in a sort of way to prevent him from falling. You didn’t know whether he would fall, but you knew that if you’d left and he had fallen, you wouldn’t have forgiven yourself for it.

The next time you saw him, he was at the same bar. The same bar, in the same corner, the same aura floating about him. If you hadn’t known better, you would’ve even thought that there were the exact same people in the room. It was just because you knew that you were there with different people, and that the bartender was different, that you knew the situation had changed.

That didn’t stop you from going over to Alex, seating yourself on the bar stool next to him just had you had done on that first day that you’d met. His response to your actions was slow, which you sort of expected, but when he looked up at you it was with a sort of… was that a twinkle in his eyes? You couldn’t quite tell. You’d only really met him once before.

Still, that didn’t stop the smile from growing on your own face, even though you didn’t really know him at all. In fact, you ended up properly relaxing around him, unlike when you were forced to hang out with some of the people that you called friends. It was almost as though you felt like he could see right through you, like you couldn’t really hide anything from him. It was weird.

You barely knew him.

The conversation was still pretty quiet, the two of you not doing much other than starting the occasional conversation and drinking your alcohol. You didn’t even drink much, your cocktail lasting you for most of the evening before you got your next one. Not that you had the money to go buying drinks for the whole night. You weren’t the type of person to wait for guys to get you drinks, though. That just wasn’t you. And people didn’t get you drinks, whether you liked them or not.

The minimal conversation was nice, though, and even as the alcohol warmed your system, you felt yourself shifting closer to him. Part of you wasn’t even sure that it was just the alcohol warming you, the warmth radiating from his body and warming your own. You didn’t want to get too close, in case it seemed creepy to do that. In fact, it definitely would be creepy to do that, and you knew it. You didn’t know him well enough to—

Suddenly, you felt his arm pressing against yours, his eyes still gazing into yours as though you were having a normal conversation, and you felt the heat rising in your cheeks. All your earlier thoughts about maintaining some sort of personal space and not pushing yourself too close to him were simply whisked away by his actions, forcing you to face a truth you found slightly terrifying.

This guy, Alex. This guy… he was hot.

And you wanted that.

And that was how you ended up tipsily agreeing to him walking you home, before inviting him inside for coffee, before sitting up for the rest of the night with him as you pretty much sobered up talking about anything and everything that you could think of. And even as the sun rose on your conversations, the early morning rays filtering through the window and landing softly on his fair hair, you couldn’t help but think that your type and taste in guys had landed you with a pretty damn good one this time.

***

From then on it seemed as though spending time together became an official thing. You didn’t exactly know how, because one moment you were randomly meeting this guy in the bar and chatting with him, and the next you were texting him near-regularly and spending every free moment you could get with each other, whether it was late nights at your place, early mornings at his, or afternoons walking through the park or sitting in coffee shops.

At what point you technically became official, you weren’t exactly sure. If anything, the change from “just seeing each other and hanging out” to “officially dating and calling each other datemates” was so natural that you almost didn’t notice it. And you wouldn’t have if you hadn’t been forced to actually consider it when you were asked.

You were sitting at the pub with people that Alex had said were his friends when the topic was broached, a couple of beers already in Alex’s system and a single cider in yours. You’d simply raised an eyebrow when the question came up. Alex didn’t even choke on his beer (which you had to commend him on, honestly).

“So…” It was a dark-haired guy who spoke, his curly hair reaching his shoulders and somehow working pretty well with his button down and slacks. You remembered Alex saying something about him being a film studies teacher at a nearby secondary school, which fit the whole shirt and slacks look he had going on. He was there with a woman who was clearly his girlfriend, if the way she was practically all over him was any indication. There was another woman at the table, also in slacks and a shirt, with her blazer hung over the back of her seat as though she’d just come from working in an office or something along those lines.

As soon as he spoke, your eyes turned on him. He tilted his head to the side a little, like he was trying to analyse you, and then he spoke.

