#''fell into the hudson? AGAIN?''
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biitchcakes · 9 months ago
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@gwenbiote said: mom can i crash here tonight ? i just crawled out of the hudson and really don't have the energy to move ---- // unprompted !
Wordlessly, Jess extends an arm for Gwen, wrapping it around the young spider's back to act as SUPPORT as she ushers her into the office. Damp strands stick to the edges of her face, Jess moving them back into place as she checks for bumps and bruises. There's LOADS.
Now in the bathroom, she helps her DAUGHTER onto the closed toilet, noticing only then as it coldly clings to her that her sleeve is soaked entirely through. ❝ One sec ⸺ ❞ She darts from the room, reappearing only moments later with a tank top, running shorts and underwear. ❝ I always keep a spare set handy for me just in case of, I mean, y'know ⸺ ❞ She gestures at Gwen's dripping form. ❝ THAT. ❞
Setting the clothes on the tiny ledge of the sink, Jessica folds her arms and leans against the doorframe. ❝ You're welcome to stay here the night, I've not got any problems with you here on your own. But, if ya want, you can come back to Miguel's apart— to OUR apartment. ❞ A warm smile begins to form as she offers, shifting to pull out the FIRST AID KIT from the medicine cabinet.
❝ If you're wantin' a shower at any point that's better than barely tepid, can't say you'll find that here. Plus, Lyla'll dry your SPIDEY-SUIT for ya. ❞ Jess looks toward the direction of her futon, then back to Gwen ⸺ eyeing up a fresh, red scrape on her cheek. ❝ Plus plus, there's a spare bed, instead of a futon, at the APARTMENT. ❞
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doyelikehaggis · 13 days ago
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@glartswap for @mdverse! Merry Christmas!! <3
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rvchelking · 2 years ago
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far cry 5 〉joey hudson & staci pratt
I wish that you believed That we'll never change a thing 'Cause we've been reckless and this mess is Fucking killing me.
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cthulhus-curse · 19 days ago
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Submission
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Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x Reader
Word Count: 3,553
Warnings: Top!Reader/Bottom!Natasha, Dom/Sub Dynamics, Strap-Ons, Pet Play Adjacent, Smut, Daddy Kink, Dark!Reader | 18+ Minors DNI
Summary: In which you find yourself having fun with your pet, Natasha.
No words were required to be spoken for you to understand what she desired. Then again, although she may not feel the same, in due time she would. It was all about the small glances thrown your way. At first they were hard, confident ones. Never did she allow herself to be seen as anything other than the tough assassin she was molded to, and yet as time went on, when you didn’t present the fear she sought out, her walls fell down. 
Natasha, unbeknownst to her, became your pet from then on.
After a rather difficult mission, you found her waltzing around the compound fresh off the Quinjet. Steve was hot on her heels, preying on the one who was meant to be yours. You weren’t an idiot, of course you noticed the longing looks he gave your toy. Perhaps he’d need to be removed from the equation so Natasha, who carried on discomfort as he attempted to make light conversation, could have some peace.
“How was your mission?” 
Natasha was crestfallen at the question. It hadn’t gone the way she hoped, and yet she was still victorious at the very end. Her side was sore after having fallen through a first-floor window, luckily no scratches landing on her body. She was tired of having such tedious work days without an end in sight. But with you by her side, it was made better. 
You almost towered over Natasha while dragging the zipper of her suit down. Her hair was adorably short, and yet you still ordered her to tie it up into a small bun for your playtime. She stepped out of her outfit, allowing you to undress every inch of her, taking off any gadgets, her boots, and even underwear. The tight fitted suit she wore was truly a favorite of yours, but you preferred when she had nothing on. 
“Will you use your words, princess?” you urged. 
After giving you a hint of hesitation and shrugging everything off her body, looking down with reddened cheeks, Natasha gave in. “It went well, but not as I hoped. Steve was nowhere to be seen for a moment. I fell through a window and,” she eyed the bruise on her side. “I’m sorry.”
You’d have a much-needed talk with Steve after being done with Natasha. Perhaps ending with dumping his body along the Hudson River for daring to mistreat your plaything. You had wished to go on the mission with her, but of course the dipshit that was Cap kept you away. He had kept his eyes trained on Nat since the first day they met, but you knew the only one she wanted was you, far too oblivious to notice her teammate’s ogling. 
“It’s alright, puppy. It wasn’t your fault,” you commented while ghosting your fingers over her wound. “Do you want me to help you forget this? To make it better?”
Natasha’s desperate nod was all you needed to proceed. 
Once you were fully naked and sitting at the edge of the bed, you coaxed Natasha into laying across your lap. She was hesitant at first, scared that perhaps you’d go too far, but you promised she’d be taken care of. It was enough for her to relax. She could always count on your soothing voice to take away all her fears. 
“I don’t want it to hurt,” she said with her ass up in the air for you to take. 
“It won’t, sweetheart. Daddy’s here to make it all better, to help you forget,” you reassured while drawing imaginary circles over her back. “You’re safe with me.”
After getting her all relaxed on your lap, you were ready to begin. The first hit wasn’t rough at all, instead filled with a tenderness that exuded peace within her. Her stress from the mission weakened, Natasha ignoring the throbbing pain on her side. Once in your arms, she knew she was home. 
You loved the adorable little noises Natasha let out each time you spanked her. She gripped your leg, her back arching as a response to your hits. Poor thing gave you a glance time and time again, her mouth agape as tiny ‘more’ muttered came out. You could break her in half, tear her apart limb from limb, and yet her undying loyalty towards you wouldn’t falter. 
Seeing her pink cheeks just sitting there begging to be attacked made you drip. You had to rub your legs together to dissuade the heat between them from growing. She’d be a good girl regardless of how far you took her. 
You didn’t give Natasha a warning when you increased your roughness. Instead, you suddenly swatted one of her cheeks harshly, the redhead frowning and letting out a loud scream. She was so beautiful, an innocent doll for you to play with as you pleased. The Widow had been fully inexperienced when you first got together. You had to be the one to teach her about the ache she felt between her legs and making it better. Even months after that moment, she still kept her purity. 
“That hurt,” Natasha whispered as she looked at you, her green eyes glistening with tears. “Does it have to keep hurting?”
“Yes, baby. Just be a good girl and take it. It’ll make daddy so happy,” you explained before hitting her again. “You want to make me happy, right?”
“Yes,” she grumbled before hiding her blushing face. 
You tilted your head and watched as she jumped after each smack. They only grew more and more until Natasha was a wailing mess. She couldn’t even muster out a coherent string of words to let you know she was in pain. 
“What’s my name, Natalia? Tell me,” you mumbled with a softness only reserved for her. A hand soothed over her backside, traveling up the swell of her cheeks that were red and sore from your hits. When deep within the submissive headspace of hers, she never responded to her chosen name. “Use your words, darling. I’m waiting.”
“Daddy,” she finally replied. The recovery from your torture wouldn’t be a quick one, and yet she basked on how painful it was as she adored every second of it. “You’re my daddy. You protect me and make me happy. No one else can have me. I’m daddy’s pretty girl, your puppy.”
At the words, you hummed with approval. “Good job, princess. And what does my puppy want today?”
“The special toy, please. The one with the treat,” Natasha sobbed without a hint of hesitation. “I don’t want to think about today, daddy. I need you inside me, please. Your fingers, your toy, or even your mouth. Just make it all better. I promise I’ll be a really good girl for you.” 
That was enough to get you to ease her off your lap before walking towards the closet of your shared dormitory at the compound. You ordered Natasha to kneel before the bed. She was waiting obediently in place, looking around the room curiously as though there was not a thought behind those beautiful viridescent eyes. You had clearly seen the wetness building up on her core. If she kept on going well, you’d promise to make her puppy parts feel less sticky. 
You took your sweet time attaching the black straps around your waist tight enough so that the toy you set against the base wouldn’t fall off. It was a rather girthy red dildo which you used, long enough to reach Natasha’s depths with ease. Through the base you filled it up with what would be your pet’s reward, making sure it was full before attaching it to the straps. 
When you finally sat down before Natasha, her eyes widened with arousal, hips moving a bit as she humped the air with need. The adorable way in which she licked her lips hungrily made your heart soar, the woman ignoring the pain on her backside and focusing on you. 
“Open up, sweetness. Time to let daddy use this pretty mouth of yours,” you said while coaxing Natasha. She was quick to do as you said, her plump, wet lips parting as she leaned forward. “Good girl, Natalia. There you go.”
While looking down at her, the redhead kissing the tip of your silicone cock before wrapping her lips against the head, your mind went to the depths of darkness. You wondered for a moment how perfect she’d look if you wrapped your hand against her throat, making sure to squeeze and squeeze until she couldn’t dare take a grasp of air. As much as you loved your puppy, you’d love to see her all maimed and bleeding for you while sprawled over the bed, begging you to stop as you merely keep going as a means to amuse yourself. 
Natasha grabbed your dick happily, her tongue stuck out as she gave it cute kitty licks. She was sloppy when so deep in subspace, her eyes almost hazy as she left copious amounts of saliva behind. While she began slowly taking it all in order to let her mouth and throat get adjusted to the feeling of being full, Nat reached a point of no return. 
Mesmerizing pink lips inched down your strap. Little by little, your baby took more of it. She stuffed her mouth with your cock, humming happily at the way you patted her head with pride. Such a beautiful cock whore, you thought while licking your lips. You could get her to do anything and she wouldn’t hesitate or question you. 
When the redhead bobbed her head up and down, you nearly lost it. Gurgling noises boomed across the walls of the room. She didn’t even stop when she choked on your cock, instead taking a breather before getting back to it. Natasha viciously deep-throated it all, making sure never to break eye-contact with you as she did as she was told. 
“Hmm so pretty for daddy. You’re just a little slut for my cock, aren’t you?” At that, Natasha mindlessly nodded. “My perfect puppy. See, daddy makes it all better. Natalia is only safe when around her owner. Always remind yourself of that or I will.”
Once you were pleased, you pushed Natasha off your dick. She let it go with a ‘plop’ grinning at you while awaiting further instructions. When by your side nothing else mattered. It was just you and puppy against the world – the Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D., or the rest of humanity didn’t come to mind for her while eyeing you happily. 
“Did I do a good job, daddy?” Natasha asked with a hopeful look plastered over her features. 
“Yes, baby,” you grabbed her chin and forced her to look up. “You were perfect. Now come here. Time to bounce on daddy’s cock like a pretty bunny.”
You shifted to sit on the bed with your back against the headboard. The strap-on was now fully wet and needy to be wrapped around Natasha, who crawled towards you with a hint of shyness. She rubbed her side a bit, but once you set your hand atop her own, she understood to give you her full focus and ignore everything else.
“Can I sit on it, please?” Natasha questioned as she hovered over your bulbous cock that dripped with her saliva. She grabbed the toy, jerking it off slightly in her hand as her eyes grew wide with amazement. “Please, daddy? I promise I’ll be good. I feel really, really empty. I need you to make it less icky down there.”
“Of course, baby. Come on, let me help you.” You surprised yourself with the tenderness you gave her, grabbing Nat’s hips to guide her. In turn, she held onto your forearms for dear life, looking down between her legs to watch in awe as the tip of your silicone dick rubbed against her pink, swollen pussy. “Someone’s really sticky. It’s adorable, don’t you think? For you to be such a desperate little thing just for daddy.”
“Just for you,” Natasha echoed before letting out a strangled moan. The head of your cock slid up and down her cunt, parting her folds before moving towards her clit. You spent your sweet time teasing it, swirling the dildo around the bud for the sake of further making her drip. “No teasing, daddy. Please. It hurts so bad, I can’t take it anymore.”
“Alright, Natalia. Relax for daddy.”
You brought the woman down onto your wet cock. It was thick and long, stretching out her velvety walls and making her scream in the process. She was adorably shy about it all, not doing much except sitting frozen in place as you guided her. A pretty pup is what she was, so ready to be taken by her owner. 
For a moment the two of you simply sat still. Natasha squirmed but refused to move even an inch. She was so deep within her submissive headspace that all she could think of was you, her mind otherwise entirely blank. Your foreheads were pressed together, Nat dropping sweet kisses on your lips that you were sure to return. You couldn’t wait for the time to entirely destroy such a willing pet. 
When you began moving your hips, Natasha followed along with your ministrations. She kept staring at the area between her legs where your length disappeared inside. Her amusement for the whole ordeal was truly astounding. Your puppy couldn’t stop being so excited as she pointed to her sex, giggling as you thrust yourself deep inside. 
“You’re so big,” Natasha let out a throaty moan as she spoke. She had taken the entirety of your cock by then, loving the way her tight pussy was spread apart for daddy to take. “My puppy parts are nice and full now. Thank you.”
“Of course, pup, but that’s not the only thing that will be filling you up.”
You didn’t care to let out your rough dominant side by then. Natasha’s head was messy either way, all mindless and desperate to be slutted out. As soon as you dug your fingernails harshly against her skin, she knew what was coming – her. 
Deep and animalistic thrusts came from your part. You had to hold the poor puppy in place so she wouldn’t break. The sloshing sounds of your cock digging inside her, pressing against her womb far enough so that a little bulge appeared on her belly. When you touched and put pressure on it, Natasha sobbed. 
Your sweaty skins slapped together as you fucked her with such harshness she would easily forget the horrid mission she had. Natasha bounced on your dick as though her life depended on it, stuck in a lustful trance which held her prisoner of her owner. With green eyes rolled to the back of her head, cunt dripping with juices and wet sounds, her tummy bulging, she was the picture perfect image of a beautiful puppy. 
You didn’t waste your time taking it slow. Instead, you were quick to bring Natasha to her climax alternating between pumping your strap in and out of her hungry cunt that swallowed it whole and stimulating her clit. With the mix of pleasure you gave her, your princess’ walls clamped down against your cock, immediately making her come undone. 
“That’s it, Natty. Cum for daddy,” you urged and yet refused to stop fucking her harshly with your throbbing cock. “Go on, puppy. Fuck, your pussy is so wet and just for me. Only daddy can use and abuse this slutty fucking cunt. So cute and pretty.”
“Daddy!” Natasha cried out as she slumped against your body, riding out the last few moments of her orgasm. She shook slightly, squeezing your arms while you remained deep inside her, the base of the strap brushing against her. “Full,” she mumbled, nuzzling her face against your shoulder. “Treat, please.”
“Hmmm whatever you want, baby.”
The dildo was pulled out slightly from her sticky, aching cunt. Natasha shuddered at the sudden disappointing emptiness, but was quickly substituted by something even more delicious. After you squeezed your cock, letting out her reward. 
Drops of white spurted inside Natasha’s pretty pussy. They were sticky as they filled her up completely, you as her owner making sure to empty your entire seed in her. Your cum left her fully bred, your cock thrusting deep inside just so you could keep any of your special treats from oozing off. 
Natasha was completely fucked out upon you, even drooling a bit from the pleasure you gave her. It was far too much for you to handle. She was innocent and small, so easily corruptible for you. How were you to control your impulses when she was right there ready to be taken over and over again?
“Time to give daddy a treat in return, puppy,” you husked out in a groggy voice. 
Before Natasha could so much as recover or even take notice of what you did, you threw her over the bed. Your cum spilled from her pussy as she laid on her tummy, white drops falling onto the bed sheets you reminded yourself to clean later. With your puppy disoriented and looking around hazily in order to aimlessly find you, you took your chance. 
“Daddy?” Her voice was small as she wondered what you were doing, but as soon as you crawled on top of her, pushing the tip of your cock between her cheeks and against her tight hole, Natasha panicked. “Wait!”
You didn’t care to wait or listen to her sobbing pleas. Instead, you urged your cock inside her ass, groaning at the slick sound it let out as you so much as stretched it out with your tip. She cried out in a mix of pain and pleasure, her hand turning to fists as she tugged at the bed sheets to keep herself composed. 
“What’s wrong, Natalia? I thought this is what you wanted. Don’t you like it when daddy’s cock stretches you out?” You questioned with feigned innocence. The dildo was far too lubricated with the mix of fake cum and her juices upon it, making it easy to slide yourself inside without much trouble. And yet Natasha was tight, her ass only used a handful of times by you. The most she had taken there was a pair of fingers and a small plug, nothing as large as your bulging cock. “Shhh stop crying. You have to take it all if you want to make daddy happy. Come on, be a good girl for your owner. If you do well, then maybe we can play with your collar and leash next.”
“But daddy it’s big,” Natasha wept as her head slumped against the bed. Her face was red with tears that went down her cheeks, eyes bloodshot and glossy. “I can’t take it all, not there!”
“Yes you can.” Although she bawled her eyes out loud enough for the entire compound to hear, you still didn’t stop fucking her from the back, hovering above her frail little body, hands at each side of her midsection, and tearing her apart. “Just a little bit, honey. Let daddy fuck your pretty tight ass.”
Natasha’s mind was so blank, she didn’t even care to think about the pain on her side any longer or the mission. Instead she focused on the moment – on how you fucked her harshly without skipping a beat. You dared squirt the last few drops of cum into her hole, filling both her pussy and ass with your cum. 
Growing much more confident with your position, you sneaked a hand beneath her neck. Natasha was far too gone to dare feel it until you squeezed. No matter how hard she tried yelping with her throat in a tight grasp, nothing came out. Instead she was rendered quiet, only muffled moans coming out while your front slapped against her back. 
Your other hand went under her body. You always did pride yourself in being quite the multitasker, rubbing her clit lazily while Natasha fell apart. With the stimulation against her bundle of nerves, her ass being savagely fucked with your dripping cock, and you choking her simultanously, it didn’t take long for the puppy to cum again. 
This time Natasha didn’t say a word. She only fell limp against the bed sheets, her eyes barely open as she stood between consciousness and sleep. She paid no mind to the way her abused holes were left seeping cum from them when you slid yourself out of her ass, leaving it wide and gaping. 
“Oh Natalia you did so well,” you praised her while moving your hands off her throat and clit, instead soothing them over her back while she squirmed. “Cute little fucktoy for daddy. So adorable.”
All Natasha did was nod slightly at that. She whimpered quietly as you leaned down to press kisses against her back, a hand ghosting over the bruised side of her body that you’d be sure to tend to for the following days. Oh how bad you wished to have hurt her like that. Perhaps taking care of Steve would sate your need to violence. 
“Good puppy,” you hugged her tight from behind, loving the way your baby relaxed at the feeling of her owner’s embrace. “My good mutt.”
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dandylovesturtles · 3 months ago
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kids are about 8/9 here. idk what this is. happy 10 days to Halloween?
cw: violence, blood, gore (not the turtles'), cussing
-----
Later, Donnie would say going to the surface was Leo's idea, but really, it had been an unspoken joint decision. He wanted to search the trash in the alley for building materials, Leo was just annoyed at being treated like a baby. Sure, it made sense why Mikey wasn't allowed to go to the surface without Raph, but why were the two of them subject to the same rules? They were a whole year older!
So when Papa fell asleep in his chair, and with Raph chasing an uncooperative Mikey around, begging him to take a bath, Leo looked at Donnie, then at the exit to the tunnels, and Donnie followed him right out.
At first it was exhilarating. He and Leo had been to the surface several times now, but it was always with Raph or Splinter, and that meant it came with rules. Don't touch that. Stay where I can see you. Don't run off. There's too many humans that way. No you can't take that back to the lair, it's dangerous. On and on and on. But this time they were alone, and Donnie wasn't going to stop Leo from climbing the fire escape and petting the cats sitting on windowsills as long as Leo wouldn't tell him to put the old, broken electronics and jagged pieces of metal he found back in the dumpster.
And Leo didn't say a thing about it, other than to call him a nerd. Of course.
It was a cool night, but not so cold that it made Donnie shiver. It had rained recently, so everything was damp and there was a fog that held in the air. The only noise besides what the two of them made came from an old pair of vending machines right by the entrance to the street, buzzing and humming with electricity. Leo had already asked Donnie if he could "hack it" to get them some drinks and snacks, and Donnie had shooed him off so he could get back to his scavenging. But he was seriously considering giving it a try once his work was done.
Leo dropped off the fire escape and wandered closer to the street. It was deep into the night, but when Donnie looked he could still see Leo in the glow from the vending machine, so he didn't worry too much. He'd just found a perfectly good toaster that someone threw out, and he absolutely planned to take it back with him.
He'd just ducked down to tug at a box sticking out of the mound of trash, when he heard a voice echo off the bricks of the buildings.
"Yooo, dude. Did you see that!?"
"Shhh, shhh, hold on," said another voice, followed by some quick footsteps.
And then Leo yelped.
Donnie's heart was pounding against his plastron as he slowly and carefully peeked above the rim of the dumpster. Two big humans stood in the light of the vending machine; one of them had Leo, holding him by the lip of his shell where it opened for his head.
"The hell is this?"
"Looks like some kind of fucked up turtle."
"I knew the Hudson was radioactive, man."
Leo squirmed in their grasp, but they were way bigger and stronger, and they kept him from escaping. He didn't have his weapons, because Dad only let them have them when they were training ("You'll poke your eye out," he'd said). Fat lot of good that did them now.
"What do you think we could sell it for?" asked one of the humans.
"Who would even want it?"
"Dude, someone's gotta. A zoo or something!"
"Damn, you're right. It's worth a try, right?"
Donnie's blood ran cold. They were going to take Leo away. They were going to take his brother away, and he'd never see him again, never get to talk to him or play with him again, and Donnie
couldn't
let
that
happen.
Before he himself even knew what he was planning, he'd jumped out of the dumpster and shot straight toward the humans. They'd only just noticed him when he launched himself at the one holding Leo and bit, directly into the hairy, exposed flesh.
An agonized scream filled the alley.
The leg Donnie was biting began to shake and kick, frantically trying to dislodge him, but Donnie only bit down tighter, sinking all his teeth into the man, his jaws locking and refusing to let go. There was a thud as something hit the concrete beside him; the man was still screaming.
"GET HIM OFF ME! GET HIM OFF GET HIM OFF- OH SHIT-"
Human hands grabbed at Donnie and yanked, but he didn't let go. A disgusting, metallic taste filled his mouth, and something chewy and unpleasant was coming loose between his teeth.
The men were both yelling now, kicking, hitting, but Donnie didn't let go, he wouldn't, he couldn't-
Until he felt a hand wrap around his. Small, three-fingered, and as familiar as his own.