“How long you been banging Alex?”

The question should’ve made you stumble. It should’ve made you stumble over your words, stammer as you tried to come up with an answer. Fortunately for you, Alex had already anticipated that this sort of question would come up, and he’d prepared you for it before the two of you had even turned up. You could still remember sitting on his bed, cross-legged as you faced him and tried to discuss how you would answer the question when it came up. You hadn’t exactly known how you would answer it when you’d brought it up back then, but now you knew exactly how to answer.

“Only a couple of weeks,” you spoke casually, swirling the cider around in your glass a couple of times before taking a sip. “We were hanging out for a decent time before that, though. Maybe four weeks?”

You didn’t know whether it was the way you phrased it, or your tone, but the other woman at the table actually choked on her drink, and the guy stared at you for a couple of moments before giving what looked like a very approving nod. You didn’t know whether to be relieved at that or slightly worried.

“Solid.” He grinned at Alex, winking. “Landed yourself a nice one there.”

The elbow to the side he got from his girlfriend and the rolled eyes he got from both Alex and the other woman were enough to have you starting to crack up right there and then. Not that there was any sort of tension at the table, but there was some sort of invisible barrier broken at that point. As though there was a level of respect that they’d suddenly gained for you. You weren’t sure whether it was because you at least treated their friend right for him to willingly stick with you, or whether it was because you outwardly announced that you were banging said friend with no sort of regret or shyness in your tone.

Either way, you were glad for it, and when Alex walked you home that evening after plenty of laughs and drinks, you realised you were just tipsy enough to vocalise that thought to him as you had your back to your front door, Alex leaning on the door frame with one arm, his hand right near your head. His own head was moving closer to yours, his nose almost brushing yours.

He simply laughed, using his free hand to brush your hair back as he nuzzled his nose against yours.

“Well, Tom respects you when you come back at him with his language,” he commented casually, which made you laugh a little. Hilarious that a school teacher had language that could be considered immature. Perhaps that was what made him a good teacher.

“Well, then I’m glad he respects me,” you responded, your voice breathier than you intended for it to be. The nip to your lips certainly didn’t make things better, your knees beginning to feel weak in a very familiar way. If you wanted to, all you would have to do is say the word and Alex would wrap his arms around you, carry you to bed and respect you in his own way.

“You want to come in for coffee?” you asked softly.

“You want me to come in for coffee?” he asked back, his voice low and husky.

You turning the key in the door and opening it, pushing it open behind you as you pulled him in after you, was enough of an answer to that.

***

Despite how much Tom teased you, your relationship was never as physical as you let it on to be. You liked to joke about it, admittedly, because it was funny. If it wasn’t Alex’s reaction, it was the reactions of everyone else in the vicinity. This wasn’t a part of you that you’d really explored or played around with when you were younger, because no one really talked to you like that, but you were definitely finding it fun now. But really, your relationship with Alex was a lot more verbal than anything. You spent a lot of time talking, learning about him — about his opinions, his preferences, his allergies and intolerances (which tended to be types of people more than anything). You learned that Alex’s favourite cold drink was a grenadine cocktail, the sweet syrup lining the bottom of the glass as he drank whatever alcohol had mixed with it at the top before leaving the sweet treat for last. You learned that his favourite late-night snack was beans on toast, especially after he’d had a couple of drinks, and he wasn’t the biggest fan of kebab shops. You knew that his favourite colour was blue, and you knew that he still believed he was good enough at football to try out for the Chelsea football team if he had the time to. (That one, you found hilarious.)

The thing was, he never had the time. Between work and seeing you, he never had time. Which, of course, led to the next question.

What was his job?

Work wasn’t something that you two ever really brought up. Your jobs kept you both busy, with you more often than not having to bring work home with you so that you could get it done. Really, you thought you’d left the ways of homework behind when you’d left education, but you were apparently wrong. Work required things from you at all hours, and you were too much of a people-pleaser in the workplace to say no to everything that you were given to do.