Donnie yanked back. The chewy thing between his teeth came with him. The man was still shrieking in pain, blood pouring down his leg and staining his socks and sneakers, snot and spittle hanging from his face.
"WHAT THE FUCK!" yelled the man.
Donnie and Leo scrambled backwards, hands locked tight together.
"Dude, we gotta get you to a hospital," said the uninjured man, grabbing the other human's arm and tugging. For a moment, the injured man fought back, waving his fists at Donnie and Leo.
"I'M GONNA KILL THAT THING!" the man screamed. A light came on in a window above.
"Come on, man, it probably has rabies," said the other human, still tugging. "Let's get out of here. Call animal control."
For a second, Donnie thought he would keep coming, even with a limp, but eventually he relented, and went with his companion. They could still here the man yelling as they disappeared from sight.
Donnie and Leo watched, still and silent in the shadows beyond the vending machines, for a very long moment. The only sounds in the alley were the electric hum of the vending machines, but it was louder now, somehow, louder and more annoying and pressing in on Donnie from all sides.
He suddenly became very aware of a sticky substance on his hands and arms and shoulders and face. The unpleasant taste was still in his mouth, as was the squishy thing, and it filled him with revulsion. He spat it out on the ground, and saw skin and hair and red stuff and-
He wanted to gag, but he couldn't. He could feel his muscles shutting down, the way they did sometimes. He hated this feeling, but he knew from experience he couldn't stop it. It was out of his control now.
The whine started at the back of his throat and built in intensity until it drowned out the sounds of the vending machines. His hands moved to clutch his head against his will, and he sank to the ground, curling up over his knees and pressing himself against them in a desperate bid to get it all to stop.
"Shoot, Dee," he heard Leo say, and then he moved away. Donnie couldn't open his eyes to see where he went, but a moment later he heard the sound of glass breaking.
A few seconds later, he heard a soft fizz, and then something cool was being pressed against his arm.
Slowly, he squinted his eyes open. He could barely stand it, but he had to do it, to see Leo in crouching in front of him, holding out a bottle of cola and signing at him to drink.
Clumsily, he took it. The mix of cola and the metallic taste in his mouth almost made him gag again, and he spat that out, too. Somehow, it helped. He repeated this action several more times, until the bottle was almost empty and his mouth was free of that terrible taste.
Then, slowly, a little at a time, he drank the rest.
The world backed down to a manageable level. Leo was still in front of him, looking worried. His eyes and face were wet, and Donnie didn't think it was from the mist.
Still, he met Donnie's eyes with a wobbly smile and asked, "Ready to go down?"
Hesitantly, Donnie stood up. When he didn't fall over, he nodded. Leo nodded back, then went to the manhole cover and opened it up.
Donnie didn't go back for the toaster. He didn't even remember it, really.
Leo gestured for Donnie to go down the ladder first, then covered over the hole behind them. They made their way to the bottom more slowly than they ever did with Raph, neither of them feeling up to any tricks tonight.
They walked back towards the lair in silent for a few minutes, while Donnie got his voice back. Leo waited for him to talk first, and Donnie appreciated that.
"...Where'd you get the soda?" he asked, when he could.
"Broke the glass on the vending machine with a rock," Leo explained. He gave Donnie a playful grin. "It's faster than hacking."
Donnie rolled his eyes at that. He could have done it if he'd had time!
They walked a bit further. Donnie was still covered in the sticky, gross substance, but when Leo reached for his hand again, Donnie took it.
"Thanks," said Leo, quieter now.
"I didn't want them to take you away," said Donnie honestly.
Leo's hand squeezed his. "I didn't want to go away," he said, his voice sounding strained.
Donnie stopped, and so did Leo. They turned to look at each other, as best as they could in the dark sewer tunnels.
Then Donnie launched himself at Leo, wrapping him in the tightest hug he could, and Leo hugged him back, burying his face in the soft place against Donnie's neck and shell. Donnie could feel something wet land on him, but he didn't mind because it wasn't sticky like the other stuff.
He just held Leo tight, and Leo held back, for a long while.
(They were still like that when Splinter and Raph found them. The blood freaked them out, and learning it wasn't Donnie's hadn't reassured them.
They were grounded for three weeks, but they still got to be together and read comics, so really, it wasn't too bad.)
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ghostheartfelt · 1 year ago
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*:・。☆ warnings: heavy gore, torture, hurt/comfort, whump, s/a towards reader, men being gross, gunshot wounds, stab wounds, blood and violence, branding (torture method), waterboarding (torture method), reader (thaye) is a badass, first kiss, dismemberment of fingers, eye trauma, protective!ghost, implications of smut/sex, aftermaths of torture. (there is probably a lot i missed, but idc lol all the other shit should b enough warning!!) 〔☆〕 desc: you and the 141 are deployed to austria with the intel of a drug boss known as rolmuth who is harboring romanian soldiers to the east coast to smuggle illegal mercenary personnel into america. what happens when a rapid snowstorm picks up and you (callsign 'thaye') are separated from the others then further captured and interrogated alongside your lieutenant?
—✩ PHANTOM TOUCH ✩—
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word count —15.6k
a/n: sorry for my inactivity! the entire time i was workin on this shit... let me tell you.. this is 51 pages on google docs LMAO so i hope the length and word count makes this fat fucking hurt/comfort one shot worth it.
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VIENNA, AUSTRIA.
“Move, move, move!” Price yells.
Snow fell and blanketed the ground beneath you, you were dressed in white camouflage tactical gear. 
Your movements were slower as you trudged yourself through the snow, you turned in every direction searching for your captain. 
Your lieutenant. 
Anybody. 
Rapid snowy winds smacked you in the face, nearly forcing your eyes shut as you traveled through the gusts. 
“Soap?!” You shout, planting your feet below into the patches of snow, 
Your arms raise to cover your face. 
“Fuck!” 
“Thaye!” A voice echoed through the snow that encased you in a blanket of long silence. 
Snow nestled into the ground below—everything around you seems to just slow down.
You traipse yourself heavily through the thickness around you as you snap a clip into your M4 carbine, swinging it behind you like it had been previously.
Thump.
Your head droops down and you feel your heart drop into your stomach seeing the body of one of the men you were deployed with face up.
His head four inches deep in the snow and his right eye completely destroyed, his chest marred with several bullet wounds.
The root of his nose is fractured to the point where it’s flattened into what’s left of his skull. 
You swallow the knot in your throat that might have also been barf trying to make its way out of you, kneeling down to peel the soldier’s dog tags off of his corpse.
Hudson “Scooter” Wheeler. 
It makes you smile slightly, your thumb dragging over the metal tag to wipe off the thickness of blood that had coated the carving of his name.
“I’m sorry, Wheeler.” 
The loss of fallen soldiers leave footprints and engravings on one’s heart that never allows them to be the same, again. 
You wished sometimes you could just be without the worry about who you have to lose and who you have to save. 
Restless nights followed by mornings and afternoons full of nothing but unpromised resolutions. You nearly felt as if insanity would be a better route than going through the pain of losing the people you stood side by side with, enduring the effects of grief, bloodshed, and war.
Although there were moments of bonding and camaraderie that were forced to turn into utter gore and distrust due to the change of the objective that deemed those to turn against one another in hopes of survival and success. 
Pride; a fickle sense that could drive an individual to the depths of madness and create a staked claim to prove more power then they own or deserve.
You didn’t understand it. Nor did you want to. 
You were left in a society where the drabness of gray ruled the world and pain of loss clenched to the soldier’s  hearts almost desperately. 
And yet that perpetual colour of gray; a colour so dull but so compelling, it still lights the depths of hell you lived in by merely a petite dose.
Your mouth had begun to feel tacky with your muscles stiffening as the weather conditions intensify by every fleeting moment. 
Inside your combat boots, you feel your feet begin to grow numb; similar to the feeling of stepping on fresh-cut grass and grazing dull needles. 
Now, you wonder what hypothermia would feel like. You weren’t used to this sort of weather. 
Even under your white half-face balaclava, you felt your lips and their absence of moisture. 
Still, you trekked forward, squinting eyes searching for any sign of life around you.  
Your face lights up at the sight of a shadow-like movement through the blistering storm and rapid winds once you wipe off the frost lingering on your goggles. 
They moved closer—it seemed to be one person. 
There’s a tree to your left—your legs manage to jerk themselves through the snow until you're beside it.
You cautiously lower your body into the snowpack below you, clutching your rifle in your grip while your eyes fixate on the moving figure ahead of you. 
Your finger grazes over the trigger of your carbine rifle.
A leg comes before the torso, then the face. 
The skull mask.
Ghost.
Relief washes over you immediately—raising to your knees.
“Lieutenant!” You call. 
His head immediately snaps in your direction, and the time spent staring at each other seemed everlasting, though in reality it was just a few seconds before his large hand was squeezing your shoulder and he was right in front of you.
“Thought we lost’ya,” Ghost rasps.
“What’s the sitrep?” 
“Enemy force has ordnance on standby—Price ordered all units to the West Safehouse,” he says.
You nod softly. 
“Why’d you hang back?” 
His eyes widen under his balaclava and you open your mouth to speak—Ghost tugs you by your vest, pulling you to the side.
“Gh—“
There’s a person behind him.
Sounds muffle around you, complete silence surrounding you as Ghost’s head is slammed with the butt of a rifle. 
Your hands reach down to pull your handgun from off of your hip, pointing it towards his attacker, squeezing on the trigger and unhesitantly dropping him to the ground before he can double back and finish him off.
No words leave your mouth as you turn in one quick jerk, the barrel of a L1A1 being aimed between your eyes. 
Not even seconds later was the thick handle of a bowie knife met with the back of your head. 
Immediately, your body meets with the snow, and you feel the coldness of the snow over your mask. 
You struggle to pick up your head, pain surging in the back of your head enough to blur your vision. 
Keeping your eyes open was a challenge—they constantly blink shut as you watch the enemy force yell at each other, manhandling Ghost by ripping his weapon sling off of him and dragging him by his fur-lined parka. 
His body was dragged up into a Humvee and roughly thrown in before you were picked up by your ankles and wrists and tossed right on top of him.
Your head slumps against Ghost’s bicep as you're washed up by incapacity, your mind fogging against your will. Enervation holds you captive and sweeps you off your feet. 
You’re met with blackness, next, yet the only thing you could think of was your failure to protect your superior.
☆════━━━┈┈┈┈━━━════☆
You awoke to the sounds of struggling—something teetering on the floor. 
It takes a moment for you to come to your senses and stir from unconsciousness, eyes fluttering open to take in your surroundings.
The ever-present smell of waste and deteriorated flesh smacks you with reminiscence, the overbearing cold, the taste of grime, blood, and bile in your mouth. 
When you go to move your hands, they’re immobile; binded by thick ropes that with your state of exhaustion and physical weakness, would be impossible to escape from. 
Your heavy head manages to shift for oneself to observe the room—your gear was purloined, leaving you in your cargos and a tank-top.  
Below you, the ground was concrete and stained with blood that led to the large metal door that had a closed hatch. 
Vaguely, you recall in short and brief flashes why you were there, your eyes shutting for a few moments before opening once again.
Ghost.
Where was Ghost?
“Lieutenant,” you cough. “Ghost, wh—“ 
“‘M here, kid.” Ghost wheezes. “To’yr left.” 
Your head turns, stopping at the sight of his mask on the concrete, blood smeared across the maw of the skull, over the eye socket. 
“Ghost, are you injured?” 
“No.” 
Slowly, your eyes trace up the ground beneath you until Ghost’s boots are in view. 
His soles skid against the ground as he attempts to drag the dentist chair he’s strapped in. “Fuck!”
You shift in your wooden seat in an attempt to reach your hand down to pull up the velcro flaps of your cargos. You couldn’t reach.
Ghost’s boots stop skidding against the floor as the metal door’s rusted hinges creak, the door being flung open to welcome a man inside—three other men were behind him holding military grade rifles with drum magazines.
The man inside the room raises his hand, offering departure in the Hindi language, to which his men shut the door behind him.
His arms were wrapped behind his back, the sound of his heavy boots echoing off of the thick stone walls. 
He walks around the room for a while, allowing you to raise your head to take in who he was.
A European man that’s approximately 184 centimeters with long pushed back shaggy dark hair; his eyebrows arched, a bushy beard. 
On his cheek, a nasty deep laceration scar that reaches the end of his eyebrow. Under his left eye, another scar reaches the bridge of his nose. 
The man is inches from your face, now, a tilt in his head. 
“We see how long it takes to break you, Sergeant.”  His eyes crinkled as his lips upturned in a depraved smile. 
He lifts himself from his bent position, grips the crest rail of the chair, and pulls you farther from Ghost.
“Who is your commanding officer?” He asks, feet spread apart as he looks down at you to assert his dominance.
“Fuck you.” You bite back.
The man’s hand roughly takes hold of your chin, tilting your head up towards the dangling ceiling light. 
“I eat boys like you for breakfast.” 
Ghost chuckles beside you.
His eyes narrow as he releases a choked scoff, his head swinging back before bursting into laughter.
“My drug ring reigns across the entire country—my men swarm all city.” 
His accent is thick, though his English  isn’t terrible. 
“It is either you tell me now and you and friend die quick, or you die slow of bleeding until we find on our own.” 
“Good fuckin’ luck,” Ghost grunts.
You swallow thickly, groaning as the man pulls your head back by the scalp of your hair. 
You purse your lips as you collect saliva from the walls of your mouth, spitting just above the man’s eyebrow and watching as the gob runs down over his eye.
He snarls, dragging an open hand down his face. Using that same hand, the male flexes his hand into a fist and socks you in the jaw. 
“Hey!” Ghost shouts. 
You hear it pop and you immediately outstretch your neck and slam your forehead into the bridge of his nose, arms jerking in an attempt to escape your restraints. “You motherfucker!”
He lets out a groan, his head flinging back as blood streams down his nostrils, his hand trembling over his nose.
“Bitch! Madarchod! Bevakooph veshya…” He hisses through clenched teeth. “Broke my nose!” 
His palm smacks you across the face so hard, a pinkish red hue starts blossoming across your cheek. He repeats it again, then again, and again. 
You squeeze your eyes shut, bracing yourself as numbness circles inside the flesh of your cheek, a similar feeling to those static electricity globes that you’d get for your twelfth birthday and press all five of your fingertips against.
“Hey! This is between you an’ me, a’right?” Your lieutenant gives a sharp nod, trying to reason with the man. 
He stares at Ghost for a few moments, squeezing his fingers in his fist before leaving the room, the door slamming loudly behind him.
You take the moment to actually look at Ghost, your eyes taking in his features entirely.
From his long and messy dirty blonde undercut, to his shade and stubble. 
To his bruised and bloodied lips and the thick scar running from his top lip to the underside of his chin.
To his thick and beautiful eyebrows, the scar on the start of his left eyebrow, running down to the bridge of his nose.
To his deep and all familiar brown eyes—long and light eyelashes accompanying their shape.
To the scar that spread out from the right inner corner of his lip and across his cheek as if it was the engravings of a smile line.
There were several scars littered across the male’s face; each one of vast distinction from the other. 
Once again, the door thrusts open and the man returns, cotton wads up his nostrils with another male by his side, pushing in a rolling mayo stand with different tools and items you assumed were torture devices.
“Hey! Hey! What’re y’doing?” Ghost jerks in his seat, his eyebrows furrowing as the man picks up a syringe, flicking the glass and squeezing out a droplet of the liquid inside. “What th’fuck is that?”
“You will have your answer soon enough,” he simply replies. 
“Agarwal—blade.”
The second man grabs the rotary tool from off the tray, a saw blade in the other. 
Your hands tug against their bindings enough to chafe your wrists, it feels as if your skin is being shredded with a cheese grater. 
“Paip rinch, ab.”  The taller man holds out his arm, to which the man who was now identified as Agarwal hands him a pipe wrench.
“English, asshole.” You grunt.
He slings it over his shoulder and slowly walks towards Ghost as he whistles. 
Ghost’s eyes don’t avert from his gaze, even as the pipe wrench drops from off his shoulder to clatter on the floor, hanging from his wrist and dragging along the ground.
“Who…is…your…superior?” His voice is grim, each word coming out as he takes a step.
Using the hook jaw of the wrench, he lifts Ghost’s chin.
“Piss off,” the blonde huffs.
Not even seconds later does the man swing the wrench around and belt it into his stomach. Ghost lets out a wheeze, his body lurching over in reaction to the sudden pain coursing through him. 
“No!” You yell. 
“Who.” He asks again with spite in his tone—he was demanding, it no longer was a question in his favor.
“You’ll know who when he comes’a knockin’ ‘n blows lead thru th’lot of ya.” Ghost says with a slight raise in his head.
The wrench is swung back into his stomach, causing Ghost to hurl and expel vomit onto his boots.
“Leave him the fuck alone!” You kick yourself forward a bit using your boots. Agarwal’s hands grip the slat of the chair and pull you back towards the tray.
“No, no,” he nearly coos, yanking your head back by the thinner group of hairs on the nape of your neck. 
You clench your jaw and subside, lifting yourself up with your hips to help avoid the pain.
His eye’s strain, beads of sweat rolling down the end strands of his hair regardless of how cold it was inside of the formidable room.
“Get me my player,” the bearded man says as he trails his 12” redwood handle knife across Ghost’s jawline.
Agarwal’s hand releases your hair to your relief and he leaves the room. 
“Disgusting—“ the male snarls. “Making mess of my floor.”
Your eyes narrow as you watch a pool of blood start to form as he slashes Ghost’s cheek, a groan spilling from your lieutenant’s throat.
“Fuck you ‘n y’r floor,” Ghost coughs. 
He drops the wrench to the floor, then uses a rag that was hanging out of his pocket to swipe off the blood from the knife’s blade.
Two men walk in, one pushing in a record player and the other holding a tactical vest and a book.
Your vest and your book.
His name patch reads “Gamble”, the one who throws your vest and the book onto the floor. 
“Rolmuth, the woman—she has had access to our radio frequency and has been writing down our shipment codes and locations.” 
Ghost’s head raises, his pupils shrunken as he takes in the sight of the morse code book. 
The man holding the knife cracks his head in your direction before proceeding towards you.
“Thaye…” he susurrated.
You don’t flinch when his arms raise to swing the knife over towards your temple, a maniacal laugh escaping through the barriers of Rolmuth’s teeth. 
The knife lowers to release one of your hands, though before you can reach for anything, he slams your arm backward against the back leg of the chair, the feeling of your bones snapping beneath your skin causes you to let out a sharp, excruciating cry as your now-broken arm falls limp to your side.
“Thaye!” Ghost shouts. “Fuckin’ bastard…” 
“How?!” Rolmuth yelled through his teeth, lips drawn back in a snarl as he nearly foamed out of his mouth. 
His fist meets with your cheek and your eyes squeeze together in grimace to the pain as he punches you again. 
Ghost calls out your name and you can hear the metal of his chair scrape and grind against the ground. 
You feel your cheek begin to swell, the tender flesh on your face blooming into purple and blue bruises.
He walks to the record player and takes a record out of its sleeve that was resting on the shelf of the small table the player was brought in on. It has wheels on it—similar to the mayo tray.
Rolmuth blows on the record, though the sleeve looks too clean to hold any dust, then places the record on the platter. After pressing play, he drops the tone arm down.
The record scratching sends chills up and down your spine before the music almost beautifully fills the room.
Why does the sun go on shining?
You watch Rolmuth pick up a pair of pliers.
Why does the sea rush to shore?
You wonder if he’s going to try to rip out your teeth.
Don’t they know it’s the end of the world,
He clasps them around one of your fingers on your broken arm.
Fuck.
The cold metal around your finger makes you nearly want to cry.
‘Cause you don’t love me anymore?
He was going to rip off your finger.
“Who is your captain?” His hand squeezes the pliers, applying pressure to your singular finger. 
“Go…to hell—“ 
A scream rips itself from your throat as you feel your sinew and flesh tear, the pliers tearing your finger from off your bone.
“Tha’s enough!” Ghost jerks and flails in his seat, there’s a sip of panic in his voice. “Get th’fuck off of her!” 
Why do the birds go on singing? 
Rolmuth wriggled the rest of your finger off, your eyes daring to skim down to look at the bone sticking out from your knuckle. 
Blood spews out of the gore, coating your entire hand and dripping from the crevices of your skin into your lap, staining your cargos, turning their white color into several distinct shades of red.
Rolmuth sets the finger—your finger down lightly on the standing metal tray besides you. 
Why do the stars glow above?
A penetrating ringing fills your ears; one so loud it felt like it’d be the cause of your tears instead of the pain surging through the entire left side of your body.
Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?
You’re in shock, unable to speak. Your jaw is locked, your teeth are clenched so hard it feels as if you might shatter your teeth. 
It ended when I lost your love. 
Ghost’s voice echoes in the back of your mind, when he calls out your name, you’re pulled out of your trance. You jerk your slumping head up.
You want to call out his name, but it seems like your throat is swallowing every little word that is being screamed inside of your head. 
The room is spinning and you can’t feel your arm, you can’t feel the finger move that was just severed from your hand.
“Look at me, look at me, love…” your lieutenant simpers. 
Your eyes search the room until they land on Ghost’s, he sounds far away. You feel your eyes widen as cold metal wraps around another finger once again. 
Why does my heart go on beating?
Rolmuth’s lips close in near your ear as he tugs lightly at your middle finger. 
“You don’ want to lose this finger, do you?” You feel the man’s hot breath run up the side of your face and brush past your ear.
“Who…is…your...captain?” 
Why do these eyes of mine cry?
Every nerve in your body seized, your spine stiffening with every urge to kill the man standing beside you. 
Ghost coughs up blood; internal bleeding. 
“I’ll fu…cking…skin you…” you croak, your words finally becoming coherent.
He laughs. Rolmuth’s single arm raises in a humorous gesture of surrender. 
Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?
Your eyes squeeze shut, though shoot open at the rush of heat, the pliers applying clutched pressure to your finger before Rolmuth started ripping off the second finger, wiggling it until it broke off skin and sinew. 
It ended when you said “goodbye.” 
“Look at me, Thaye.” Ghost’s voice sounds desperate, so you offer him a short glance as your jaw slacks and your body retracts.
Your strained eyes snapping to the bearded man as he places down your middle finger on top of your pointer finger.
A gag surfaces in your throat and your body twitches as you watch your finger fall and roll almost as if it’s the most natural thing. 
Ghost yells your name again.
You finally focus on him, your eyes welling up, reddening and puffing against your will.