When Alex brought this up to you one day, you frowned at him. “What?”

“I said, why do you keep on doing work when you get home?” He was lying on your bed, watching you as you sat at your desk still working. Even as he watched you, you just wanted to close your laptop and let yourself be cuddled by him, curling up in his arms and chatting about anything and everything. But you knew that you couldn’t, not when you had a deadline looming and you needed to get all of the work done by tonight, or it wouldn’t ever be done in time.

You took a moment to glance over your shoulder at him. “Because I always have stuff that needs doing, and sometimes I need to do it when I’m not in the office to make sure that it’s done on time.” You squinted a little bit at him as you turned your desk chair more fully, so that you were facing him. “Don’t you take work home sometimes? You’re always so busy.”

He paused for a moment, and a small part of you felt as though he was carefully considering his answer before giving it to you. Though, to be honest, you couldn’t think of why he would have to consider the answer to that before simply telling you.

“I tend to leave work at work,” he answered, and his tone was… different. You couldn’t put your finger on how, but it was. “Every time I’ve brought work home, I’ve been worse off for it. So, I leave work at work.”

A simple answer, and it made sense, but it also made you feel bad for working when he’d clearly come over to spend time with you. You stared at him for a few moments, before turning your head to look at the work on your screen. The work that you’d brought home to try and get done so that you could meet a deadline.

The deadline wasn’t tomorrow. You could do the work later. There wasn’t any real rush to get the work done now.

Closing your laptop, you headed over to the bed to curl up beside him, letting him wrap his arms around you and pull you close to him. “I’ll finish the work off tomorrow, then. At work. So that I don’t need to bring work home with me.”

You felt him nuzzle his face into the back of your neck. “You don’t have to—”

“You’ve already made me feel guilty. Guilt-tripper.” Your tone was teasing, and from the way you felt his lips rise into a smile on the back of your neck you could tell that he knew. He didn’t respond verbally, though, only giving a soft chuckle before the two of you settled into a soft silence.

A soft silence that was broken by the thoughts running through your mind. As much (or as little) as you’d spoken about your job, you knew that Alex at least knew what your job was. He at least knew what was keeping you busy at work, what was making you take work home and complete things after hours. But you had absolutely no idea what Alex did day-to-day. You didn’t know why sometimes he was so busy that he sometimes didn’t even answer your calls and messages, or why sometimes when you called him the phone rang with an international tone, like he wasn’t even in the country. You didn’t know, but you wanted to know. It would only make sense, right? He already knew about you.

“So… what’s your job, then?”

The way he tensed in response to your question gave you the feeling that this wasn’t a question he really wanted to answer. Should you have asked the question earlier? Was he just too tired to answer the question now? Or was this just the not kind of question he liked answering? You couldn’t really understand why he wouldn’t want to answer the question, though, because it was a very simple question. A very simple, basic question that he should have easily been able to answer.

“I work in finance,” he answered, his tone a little weird again. It was almost rigid this time, if you were being honest with yourself. “A financial advisor. My exact job means that I have to travel a lot to provide advice to our clients across different countries and branches of the company.”

You paused for the briefest of moments, as though you weren’t quite sure whether to believe that answer, but then you realised that you had no reason not to believe him. He did work a lot, he did travel, he did not answer your calls. His explanation made complete sense, and you let your, “Okay,” tell him that you believed him, that you trusted in his words.

The two of you settled down into another peaceful silence, curled up together on your bed as the sun set and the moon began to reveal itself from behind the clouds floating aimlessly across the sky.

“So that’s why you’re away and busy so much?” The question slipped from your lips before you could even think to stop it, but Alex didn’t move or say anything to imply that he didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t even complain that the question was sudden, or that he didn’t really have an answer to your question. Instead, he just wrapped his arms a little tighter around you, pressing his lips to the back of your neck.