“Jus’ look at me, angel,” Ghost’s silked voice calms you, although in a manner you can’t hear him as well as you want to. 
Every muscle and ligament inside of you feels tense and stuck.
Why does my heart go on beating?
You had three fingers on your left hand—three fingers.
Thumb, pinkie, ring. Thumb, pinkie, ring. Thumb, pinkie, ring.
“Y’ll kill her, she’s losin’ too much blood—she’s goddamn delirious!”  
Gamble’s fist barrels into the side of Ghost’s head, you hear a feral groan leave his gullet.
At least I can still put a wedding ring on my left hand. You thought.
Those three fingers trembled and twitched, it was the only movement on the left side of your body besides for your left eye—is he going to take one of my eyes? Your head is swarming with thoughts.
“Ghost…” you slur, still locked onto the blonde’s eyes. 
“I know, love,” he says as gently as he physically can. “So proud of’y…” 
His speech comes out as a garble, but you’re still able to understand him. 
“‘M gon’ get us outta here…alive, a’right?” 
Your head slumps at the attempt of a nod. 
“Save y’r energy, lovie.” 
“Shut the fuck up,” Agarwal grips Ghost’s earlobe, pulling him closer. You’re not able to cognize his words, but you’re aware of the vexation in his countenance. 
You flinch once Rolmuth drops the pliers on the metal tray. He removes his latex gloves that were blanketed in your gore and throws them onto your lap. 
“Clean them up—she still is of use to me.” His voice grows more distant as he leaves the room.
Gamble injects Ghost with a syringe that was hanging off of his waist, casting him with drowsiness, his eyes struggling to keep open before he’s blacked out.
“What did you do—…what did y’do to him?” Your eyebrows stitch together. “What did you do?!” 
They unstrap his arms from the chair, then his ankles.
“Answer me goddamnit...” You seethe, tears warping in your eyes.   
“Shut the bitch up,” Gamble nudges Agarwal in the shoulder before he pushes Ghost further out of his restraints, his body still and unconscious allowing the scarred man to bind his wrists with zip ties. 
Agarwal simply nods and paces toward you. The stock of his gun smashed into your jaw before you could react.
☆════━━━┈┈┈┈━━━════☆
DAY TWO.
The woman in the doorway was bedraggled; tired eyes and shrunken tear-stained cheeks. 
There’s a light illuminating from the pulled-back curtains—a light so bright it could dry the shining tears that spill out scarlet fluid over the eyes of the miserable.
You feel only patient while waiting for the morning sun to rise over the horizon line of the ocean side.
It’s deteriorating yet caliginous frame of murky grey stone and vast sorrow of an arched entrance sat in disposition from harrowing memories filled with bloodshed, grief, and war.
Your face relaxes at the distinctly ravishing but delicate overcasted ray of light shot down from the amidst along the ruins, the melancholy ambiance nearly sent chills down your spine.
Heavenly cries of forgotten mothers begging for forgiveness of their past sins, children's playful and beatific screams, although it was nothing unknown to you.
Screams were usually followed by split rib cages and bullet wounds—tears, blood, those screams and sweat, you went through it all just for it to lie unheard and forgotten.
You searched the odd and seemingly afterlife-like realm with your eyes, you could only wonder where you were, and why you were there.
Why the flowy white dress draped over your body oscillated with the wind in a gorgeous motion.
You're lifting your head out of the water now. 
The taste of salt seems so thick, heavy. Like you could drown in it. Like you could get drunk off of it.
The waves crashing onto shore sound so loud atop the eerie silence, their white crests phasing through your body as if your presence was unknown to them.
You loved the ocean because as opposed to the ones who were supposed to; the ocean loved you and was never afraid to come too close, even at your worst.
As you move farther from shore, the water slowly travels up your body, submerging your frame. 
You close your eyes as your head is the last thing the water consumes. You feel the water bubbles tickle your skin and elevate themselves up to the surface. 
It doesn’t take long for that familiar burn inside your lungs and that familiar feeling of being gagged by the water to swarm your senses.
Your head jerks up and you let out a loud gasp as you fade into consciousness, slipping into colored imagery instead of just monochrome. 
Waking up felt like hell; your mouth was dry and most of your limbs felt unresponsive. 
Only when you see Ghost curled up on his side, laying on the floor in front of you, are you able to register where you are and what’s going on.
His knees bucked up into his abdomen  with his hands zip tied behind his back and his face battered and bruised. 
Specks of dried blood ran from his scalp down his face reaching his compression undershirt. 
He was asleep.
There was a gentle rise and fall with his chest—you could still hear his labored breaths from where you were. 
It felt colder. 
Your eyes wander down to your left hand that was wrapped in bandages that were stained red, your two fingers missing and replaced with nubs that were uneven from each other.
If your arm wasn’t broken, you could use it to break the leg of the chair and wield  it against the next person to walk through that large metal door that made you wonder if it was life or death upon you.
If your fingers weren’t missing, you could use them to untangle your restraints on your other hand.
You could barely move your wrist—the pain that swells your entire arm makes it nearly impossible.
Ghost stirs on the floor, his body curling into itself further before his legs straighten out. 
“Lieutenant,” you mumble. “What did they do to you…?” 
His eyes flicker to yours. 
“‘M alive, aren’t I?” Ghost says.
His voice is so hoarse and weak—he sounds dehydrated.
“You are.” 
Your eyes close a moment to allow yourself to breathe in the air around you.
The single door breaking up the dull room that held them hostage creaks open on rusted hinges allowing Rolmuth to enter.
Two different men from the day prior push in the same record player and the same rolling metal tray that was stained with your blood. 
“Rise and shine,” one says, his boot meeting harshly with the lower section of Ghost’s back.
 The blonde’s eyes stay intent on the movements of Rolmuth as he lifts up different record sleeves to read their names. He slides one out and places it on the platter.
That familiar sizzle fills the room before the gentle hum of the music begins.
A short gasp leaves your mouth as Rolmuth kicks down your chair by the back stile, your head immediately jerking forward before it slams down onto the cement floor.
He dismisses the two of his men.
Rolmuth’s hand levitates over the tray and he grasps an old tan hand towel, draping it over your face.
You can hear the buckle of Ghost’s pants tink lightly on the floor as he jerks himself. “Fuckin’ bastard!” He yells.
I don’t want to set the world on fire. 
It was going to be okay, you told yourself. You trained for this. Truthfully, you were one of the best swimmers on the task force. You can hold your breath—but if that rag manages to cave in, you’ll most likely panic and lose focus.
I…just want to start a flame in your heart.
“Are you ready for talk, now?” Rolmuth arches over you. 
In my heart, I have but one desire…
Your voice muffled, you call him something along the lines of an asshole and a prick, which is quickly silenced by the pressure of water that smacks you in the face.
And that one is you, no other will do…
Ghost watches the man pour a jerry can of water over your face. His breath hitching in his throat watching your body twist and turn trying to evade from the water. 
I’ve lost all ambition for worldly acclaim
Your body arches up in protest, head jerking side to side as if it would make it any more easier on you.
I just want to be the one you love…
Focus on the music, you tell yourself. You can barely hear your own voice. 
And with your admission…that you feel the same,
Rolmuth’s smile is ear to ear as he continues tipping the canister over your cloth-covered face.
I’ll have reached the goal I’m dreaming of, believe me…
You violently thrust your body, panic surging  through you as you feel water invade and swallow your lungs. 
I don’t want to set the world on fire…
Involuntarily you gasp and choke in more water, you feel your eyes roll to the back of your head.  
I…just want to start…a flame in your heart.
Your throat was burning like scolding lava, your heart throbbing inside your chest threatening to rupture. You don’t dare to make noise. 
You’re gagging, gasping, sputtering. That you can’t handle. But you don’t let yourself cry. Not like this.
I don’t want to set the world on fire, honey,
The music is starting to garble. 
Why is it starting to sound so distorted? You ask yourself. 
I…—you too—uch.  
“Stop, y’ll fuckin’ kill her! Bloody tosser!” Ghost grits his teeth before spitting out words.
Now that you have the chance to think about it, that song reminds you of someone.
I just want to start…
Your grandfather—you’d sit on that circular crocheted rug and listen to that song as him and your grandmother baked apple fritter.
A great big flame…
He loved that woman more than life itself; when she’d started to get sick with bone cancer, he helped her bathe, he helped her eat, get dressed. 
Down in your heart.
Your mother told you about how he had asked her doctor to keep the fact that she only had three weeks left to live just between them. 
You see, way down inside me,
She was still happy. So happy. He wanted to spend those last three weeks with her. He retired from his job and took her to all the places she’d talked about visiting. 
Darling, I have only one desire. 
She passed away, and he spent every day doing all her favorite things. He watered her plants, he baked. He listened to her favorite songs. 
And that one desire is you, 
He adopted a puppy—a beautiful Australian Shepherd which he named after her. Your mom would say that your grandma’s being was reincarnated into that dog. 
And I know nobody else ain’t going to do. 
Would that happen to you too? Who would you want to belong to? What kind of dog would you be? 
A deafening ringing fills your ears, you finally stop fighting. Breathing.
“She’s not movin—“ Ghost wheezes. “She’s not fuckin’ movin’!” 
He was trained for this. He couldn’t break. He couldn’t.
“Enough!” The blonde yells again.
They could crack him, but they can’t break him. They wouldn’t kill her. 
Rolmuth finally puts down the canister and removes the rag from off your face, his body bends over to lift your chair back up. 
Your body twitching, struggling to release the water clogged in your gullet
“Wake up, bitch,” he snaps and his open palm cracks against your cheek. Your eyes shoot open.
Your mouth opens, your strained and bloodshot eyes widen with horror as you vomit out water, sputtering between your lips as you hack and gag. 
The taste of bile is sickening to your empty stomach. 
Ghost calls out your name, catching your attention as you stabilize from your state of stupor. 
“So proud of’ya, Thaye,” he groans. “Y’r strong, ‘lright? We’ll kill these bastards, all of’em.” 
You can hardly spare the man a small nod before your chin is grabbed by Rolmuth’s uncut nails—blood and dirt caked underneath them.
“You tell who you are work for, I consider sparing life.”  Rolmuth runs a blade across your cheek, increasing the pressure slightly to slit your skin—a feeling similar to a paper cut. You moan in pain. “Your friend I can not speak for.”
Blood trickles down from the incise, slowly flaring through your cut and pushing from the barriers beneath your top layer of skin. 
“F…uck…—“ your silenced by sudden metal on your tongue, scraping gently like a threat. 
“I will carve out ur pretty little tongue, cut it in bits, and feed it to you.” Rolmuth coos. “Would you that, yes?” 
“Y’sick fuck, get th’fuck away from ‘er!” Ghost attempts to jerk himself up, the bonding on his ankles not allowing him to, his bruised ribs protesting in pain as he lets out a sharp breath.
Your eyes burn into his, your neck flinching as he slowly pushes the blade farther down your throat, his hand prying your mouth open. 
He chuckles lowly, small “ah’s” leaving him as he slowly opens your mouth farther to allow the tip of the knife farther down. You salivate, drool racing down your chin and over the creep’s knuckles. 
Ghost’s eyes divert from your face to the man’s hands. Disgust laced in his features. 
He swallowed thickly, he could feel his skin boiling. He wasn’t angry. 
Pissed.
He was incensed. 
More than that. 
“G..host…” your slightly muffled voice trembles.
His gaze fixes back on yours, watching as your left eye twitches at each of Rolmuth’s motions. 
“I know, love…J’s look at me, ‘lright? J’s look at me.” 
It presses onto the skin of your tongue, it’s curved edge digging into the fragile skin and tissue causing the metallic taste of iron to taint your sense of taste.
You still bore into your lieutenant’s gaze.
Saliva and blood dribbles down your neck, the sight no doubtedly arousing the male in front of you—his tongue leapt out to slowly trace along his bottom lip.
You might drown in your own saliva at this rate.
Your lieutenant purses his dry and cracked lips, but he doesn’t look away. 
He takes the blade out of your mouth, rubbing it against the cloth of his pants to clean it. 
Rolmuth raises the knife and pierces your thigh, the feeling of cold metal hitting you first along with the shock, the sound of cloth tearing.
“I want names!” The man hollered, spit landing on your face just below your eyes.
Ghost watches your pupils shrink, his own eyes widening and slowly shifting to your thigh. 
An intense tingling sensation swarms your entire leg, then a heat. A heat that felt unbearable. 
Ghost searches for your eyes again, his mouth moving, though you can’t hear anything he says.
He broke through skin and sinew, twisting the knife inside of the laceration.
“Talk, bitch!” Rolmuth’s eyes darken. 
It takes a few moments for the pain to surface, and when it does, it’s scorching. Your jaw slacks open as your eyebrows pinch together, a shrill whimper escaping you. 
“Don’ look, don’t.” Ghost pleads with you. Even he was struggling not to look at your thigh.
It didn’t take eyes to tell there was blood bubbling from the wound and dripping down your pants and trembling leg. 
A narrow vertical split across the midsection of the flesh of your thigh. Your eyes didn’t leave Ghost’s.
Was his hair bleached? It seemed like such an unnatural shade of blonde. Brunette underneath. He must bleach it himself.
Rolmuth gave it one more twist, releasing a thin, raw, scream from your throat. 
Tears stung the corners of your eyes, but you wouldn’t let them get the satisfaction of that from you. Especially not you. 
“They’ll b’ere soon, Thaye.” Your lieutenant says.
“You are weak,” Rolmuth spits. “You will break.” 
He rolls his shoulders before gripping your pointer finger and holding a jab saw above it.
Your eyes flicker to Rolmuth’s and Ghost calls your name. 
“I want a name!” Rolmuth’s scream makes your head spin. 
“Fuck y—“ your voice is replaced with a high pitched cry followed by gasps and whimpers as Rolmuth’s new blade carved through sinew and bone. He lifts up your finger against the blade and with one swift movement, your finger falls onto the floor. 
“I’ll fuckin’ kill you, y’bastard!” Ghost’s lips twitching in pain mixed in with a whole lot of anger. 
Your body jumps up, an animalistic noise escaping your throat as you swing your head back and wince loudly, the pain in your thigh 
“Name! Or I take another!” Rolmuth yells just inches from your face. 
You couldn’t handle it—your vision is swarmed by black spots and your head is killing you. Your body is in so much pain you feel so much, but so little all at the same time. 
When your eyes roll to the back of your head and lolls, you can faintly hear the man yell ‘shit’ before you’re unable to comprehend what is happening.
Everything fades into a subtle blackness, and the last thing you hear is Ghost yelling your name. Screaming your name. 
☆════━━━┈┈┈┈━━━════☆
DAY 4
You wake up to the sound of loud groaning and thumping. 
It takes you a few moments to register that you’re awake and you can actually move. 
So you do—you upheave your head and take in the light spilling in the room from between the iron barred vent. 
It stings your eyes, blotchiness surrounding your peripheral before you’re able to adjust to the light. 
Ghost is on the floor taking blunt forces into his lower abdomen—the blonde sputters out a cough as his entire body jerks at the contact. 
The man grips the neckline of Ghost’s shirt, lifting his head from off the ground as thick red paste runs down his split and swollen lips.
His legs lift themselves up in an attempt to propel his body up and out of the man’s grasp, but he falls flat as his neck is slammed back onto the cement. 
Before Ghost can gasp for air the moment his neck is released, a closed fist slams into his cheekbone, knocking the wind out of him. 
“Stop,” you rasp. “Let’im go…”
Ghost is twitching on the floor, blood spilling from his mouth. His entire face is caked in red flakes and black and blue blemishes—the entire left side of his face is fattened with knots.
“No…” you snarl.
The man whirls his head and glares at you, an amused expression of disbelief stamped onto his face.
“No?” He says cockily.
The man paces towards you and cuts off your bindings, bundles your hair in his fist and drags you over towards Ghost, you whine and raise your unbroken arm to try and pry his hands off, but he only tugs harder. 
He pulls your hair up until you're positioned on your knees, chin raised up and neck tilted.
You hear a click, it wasn’t a gun. 
He unsheathed a pocket knife. It was a fairly decent size. You were tired of seeing knives.
Ghost watches the man’s hand lower to your abdomen, fingers pirouetting across your delicate skin, it sends a shivering fear throughout your entire body like electricity. 
“Please…” you meekly whisper, attempting to pull yourself away, your body is so weak from lack of use. Your voice came out as a croak. 
His other hand holds a knife that teases the neckline of your shirt. 
Ghost thrashes against the floor attempting to wrestle out of his bindings. “I’ll skin you,” Ghost’s voice is hoarse.
“How would you feel If I just…” His fingers trace along the scars on your stomach. “Touch her, ever so lightly…Right in front of you?” The man snickers.
You yelp as his knife cuts a thin line down your blood-stained neckline until your cleavage is exposed. 
Tears surface the corners of your eyes. 
No, no, no, no…
“Keep y’r eyes on me,” Ghost whispers weakly. “That’s it, love.”
You feel your shirt tear entirely down the middle and fall down your arms, pooling around your wrists. 
Your vision blurs and your mouth starts to feel dry, teeth chattering in unison with your trembling lips. 
When the knife rests over the center gore of your bra, your breath hitches in your throat and tears bead down your cheeks. 
The blade slices through the cloth and immediately your hand rises to cover your nude chest.
Ghost’s eyes stay locked with yours, one half-closed from being beaten beyond his control.
You feel his facial hair scrub raw against your skin, sipping in your fear and vulnerability.
“Team Delta en route for seaside, Corbin, what’s your report?” 
His radio.
The man pauses and takes his hand off the midline of your ribcage to grab his radio.
“Delta, this is Pooch on standby—hostages are stable, the woman is awake.” 
You release a choked sob, causing the man to release the talk button and bash it against the side of your face, sending you straight onto the floor. 
“Thaye…” Ghost croons.
You clutch your chest with your one hand as you feel the right side of your face swell. 
“It’ll ‘b over soon,” you tremble, releasing a shaken breath. “They’ll find..us…”
“Shut the fuck up,” his voice is slicked with spite. “Both of you.” 
“Pooch, this is Delta, rog that. Don’t kill our intel—0-7, signing off.” It crackles.
You lift your head and turn it slightly, blinking causes the pain on your cheekbone to burn like acid. 
“Go to h—“ the radio is bashed into your face again causing your vision to swim and make your head stumble. 
The sound of blood trickling and hitting the floor fills your ears, your left palm flattens against the cold floor. Missing fingers wrapped to keep you alive, not because they care.
He punches the radio into your right eye. You keep your head down in submission.
“You wanna act tough? Get treated like you're tough!” He yells.
His hand tugs your head back—you can see your own blood splattered against the communicator before you’re met with the same fate.
Ghost watches as the man beats the right side of your face in with the butt of the radio until it’s practically unrecognizable—caked and blistered. Bruising and swelling so tender on your skin. 
He can’t do anything.
He can only watch. 
You whimper and cry, hissing through your tears while your jaw clenched, the radio mercilessly landing on the same spot allowing more blood to cascade from the wound. 
The last hit is the hardest, sending your numbing cheek staggering back down onto the ground, you wheeze. 
If Ghost’s hands weren’t tied behind his back, the man standing above the two of you would be a mangled corpse. He knew that. 
Your breaths are shallow and rasped. It feels like hell to breathe—to move your face. Crimson just pools beneath you as Pooch flicks off your gore from his communicator.
He grunts in disgust as specks splatter onto the ‘cleaner’ side of your face. Like water spots on a windowpane or glass shower door. 
When you hear the door slam behind you, it makes you flinch. 
Your body has broken into tremors now, maybe it’s not tremors—but your spasming. 
And your hand is still covering your scar-ridden chest, but you feel like you might pass out again. 
Ghost’s own breaths are ragged—you wonder if lunderneath all the blood on your face if you’d look just like him. 
“Sleep,” he rasps. “I’ll watch ya.” 
You relax as much as you possibly can, your single eye twitching shut in favor of your other one. 
All you’ve had these past four days was sleep, yet it didn’t replenish. It didn’t make you feel any less tired or exhausted. 
With your bones feeling brittle and sore, it was hard to shift yourself into the mindset of falling asleep, but you tried. 
You felt Ghost scoot himself towards you, possibly just to shield your unclad chest and give you a taste of comfort. 
Your eyelids feel heavy with pain and fatigue, your body stilling as you allow yourself to sleep.
☆════━━━┈┈┈┈━━━════☆
DAY 5
Your hands are tied above your head, a gag set between your teeth which you gnaw at in an attempt to drag it down to hang around your neck.
Ghost is a few feet away from you—both of you hanging on metal piping with rope around your wrists. 
Ghost’s boots were on the floor, he was too tall to hang like you, where you could swing your feet. Did they take your shoes? 
You watch the steel poker ignite in the industrial furnace; the end of it glowing all shades of red, yellow, and orange. 
It was two different tools Rolmuth was holding, now. They had two different symbols on each one that you were unfamiliar with. He was choosing.
Rolmuth spun the branding irons with his thumbs and pointers, chuckling dryly to himself as he approached Ghost, setting one of them back inside the boiler.
His boots were so loud, they echoed off the walls of the room they were in—It looked like some sort of boiler room, but you weren’t too sure. 
You two must’ve been in a warehouse of some sort. 
Rolmuth has to look up to look your lieutenant in the eyes. 
When they’d woken you up, they threw you a gray tank top, so you weren’t as exposed as you were before. 
The Hindi man pulls down Ghost’s gag. 
“460 degrees of heat on metal…” he says as he lifts the hem of Ghost’s shirt. “You talk, I spare you more scar.” 
“Go fuck y’self, y’manky twat…”  the blonde snapped.
An open mouthed yell left Ghost’s throat as the metal is lanced firmly over the middle of his stomach, tugging at his flesh and skin.
Ghost’s eyes squeeze shut as loud whimpers escape from him, ragged winces. 
“Stop!” you cry.
God, you’d never heard him in so much pain. You never thought you’d ever hear him scream in agony, in physical pain. 
You're forced to watch the smoke trailing up the rod, Ghost’s back arching in tormentation. 
“You piece of shit!” You twist and turn your body causing the rope to shred through layers of your skin. 
His muscles tense and his knuckles go white from how hard he’s gripping the pipelines holding him up. 
Rolmuth removes the metal from Ghost’s skin—it could be described as a flesh eating parasite; the way that his skin sticks to the rod as if it’s desperate for that contact.
A hitched gasp manages to make its way past his lips as he feels a tinge of relief, his body twitching and pained moans and hisses filling your ears.  
You jerk your body weight down, kicking your bare feet until you feel the metal start to dent. 
Rolmuth sets the iron back onto the furnace over a rack, he’s bending over to adjust the heat, the fire is roaring.
You tug your arms down and you let out a strained whine at the feeling of your wrists starting to bleed.
When the metal gives in above you, it creaks and drops you down.
You slide down the metal and Rolmuth’s body swings up from fidgeting with furnace levers and knobs. 
His arms are immediately reaching for his gun while you lift your legs up and kick the heels of your feet into his shoulder blades, hard. 
Rolmuth’s head slams back into the brick base of the furnace, he lets out a groan, his form dragging down and slumping against the floor.
Your body lands harshly on the ground, an excruciating response coming from the back of your head.
Black spots cloud your vision as you slowly try to regain your composure. Your vision is blurring, everything sounds far away and echoed. 
The gun slides across the floor.
Your jaw clenches as you pick up your heavy head, your eye searching for the gun regardless of the pounding that distracted you.
When you spot the muzzle, you lurch yourself forward and reach, finger grazing the trigger guard before your pulled back by your hair, earning a yelp to leave you.
Your lungs refuse to cooperate in your chest as your scalp is nearly torn from your head. 
Rolmuth growls with clenched teeth, pulling you away from the gun and towards him as he kneels himself over you.
This was the first time you were able to get a decent look at his face—if it weren’t for your messed up eye—but you only can see the rage dispersed over his face as his hands gather around your throat.
He slams your neck down, adding onto the pain thrusting through the back of your head.
“Bitch!” Rolmuth snarls.
You suck in your gag, causing panic and adrenaline to rush through your entire body as your binded hands thrash and attempt to push him off of you. 
You duck yourself, bend your leg and kick it against his ankle to heave yourself up with all your weight upwards. 
He exclaims in his native tongue, some of which you can only recognize as insults and swears.
Ghost calls your name weakly.
Rolmuth’s hands slip from your throat allowing you to breathe and sit yourself on top of him, you tug your body and maneuver yourself until you're behind the man, pulling the knot of your bindings against his throat and crossing them over. 
His neck lifts to try and give himself access to air, though you tug and hold his waist steady between your knees. 
You yell with your clenched teeth, the fabric between your lips making the muscles in your jaw ache. 
Him wheezing beneath you, fingernails clawing at your split and abused hands before he shifts.
“Thaye!” Your lieutenant hollers.
Rolmuth’s hands reach down to his vest to pull another gun, aiming it at your foot and pulling the trigger causing you to let out an agonizing scream, pain racking your entire body. 
The bullet shoots clean through, you knew that for sure. It was too close. 
Your grip on his neck loosens so you can slap the gun out of his grip.
In three quick motions, Rolmuth’s back atop you with his hands grasping your hair again, dragging you towards the furnace until your face is close enough to feel the heat radiate onto your face.
You feel the thickness of gore engulf your foot and drip down your toes onto the floor. 
Your grunting, muffled, and loud breaths make your head pound as the man squeezes your jaw and forces your neck towards the mouth of the forge. 
“No…” you snarl with bared lips, kicking your legs regardless of the pain, throwing yourself towards him to keep yourself as far from the flames as you could.
Rolmuth laughs dryly accompanying his guttural breaths, his body stretching yet keeping a firm hold on your mandible as he takes hold of one of the branding rods. 
“No!” Your eye widens and your hands reach up to push his face away from you.
“Fuck!” He growls, shaking his face to keep your hands off as he pulls the iron out of the furnace.
He wastes no time pressing it into your side regardless of the thin tank covering your skin, and the cloth does absolutely nothing in regards to the sudden gut wrenching sensation that makes it feel like your entire body was drenched in gasoline and set on fire with a blowtorch. 
Your cry is deafening to the ears and the smell of burning charred flesh is quick to fill your nostrils. You feel and you hear your skin bubble up, sizzle, then pop, then stick to the metal and entangle itself around the start of the handle taking the appearance of something similar to chewed bubblegum. 
Even trembling and shaking, you manage to find a way to position your hands so you can plant your thumbs into his eyes and use some of the only fingers you have left to press them into his eyes, causing the man to yell. 
Still, your screams aren’t matchable as your fingernails gouge into his sockets and claw at his eyelids, shredding through flesh easily as blood began to dribble down his face and over his lips like tears. You still manage to scream louder in anger than the man can in pain. 
Your fingers shove deeper into the grooves of his eye sockets, the organs are pushed so far back that blood sprays across your face and he finally releases the rod.
It clangs to the floor, and he starts sobbing in his native tongue, convulsing hands reaching up towards his red-painted face as you pull your gag out.
“Go to hell,” You seethe wobbly as you lift yourself and steer yourself behind him, taking Rolmuth by the nape of his neck and forcing himself inside the mouth, against the grills inside the furnace. 
He shrieks and cries, moving erratically as his face is engulfed by the fire. Slowly, yet quickly, his skin is shredded by the blazes and the bottom rows of his teeth are exposed. 
It takes him a while to stop making noise before you pull his head out and throw his twitching body onto the ground, then you finally allow yourself to lean against a boiler tank and take pressure off your injured foot.
You propel yourself off the tank by your palms and drag yourself regardless of your ankle to the edge of the furnace, turning yourself around to scrape the rope against the brick.
A gasp releases from your throat at the sudden relief around your wrists, the rope falling to the ground. 
“Ghost?” You lift your head. 
“‘M here.” He replies. 
“I don’t know if I can get up.”
“I know you can,” Ghost urges. “Find…” he sputters up blistering coughs. 
“…Fin’a knife, ‘n get me outta these binds, yea?” He huffs. “‘N I’ll do the rest.”
Your eye blinks as you grip the ankle of Rolmuth’s corpse, pulling him toward you to start flipping up his vest and pant pockets.
He didn’t have a knife on him. 
Got to be fucking kidding me.
A door is swung open, a singular set of footsteps stepping into the room.
Your eye searches for a weapon—anything that can deal enough damage.
A metal fire poker is hanging off the wall to your right, so you swing your elbows back and lift yourself up by the palms of your hands.
As quick as you can, you hoist yourself up by using the support of a metal deaerator, your arm sliding against it as you limp and throw yourself towards the wall creating a subtle thud. 
“What the fuck…?” A man’s voice murmurs.
You silently curse to yourself under your breath as you grab the fire poker off the nails that were being used to hold it up.
Using the heel of your injured foot, you shuffle against some shelving, looking between the gaps for the man inside the room. 
He’s holding a Fennec, nothing you haven't dealt with before. 
He’s twenty seconds to your left, carefully skimming along the floor with his eyes down the sights of his gun.
You pinch a metal screw off of one of the shelves and toss it into the corner closest to you to lead him your way. 
“Fuck,” the younger male jumps slightly. He looked young and lanky, at least from his physique.
When you hear his boots start to rub against the floor, you lift your head slightly to watch him turn towards your direction. 
Your fingers and nubs flex on the thin metal, it’s hard to gain a clear grip.
The man comes around the corner of the shelves, the sounds of his tactical gear shuffling alerting you when he gets closer until his helmet is in sight.
You immediately thrust the fire poker into the gap below his collarbone and into his scapula, dampening the fabric of his undershirt in that area as it rips. 
Out of panic and shock, his finger grips the trigger and you have to jerk him away before any of his bullets are able to hit you.
“Please!�� The boy pleads, gun dropping to hang around his neck as he grips the caps of your shoulders. You only glare at him before plunging the fire poker further into that same spot until it tears and mauls through his back, sticking out on the other end.
He’s gasping out, but it’s almost like no air is exhaling, mouth held agape as his grip on your shoulders releases. 
You shout and cry out at every thrust until the hole carved into his skin is able to suck in the hooked tip. 
The male’s head falls and you allow his body to slump down and forward, the metal rod holding his stilled body up. 
You heave dryly and press a palm on the wall to support yourself, your foot is killing you—literally.
The blown out flesh and puckered skin walls made you want to barf. You could stick a finger through your foot and feel your pulsating muscles just hug around your finger. 
You lean down and unclip the knife holster from the gun belt, unsheathing it then hobbling around the shelving towards Ghost who was still hanging from the pipes. 
“Okay, okay…” you breathe sharply, struggling to lift yourself up onto the brick platform of the furnace, nearly stumbling off before you catch your footing. 
“Keep still,” you say, arching your hand to start cutting at his bondings until he’s dropped onto the floor.
Ghost lets out a loud groan, his arms clutching his ribs. They’d broken one of his ribs, maybe multiple. You both were in bad shape.
It takes him a moment to get himself off the floor as you seat yourself and scoot off of the hearth. 
He grabs both of the hand guns that had been dropped onto the floor, holding one out to you.
You unclip the magazine, then snap it back into the chamber at the sight of one missing bullet. 
It was the same one that Rolmuth used to shoot your foot. 
Ghost’s hand rests on your cheek, gently. “Y’did good, ‘lright?” He spoke with a lilt. 
“Can y’walk?” 
“A little.” You nod. “Fuckers took my shoes…” 
He lets his hand fall to check his magazine, then he nods. “‘Don’t know if I can carry ya with m’ribs.” 
“It’s okay, just don’t wait for me.” You reply.
His eyebrows furrow. “Bloody hell, Thaye, I ain’t leavin ya.” 
“I know but—“ 
“No.” 
Ghost’s half-lidded eyes glare at you, giving you all the warning to stop.
“Stay behind me.” 
He starts walking towards the door, slowly peeking it before leaving with you behind him.
Walking hurt—even while you only applied pressure to the heel on your injured foot, the muscles contracted and the pain was torturous. 
One man entered the hallway holding a box from another room, which Ghost took care of by shooting a single bullet between his eyes.
The box had opened and dropped glass equipment, alerting four others who had been lingering in the room he came from.
They yell and communicate in their native tongue, one sticking his head out of the door threshold to aim his rifle.
Ghost fires his pistol and the man swings his head back into the room, still opening fire into the hallway.
“Fuck!” You hiss, dodging the bullets and moving quickly behind a filing cabinet, lowering yourself down. 
Ghost’s back presses against a door to your right, pulling himself out of cover to fire at the man.
Two bullets miss and the third causes his head to fling back and smear blood as his body arches and falls down to the floor.
You lift your head and aim your pistol, gasping when your throat is suddenly hooked back from behind you. 
When the combatant turns you around and attempts to make a slash at your throat, you manage to extract yourself by gripping his wrist and snapping his elbow out of place, the sounds of bones snapping as he yells.
His knife drops from his hand and you scramble to pick it up from the floor.
You groan as his boot digs into your bandaged hand before you're able to pick it up, then his hand grips your neck to lift you up.
He wraps his arms around you and squeezes you, locking his wrists over each other at your back. You clench your teeth and jerk violently in his grasp.
Ghost is fighting four other men, locking them in the crook of his elbow and smashing their skulls between the doors.
The man holding you in position crushes you in his grasp even with his broken arm. He tries dragging you into another room.
“Let me the fuck go,” you gasp, causing the man to laugh. 
“You will regret ever trying to leave your room,” he utters. 
You breathe a moment, heart pounding through your chest as you swing your head into the side of his neck and sink your teeth into his skin with all the strength in your jaw. 
Crimson liquid seeps into your mouth and down the front of your neck as you yank out the flesh of his throat. You spit out the skin and blood, wiping your mouth and tongue against the skin of your arm as the man’s grasp loosens
His shoulder blades and chest are glistening in red, gore spurting out of the torn spot in his throat as his body stumbles and he’s gargling on his own blood trying to speak.
“Fuck you…” You shutter weakly, eyes slowly skimming down to the knife lodged inside your waist. 
Shit.
He must’ve stabbed you before lifting you up, your adrenaline pumping so fiercely you couldn’t feel it until now.
You stumble on your feet slightly, shaking hands lowering to wrap around the handle and pull it out of the slit.
The runnel of red paste turns into a thick stream down as it drenches your tank top. 
You lift your head slowly and throw the knife overhead across the hallway, hitting a man who’s pointing a handgun at the back of Ghost’s head. 
It’s blade spades into the back of his skull and makes his body wriggle down onto the floor.
“Ghost…!” You gasp and press your open palm over your soaking top and open laceration. 
Ghost steps over both legs of a bloodied man before shooting him dead and advancing towards you.
“Shite…” He huffs, gently removing your hand and placing it back after gaining a clear inspection.
His hands grip the hem of his shirt and roughly tear at the fabric creating a long strip, then he moves your hand aside again to tightly secure it around your wound. 
You hiss and groan, hand gripping his shoulder as he tugs and pulls at your body while tying the knot of the fabric. 
“I’s ‘lright.” Ghost mollifies as he scoops his arm underneath your armpit.
It offers you some support as he guides you both out towards a staircase.
It wasn’t a warehouse—you and Ghost were just in a basement that was turned into a meth lab. 
Boxes and boxes full of lab equipment scattered along the floors. 
You’d never seen such a big basement, one with torture chambers and stonework rooms. 
Hell, in the corner of the room with all the steel liquid tanks and chemical barrels. 
A woman is in bright blue hazmat coveralls and a chemical mask standing on top of a metal stool. 
Ghost raises his pistol and you lower it slightly with your palm, his eyes glaring at you with his head kept facing forward. 
“You can’t miss, we don’t know what corrosives are in these tanks. Is it worth it?” You keep your voice low, personal between the two of you.
He doesn’t reply, instead he looks forward, then squeezes the trigger and picks the woman off by shooting her in the side of her neck.
You swallow thickly as her body spasms on the ground, the stool getting caught in her ankle as crimson fluid rises and bubbles inside of her mouth. 
Ghost guides the two of you up the cobble stairs, one hand dragging up the wall and the other across your lieutenant’s wingspan.
Your eyes flash at the sudden two objects being thrown down the stairs, the sudden silence as they roll down step…after step…after step before Ghost is swinging you up into arms and yelling.
He’s breaching himself through the door, into open fire before the staircase you had come up from explodes into the emitting heat compressed air and blasts behind the two of you sending you both flying forward. 
Smoke engulfs the room, giving both you and Ghost coverage to get behind cover.
You're pulled by the back of your shirt behind a deep freezer, bullets flying and hitting the metal.
“Fuckin’ pricks got us pinned!” His head lifts over to fire at three of the men who have ballistic shields covering those firing LMGs behind. “‘N I’ve got four left.”
You can’t see through the thick smoke—you can’t breathe while wheezing into the crook of your elbow. “Seven,” you inform him. 
“Cover me,” Ghost grabs your arm for a moment, letting go and serving around the freezer. 
You follow behind him with a raised pistol, shooting off at any glares you're able to see through the fumes.
Six…Five…
A man steps out from cover behind a wine cabinet, but before he can fire his rifle, you pop him in the eye.
Four…
Ghost quickly crouches down and shimmies the rifle out of the corpse’s grip, grabbing at a magazine and stuffing it into his vest he’d managed to keep.
You groan and push over a bookshelf behind Ghost once you’re both out of the smoke. He takes aim and opens fire at three men, blowing holes in their chests before he rams into the fourth with a loud yell and slams down the stock of his assault rifle into his face until his teeth and nose are finely pressed into the persian rug.
You finish off two more who try to walk through the threshold of the room, turning your head over your shoulder at the sound of approaching footsteps.
Two…
You jerk yourself away before you get slugged by a riot shield, ascending yourself and shoving your firearm past the barriers of his lips from behind. You pull the trigger and his head flings as the bullet rings out and creates a sizable hole in the back of his head.
One…
Before his body hits the tile, you take hold of his riot shield and deflect the hail of gunfire from the individual who came emerging from the threshold corner.
You walk forward until his clip is empty to drive the shield into his vest-covered chest, stunning him so you can push it aside and fire your last shot into the underside of his jaw. 
Zero.
Bullets continue spraying throughout the entirety of the house while you make sure you don’t pass out from the amount of blood you’ve lost.
You grab the TAQ-V from off the floor and click a new magazine into it, shoving a spare into your back pocket before pushing into the same room as Ghost.
He’s piling bodies on the floor, wrestling for dominance over a knife. 
You fastdraw another handgun you’d grabbed off of one of the bodies and shoot the man in his knee cap to allow Ghost to gain the upper hand and pierce the man’s temple with the weapon. 
“Thanks,” he says gruffly. 
You nod softly, inhaling sharply as you feel wet blood pool around your uninjured foot. 
They took your shoes for no reason, like they had a use for them.
Maybe it allows you to move around more quietly, but it still disturbed you that they took the time to even peel off your socks. 
“What intel did y’know that we didn’t?” His chest is against yours, head craning down to keep the conversation between the two of you.
“Lieutenant, we don’t…” You pause a moment, your head spinning. 
Hunger, thirst, the cold, the blood loss. There was so much holding you hostage and you weren’t even able to comprehend how you were still standing—limping.
“Well, Seargant?” His voice is low, still holding the same husky British drawl.
“We don’t have the time for this, for now—“ Ghost shoves you aside before you can finish, raising the muzzle of his rifle to open fire on the men entering the room.
“Fuckin’ riot shields!” He pulls you behind a flipped over tattered blue couch that had already gone through its fair share of bullets.
A bullet flies and hits the side of the couch a hair’s breadth from your face. 
“Goddammit,” he curses while replacing the magazine in his gun.
The men brandishing shields push further.
When one reaches close enough, you run in front of the shield and grab the sides before he crashes into you. 
You turn him until his body is vulnerable to Ghost, your teeth ground into each other.
“Ghost!” You yell to catch his attention, head snapping in your direction to fire a single round into the back of his head.
You throw the body off of yourself and yank the riot shield to cover yourself, ducking your head as you recoil your fist and punch one of the men baring LMGs hard twice in the jaw.
You thrust the shield into the next, throwing it into his abdomen as he topples, finishing him off by shooting him down in the chest.
One turns with his M4 raised, but you turn your gun around and bash the stock into the base of his chest, then again into his cheek, swiping your leg across the floor and knocking him down then picking his head up and slamming it down on a thick shard of glass sticking upwards to finish him off. 
Ghost drops the last body, finishing off a magazine into his vest and throwing the weapon aside. You toss him another one, which he catches with ease.
“We’ll force upstairs, look f’r our shit, ‘n leave.” He says as he picks up a frag grenade from off a vest.
“There should be Skimobiles somewhere around here, the ones they were using in the FFO,” you nod.
“A’right,” he groans while rolling his shoulders. “On my mark.” 
He trudges past bodies until he’s at the threshold of the staircase, stepping up slowly with the grenade in one hand and his gun in his other.
You follow behind leisurely, eye down the scope of your rifle. 
He pulls the clip and tosses it up, arm stretching behind to press his hand against your shoulder blade. 
“Oh shit—grenade!” A man yells from upstairs before detonation. 
“Go!” Ghost immediately backs up off the wall and skips over two steps into the corridor, prefiring as he loops around a wall.
There’s already bodies and limbs splayed across the room from the combatants who were hit by the frag.
Your back rubs against the wall as you lean to shoot down the hallway, whirring bullets firing past you.
After a few back and forths between staying flat against the wall and leaning to fire off your gun, bodies drop and you’re able to progress down the hall. 
Ghost is somewhere on the opposite side of the house, you still hear heavy gunfire.
You pause at the sight of another man at the end of the hallway and you recognize him immediately.
The look in his eyes and the scruffiness of his face made your lips stretch in almost the most feral look.
Corbin, that was his name. Callsign ‘Pooch’.
Anger burns in the depths of your lungs and stomach as you grip the wall for support, lunging yourself forward to lift your feet over each body that was littered across the hallway floors.
Sweat ran down the sides of your face and splotched down around the neck of your shirt with the blood.
You watch his face twist into a wolfish grin as he slings his gun over his shoulder and walks towards you. 
“Alright, sweetheart.” He purrs. 
White noise fills your ears.
All you can see through the glossy shine of your eyes is the man who humiliated you in front of your superior. 
All you can see through the blinding red rage is the man who beat Ghost and cracked his ribs, forcing you to watch him retract and twitch at every fleeting fist. 
Even the hail of gunfire is silent in your ears as you drag your injured foot. Everything sounds underwater, everything feels dull.
His fist intersects and meets with your cheekbone causing your head to shift to the left and your body to stumble where you stand. 
You grip his wrist and divert his second punch by lifting your arm and thrusting your knee roughly into his thigh to tamper his movements.
He groans, with grim chuckles following after. “I’m going to enjoy every last second of this,” he coos.
Your body shivers in disgust as you slide your fingers down to your waist, priming the knife stuffed beneath the hem of your shirt. “Go fuck yourself…” you hiss.
His eyes flicker down to your hand and his boot immediately connects with the middle of your torso, sending you across the floor with a loud thud.
Pooch steps between your legs and lifts your upper body by the neckline of your shirt, his knuckles slamming down to beat on your already swollen face. 
Drool and blood pour from your mouth, a strangled gasp leaving you at every punch before he releases you harshly back down onto the floor. 
Your eyes are rolling to the back of your head, the pressure and swelling in your face and head being all too much for you.
A boot is savagely kicked into the lower pit of your abdomen, making you gag on air.
“Get the fuck up.” Pooch spits. 
You clutch your stomach and turn, slowly feeling for the knife, then quickly lifting the edge trimming of your tank top and grasping the handle, pulling it out and sweeping your leg around and behind his ankles to knock him off to the side.
He yells out swears as you level yourself over him, his legs kicking out to make your chest rest on the soles of his boots. 
Both of your hands grasp the handle of the knife making it easier on your lack of fingers. His hands grip your forearms as you cry out and try forcing the knife down on him.
He kicks his legs up and backwards, upending you over him and sending the knife flying. 
You hiss and give yourself no time to recover, flipping on your stomach and army crawling with your forearms to grab the knife.
He topples atop your body, planting a piercing slap across your face before reaching for the knife and propelling it downwards into you.
Before you’re able to block, the knife breaks through the skin in your stomach, your hand managing to grab his wrist before he’s able to gut you open.
You seethe and let out a sharp whine followed by a croaked cry, your other hand circling his wrist in an attempt to push him away. 
Quickly, you roll your body off to the side and let go of him, causing the knife to pierce into the wood flooring as you grip a console table to succor yourself up.
Corbin abandons the knife and flings himself upwards, swinging his gun into his arms. 
“I’m done playing games.” 
You advance on him, grabbing the rifle and pushing it into his chest before he can aim it at you.