“Can you promise me something?” he asked softly.

“Yes?”

“Promise me that you’ll never forget that I’ll come back.”

Your brows furrowed at that, and you shifted in his arms to face him. “What?”

He stared at you, as though he was expecting an answer. Like your question wasn’t really a question. You couldn’t help but feel a little unnerved by the look on his face, like he was patiently waiting for you to give him a response… but how did you respond to that? You’d been dating for months, but that was it. Certain words hadn’t been said. Certain promises hadn’t been made. Could you… could you really never forget him?

But looking at him, seeing his face, you realised… well, you realised that you couldn’t. You couldn’t forget him. Not after… well, not after the relationship that you’d had. He wasn’t the kind of guy that you could forget, if you were being completely honest.

That was why you brought your hand up to his cheek, caressing it softly, before you smiled. “I’ll never forget. I promise.”

***

After that night, things were like normal to you. You both went to work, sometimes Alex was away for weeks at a time, but he always came back. Sometimes he looked tired, sometimes he had an emotion in his eyes that you couldn’t quite read, but at the end of the day he always smiled at you. He always came back to you. He always held you and reminded you that he was there. As quirky and as tough as his job was, he would always be there for you.

Except for one night. One night, when Alex had texted you to say that he was on his way back from a business trip but he was going to be late, so not to come over. You got the feeling that he would be home really late and would probably be exhausted, so you had an idea. It would probably be a bad idea in the end, but it was still an idea.

And that was how you ended up asleep on Alex’s bed, curled up on the sheets, with Chinese takeout in the fridge waiting for him to get back. You didn’t know what time exactly he would be back, but you wanted to be back in time for him, so that he had someone around when he returned. Because you knew that the day after he got back from travelling, he was usually extra cuddly.

You were woken by the sound of the front door opening downstairs, the jingle of keys in the lock making your eyes snap open and your body sit up on the bed. For a few moments you were disoriented, trying to figure out exactly where you were and what was going on, before you remembered. You were waiting for Alex. Alex who had probably just got back.

Stretching, it took you a little while to actually drag yourself off the bed, but soon enough you were heading over to the door and down to the living room, to where you thought Alex would be. After all, he was usually the kind to flop on the couch when he got home from work — you’d actually seen him do that a couple of times.

You were genuinely surprised to find that he wasn’t actually there. You were even more surprised to find that he was in the kitchen, leaning heavily against one of the counters near the sink as he tried to run some water onto what looked like a tea towel. It was enough to stop you in your tracks, a frown growing on your face in response to what you were seeing. He looked up not long after you entered the kitchen, his face going impossibly paler as soon as he saw you.

“…Hi…?” he started hesitantly.

“What the hell happened to you?” was your near immediate response, which you thought was very valid. After all, the guy was currently leaning heavily on his kitchen counter as though he was injured, and you quickly realised that he was injured — he was bleeding. Through his shirt. Like that was meant to be normal.

“Uh…” He, for once, looked lost for words. He tried to push himself off the counter, like he was trying to pretend there was nothing wrong, but then he winced and went right back to leaning on the counter. That was more than enough to make you head right over to him, snatching the tea towel from him and running it under the cold tap until it was soaked before turning to him. You didn’t even ask before lifting his shirt, barely even registering the cut to his side before placing the wet tea towel on it. The hiss he gave was impossibly loud.

“Look,” he grunted out, cutting himself off with a wince as you pressed harder on the wound in an attempt to stem the bleeding, “you don’t have—”

“Shut up,” you snapped, sending him a short glare before putting a bit more pressure on the wound. “You’re bleeding in your damn kitchen and all you’re going to say is I don’t have to help? Shut up. Shut the actual fuck up.”