One of your hands grip the upper hand guard while the other grips the bolt and holds the muzzle up.
You yank his body over towards the window behind you, turning your body then grabbing the man by the back of his hair and smashing his head through the glass.
It shatters from contact and leaves cuts and shards in his skin, a loud yell clawing its way from his throat.   
His finger grips the trigger and bullets roll out into the floor as you pull his head back.
You pull the rifle sling from off his shoulder, tossing it aside and disarming him from the X12 tucked into the back of his pants.
He growls at every tug of his scalp as you shoot him in the back of the leg and force him onto his knees.
A loud wail echoes the hallway from the man below you.
 “Shut your fucking mouth,” you snap.
“You don’t get to scream.”
“You don’t get to cry and whine like a little bitch.”
There’s no remorse in your voice, no sense of mercy for the man being held on his knees and whimpering.
You smack the magazine onto the base of his nose, blood dripping it’s way down his nostrils as a struggling noise spills from his lips.
“You…fucking….” he chokes on his own words. 
His entire body violently trembles at the tortured scream he releases as you squeeze the trigger again, shooting Pooch in his shoulder then proceeding to stick your thumb into the ravage wound harshly.
“Bitch! Fucking bitch!” He strains and pants like a dehydrated dog trying to jerk away from you.
You replace your finger with your foot, lowering his back against the floor as you press your toe into the bullet hole.
Another scream tears out of him as you blow another hole into the other side—his chest convulses.
Blood seeps from his mouth, you hold the grip of the handgun with both hands and sob out loud as you empty the entire magazine into his head until his face is unrecognizable to the amount of bullet holes.
You keep pulling the trigger, even as the gun starts to click announcing its out of ammunition.
The entire floor below you is covered in gore; flesh, messings of brains, blood, skin. 
So much.
Your body snaps around as a hand abruptly drapes over your shoulder, your arm raising the gun ready to bash it into the skull of the next man to try and touch you.
“Thaye, Thaye—y’got him! Thaye, he’s dead!”
Someone calls your name trying to snap you of out haze.
Ghost—your eyes soften with glistening tears as he calmly disarms you after deflecting the hit with his forearm, tossing the handgun aside so he can push you into his chest by the back of your neck.
“‘S over, sweet girl.” Ghost says with intonation. “Can’t hurt ya anymore.”
Your eyes are wide with terror, hands bundling your lieutenant’s shirt as you exhale a shaky mewl.
It’s him who releases you first, handing you your custom rifle and radio.
His balaclava is back on his face, along with the skull mask.
“Y’r vest ‘n boots are in the room I came from,” Ghost jerks his head.
You nod softly and shamble towards the doorway in the direction he’d pointed out.
You pause.
A little boy walks out of the threshold—he’s holding a gun far bigger than his head.
Your eyes widen slightly. “Did these men take you from your family?” 
You turn your head over your shoulder to call for Ghost, the sound of a bullet whirring filling your ears.
Ghost wastes no time pulling out his handgun and shooting the little boy in the head before running towards you.
Your right shoulder is screaming at you as time seems to slow down to a crawl. You hear Ghost yell behind you and the gunshot ringing as the little boy falls back and you do too, hitting the ground hard.
The masked man is on his knees in front of you within seconds, lifting your head into his lap.
“Thaye! Thaye, don’t y’fuckin’ die, not now…” He growls, applying pressure down onto your shoulder with both of his gloved hands.
Your lips slant in a tired manner, eyelids feeling heavy. His bloody hand kneads your cheek, smearing gore along your already dirtied skin.
“Fuck! Fuck!” he curses loudly. “Stay awake, love, please…”
God, he was hurting, it hurt to have your head against the burns on his stomach, but he wouldn’t let you die.
“Babygirl,” he says weakly. 
All you can see is an uncleanable amount of red seep and cover your shirt.
Your lungs clutch together inside your chest, labored breaths escaping you with a strained noise.
“I know…I know—keep those gorgeous eyes on me, sweetheart.” He inhales a shaky breath, flipping up your blood-crusted hairs from sticking to your forehead.
You whisper an apology, catching his attention as you grip his waist. Ghost’s eyebrows furrow.
“Don’t. Don’t say sorry,” he says. “You did this, you saved our lives, love.” 
“‘M just finishin’ the job, ‘lright?” His split and bloody lips find a place on your temple, planting a raw and long kiss to your throbbing skin.
“…’least I got to see your face before—“ 
Ghost holds you, squeezing your hand as a slight warning. “Don’t talk like that.” 
It was a demand. 
“That an—“ you spur into a coughing fit, blood spraying onto the man’s vest. “…Order, Lieutenant?” 
“Spare y’r energy,” he huffs. 
“Simon—“ you slur.
“Stop.” He snarls.
Your ragged breaths start to stray, causing panic to surge through the man above you.
“No,” he growls, squeezing your smaller hand in his a bit tighter than before. “Don’t, Thaye,” he says through clenched teeth.
Your body falls limp in his lap, the grasp loosening on his shirt making his heart pound through his chest, a painful pounding that felt similar to acid reflux.
“No!” Ghost yells, desperately palming at your tangled hair in panic. “Fuckin’ massacre,” he exhales shallowly.
One arm scoops beneath the back of your knees, the other across your shoulder blades with his hand holding your arm. 
A loud strained groan claws it’s way from his gullet at the sudden pain inside his ribs as he lifts himself up and off the floor. 
His muscles tighten inside his body, a burning sensation in his abdomen as he clutches you close to his chest, feeling your blood seep into his shirt.
☆════━━━┈┈┈┈━━━════☆
The gentle rhythmic beeping and steady flow of air through your nostrils was something that felt unreal and forced.
You slowly flutter your eyes open to light slipping in between the beige curtains. Your eyes are half-lidded and threatening to close against your will as your bandage wrapped hands rests atop the metal railing on either side of you.  
It smells of strong floor cleaner and hand sanitizer, a scent that is slightly uneasy on you as you slowly slip back into consciousness. 
Your muscles feel tight in your body; pain racking your shoulder and neck as you crane it to take a look around the room. 
The walls are spinning and the ceiling above you is spiraling making you sick to your stomach. 
On the bedside table to your left—closest to the window—there’s flowers. They’re too withered to try and recognize what kinds, shredding to flakes in your fingers when you caress them between your pinky and thumb.
Your hand drags up to pull nasal tubes out of your nostrils. It’s almost as if you’ve forgotten how to breathe air, throat tightening and lips so still from lack of moisture.
There’s a penetrating migraine in the back of your skull as you carefully swing your legs over the side of the bed, the thin baby pink and spotted hospital gown flowing down your sides leaving you slightly exposed in your thigh region. 
Bare and bandaged feet slide along the smooth cold tile, sending chills up your body as you grip the IV stand with your trembling hand, the other holding onto the bed railing for support. 
You groan and strain as you struggle to lift yourself up, propelling upwards with your palm and grip on the stand until your knees straighten and your standing up somewhat decently.
Where was Ghost? Is Ghost alive?
So many thoughts coursed through your head along with the punishing feeling of dehydration. 
You guide yourself using the wheels on the IV stand towards a counter, your hands gripping the handle of the sink and pulling it upward.
A choked moan manages to break from you as you scoop the water in your hands and swill the rich liquid. 
Water dribbles down your chin, which you wipe away before lifting your head to look into the medicine cabinet mirror. 
Your hand rests on the wall in front of you as you heave.
They cut your hair shorter, not too short but enough so that it was comfortable. Your entire right side of your face being bandaged, stains of blood being a faint copper color.
Bandages wrapped around your neck and reached down your shoulder you’d been shot in.
Your hair had been taken care of neatly while you were in a coma, that was obvious.
Ghost. Where?
You grip the IV stand and hobble towards the door, turning the knob and gripping the threshold with your other hand as you step out. 
A nurse pauses in her tracks, rushing to your side in an instant. “How are you up? Your injuries are critical,” she gasps, palm flattening against the small of your back.
“My lieutenant—…my lieutenant…” you say in an undertone.
“You need bed rest, you’ve only just woken up.” Her voice is gentle yet commanding.
“No,” you bark, shuffling out of her hold. “Please take me to him.” 
The woman bites her lip before nodding hesitantly, hand against your back again to guide you towards his room.
It was only a few doors down from you—when the nurse opened the door, allowing you into the room.
You see the back of Ghost’s head facing in your direction, his hair tousled from the bandages wrapping around his head.
“Ghost,” you call.
His head turns from facing the window to facing you, you hear him murmur your name in reply.
“Y’minx,” he breathes. “Hell y’doin’ out ya bed?”
You carefully walk yourself towards him, the nurse holding her hands atop her chest nervously. The sound of the plastic wheels of the stand makes his breath hitch in his throat, the sound of reassurance that you were alive.
“You okay, big man?” Your voice is hoarse from lack of use, but he’s able to that you perfectly.
“D’ya ever worry ‘bout y’self, love?” Ghost asks with a tinge of humor. 
Heavy casting was on his right leg, bandages and patches on practically every inch of his body—similar to you.
“Sometimes,” you smile softly and push strands of his hair out of his face, your heart slightly shatters in your chest at the sight of him flinching at your touch.
Ghost scoots himself over slightly, wincing at the sudden movement.
You seat yourself beside him on the large gatch bed and his hand pushes you down to lay beside him.
“Wait, Mr. Riley—“ the nurse takes a small step forward.
“I’ll ‘b fine,” he grunts.
Her eyes blink slightly as she takes a few steps back, her lips separating to speak though no words come out. She simply turns on her ankles and closes the door behind her.
Ghost secures an arm around your waist, pushing your back flush against his bandaged chest.
Your eyes trace his tattoos and the muscles of his arms, every scar and blemish.
“Where’s the force?” You ask quietly.
“Left recently,” he mumbles back tiredly, pressing his nose into your hair. “Y’smell like pomegranate—got y’self a damn spa crew while y’were out?”
You laugh dryly, breaking into a light fit of wheezes.
“Not too hard, Seargant.” Ghost’s finger tucks a loose strand of hair from your bangs behind your ear.
Your wet bandages on your hands rub against his knuckle as you hold onto his hand, he seems to pay no mind.
You turn your body slightly so you can get a better look at his face. “Odd seeing you without your eye black.” You quip.
His closed eyes open to look down at you. “Mm, might as well see m’down in me knickers then, eh?” He chuckles huskily.
“Very funny,” you roll your eyes lightheartedly. 
You catch his small glances to your lips, his hand leaving your chest to run his thumb down your bottom lip until that same hand is cupping your cheek lovingly.
His eyes narrow, he’s sleepy, but you still catch yourself propping your body up with your elbow and closing the gap between the two of you. 
Instantly, his head cranes and tilts to deepen the kiss, his fingers gently sliding down the side of your face to press his thumb into the underside of your jaw and drag his fingers along the nape of your neck.
Ghost breathes into your mouth, the taste of mint leaf and citrus enveloping your taste buds as his tongue laced over yours.
The kiss was passionate, you feel his eyebrows furrow showing his desperation as you both kissed softly at a gentle pace and motion.
Your eyes flutter open as you feel his warm lips leave yours with a quiet pop, both of you panting lightly with his forehead pressed against yours. Ghost’s eyes are unable to open for a few moments after you disconnect. 
When they do open, your eyes bore into his brown orbs, the dark purple hue circling under his eyes showing his deprivation of sleep.  
When he feels you buck gently back into his groin, he releases a small grunt, lips meeting yours again for a small chase kiss.
“Not like this,” he says quietly. “I’d take you on this bed right here, right now, but y’ve recently waken up ‘n we’re both still in r’covery.” 
You hum in agreement, his hand finding it’s place on your chest once again with the knowledge of your lower abdomen injury.
“‘N to b’honest—‘can barely feel m’damned balls, feels like ‘ve got whiskey dick.” He grumbles, and you bite your lip to suppress a giggle.
“Simon!”
“Don’ you laugh at me, woman.” Ghost lowers his head into the crook of your neck, biting the skin gently 
“My deepest condolences, Lieutenant,” you purr, catching his lips in another kiss when you jerk his head upward with your uninjured shoulder. He growls against your mouth in reaction.
There’s a long yet short line of silence as you turn towards his back again, your legs tangling with his as you hold your lips against his knuckles.
“Y’have no clue how strong you are.” He swallows the knot in his throat as he speaks. “God, Thaye, they…they told me there was a chance y’d never wake up.” 
“Hey,” you hum. “Stop that, I’m here now.” 
His eyes stare blankly at the wall ahead of you, maybe even the same wall you were staring at—if your eyes weren’t closed already. 
“I just don’ know what I would’ve done if I made it outta there ‘n y’didn’t make it with me.” He says. 
“Y’r the reason I made it out with you in the first place. If y’hadn’t pulled that barmy stunt—“ he pauses, and you feel the rise of his chest and the fall as he exhales deeply.
“Y’survived internal bleeding, trauma to the head ‘n eye, two broken ribs, second and third degree burns, asphyxiation, dismemberment, stab wounds and gunshot wounds..” Ghost squeezes his fist tighter against your chest. 
“So did you, Si.” You coo softly. 
“Christ…” he mutters. 
His fingers interlock with yours best they can, regardless of the most of them being numbs on your knuckles, and it wasn't until your hand rested on his chest and rubbed over the raised scars, that he realized he hadn't been touched so gently in nearly eleven years. It wasn't a new feeling, but it was a feeling that he had craved desperately. 
Never had fallen in love before, but he knew you had bad experiences with it—figuring out that your ex-fiancé had cheated on you while on deployment. Someone had to love you, and he was skeptical of it being him, but it was clear you loved him too and now he was scared you’d stop. 
But hearing your gentle breathing as you slipped back into sleep hunched into his form led him somewhere he’d never been. You cleared his mind and cleared away his thoughts. For the first time, he doesn’t want to look away from what he has the ability to feel.
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companion-showdown · 3 months ago
Text
Anniversary Tournament
Last year for Doctor Who's anniversary I ran a tournament between Doctor Who stories, and I wanted to so something different again this year. A tournament between real people important to the history of Doctor Who, actors, writers, producers, directors, composers, production designers. Technically it'll be a tournament for the most infuential person to Doctor Who and its development over the years, but really I want it to be a celebration of all of these people, and not just the winner.
To that end, the nomination form, you can also submit nominations normally, ie sending me an ask or replying to this post, however I won't be accepting propaganda through those methods.
I'm thinking I'll close nominations on the 18th of November, that might change but probably not by much
Current Nominations:
if green then at least one person has submitted propaganda for them
Actors
Arthur Darvil
Billie Piper
Carole Ann Ford
Christopher Eccleston
Colin Baker
David Graham and Peter Hawkins
David Tennant
Frazer Hines
Freema Agyeman
India Fisher
Jacqueline Hill
Jodie Whittaker
John Simm
Jon Pertwee
Lisa Bowerman
Liz Sladen
Matt Smith
Ncuti Gatwa
Nicholas Courtney
Pat Gorman
Patrick Troughton
Paul McGann
Peter Capaldi
Peter Davison
Rodger Delgado
Sean Carlsen
Sophie Aldred
Stuart Fell
Sylvester McCoy
Tom Baker
William Hartnell
William Russell
Composer
Delia Derbyshire
Dudley Simpson
Murray Gold
Paddy Kingsland
Peter Howell
Rob Harvey
Ron Grainer
Segun Akinola
The BBC Radiophonic Workshop
Designers
June Hudson
Peter Brachacki
Raymond Cusic
Directors
Christopher Barry
Graeme Harper
Paddy Russell
Rachel Talalay
Richard Martin
Waris Hussein
Fandom
Marnal Gate
TARDIS wiki creator
The Audience
Craig Ferguson
Producers
Barry Letts
Graham Williams
John Nathan Turner
Philip Hinchcliffe
Verity Lambert
Julie Gardner
Writers (including script editors and showrunners)
Alan Moore
Anthony Coburn
Chris Chibnall
David Whittaker
Donald Wilson
Douglas Adams
Eric Saward
Gerry Davis
Grant Morrison
John Lucarotti
Johnathan Blum
Justine Richards
Kate Orman
Kit Pedler
Lance Parkin
Lawrence Miles
Marc Platt
Paul Cornell
Robert Holmes
Robert Shearman
Rona Munro
Russell T Davies
Steven Moffatt
Terrance Dicks
Terry Nation
Other/impossible to categorise
all the thousands of people who've worked behind the scenes
Michael Grade (BBC higherup who hated doctor who so so much)
Peter Cregeen (actually cancelled Doctor Who)
Sydney Newman
Nicholas Briggs
Gary Russell
John F Kennedy
Sue from Catering
The real historical figures who've appeared in the show
Shakespeare
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butterfly-stitches · 25 days ago
Text
INSTINCT.
[ Explicit ] // MDNI
AO3
Pairings: Russell Adler x Bell, Frank Woods x Bell Ensemble: Russell Adler, Frank Woods, Alex Mason, Reader, Bell (Implied Fem!Bell), Helen A. Park, Eleazar "Lazar" Azoulay, Lawrence Sims, Jason Hudson
Warnings: Alternate Universe, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omegaverse, Military Inaccuracies, Medical Inaccuracies, A/B/O Prejudice, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Torture, Medical Experimentation, Accidental Knotting, Knotting, Claiming Bites, Animal Instincts, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Scenting, Scent Marking, Older Man/Younger Woman, Hurt/Comfort, Mildly Dubious Consent, POV Second Person, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Summary: Betrayed by your own and left for dead, you were captured and interrogated by the enemy. But you gave them nothing. Desperate times call for desperate measures as the saying went. And by it, the use of MK-Ultra. Melding you into something more manageable. Making you believe that you work alongside the CIA and have known Adler for many years. But what your capturers didn’t expect was the byproduct of transmutation in the after process of menticide. Turning you, an alpha, into an omega. Now Adler and the rest of the team must learn to adapt and adjust to an omega in their military pack. All while trying to stop the puppeteering machinations of a once dormant Soviet spy network led by a man, and your old pack alpha, known only as Perseus.
But having an omega on the team only makes things more complicated than necessary. Especially one so unpredictable and so fresh out of MK-Ultra. An alpha and an omega naturally gravitate towards each other like a binary black hole. And no one, not even a highly desensitized alpha like Adler, can deny their instincts forever.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 1: variable.
Words: 2,272 Summary: In which you are remolded …
“You’re sure?” 
Outside a bright white lab room, in a just as bright hallway, two figures watched from behind a one-way glass window. The tall one had a cigarette tucked in the corner of his mouth, puffing away leisurely despite the building being a smoke-free area. It was well-ventilated enough was his reasoning, stress was another. But the woman next to him didn’t complain nor comment, being an avid smoker herself. 
Nonetheless, the woman beside him nodded at the question.
“I am.” 
The man inhaled, his cigarette glowing brighter at the end with his deep intake. The woman next to him’s answer slowly seeped in his head. It was a heavy thing to process. His fatigue-addled brain only made it harder for him to come to terms with it and the situation that would follow. 
Smoke fell from the man’s marred lips.
“Run those tests again.”
But the woman right beside him didn’t move, shifting the clipboard that she cradled in her arms instead. Pages and pages of test results from various trials, medical and psych evaluations, were fastened to it. But she didn’t need to look them over again to double check and verify what they all indicated. She knew.
“Already done — they all came to the same conclusion.”
The man next to her was silent once more. His cigarette burned idly between his fingers as a thin smoky thread swirled away from the smoldering end. The woman handed him the clipboard, giving him a glance here and there as he flipped through the pages meticulously. Cigarette clamped between his lips as he read through the results. But the man found that it was as she claimed it to be. The test results were indicating the same thing; the subject’s designation status had indeed regressed. 
Wordlessly, the man handed back the clipboard. Pulled the cigarette from his mouth and blew out the smoke with a long exhale, processing it with a newfound clarity. Still staring into the windowed wall from behind his dark aviators. Eyes still dead set on the coroner gurney in the far center of the room.
An alpha turned omega…
Well, that definitely threw a wrench into the works. 
Such a phenomenon wasn't empirically impossible – just extremely rare; intermittent and indeterminable. An idiopathic etiology of menticide in theory. Although not unprecedented. Alex Mason, another hapless guinea pig of MK-Ultra, had suffered the same thing. Over time, throughout the process, Mason’s designation status had wholly changed too. At the flip of a switch, his biology had altered entirely in order to adapt to his new status. As well as the entire rewiring of an already broken brain. But Mason's biological transmutation had not been as drastic as the subject’s. Not as non-sequential; Having only turned from being an alpha to a beta. 
Even the man’s own brief employment with the Advanced Technologies and Applications program in Eastern Kentucky couldn’t replicate or even culminate such results in their human trials and experimentations. Yet he was used to things not all going according to plan, adapting and thinking on your feet was a part of the job. But this… this was more of a major setback than he preferred. Omegas only made things more complex than necessary.
“Adler?” The woman next to him lifted her thin brow at him as he brewed in his thoughts. Concerned by his prolonged silence. But his eyes didn't move to meet her inquisitive look. 
“This doesn’t change our mission.” He informed her. 
“Clearly,” She said, turning back around to view the bright room in front of them. Just like the older man next to her. “But it does make things quite difficult, however.”
Adler exhaled a smoky breath. And, after a moment, asked. “How do you think we should approach this then, Park?”
The woman next to him audibly hummed. Lips pursed in thought as her manicured fingernails drummed on the back of the clipboard. “Well, I suppose we still stick to the plan. With minor adjustments of course.”
“Minor adjustments?” 
Agent Park nodded. “And more precautions, yes. The subject will need a lot more necessities than before. More support, more monitoring. Omegas can be quite… ”
“Needy.” He finished her sentence. 
Park, in turn, gave Adler a look, sharp eyes narrowing. Sensing his surly mood. “ Sensitive . Omegas can easily go into distress if their needs aren’t met, especially if they can’t adjust to new territory. Let alone a new pack. No matter how temporary it will be.”
Adler went quiet again. Half cigarette burned idly between his fingers. He felt the fatigue weigh down on him even more now. The caffeinated surge of energy from his dark roast coffee prior was starting to wear off. And another cigarette wouldn’t hurt as well. 
“Didn’t take you for such an advocate, Park.”
“Only when necessary. It's effective when I encounter stubborn men too set in their ways.”
The beta woman’s goading was lighthearted, he knew. An attempt to nullify the sullenness that was growing palpable in the air. But he brushed it off nonetheless, like a piece of lint on his shirt.
Park eyed Adler. Watched as he pulled his aviators off and rubbed a hand down his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. Massaging at the stress gathered there, where his eyebrows knitted together and his eyes crinkled at the corners. Adler blew out a harsh smoke-filled sigh, hanging his aviators on his woolen vest. The bright fluorescent lighting was starting to make his head throb. 
“Adler. There’s no other contingency plan to fall back onto. In order to get what we need and when we need it, accommodations are necessary whether we like it or not. This is the only way.”
But Adler knew Park was right. To try and construct another course of action would only be detrimental in the long run. Time was going without a hitch or a hurdle. And who was he to ask it to change its nature? Results needed to be made and progress needed to be set into motion. 
“Guess, you’re right. We have no choice but to stick with the plan.” 
“With adjustments, of course.” Park added on.
Adler shifted forward, leaning his weight on the narrow windowsill. His aviators on the collar of his wool sweater vest clunked against the high clearance badge on his lanyard. They both stood there stationary, both occupied with their own thoughts.
“Hudson might burst a blood vessel over this.” Adler then said, breaking the silence between them. 
With a sardonic curl of her oxblood lips, Park only snickered. “Let’s hope so. It beats having him breathing down our necks for once.”
Adler didn’t say much more after that. Only stared into the lab room towards you – the sedated subject strapped to the gurney in the far center. A shallow crease soon appeared between his brows, tongue running across gritted teeth, tracing along pointed canines. 
An alpha turned omega…
How pathetic. 
It was almost pitiful. To witness how far the mighty had fallen. Not just for a Russian loyalist so high on Perseus’ totem pole, but as an alpha. For one’s very nature, one’s entire being to up and change. To crack and crumble under deceit and pressure. From a great redwood that stood tall against the gales only to be felled; whittled down until you were nothing but splinters of firewood. 
Admittedly, he had been impressed at first; Alpha to Alpha, face to face. Understanding of your disposition. Your stubbornness, your aggression, your loyalty to your pack’s idealism. Your piety to your pack alpha: Perseus. Even for a person betrayed by one of your own. Resilient to any traditional methods in their arsenal. Unbroken, unbridled. Even throughout the long hours of interrogation and torture. How shameful you were now. Pliant and pacified. An inferiority before him now. Adler supposed that you were never a true alpha in the end. There was always a weakness inside you it seemed. And such weakness needed to be culled.
But those grievances were more idiosyncratic, a disgraceful thing to his inner alpha. Your subjugation from MK-Ultra made you more useful now. Even if your brain was nothing but pulp and rind in the end. Omega or not, you were a vital asset now more than ever. 
And Adler would make sure to get use out of you. 
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He was growing restive. 
Stuck in the office, sitting around all day, and doing nothing but paperwork. For a man of action like Adler, it was a fate worse than death. Like an addict, he was feening; an adrenaline junkie without an arrant dosage of the rush that came naturally within his line of work. What was supposedly a short-term position, lasting no longer than a few days, turned into a week of doing nothing but paperwork. He was a workaholic. But a white-collar worker was an antithesis to his very being. Being idle for so long was eating away at his composure and his patience wore paper thin.
But orders were orders. And protocol preceded him.
Adler had just finished up his tedious workload, eyes stinging from staring at papers all day, when there came a knocking on his office door. He turned just as Park opened the door, giving her a nod as she entered inside his space. The sterile scent of antiseptic and bleach clung to her, overpowering the stench of stale smoke and coffee in the room. A concentrated contrast that made Adler crinkle his nose at it. Feeling an urge to sneeze in order to clear his sinuses.
He watched as Park settled herself across the room, leaning against the filing cabinets in front of the desk. But even from afar, Adler could see her exhaustion. The droop in her usual head-held-up-high posture. Dark bags under her eyes, the blanch of her skin. Noticeable no matter how much Park tried to hide it with concealer and blush.
Adler leaned back in his chair, narrowing his eyes at her. “Any updates?” 
“Yes. The sedation was a success and the subject is recovering fairly well. Just a bit of sickness from being under sedation, largely for longer than was anticipated. But a full recovery is to be expected.”
He hummed. “It lasted longer than I thought.” 
The undercurrent of disgruntlement wasn’t lost on Park, especially as beta. So biologically intuited with the influx of emotions, even the slightest change. The beta woman adjusted the reading glasses on her face. 
“Unsurprisingly. First heats are unpredictable in how long they last. Some last a few days, even weeks. But even after, the heats that follow remain irregular. It takes months before they start to stabilize. Especially without an alpha to help.”
Adler made an interested noise. Mindlessly taking a sip of coffee that had long grown cold. “Seems intricate.”
“Quite so.” The beta woman let out a soft sigh, “But for the subject’s first heat to come so suddenly after MK-Ultra well …” Park paused then shook her head as if to stop her overthinking, “Well, no need to dwell on it further. It’s one less thing to worry about in Berlin. I suppose we were lucky in that regard.” 
“Hm, some are luckier than others.”
Park crossed her arms, eyeing Adler. 
“I suppose so.” She said, “But you know the procedures. You can’t be anywhere near the lab. You’re lucky you were even allowed to work, let alone be at the facility.”
“I can control myself.” He fished out a cigarette carton from the pocket of his leather jacket hanging off the coat rack next to him. “But filling out paperwork and filing it away all day’s not what I signed up for. S’not my job.”
Park smiled. “I think it quite suits you actually.”
Adler’s lips pressed tight, tapping the carton against his hand until a cigarette slid out onto his palm. “Do I have clearance, Park?”
She regarded him for a moment. “You do.”
“Good.” Adler settled the cigarette between his lips. “About time.” 
“You know patience is a virtue. Has anyone told you that, Adler?” Park exhaled out.
“All the time.” He mumbled behind his teeth, thumbing at his lighter. The cigarette in his mouth smoldered, catching the flame. And Adler inhaled. Then blew smoke out in a slow and steady exhale of breath. “But in my experience, patience is nothing but passivity and a goddamn waste of time.”
“As I said: stubborn men too set in their ways.”
Adler only huffed on his cigarette, lip curled at the edge. 
“We leave in a couple days. The subject will be ready before then.”
Park turned to leave but stopped herself, turning on her heel as she looked at the man quietly. “And Adler?”
He canted his head to the side towards Park standing in the doorway. Cigarette resting between his blunt fingertips, simmering low. Lips pressed into a fine line. 
“Happy Birthday.”
She then left with the shut of the door and the click of heels fading down the hallway. Leaving the pristine smell of the lab lingering in the office. Despite its strong scent, Adler found some relief with it. Back on the job and back on the hunt for an entity that had eluded him for decades. He lifted a hand up his face and over his scarred cheek. Delicately, calloused fingers ghosted over the plunging trenches of the Lichtenberg-like scar; a lightning strike incised into flesh. Jagged and complex. Starting from his chin, the rough terrain of his scars branched through his lips and across his left buccal plane like a tree canopy. 
A reminder carved deep into the skin; a failure that Adler would not repeat twice.
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A/N:
Critique welcomed and encouraged as long as it is constructive and polite (don't be rude/mean pretty please ◡̈ ).
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trivialcrow · 11 months ago
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“It’s a yes or no question, Jason,” Kyle said, still floating a foot off the floor with an aura of white light so bright boats in the Hudson could probably see it. “Do I need to fly to Gotham and kick Batman’s ass?”
Everything from the question to the still battle clad white lantern hovering in his living room was so ridiculous that all Jason could do was laugh. “I’m almost tempted to say yes, just to see you try, Rayner.”
“You don’t think I could take him? I’m like the only white lantern.”
“Yeah,” Jason said. “And he’s Batman.”
“Exactly.” Kyle finally had the decency to stop floating, but only so he could brace his feet and glare at Jason. “Which means I mastered the entire emotional spectrum before he’s even found it yet. World’s greatest detective, my ass.”
Jason hated that he found himself laughing again. Hated how fucking easy Rayner always managed to make it seem. Hated that he was getting way too attached to someone whose literal job was to be anywhere but on Earth.
“Just sit down, nightlight,” Jason said. “B would hand your ass to you backwards and upside down.”
“Hey, I do actually know how to fight,” Kyle said. “It’s not all just light shows and imagination.”
“Yeah? Please just tell me John or Guy showed you how to throw a punch, and not Hal.”
“The old guard wasn’t exactly around to teach me when I started this, so no. Donna taught me, and Bruce.”
Jason winced at the clumsy misstep. He forgot, sometimes, that Kyle had spent the first part of his hero career making things up and learning as he went. As much as Jason would never admit it to him, Kyle was competent, more than. He was smart, tactical when he needed to be, and on his second stint of wielding god-like powers.
“Wait, Bruce taught you how to fight? When the hell did that happen?”
Kyle shrugged. “Back when I was on the league. Almost seemed like he’d decided it was his job to look out for me.”
Jason hummed, giving Kyle a once over. “I mean, you are his type. Black hair, blue eyes, constantly stumbling into trouble. He probably thought you were one of his and he’d just temporarily misplaced you.”
Kyle snorted, before the sound became a full laugh and he finally flopped down on the couch beside Jason, dismissing his white lantern uniform as he fell. “That’s so fucked up.”
“Yeah,” Jason said, lifting his glass of water in a fake cheer. “Now, whose turn was it to pick the movie?”
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djloveyou3000 · 2 months ago
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Belladonna
Chapter two
Gif by : @https-cyber-slxt
Bell felt the heat rise in the room, a mix of alcohol and camaraderie wrapping around them. They leaned back and, with a quiet breath, removed their mask for the first time in what felt like ages.
The table fell silent.
Bell looked different—but in a good way. Healthier. The perpetual dark circles under their eyes had faded, and their hair was freshly cut, styled in a way that highlighted their refreshed appearance. For the first time since joining the team, Bell looked like someone who was starting to take control.
Mason was the first to react, offering a warm smile. “Looking good, Bell,” he said, his voice steady with understanding. They shared a unique bond—two people who had endured the horrors of brainwashing and survived.
Lazar’s grin was infectious. “Damn, Bell! Look at you!”
Woods clapped a firm hand on Bell’s shoulder, shaking them with pride. “About time you started looking like a badass again.”
Helen gave a soft smile, while Sims, who had known Bell from before, nodded in quiet approval. Even Hudson offered a rare, small nod—miraculous, considering his usual stoic demeanor.
Bell, trying to play it cool, smiled faintly as they sipped their drink, but their eyes darted quickly to Russell. His reaction was subtle, but to Bell, it was glaring. His hand tightened around his glass, jaw set just a little too firm, his aviators shielding his eyes but not his aura. Bell didn’t want to admit it, but they cared about what Russell thought—and they hated that they did.
“So, Bell,” Helen broke the silence, her voice laced with curiosity. “How are the memories coming along?”
Everyone leaned in, even Hudson. Especially Russell.
Bell hesitated, feeling Russell’s eyes boring into them. “Well, I’ve got some stuff,” they said carefully, “but it’s all scrambled. Better than nothing, I guess. I’ve been having these dreams… but they’re too realistic. Like, they connect to each other. It’s like putting together a puzzle.”
Bell paused before smiling lightly. “So, I got a journal. Thought I’d try to write it all down, piece it together into a timeline.”
Hudson raised an eyebrow. “A diary?”
Bell chuckled. “Yeah, a diary. It’s got Hello Kitty all over it. And a Hello Kitty lock. So don’t even think about trying to read it. I’ve got some embarrassing stuff in there.”
The table erupted in laughter, even Hudson letting out a small huff that could’ve been a laugh. But Russell? Russell’s expression darkened for just a moment before returning to his usual calm. His grip on his glass tightened. A journal? Bell had a journal—and they hadn’t told him?
Lazar leaned forward. “So, what do you remember?” he asked, his voice gentle. “Only what you’re comfortable sharing.”
The others nodded in agreement, curiosity glimmering in their eyes. But just as Bell opened their mouth to respond, Russell leaned in, cutting them off.
“Bell, how much have you had to drink?” he asked smoothly, his tone light but sharp enough to silence the table. “You’re looking a little sluggish. We should head out—you’ve got that appointment tomorrow. And I need your help with some files.”
Woods frowned. “C’mon, Adler, let the kid have some fun.”
But Russell was nothing if not convincing. He quickly spun a tale about Bell’s recovery, how alcohol might interfere with their progress, and how they couldn’t afford to take risks. Begrudgingly, the team agreed, bidding Bell goodnight as Russell ushered them out the door.
In the car, the air was suffocating. Bell shifted uncomfortably, Russell’s hand gripping their thigh with a possessive force that felt more like a leash than comfort. They reached for the window, desperate for air, but Russell stopped them with a sharp glance.
He leaned in close, cigarette between his lips, his mouth almost brushing theirs. Bell froze, torn between the urge to pull away and the forbidden temptation of stealing a kiss—or the cigarette. But Russell only smirked, fastening Bell’s seatbelt.
“Safety first, kid,” he murmured, exhaling smoke as he pulled away.
They drove in silence, Russell’s grip never loosening. When they arrived at his place, he guided Bell inside, his silence heavy and oppressive. Once the door shut behind them, he turned, removing his aviators and stepping close.
“So,” he said, voice low and controlled, “when were you going to tell me about the journal?”
Bell stiffened. “It’s my journal, Adler. I don’t have to tell you everything.”
“You do if it’s about your memories,” he snapped, his calm veneer cracking. “You think you can just keep that from me? After everything I’ve done for you?”
The argument escalated, Bell standing their ground as Russell’s frustration grew. Finally, he’d had enough.
In one swift motion, he grabbed Bell, his lips crashing against theirs in a forceful, possessive kiss. Bell froze, their mind reeling as Russell pulled back, his eyes blazing.
“The journal. Now,” he demanded, his voice leaving no room for refusal.
Bell stared at him, torn between defiance and the creeping realization that Russell wouldn’t stop until he got what he wanted.
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lisbeth-kk · 4 months ago
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Sherlock fandom. TW: suicide (Reichenbach feels...)
Mourning a Lost Soul
It was the last porcelain cup she had left. She’d always liked the blue and white flower pattern. Her mother and father had bought it on their honeymoon in Delft. Once there had been six plates, six saucers, six cups, and a small sugar bowl. After her parents died, she and her sister divided the items among them. Martha Hudson knew her sister still had every item intact. 
Something warm fell on her wrinkled hands. Tears. She could literally hear Sherlock’s voice in her head.
“Sentiment, Hudders! How commonplace of you.”
Martha gazed down at the fractured forms at her feet. They were almost unrecognisable. Only the handle was in one piece. It was lying a bit away from the other porcelain fragments. Alone.
Again, Sherlock’s voice infiltrated her mind.
“Alone protects me.”
Her cheeks and hands were wet with the spilling tears she no longer could keep at bay. It was her fault that the cup had broken. She washed it after her morning tea, and it had slipped out of her hands as the events of yesterday hit her full force.
John’s ashen face. His blank expression. The impassive voice when he told her about Sherlock’s suicide. He was still in shock. They sat in her kitchen without saying a word, until John patted her arm and climbed the stairs to 221B.
Martha was sobbing, her throat constricted by a painful lump, but she didn’t feel a thing when the shards from the broken porcelain cut her palms and fingers.
“My darling boy. How could you do this to him?” she whispered hoarsely.
She made a mental note to hide John’s gun later.
“Don’t you understand that this will destroy him? What does he have to live for when you are gone?”
Her voice was angry now, scolding the man she loved like a son. She’d never met Sherlock’s parents and he rarely spoke of them, but Martha guessed that they were even more devasted than she was. 
Her thoughts went back to yesterday again.
Greg Lestrade confirmed John’s statement. He didn’t look as ashen as John, but it was a near thing. The DI had after all saved Sherlock’s life once. The determination to save John’s life, was heavily implied.
When she finally got rid of the concerned police officer – she was no fragile flower petal, mind you – she made some calls, while her mind was still able to function properly.
Her former employer heard the news from Mycroft Holmes but had nothing more to add. With a deep sigh she called Sherlock’s brother. The man she had quite conflicted feelings about. With one word, spoken in the softest voice she’d ever heard him use, he broke her: “Martha.”
She hung up before he could realise the state she was in. After she’d turned off her mobile, she cried until her eyes were sore. 
At Sherlock’s funeral, she asked to have a moment alone by the grave. Before the coffin was covered with earth, she strewed the remains of the Delft cup into the dark hole.
“Farewell, my darling boy. I hope you are at peace. We’ll all take care of John for you.” 
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I'm sorry if I hurt you. Feel free to yell and pour your heart out. The urge to explore how Mrs. Hudson received the devastating news, was too overwhelming to ignore, I'm afraid.
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@meandhisjohn @a-victorian-girl @221beloved @ninasnakie @shy-bi-inlovewithregandmoony
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@gay-ass-bitch @acumberlockedgirl
(Tell me if you want to be tagged or removed from the list)
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helloliriels · 7 months ago
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✍️ May Masterpost 2024
Saving a MASTERPOST for returning to these delicious fics, ficlets, limericks, and more inspired by @calaisreno 's prompt list. Most have made it to the AO3 collection (linked), but also (more ... much, much, more!!!) findable on their Tumblr pages:
✨ Open Your Eyes by @jrow : John fell and Sherlock's about to fall apart.
✨ Come What May by @weeesi : Ficlets, 221Bs, no particular theme or timeline, mostly johnlock.
✨ Ravelling by @calaisreno : Sherlock ruins John's favourite jumper. To make amends, he secretly learns to knit and replaces it.
✨ Trifles 3 by @calaisreno : A 3rd series of drabbles, 221Bs, flashfics, mini-epics, written in response to one-word prompts.
✨ Screw Spring, May is for Limericks by @ghostofnuggetspast
✨ 2024 May Prompts from @ Calais_Reno by @thegildedbee
✨ May Has 31 Days by @bs2sjh : What if one day everything changed? 31 - 221Bs shorts 
✨ MayPrompts2024 by @starkraivennemad : All 31 of them in list order.
✨ Sandbox by @copperplatebeech : Playing in the Johnlock sandbox for May.
✨ The Perfect Place by @meetinginsamarra : Bed shop boys, actually ... 😏😎 Sherlock needs a flatmate and already has the perfect person in mind.
✨ White Pony Tattoo by @meetinginsamarra : John Watson needs a tattoo covered up. Sherlock Holmes is one of the best artists in London.
✨ May Prompts 2024 Ficlets by @raina-at : A collection of stand-alone ficlets I wrote for the Tumblr May challenge.
✨ There Once Was a Man Lived in London by @friday411 : A limerick for each of the 31 daily prompts for the challenge + 1. plus Sherlockian Limericks of Dubious Memory to be ongoing ...
✨ The Luckiest Girl in the World by @lisbeth-kk : Rosie thinks back to the day her and John's life changed because of Sherlock Holmes.
✨ You're Not Designed to be Alone by @thalialunacy : A journey from friends to more, told in bite-sized pieces.
✨ May is for Limericks by @helloliriels : Johnlocked angst. Sorry!
✨ One More Time (with Feeling) by helloliriels for @totallysilvergirl : Sherlock gets help with a do-over ... from another doctor!
✨ Home by @actually-a-girls-name : ficlets for May Prompts 2024 
✨ May Prompts by @peanitbear : Sherlock's past closed his heart. Will it ever open again?
✨ Plant's May Prompts 2024 by @solarmama-plantsareneat
✨ Penitence by @naefelldaurk : John and Sherlock find a way forward.
✨ + 26 Ficlets posted to the collection by @amypihcs !!!
✨ Updates! to The Private Personal Blog of Dr. John H. Watson by @deelaundry and;
✨ Sharing is Caring and Choice by @dragonnan : John takes care of a sick Sherlock. And when Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson first met.
✨ Hungerford Bride by @jolieblack : "We're chained to a boat?"
✨ Love Over Gold by @rudbeckiasunflower : 221B format ficlets
✨ Whatever Remains by @ snowy_firewind : A series of drabbles
✨ Kaiju AU for May Prompts so far posted, here by @keirgreeneyes : with links to the prior posts!
✨ Calm (Andante, andante) by @ohwhataniight : It finally happens on their holiday. 
And I know a ton of you haven't added yours to the collection yet (looking at you @totallysilvergirl ...) cause I don't see 'em here!! haha 💕feel free to link/reblog with! - Liri
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farfromstrange · 9 months ago
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Interview With The Vampire | Vampire!Matt Murdock x F!Reader
-> Main Masterlist
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Pairing: Vampire!Matt Murdock x F!Reader (she/her)
Summary: You are the first journalist to interview Hell’s Kitchen’s resident vampire vigilante after he requested you personally to tell his story. He’s offering you a way out of your miserable job—to make your voice be heard. You’re desperate and curious, so you decide to take the risk. Most people only know him as Daredevil, but you are about to learn who’s really behind the mask. How hard can it possibly be? As it turns out, interviewing a vampire is a lot more complex than you expected it to be, and Matthew Michael Murdock has set his mind on ruining you for any other man to come.
Warnings: SMUT (18+ MINORS DNI), alternative universe, blood play, marking, scent kink, slight Dom!Matt, unprotected p in v, oral f!receiving, biting, vampirism, angst, religious imagery & symbolism, Catholic guilt, mentions of violence, allusions to suicidal thoughts, lots of plot, age gap
Word Count: 12.2k (this is a beast)
Other Characters: Vampire!Elektra (mentioned), Ben Urich (mentioned)
A/n: I finally got this one edited. This is a beast, y’all! I drew inspiration from Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire, but particularly the 2022 AMC series (I fell in love with it then and there), but it’s not based on it, so I just played around with the idea and this came out. It’s a lot, but it wasn’t enough for a full-blown series, so you’re getting a big ass One Shot instead. I used my usual Smut tag list, but since this is slightly Dead Dove Do Not Eat, heed the warnings and proceed with care! Don't read it if you don't want to. Anyway, I hope you like it!
Read Me On AO3!
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The sun has long set over the Big Apple. Artificial neon, cars, and ceiling lights burning in the highrises along the riverfront cancel out the darkness that has befallen the country’s east. Noise melts into a flood that rolls over people’s senses, but most in New York City have grown numb to the city that never sleeps. 
Sirens follow cacophonies of screams. Teenagers get into clubs with their fake IDs, adults get drunk in bars or go to work the night shift at their underpaid jobs, and the other half cry themselves to sleep, knowing they will have to get up in the morning and go through the same hell all over again. 
Life has become a miserable existence, and it leaves human beings wondering, ‘How much longer do we have to endure this before we all finally drop dead?’