That seemed to be enough to get him to actually shut up, which genuinely surprised you. Alex didn’t usually listen to you when you told him to shut up, which happened to be one of your pet peeves. Instead, the two of you stood there for a couple of minutes longer, the tea towel slowly reddening with blood as it was pressed to his side, whilst the cold water kept running from the tap in the background.

Even as you held the tea towel to his side, you couldn’t help but let thoughts run through your mind — thoughts that you hadn’t let run through your mind since you’d been a stupid, clumsy teenager doing stupid clumsy things. Not since your stupid, clumsy teenage brother did even more stupid, clumsier things that made you panic and rush to hide things from your parents before they got mad.

Thinking about it now, your childhood had been ridiculously complicated for no reason other than the fact that you’d been a reckless idiot. And apparently you were now dating a reckless idiot.

“Is this it?” The words came from your mouth like you were talking to your brother, like you already knew that the answer was ‘no’. Because there was no way an injury like this came alone. When Alex didn’t answer, you looked him in the eye. “Well?”

He pursed his lips, as though he didn’t want to answer. As though he wasn’t going to answer. But he must’ve seen something on your face, because then he was looking away, almost embarrassed. “No,” he mumbled, and you sighed. Of course.

“Alright, take off your shirt.”

He gave you a look. “You really—”

“Shut up. Take it off.”

He paused for the briefest of moments, and you weren’t sure whether it was because he was surprised by what you were saying or because he didn’t want you to see what was underneath, but eventually he managed to push himself off the counter and slowly peeled the shirt from his body, throwing the stained clothing item to the floor.

You considered yourself lucky that you’d grown up treating your body like shit.

The bruises, cuts and grazes that littered his torso were almost like a pattern, and you were pretty sure there wasn’t much of his skin left that actually wasn’t injured. But of everything, it wasn’t the bruising that concerned you.

It was the open cuts that clearly hadn’t scabbed over yet.

“Upstairs to the bathroom, please,” you said, quickly thinking of what you could use to clean him up. “We’ve got to disinfect those cuts before they get any worse…”

He was still staring at you, as though he couldn’t quite comprehend what was going on right then, but a harsh glare from you telling him that he needed to do as he was told now snapped him out of it and forced him to turn around and head upstairs, moving so slowly it was almost as though he was limping. If he hadn’t been injured, and if you hadn’t been seriously worried about him right then, you would’ve found it quite funny actually. It was as though as soon as he started limping, his spatial awareness went out of the window (and Alex typically had pretty good spatial awareness).

As soon as you were sure that he’d reached the stairs, you headed to a cupboard under the kitchen sink and opened it, revealing the standard kitchen cleaning products and the first aid kit. You’d asked why there was a first aid kit down there once before, only for you to cut yourself chopping vegetables the day after. Alex had laughed and told you that that was exactly why he kept a first aid kit down there.

Now it felt like it was your turn to patch him up.

Grabbing the kit, you headed upstairs to the bathroom to see what was going on, and was genuinely surprised to see Alex sitting on the edge of the bath, still holding the tea towel to his side even though it was now soaked through with blood. He’d also started running the bath, which you assumed he would use to clean himself off, but at this rate he would just end up staining the water red with his blood.

“Bath tomorrow,” you suggested, which only earned you a raised eyebrow.

“I’ll be fine ton-”

“Let them scab over, at least. And then bath.”

Alex seemed hesitant to listen, as though he felt like he knew everything, and you were wrong or whatever was going through his mind. You weren’t exactly sure of what he was thinking, you never were. It was one of the things you found pretty irritating about him.

But then he sighed and leaned over as far as he could, turning off the tap so that water stopped running into the bath, before slowly straightening up and turning to face you. “Alright, fine,” he grumbled, visibly deflating.

A satisfied smile almost appeared on your face, but instead you nodded and approached him with the first aid kit, setting it down on the edge of the sink before unzipping and opening it. Revealing its contents, you looked over it before pulling out the bottle of disinfectant and the cotton. Soon enough, you were filling the sink with warm water, adding some of the disinfectant to dilute it for use, and searching for a flannel to wipe the solution around Alex’s wounds.