The system fails them. The law fails to protect them. All they can do is lie down and wait to die. And they will die sooner or later. That’s inevitable. 
In Hell’s Kitchen, in a penthouse with a view of the Hudson through colored windows that gloss over during the day and show the city throughout the night, resides someone who most of the city only knows by an alias—Daredevil. 
If anyone crosses him, he will suck them dry. It’s not a metaphor, I’m afraid; his reputation precedes him. Criminals fear the red eyes that come with fists and a sharp set of teeth that will surely run them into the ground. The rest of the city feels a little safer with him, but so far, no one has dared to question his nature. 
Fear is known to work as a paralytic. And this man living in the penthouse by the Hudson is the personification of what one might consider fear-inducing. Without the fear of others, he would not be thriving. 
An apex predator like him lives for the thrill of the kill. When the adrenaline spikes, it makes the prey start running and the blood taste so much sweeter. It is to a creature of his kind what a good glass of century-old red wine would be to a human being; he savors every last drop of it.
Two years out of your Master’s degree at Columbia University, you have become one of those hard-working adults who fall into bed later than they should, and you lie awake at night, wondering how much longer you have to exist before you can live.
You interned at the Bulletin; you ran the true crime and mystery column for over a year before the newspaper shut down. A billionaire from downtown Manhattan bought it to start his own magazine, and you were the only employee he didn’t fire. Instead of relying on your top-tier education and experience though, he has banned you to the lifestyle and beauty column. He’s a beast if you have ever seen one. 
On a Monday in June then, after the sun has risen and is now falling again, you find an envelope on your desk. You glide your fingers over the fancy paper. The letters are written in handwriting that resembles the old letters from the 18th century you had the pleasure of using as research material for your Bachelor’s thesis.
Your heart skips a beat. Could it be…
It is no secret that vampires exist.
Over two decades ago, scientists published papers on the existence of blood-sucking creatures after years of valuable research, and now governments around the world have set out to burn the inhuman species out before they can cause any more damage. Vampirism though is older than humanity itself and unless law enforcement has evidence of homicide, vampires have the right to exist amongst humans. 
They are excellent at hiding their true nature, that much is true. The lore that has been passed down since the beginning of time is only partly true. They know how to adapt and rise from the ashes like elegant phoenixes. The misconceptions surrounding their existence stem from fiction, horror, and fear, but they persist. 
And a rule has been established in society ever since the truth was revealed: don’t talk about vampires! 
Don’t talk about them unless it’s in a fictional context. Don’t put your research out there. Don’t fraternize with them. Don’t risk becoming prey. Don’t be fascinated by them, and God forbid, don’t you dare write articles about them for the public records. If you want to know about vampires, you have to dig, and you have to do so quietly or society will deem you crazy and a freak. 
The worst thing to be is not a flying android or a super soldier with a shield; the worst thing you can be, in this day and age, is a vampire. 
You were a curious child who turned into an even more curious adult. At times even a bitter one because she couldn’t get the answers she yearned for and had to do it herself. So, of course, the We Don’t Talk About Vampires rule came across as rather absurd, learning about it back when you were merely a teen. 
You started researching, and you found out more than you thought you would—more than you thought you could. You wanted to cover the issue in the Bulletin back when you still worked there, but since humans were raised to fear the very mention of vampires in the real world, no longer romanticizing the concept but rather running from it, the truth shall remain hidden. Again, that seemed absurd, but you had to accept it to get ahead. 
You kept researching to the point you convinced yourself you could be one of them if you tried. You felt like you understood them, but nothing could ever fully answer all of your questions to the point it felt truthful. Honest. Real. 
Growing up, everyone told you dead things aren’t supposed to walk. They aren’t supposed to breathe and exist among the living. They are cruel, and vampires are killers that leave trails of bodies the government is hiding from us. Greediness exceeds common sense. The human mind tends to get sick and twisted, and those who don’t fit in hardly ever stand a chance.
Hell’s Kitchen is particularly quiet on the issue. Rumor has it that the vigilante chasing criminals at night and leaving the worst of them dry at the shore of the Hudson while, at the same time, surrendering those he deems worthy of rehabilitation to the authorities, is one of those vampires. 
They call him Daredevil; the savior of innocents and the downfall of the vile. Only a handful of people know who he is. The truth is caught in a spider web of lies, unable to come out unless someone were to tell his story for the world to hear. 
That Monday in June when you open the mysterious envelope on your desk, everything changes. 
He addressed you personally. Your name resembles a masterpiece, the letters swirling at the edges. 
You don’t know me, but I know you.
It’s strange to read your name out of the mouth of a stranger.
I must admit, Miss, I’m a big fan of your writing. And I’m not talking about the lifestyle and beauty column Mr. Doherty of the ‘Silver Lining’ has confined you to.
No, I am a big fan of the work you used to do for the New York Bulletin. I remember your name headlining many articles on crime here in Hell’s Kitchen—a column my late friend Ben Urich used to call his home.  
It’s a shame that the paper was shut down. I tried to prevent it, but the disappearance of half of humanity and Wilson Fisk’s irreparable damage to the city’s foundation tied my hands. 
The token female journalist reporting on unsolicited beauty advice and lifestyle choices no one is going to follow in the days of social media and fake marketing. It must be frustrating, right? Not having a story to tell. Not getting recognized for your impeccable talent. The Bulletin gave you a platform, but Mr. Doherty and his goons took that away from you.
What I’m asking myself is, are you satisfied? You were probably imagining a different future for yourself. A woman of your caliber must want to be more than a mere object used to make a bottomless magazine look better on the market. 
Excuse my overstepping. I read one of your essays on the magical and the mythic—lore versus reality—the other day, and it inspired me. My life has been taking quite a few turns lately, so I required some new… let’s call it insight. 
You don’t know me, but I am one of those creatures you are fascinated by. I’m the kind of creature people have been telling you not to write about because the weak minds of the public would not receive it well. The Catholics, the church, the fragile and fearful human beings that can’t imagine anything in fiction being real and want to remain the superior species—trust me, I know what it feels like to be backed into a corner. To be abandoned. To be underestimated. Not quite like you, I admit, but I have a few years of experience in and with this world to show for myself. 
I imagine you’re tired of your position. I imagine you’re dissatisfied with human idiocy. You crave answers to your questions. Questions you have been asking yourself ever since college failed to answer them. My kind is being censored—partly for good reason—but that doesn’t sit right with you, does it? To live life in a monotone line with no clear way out of this boring rhythm you have had to fall into? 
I can offer you a different path. A story. Answers to your questions. And the unfiltered truth of a 242-year-old man. 
You are going to find a card with my address attached to this letter. I can assure you, sweetheart, we both want the same thing. I will wash your hands if you wash mine. Think about it, and come find me when you have made your decision. Preferably after the sun has set. 
Yours sincerely,
M.
The paper crumbles in your hands, but only at the corners. Your eyes are glued to the lost drops of ink, the blue blood of an old fountain pen caving under too much pressure. 
He chose his words carefully. Every paragraph circles around your head. You breathe in, and it suddenly feels as though the whiff of the unknown is an inhalable drug, twisting your brain inside out. 
The pull threatens to submerge you in a stormy ocean. You’re flailing your arms around helplessly, but there is nothing for you to hold onto. All buoys have drifted into oblivion, leaving a sea of utter emptiness behind, and in the midst of it, there you are, drowning.
In a moment of clarity, you fold the letter back down on the desk. It lands with a thud, and you look around frantically, checking if anyone is watching you. They aren’t. 
M. That’s all he’s giving you. And the fact he is over two hundred years old proves the rumors to be true. He’s standing by it, but only to you. He wants to reveal himself to you, show you his true face for a story, but he’s a vampire. 
You’re alone. You can wash his hands, but is just showing up enough for him? You don’t even know him. 
You’re in trouble. This time though, you didn’t even do anything. You did your job, and he caught an interest in you. How does that work? 
Your heart skips another beat. It should not, but it does. The danger is exciting. It shouldn't be exciting. You hate what your body is doing, but how can you make it stop? You can’t. You can’t do anything but take it.
This stranger has got you in a chokehold, but in his hands, you might as well surrender to your certain demise. You don’t consider vampires inherently evil, but there is a reason people warn you not to walk alone at night in Hell’s Kitchen. He’s dangerous, no matter his nature, and he is not supposed to lure you in the way he does.
But you’re a curious kitten, and he is offering you the holy grail of answers to questions you have been grappling with for years. He hit the nail right on the head. And it doesn’t even scare you how well he knows you. 
This is a gold mine. Realistically speaking, telling a vampire’s story could make or break your career as a journalist. If you do it for the magazine, you’re done before you can even bring your words to print, but if you do it individually and you do it well, people will certainly eat it up. The question is just, are you going to play your entire life safe, conforming to your boss’s view of you until you get the freedom you crave, or are you going to take the risk and fly? 
The answer is as clear as day, but it takes you a moment to process. It’s as though someone is in your head, steering you in the direction of whoever this M is. Daredevil. This vampire who wants you to interview him, and for what? That’s still an open question you don’t have the answer to. But you do know what to do.
You scramble for your laptop, your notepad, and the letter in the envelope. The clock strikes four. You have another two hours on the clock, but you can’t be bothered to stay. 
Upon hearing the sound of your shoes hurriedly scraping against the linoleum floors, one of your colleagues turns in her chair. “Where are you going?” she asks.
“I, uh, have somewhere to be,” you tell her as you brush past her.
“What, now?”
“Yeah. I forgot I had an appointment.”
“What about Mr. Doherty?”
You stop on your way out, looking back over your shoulder. “If everything works out,” you say, glancing through the window to his office at the other end of the hall, “He’ll have my letter of resignation by the end of the week.”
She gasps softly. “You’re quitting?” her voice is barely above a whisper.
Almost sinisterly, you chuckle. “That’s the plan, yeah.”
“But—”
“Tell your daughter Happy Birthday from me. I gotta go.”
Your steps echo for minutes still, but you are long gone with the wind.
Silver linings are considered an advantage that comes from an unpleasant situation. The name has proven to be entirely unfit for the magazine that replaced a big piece of Hell’s Kitchen’s history. The Bulletin had cultural value as much as it was laden with decades of the city’s stories told to the average person. 
Wilson Fisk was the dynamite that sent New York alight. The Bulletin’s destruction was mere collateral damage in the fight to get the city back on track. You have had so many reasons to leave presented to you, yet you never took them. If you had, maybe you wouldn’t be here, making bad decisions on what started as just another Monday in June. 
The fact is though, you didn’t leave, and you are here now. Facts are what matter. They count. Your hypothetical past, present, and future have no place in this reality because you can’t travel back or forward in time. Vampires may exist, and the Avengers time-traveled to save the world, but things aren’t quite as easy once you look at the bigger picture. You are not a superhero, you’re just a journalist chasing the kind of story that will finally make her voice be heard. 
You know that Ben Urich, at least, would be proud of you.
His address weighs heavy on the small card you pulled out of the envelope earlier that evening. You passed it on to the cab driver, and he began to navigate the dark streets of Hell’s Kitchen. The luxury condominiums in this part of the city can be counted on one hand. You know exactly when you’re there. 
The sun has once again set over New York City. You’re wide awake, not quite sure though if you’re ready to face what you are walking blindly into. Even your driver refuses to take you past a certain point, and that is how you know that you’re not dreaming. This is real, and it’s supposed to be terrifying. 
How come you’re not scared then?
You slip twenty dollars to the cab driver, then climb out of the backseat. The salty air from the Hudson River a few blocks down wafts around your sensitive nose. In the distance, you can hear waves crashing into the docks as the wind picks up in speed. The boats must be moving wildly by now, swaying from side to side and possibly even making the fish in the depths of the water seasick. You would be if you were them. 
With every step, you grow closer to your target. On second thought, maybe you should have brought more than just a pathetic bottle of pepper spray and your precious laptop. You could have brought your grandfather’s cassette recorder, at least that would leave a mark if you hit someone over the head with it. 
Do vampires get concussions? That is another question you can add to the seemingly endless list in your mind. It’s a confusing place as of late, and the weird sense that someone is playing with the controls won’t leave you alone. Either you are overthinking, or you are worse off than you originally thought. 
The apartment complex the card directs you to stretches high above you. You look up, seeing not a single light on. That’s odd, you think, but then again, you are meeting with the city’s most notorious man. If he is who everyone says he is, and if the rumors are even true, that is. 
As you are about to approach the entrance, your fingertips start to burn. A gasp escapes past your lips. Staring down, the cubical piece of paper goes up in flames. You are mere feet from the door, nowhere near close to an open source of fire, and the card starts to burn like a wildfire. 
You pull back, your heart hammering against your ribcage. The ashes fall to the ground, but before they can hit the asphalt, they vanish.
“What the–” before you can finish, the doors before you swing open toward the inside. The lights turn on. Someone even has called the elevator for you. 
Another step forward, and a voice stops you. “Fourth floor, down the hallway, first door to your right,” the voice says through the speaker. Only then do you notice the lack of a doorbell. 
Everything in you is screaming for you to run, but you are rooted in the spot. He dragged you here with a mere letter, and you were more than ready to jump. Desperation was the only thing that drove you here. Your brain seems incapable of rational thought.
What if that is what he wanted all along? To get you complicit by playing on what you so desperately need, which is a story and a way out of this boring everyday life that is threatening to slowly kill you.
He’s like a siren, luring you into his deadly trap, but even knowing all of this, you still can’t find it in yourself to run. 
The second you enter the building, the door shuts behind you, and your only way out is officially locked. You made the decision; you have dug your own grave, possibly quite literally, and now you have to lie in it. It’s better to die chasing a good story than dying at a desk in an office that doesn’t respect you.
You are a disgrace, you can hear your father’s voice in the back of your mind. He always warned you not to be too reckless or your bad decisions will eventually catch up with you. He always taught you not to trust strangers, and to stay the hell away from those who disgrace God, but you have never cared much about being a good girl. 
Your thoughts are as morbid as your obsession with the walking undead. It is time you embrace what people are already saying about you.
The elevator ride feels like an eternity. It goes up and up and up until it finally stops on the fourth floor. The walls smell like nothing but a faint hint of bleach. It’s clean, parquette not carpet, and the walls are kept in a shade resembling a mixture between crimson and maroon, and it is blending into a sort of marble.
The metal doors slide open. Again, you hesitate. A sweet whisper echoes in your ear, dragging you toward the edge. You breach the border between the elevator and the hallway that waits behind it. The voice is distant, and it doesn’t sound human—it reminds you of a siren’s song, calling for you. He is calling for you, and a fog settles over your mind. You’re not in control anymore, he is. 
You imagine him to be an old man, possibly middle-aged. Vampires stop aging when they’re turned. Their mind doesn’t. You’ve read the research plenty. They are wise beings, more intelligent than human beings could ever fathom. That makes them dangerous. 
Their venom rivals the intoxicating feeling of heroin, you’ve heard, and it heightens your senses to the point all you can feel is the one who bit you. Research suggests it’s a million times stronger than an orgasm, for both the vampire and the human being. 
Part of you has always wanted to try it. Part of you wants to know what it feels like to be sucked dry. You want to know what it feels like to be carried into a new dimension by someone who knows how to play the human body like a fucking piano, eliciting the sweetest melody through your very essence and the symphony of your moans.  
This M—Daredevil—is inherently dangerous. He’s as mysterious as they come; a man in a mask lurking in the dark corners of Hell’s Kitchen every night, turning the fight for justice into his hunting ground. 
It’s as though he curled his fingers, and you followed. 
You walk the dark hallway down to the door on the right. Paintings litter the walls. Masterpieces, blotches of white, red, and color. You recognize the red marble as a decorative theme on the wallpaper. Tracing your fingers over it, the rough drywall scratches at your skin. 
You reach out a shaky hand toward the golden knob. Before you can turn it though, the door already flings open. It must be witchcraft. 
Red appears to be his favorite color. At least judging from the hallway, that is true. When you step into the room with a pounding heart and blood pooling in your cheeks though, the inside of the room is a lot more… human. You wouldn’t have guessed it from the gloominess surrounding you on your way there.
A leather couch and armchairs stand in the middle, facing toward the window front. Colored windows, as you have gathered from the rumors. They are see-through now though, showing the city skyline and the moon up high. The chandelier on the ceiling is the only piece of furniture you would consider old. Browns meet hues of blue and dark green, a forest at midnight, and you suck in a sharp breath. The apartment is beautiful. 
You look to your left and see a bookshelf stretching the length of the wall. You can’t help but run your hand over the backs. You would have expected original editions from the 18th or 19th century, but when your fingers trace over the bindings, you are met with the bulging of Braille underneath the elegant golden writing of the titles. None of them seem to have collected dust. It surprises you to only find a mere handful of classics that haven’t been transcribed in Braille and a realization you did not expect starts to crawl its way forward.
“I stole that one from a library in Paris.”
Your racing heart stops beating. The book you’ve been holding falls to the ground, its worn-out leather cracking further around the spine. The thud is deafening. You gasp, turning around. Your shoulders fly up as the tension ripples through every last muscle in your bone. Your bones ache just from how stiff you’re standing, but you can’t move.
The man before you moves as quietly as a mouse. You didn’t hear him coming. The moonlight reflects off his dark brown hair, making it appear almost ginger. He’s wearing a simple suit without a tie, and the white of his shirt is as pristine and clean as the cut of his beard. You can see chest hair poking out from underneath the two open buttons, as dark as the locks on his head. His jawline is irresistibly sharp, leading up to a pair of plump lips he is wrapping around the brim of a crystal glass filled with rum.
Your heart remains frozen. Not a single drop of blood pumps through your veins, yet your cheeks burn brighter than a bonfire on a pitch-black night. 
But his flawless appearance is not what catches your attention the most. Looking up into his eyes, wanting to know whether they are as red as those set into the devil’s mask, you find nothing but your terrified reflection staring back at you. It’s as blurry as the picture of your face in a still ocean’s water, your wide eyes staring back at yourself. 
The red glasses are all you can see. Round with a black rim. Silver would have looked better on him, or maybe even gold. The black reminds you of an endless pit, a sinister embrace of vampire stereotypes, but you can’t look away from the maroon that won’t allow you even a glimpse into his eyes. They are shielding him from the world, and his eyes from curious, stupid humans like you.
He nods toward the ground. “You gonna pick that up?” he asks. His voice reminds you of rumbling gravel. 
He looks like a man. He talks like a man. If you didn’t know better, you would say he is human. There seems to be blood in his cheeks and air in his lungs. 
You have to pull yourself together. Clearing your throat, you bend down and pick the book back up.
“Thank you,” he utters your name. “It’s been a while since I’ve received visitors that don’t work for me.”
You put the book back on the shelf. Your lips are sewn shut; you can’t find the words. Every time you open your mouth like a fish on dry land, you close it again, and it is embarrassing to be standing in front of him with your guard down. 
“Welcome to my home,” he says. You wish you could see his eyes to know if he’s mocking you. “Do you want a drink, or do you need another minute to process?”
He is mocking you. His tone is gentle, as is his voice, but he smirks like a smug motherfucker, and your anger boils to a tipping point. The candle is about to burn out. 
“I–” you stammer. Internally, you curse yourself for being such a fool. 
“Another minute it is then.”
You don’t need a minute though. “You’re blind,” you blurt out. 
The beautiful—deadly—stranger nods. “Yeah.“
“How?”
“Accident when I was a kid.”
“But you’re…” you leave the missing part of that sentence hanging in the air like a noose. 
“Say it,” he murmurs. You want to say it sounds like a growl, but you’re not sure. He isn’t asserting dominance or trying to force you into submission by scaring you away, but he is toying with you regardless. 
You take a deep breath. The word, the truth, numbers your tongue and your lips with its weight. “A vampire,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper, matching his. 
His smirk broadens. He pushes his tongue against the inside of his cheek for a moment, then releases it as it darts out to wet his bottom lip. “I’m a blind vampire, yes,” he answers. “We’re rare, but we do exist.”
Blind vampires. In all of your years of fascination, that has never crossed your mind. You used to believe that they had healing abilities that far exceeded your own. You were wrong. He lost his eyesight before he got turned into a vampire. He lived as a blind human being and didn’t regain his most crucial sense when he died. 
He came back to life, but he died. It is surreal to stand across from him. He’s not just letters on a piece of paper, he is very much real. And he’s blind. 
“Oh, my God,” you curse.
That elicits a soft chuckle from him. “I was starting to think you wouldn’t come,” he says. 
“I was considering not to.” 
He sees right through you with those empty glasses. “That’s a lie.”
“How would you know?” you counter. 
“I can hear your heartbeat. The blood pumping in your veins…” His head tilts ever so slightly in your direction. You take a step back. It’s an instinct. “Your pulse picks up when you lie, or when you’re nervous, or both,” he states. “When you first saw me, your heart skipped a beat. It did again when you lied to me.”
Your eyes trail down to his thick thighs perfectly fitted in his tailored trousers. His thick digits pat the rhythm with his fingers on the fabric. Thud-thudthudthud-thud. You place a hand on your chest. He wasn’t wrong; your heart is racing. 
His smirk turns into a smile, but only briefly again. It’s a glimpse of humanity he doesn’t want you to see. “I like that sound,” he says. “Has anyone ever told you that you smell good? Sweet, sour, and a little salty. Natural. You don’t use a lot of artificial perfume, but you like cherry chapstick.”
You swallow, taking a whiff of your arm. Besides your deodorant masking the scent of your nervous sweat, you smell nothing. How good must his nose be? His hearing? His sense of taste? 
“Right now, sweat is dripping down your back, and your muscles are tense enough to strain against your bones every time you breathe. Your heart just skipped a beat again. You find it weird,” he muses. “I can’t turn it off, but I get it must be strange for you.” 
“You–” The blood has collected in your head, pushing the temperature in the room to an all-time high. “Get out of my body!” you snap. 
He laughs. “That’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear.”
“And I never thought you would ask for an audience with me, but here we are.”
“Here you are.” 
You want nothing more than to wipe that smirk off his face. He looks so smug, standing there with his drink, wearing a suit too fancy for his own home. He’s fully in his element. It’s scary how alluring he is, too. You don’t want to think that way, but as soon as your eyes gaze upon him again, your chest contracts, and you forget how to breathe. 