And then you were wiping down his wounds with disinfected water (that was TCP in the water, by the way, and quite a bit of it) and listening to him hiss as you cleaned the skin about the open wounds. Open wounds that probably looked as though they needed to be stitched shut, but you knew that you weren’t the greatest with stitches — your brother had always been amazing at them, but you had often messed them up both on yourself and other people. You’d probably be better off taking him to an emergency room when you were done there.

Unless he wanted to stitch up his own wounds. Or made you stitch them up for him. Neither of which would end well, you were sure of it.

“How do you know how to do all of this stuff?” Alex’s question wasn’t expected. Well, not right then, at least. You’d expected him to ask eventually, but when you were cleaning his wounds and trying to figure out how to get someone else to stitch some of these cuts shut was not the time.

“I was clumsy as a kid,” you admitted after a few beats of silence, not really seeing any reason to hide the truth from him. “I fell over a lot, my parents got tired of taking me to A & E. And then I got tired of waiting for them to help me, so I had to figure it out myself.” You conveniently left out the part about them getting mad every time you got hurt, which had been what initially prompted you to learn for yourself.

When you looked up at him, you didn’t know what to make of the expression on his face. You weren’t sure whether it was pity, or whether he was impressed, but either way the look on his face made you a little uncomfortable. As in, you wanted him to stop looking at you because you felt your cheeks heating up sort of uncomfortable.

“It’s no big deal, really.”

“I was bleeding out in my kitchen and you’re patching me up without batting an eyelash. It’s a pretty big fucking deal.”

You gave half a shrug. “I do need to know how you got these injuries, though. Just in case this all gets infected and I know what to tell the doctors when we get you to A & E.”

“We’re not going to A & E.”

You looked up at him sharply at that one, your brows furrowing. You weren’t going to A & E? What the fuck did he mean, you weren’t going to A & E?

“What?”

He reached into the first aid bag for the stitching needle, and you sighed, closing your eyes. Of course.

“I suck balls when it comes to stitching.”

He lifted your chin so that when you opened your eyes, you were looking him in the eye. His wounds were definitely bleeding a lot less, if at all, and the skin around every single cut was clean. You were very sure about that one. It looked like there was still pain showing on his face, but he gave you a small smile.

“Well, then consider this practice.”

***

The rest of that night was… pretty normal. Or, at least, as normal as it could get. You weren’t exactly sure how stitching your boyfriend up in your bathroom after getting so many cuts and refusing to tell you how or where was normal, but the way you interacted as the whole thing happened made it seem… ridiculously normal. It was weird.

You liked it.

But you also didn’t like it. Because you didn’t want to see Alex hurt, and this was obviously a situation where he was in pain.

It did, however, lead to many interesting conversations to fill the silence and cover up all of Alex’s hissing and wincing during your terrible stitching attempts. Starting from when you got your first major injury that didn’t involve any sort of internal injury, you ended up explaining your whole medical history to Alex. Your first stitches; your first major cut that resulted in your parents refusing to take you to A & E (because by that point it was becoming a waste of time); the time you and your brother had decided it would be fun and useful to learn first aid on your own; the first time you’d bandaged up one of your own injuries (you’d been twelve when that had happened, weirdly enough, and looking back on it that was kind of concerning); the first time you’d actually done stitches and found out that you couldn’t sew in a straight line, let alone stitch up a wound accurately. That last one had made Alex chuckle and comment on how he was fine with the poor stitching; you’d just have to do a better job next time to let it heal better.

You responded with how you weren’t expecting there to be a next time, and asked why Alex was talking about a next time so easily.

Alex didn’t have a response to that one.

Either way, the night ended with you bandaging and putting plasters on Alex’s wounds, covering up the stitches so that they could heal a little better. By then, it was probably more like early morning than night, but with how tired you felt and how tired Alex looked, it might as well have been ten on a work night. You could feel Alex’s eyes watching you as you began to put everything away and pulled the plug in the sink, letting the dirtied water down the drain as you rinsed the flannel out. Considering Alex had a filthy shirt lying about downstairs, you’d have to soak that overnight before putting it in the wash. You’d have to soak everything in the wash.

There was so much blood all over everything.

Cleaning was going to be a real bitch when you finally woke up.

Right now, though, you knew that you both needed rest. Alex needed to heal up, and that wasn’t going to happen without him getting some sleep. You watched him as he remained sitting on the side of the bath, his eyelids clearly heavy as he leaned to one side.

“Head to bed,” you suggested as you closed the first aid kit, leaving it on the side of the sink. That could be sorted in the morning. “I’ll be there as soon as I’ve put everything in to soak with Vanish.”

He stared at you for a few moments, before nodding, slowly pushing himself to his feet before stumbling out of the room and hopefully towards his own room. You waited for a couple more moments, hoping that he’d actually landed on the bed and not fallen off onto the floor, before picking up the flannel and the filthy tea towel to soak in the bath overnight. It didn’t take you long to dash downstairs to grab the shirt and the Vanish from the cleaning cupboard, heading back upstairs to prepare a bath for the dirty clothes.

By the time you were done soaking everything, leaving it there to clean itself of the blood soaked into the material overnight, it was at least half an hour since you finished with helping Alex out. Heading to his room, you hesitated at the door, waiting to see how he was doing.

The light snoring you heard was more than enough to make you smile and head over to join him in sleep.

***

And that was why you were surprised when you woke up for a glass of water in the middle of your sleep and found that you were the only one in bed. Your brows furrowed at that, and you stumbled out of the bedroom extremely confused.

You were certain that you hadn’t been dreaming the night before.

Making your way down the corridor, you realised you could hear voices downstairs and paused.

One of those voices was Alex’s. The other? You didn’t know. And that was concerning.

You slowly made your way down the stairs, sticking close to the wall so that you didn’t make too much noise on your way down. You paused about halfway down the stairs, when you could hear both voices a lot clearer, and sat down, trying to listen out for what was being said.

“…didn’t intend to let it get that far.”

“I was followed a lot farther this time. If they find out where I live, that’s definitely going to be a problem.”

“It will be easy enough to relocate—”

“I’m not relocating.”

“But—”

“Let me rephrase. If they find out where I live, I will make it my personal mission to make it your problem.”

“…Understood. We will work harder to make sure your current location is not discovered.”

“I have too much here that’s important to me for you to make a stupid slip up that loses me my home.”

You decided to slip down one more stair to get a better look at whoever Alex was talking really intensely to. Someone in a suit was standing at the door, shades covering their eyes as they were trying to hide their identity or something like that. If anything, their entire presence screamed someone that was hiding something and was trying not to stand out, which put you on edge.

At the same time, you realised the person’s head turned ever so slightly towards you, away from Alex’s face. That was enough to get Alex to turn around to see what they were looking at, locking eyes with you.

You gave him a pleasant enough smile.

“We’ll talk later, Alex,” the person in the suit said, not even waiting for an answer from Alex before turning to head away from the front door. Most likely back to wherever they’d come from. Alex waited a few seconds before shutting the door, and then he turned to face you.

The smile melted from your face. “And who was that?” you asked, trying to keep your voice light and curious. Even though you were definitely terrified — why the hell was Alex talking to a person like that?

Alex paused for a while, a long while, and you got the feeling that the answer wasn’t simple. It was going to be a long story.

And you sighed.

Hopefully he’d just come out with this one.

#writing: mine #fandom: alex rider #alex rider fanfiction #writing: fanfic writings #written for: anon #oneshot #alex rider #alex rider x reader #tw: blood #tw: injury #tw: stitches

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