He’s a wolf, and you’re a lonely little sheep that doesn’t know any better. That lonely little sheep just wants to be a part of something bigger, even if that means surrendering herself to the big bad wolf. He wants a taste of her, and the sheep would give him that in a heartbeat if he just asked. 
You blink. There is a voice in your head, and it isn’t your own. Far from it. You don’t want to be associated with this stranger. She thinks she knows you. She thinks she knows what you want—the sheep in the eyes of her natural enemy. This voice is the most irrational you could be, and you need to stop letting her win.
And yet you—not just the voice of the lonely sheep you appear to be—would follow this man anywhere, even to hell if he asked you to. 
Your eyes drill knives into his skull, but they are also full of curiosity. Can he hear your thoughts? Your heart beats in your throat. You can taste it on your tongue. If you bit your lip, you would bleed, and he would probably fall into a frenzy. Still, your teeth dig into your bottom lip. What if he can hear your thoughts—hear how fucking needy you are? You’re pathetic. What he must think of you, standing across from him, smaller than human life itself. 
You want to read him, but he is far from an open book. He’s not Braille you can run your fingers over, and even if he was, you don’t know how to read it. He’s an enigma. His face is set in stone; an iron mask you can’t penetrate. 
His chest heaves with another chuckle. He sets the crystal glass down on the coffee table, taking a step forward. “No, I can’t read your mind,” he says. 
You flinch. “What?”
“Your breathing pattern. The way you look at me. I can sense that you’re thinking about something.” He adjusts his glasses. “It’s just… Most humans ask me if I can read their minds, you know. I can’t. Some vampires can, but my senses are the only heightened ability I have.” This time, when he chuckles, a hint of bitterness dances in his voice. 
“At least you’re not in my head then,” you say. 
“No.”
“Good.”
A pregnant pause follows. You clutch your bag to your chest, your fingers digging into the frame of your hidden laptop. 
“Can I offer you a drink?” he asks, pointing to his empty glass.
You wave him off. That’s the last thing on your mind. “No, thank you.”
Sometimes at night, you fantasize about diving into the abyss of darkness. It looks and sounds a terrifying lot like him. You want to know him. You need to know him. When it comes to him and this—whatever this is—the lines between want and need are blurring into an unidentifiable mess. It’s an ocean of emotions with no land in sight. A total eclipse of the heart, if you will. You’re losing your mind.
“What you can do–” You straighten your shoulder, hoping it will add height to your beaten confidence. “You can tell me your name. Sir,” you say. 
He nods. “I suppose it would only be fair, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, it would.”
“Matthew. My name’s Matthew.” The softness of his features as his lips move to the rhythm of his words takes you back anew. His eyebrows raise slightly, and you catch a glimpse of a pair of beautiful, unfocused hazel eyes that steal your breath away. 
Matthew. It is a name that easily rolls off the tongue. It suits him.
You repeat his name aloud. “That’s an odd name for a 200-something-year-old man,” you point out. 
Matthew scoffs. “My parents were both Catholic.”
“I suppose you’re not?”
You hit a sore spot. His head dips, fingers running over his nails and tongue tracing his teeth. “Not anymore,” he says.
God died for him a long time ago, and all churches burned down.
Your grip on your bag loosens. “Then why Daredevil?” you ask. 
His lips part. “I, uh, have the Bulletin to thank for that one. After centuries of existing in this world, and being despised for no matter what I do, I’ve decided to embrace it. I am Daredevil, not even God can stop that now.”
Matt grabs his glass, turning away from you. He doesn’t use a cane to navigate from the couch to the mini bar on the other end of the room. You carefully follow his movements. One of his hands remains at his side, snapping his fingers as he navigates the familiar terrain of his home. 
He uncaps a half-empty bottle of Whiskey to pour himself another glass. 
“You know, Matthew,” you prompt, daring to step forward an inch, “as big as your reputation is in this part of the city, Silver Lining is not the kind of magazine that would cover your story.”
“You still came,” he says. 
“I could lose my job if anyone knew I came here.”
“And yet you’re here and not where you should be.” He turns his head over his shoulder. “You wouldn’t risk losing your job if it wasn’t important to you, would you?”
You stammer, “I–” He’s got you. You’re a fish with a hook in her mouth. 
“If Silver Lining Magazine won’t cover my story, why are you here?” Matt turns back to you, leaning back against the shiny Mahagoni of his minibar. It offers a beautiful contrast to his strong physique and the slight paleness of his skin. “Could it be because you’re fascinated by the mythic?” he asks, teasing. “By werewolves and witches and vampires?”
It’s your turn to scoff. “I won’t confirm or deny. My boss wouldn’t let me write a vampire vigilante exposé even if I begged him to.”
“And that’s why Mr. Doherty doesn’t deserve you.” Your body visibly recoils when he pushes forward, moving just an inch toward you. “Your curiosity is a virtue,” he purrs. The moonlight sets your reflection in his glasses alight. 
“Is that why you lured me here?” you ask him. “Because my curiosity is a virtue and you consider yourself better than the people in my life?”
“I didn’t lure you here, and I think you know that. That’s not what this is.” The distance between you starts to shrink, backing you into a corner. “I believe you came here because the thought of interviewing a vampire and sharing your findings with the world on your account excites you,” he says. “You want to be heard. You want to be taken seriously as a journalist, and you want to make people happy.”
The only way for you to come out of this with your pride and dignity still intact is to put up walls before the already existent labyrinth of walls keeping your heart guarded and your soul safe. “Again,” you ask, “why me?”
“Why not you? As I stated in my letter, I’m a fan of your work.”
You roll your eyes. “Yeah, about that. How did you write that if you’re blind?”
“I didn’t, my secretary did.”
“Of course.” Of course, he has a secretary. “I… I just don’t get it,” you say. “You’ve been hiding for so long–” 
Matt cuts you off with an urgency you didn’t expect, “Things have changed. Circumstances…” he trails off. 
“Wouldn’t it be a suicide mission?” 
His answer is silence. You let out an exasperated sigh. “If you want me to interview you, you have to be honest with me.”
“I’m not on the record yet.”
“Right. Maybe you can answer this though—off the record, of course—how can you be certain I didn’t call the cops or the FBI before I came here?”
His eyes crinkle. “I’m not stupid, sweetheart,” he says. 
He’s amused. You’re amusing him. 
“Don’t call me that,” you growl. 
He’s spreading you open, holding up a mirror for you to look into. It’s your miserable self in all its glory, and he knows you better than you know yourself. 
You ignore the sharp pain in your left ribcage as you pull the arrow out of your heart. “Unless someone holds up a sign that they are pro-vampirism, how would you even know I’d listen to you and not just refer you to the Journal of Psychiatry?” 
“Are you telling me you don’t believe in vampires?” Matt quips.
“That’s not… Answer my question!”
The sound of your heartbeat must sound almost like the rapid firing of a machine gun, that’s how fast your pulse is racing. Your veins threaten to burst with the excess blood. It’s a heat like no other. You’re a witch at the stake, and Matt is holding the torch to your gasoline-doused body. 
He clears his throat. Your face falls at the words that tumble out of his parted lips, and the rapid firing turns into a deafening silence and a monotone line on a heart monitor. 
“After what I’ve learned from reading Dr. Rice’s research on the phenomena of vampirism, I can confidently say this species is no different than an animal like the great white shark or the Homo sapiens sapiens—our kind,” he recites. “Vampires are a medium of fiction and propaganda to induce fear, but they are also a widely misunderstood species that is being silenced rather than heard. Our species, the human species, likes to consider themselves superior, even when we’re in a position of being someone’s natural food source. Dr. Rice’s research is based on a comprehensible set of facts, and isn’t that what we have been relying on ever since the beginning? Our psychology makes it possible for us to change the narrative in our favor, and more often than not, we ignore the very facts deemed by humans as an intellectual importance to spread the message of an entirely different agenda. Dr. Rice’s research only proves that egotism and humans themselves will be humankind's certain downfall.”
“My investigative journalism essay,” you breathe out. 
“Published by Columbia University.” 
Your heart restarts with a rush of adrenaline. “How… how do you know all of this?”
“I may be blind,” Matt says, “but I know how to read between the lines.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
The alcohol in his drink seems to have little effect on him. “I know you have questions, and I’m willing to answer them if you promise to publish a detailed report somewhere other than Silver Lining Magazine.”
You look down at your bag, then back at him. “Ben Urich could have told your story in a way that would’ve made people listen,” you murmur. “I don’t have an impressive career like him.”
“Yeah,” he smiles, “but you could have easily written ‘Attack on NYC’. Ben was a good man, an even better journalist, but he could not have written your college essay. And he could never have been you.” 
Your name rolls off his tongue—not a pretentious nickname that makes you want to vomit but your name, and it flicks a switch within you. 
You glance around the spacious living, pulling your laptop out of its confines, and you bridge the distance between you, finally. You notice he smells of sandalwood cologne and scentless soap. “Okay,” you cave. “Where do you want me to set up?”
Session 1.
The spacebar clicks underneath the tip of your index finger. The white of your screen fills with a series of red sequences as the microphone takes in every little sound around you. Except for the two of you and the fading footsteps of one of Matthew’s assistants though, the world has fallen silent in the dead of the night. He’s sitting across from you, legs crossed, head tilted; your life is about to change.
“So, Mister Murdock,” you begin, “tell me. How long have you been dead?” 
His mouth opens in a wide grin. “242 years,” he answers. 
“And what happened the year you died?”
“Well, it was 1782. I was a good few years out of law school. I was a good lawyer, but I wasn’t successful. That year, I met a beautiful woman at a banquet. I wasn’t rich—trust me, I was beyond penniless—but she had been adopted into a wealthy family, and that made her one of the richest women in the room. Everyone wanted her, but when I sensed her across the hall, she only had eyes for me. And she was the first woman to not see me just because I was blind.” He chuckles sadly. “I thought she was the woman of my dreams, the love of my life, but a few weeks later, after letting her into my life, I realized that she didn’t look at me that night because she was interested. She was hunting me. El— Miss Elektra Natchios…”
The year 1782 becomes apparent before your inner eye. As he tells you about the night he met her, you can see the dark-haired beauty making her way across the ballroom. Red lips and a gown to die for. Her dark eyes were full of mischief, but the passion in them could have knocked a grown man off of his feet. And that is just what she did to poor Matthew. 
“I was going to marry her,” he tells you.
He went to church regularly. His knees were bloody from praying, his senses already heightened before he died. God’s soldier, that is how he puts it. He was told that the accident that left him blind happened for a reason, and he had to fight a war that went beyond the country’s fight for independence. 
That summer, Elektra drained him. He didn’t know what she was. She fooled him. He was obsessed with her. Her dark eyes he couldn’t see lured her in, and it was the venom in her blood that became his downfall after she dug her teeth into him.
Matt tried to beg his priest for forgiveness, but he didn’t even make it past the marble stairs before the doors locked. He knelt in a pool of blood—both his and that of the first human he ever sucked dry to survive as a newborn vampire—offering an eternal sacrifice to Catholicism, but God abandoned him on his doorstep. 
The church walls would have been set on fire if he had touched them from the inside. 
You look up from your notepad to find him now standing at the window. He’s not looking out, of course, but he seems so deep in thought, the memories that aren’t your own but his start to dissipate, and you’re brought back to the here and now.
Matt poured his heart out to you. You expected answers, but not this kind, and certainly not of this magnitude. You see him in an entirely different light. He’s vulnerable, fragile, and human. He has endured trauma that killed him, but he couldn’t die because the woman he loved made him immortal. It’s a bigger curse than growing up with the belief that an accident made you God’s soldier. 
He lost everything. For centuries, he has had to live with that. It’s killing you, feeling his pain, the pure agony that radiates off him. 
Your voice is quiet when you ask him, “What was it like?” You don’t have to say it out loud for him to know what you are referencing.
Matt chuckles, the sound a mere breath in the atmosphere. “Like she took my soul from my body, setting fire to my belief system and already heightened senses,” he says. 
You swallow. “That sounds… overstimulating.”
“It was. Is. My heart stopped, but when that happened, something else awoke inside me. The hunger… the hunger was the worst part. It’s insatiable. One hour passes, and you feel like you’ve been starving for weeks.”
“Like you’ve been possessed by a demon?”
“Like I am the demon.”
“But you’re not.” You should stop the recording. You’re not on track; you’re incorporating your feelings into Matt’s story, but you can’t help it. The words tumble out of your mouth without a second thought, a train that cannot be stopped. 
He raises his eyebrows, you can see it in his reflection in the windows. “Are you religious?” he asks.
You shake your head. “This isn’t about me.”
“Are you?”
The veins on the back of his hands bulge as he balls them to fists at his sides. Your throat is a desert, and your heartbeat resembles a storm that burns right through it, sending the sand flying in all directions of the horizon.
You adjust in your seat, crossing one leg over the other. He takes a whiff. He’s smelling you, and that doesn’t help the speed of your pulse to calm down. 
Tapping your pen on your notepad, you watch the red sequences fill the white space of the recording program. It moves with the sound of your voice when you finally dare to answer. “It’s a complicated question because there is a difference between believing in God and believing in the church,” you say.
“Do you believe in God then?” Matt asks. It’s as though he’s trying not to seethe at the mere mention of someone he used to worship. You make a note of that.
“There is so much bad in this world. So much cruelty. I can’t…” You take a deep breath. “I don’t know how to believe in a God that would let the things humans do to each other happen. If God existed—if he was as merciful as Christians like to claim, he wouldn’t let this happen. And I’m so sick and tired of people using their faith, and their beliefs in God and the church as justification to be disrespectful. I don’t understand it. How can anyone? Why is someone who has to drink blood to stay alive—someone who didn’t even choose this life—worth less and the devil’s breed when humans do worse things to each other? Why would God allow us to start wars that kill innocent people? Children? It’s just not fair that we treat ourselves and others as though we are already in hell, and we’re just supposed to accept that God doesn’t care—” You stop yourself, the tears burning behind your eyes. 
Matt turns back around. You can’t look away. “When I was still human,” he murmurs, “I used to believe everything that happened to me was God’s will. The accident, God’s will. Me going blind, God’s will. I went to confession, prayed until my knees were bloody and bruised. I tried convincing myself that every scream I heard from down the block, every person who lost their life or their innocence was my responsibility. God made me this way for a reason, right?” The scoff is as bitter as the liquor in his glass. “I fell apart, you know. I was a kid, so I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand what was happening to me,” he tells you. 
You hold your breath. The glasses slip from his eyes as he takes them off with shaky fingers. You are met with the most beautiful pair of hazel eyes. Emotions dance a heated tango in a tornado. If you look closer, the green specks bring life to his eyes. It’s human nature in the purest sense of the word. 
Your reflection stands in his irises, his unmoving pupils, and the tears glisten in his eyes. They’re as red as blood, watered-down crimson essence. You want to reach out and stroke his cheek, but that would be crossing a very big line that you can’t bring yourself up to touch. 
“I studied law because I thought it would change something,” he continues. You listen. It’s the only thing you can do—listen. “It wasn’t enough. Nothing I ever did felt like it was enough. I lost my father. Jack. I didn’t know my mother until it was too late. Maggie. I had no one. No money, no prospects, just me and those voices in my head, telling me I was supposed to be God’s soldier.”
“You’re not,” you cut in. 
He shakes his head. “I prayed; I crawled up the stairs of the church, and I spent hours repenting for my sins. I bled myself dry for Him. I sacrificed myself. I sacrificed my youth, my heart, and my soul, and I got nothing back. I begged for help until my voice was sore, but nothing… God, nothing was ever good enough. Until Elektra came around,” he says. 
“She changed everything for you. It makes sense. She turned you into a vampire, but she also loved you.”
“She did love me, in her own twisted way.”
“It’s what you deserved,” you say.
He isn’t yours, but the pang you feel in your chest is treacherous. Your heart cracks like a porcelain vase, jealousy creeping in like a parasite of toxic waste.
In response, Matt only chuckles bitterly. “She made me believe again, then took my soul and crushed it in her hand.” The correction makes your shoulders slump. “Instead of feeling like my world ended though, I felt at peace when she sucked the blood out of my veins and fed me her venom,” he says. “It’s sick, I know. I was aware I died that night, that she turned me into a devil who could only survive if he drank the blood of others. The Catholic in me struggled to accept it, but I had no choice but to embrace what she made me.”
“And where is she now?” you ask.
“Gone.” The light in his eyes has fully disappeared now. “I stayed with her for a while until she died in my arms. She showed me what love is, and she showed me heartbreak. She made me hungry for blood, awakening the devil I’ve been trying to tame. She taught me how to feed, how to hunt, and how to chase. But she also cursed me,” he says. “I only exist for myself now. I only bleed for myself. No God, no church, and no more religion. I’m not Jesus, I’m Judas, and I retired the cross the day I was crucified.”
You have run out of questions to ask. Too overwhelming is the sight of his walls crumbling down, this stranger you now know better than any living being seems to. You no longer see money in this, or a story to chase, you only see Matthew, and the halo above his head he still believes is a pair of horns. The world broke him. His faith in God broke him. It crushed him, and he lost everything. How broken he must be. 
“Not such a pretty story when I say it out loud, huh?” He scoffs.
The spacebar clicks again. The recording comes to a sudden halt. One hour and fifty-eight minutes, the first session of your interview with the vampire. You need to put a halt to it now because what you are about to say or do as you reach your hand out to brush his cold, dead skin is not something that should be found on a record. And you won’t ever tell.
Matt pulls away when your warm fingertips brush his. You’re standing across from him now, so close he can smell, hear, and feel all of you at once.
Your touch is the holy water that burns his skin, but the fire sustains him and shoots straight to his core the same way the blood rushes to yours.
“It’s not a pretty story, no,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper, “but it did tell me what I already knew.”
“And what’s that?” he asks.
“That you’re not evil. You’re not the Devil. You’re misunderstood. You’ve been beaten; you’ve been abandoned, hurt, and broken. That doesn’t make you a monster. Trying to make this city a better place does not make you a monster.”
“If you only knew the things I’ve done…”
“I know the rumors suggest that you were the one who fought Wilson Fisk and got this city back where it needed to be. You’ve saved countless women from the worst of fates. You are the reason the innocent people of Hell’s Kitchen feel safe. By picking up that mask, you became a hero, not a villain, and that is the story I want to tell.”
In lightspeed, he has moved you from the window to the other end of the room. Your back hits the wall. 
Matt towers over you in all of his intimidating glory. His eyes spark red, but you hold his unfocused gaze. He has such beautiful eyes. This pull between you is far from human; it’s unhealthy, and it is exactly where he wanted to get you. You’re trapped, pinned underneath him like a deer caught in headlights. 
Exhaling, your breath strokes his cheeks. He closes his eyes, savoring the taste of you. Every particle in the air, he inhales. His tongue darts out to lick his lips. Oh, what you wouldn’t do to suck that tongue into your mouth. 
Your pheromones play his head like a puppeteer pulling the strings of his marionette. He growls. “Do you have any idea how dangerous I am?” 
The moonlight catches his sparkling white teeth. This time though, you come face to face with the sharp edges of his previously concealed fangs. Your jaw drops open. He’s ethereal. 
“I could snap your neck—” Matt places his hand on your neck, “I could make that heart stop beating, take the air from your lungs. I could eat you…” He traces the vein in your throat from your jaw to your collarbone. “I could bite you and suck your blood until you’re empty. I could kill you, sweetheart. My kind is your natural enemy. You shouldn’t be here.”
You shudder. His nose brushes the sensitive skin below your ear. He’s so close you can smell him. On inhale, and his scent consumes your senses. He is all you can feel now. You reach out to hold onto his arms, his muscles tensing under your teeth. He’s big and strong, and those hands have a mind of their own as they begin to wander but never where you need him most. 
You shouldn’t be here, yet you came. He asked you to him, and you complied. Is this your fate now? Chasing after your big bad wolf like the helpless sheep that you are?
Your walls clench around an agonizing emptiness, your swollen clit brushing against your soaked underwear. Whatever he is doing to you, it’s the cruelest form of torture. 
A strangled noise breaks out of the back of his throat, rumbling in his chest. “You have no idea how badly I want to taste you,” he breathes. 
“Do it,” you beg. “Taste me.”
He utters your name again. “Stop.”
“Please.”
Your tone shatters him. When he kisses you, finally, fireworks explode in the universe around you. All the stars seem to finally align. Your heart opens, and it sucks him right into you. Your soul yearns for him. He’s so close yet so far away. 
The moon stands between you, but you cross even that ocean as you push against him, forcing your tongue into his mouth. He takes like heaven and hell; he’s the apple Eve bit into and cursed her for all eternity. But he’s also the snake, the one who compelled you to take this journey of bad decisions and jump right off the cliff’s edge. You melt into him like a broken candle. 
He pulls away. Those fangs are alluring, as sharp as a knife’s tip. You want to know what it would feel like gracing your skin, digging into your as he thrusts his cock into your tight cunt. The thought alone sends your mind into a spiral.
Your lips are swollen, but he has yet to draw blood. Matt looks as though he wouldn’t dare, his eyes darting around in a darkened conflict he feels might cost him more than your dignity. You are begging for it, as is your body, but he’s holding himself back. He’s the one who tied himself to an invisible pillar, keeping his hands locked behind his back. But that is not the Matt you want. 
You lean your head to the side, exposing the length of his neck. All control has slipped from your fingers. It’s in his hands now—you are. He cups your head gently. A mere few inches lie between your fountain and his lips.
You press a kiss to his calloused palm—a desperate and needy kiss, tracing your tongue over the lines that tell his life’s story in a way no interview can retell—and it is then he is forever done for. He’s doomed, and you are the second woman to pull him under the pits of hell. 
Saliva drips from his fangs. You hold your breath. He hisses, a weak admission of surrender; the words die miserably on your tongue when his lips close around your pulse point with all his might, and his teeth drive home. 
You moan aloud. Your fingers tangle in his hair, forcing him deeper as he sucks the dark red essence out of your vein. The sensation is more than you bargained for. It’s a drug that wrecks your system. The synapses in your brain backfire with all their might, and what follows the initial explosion of pleasure shooting white hot through your being is complete and utter silence as this God of a man feeds on you. 
The invisible string between you glows a bright crimson. It slings around you, tying you together like the roots of a tree. It’s an eternal sacrifice. You are giving your all to him, the very core of your existence that is now flowing into his mouth. You swear you can hear his thoughts mingle with yours. Yes, more, please. You taste so good. Your knees buckle, but you remain standing strong. He makes sure you don’t fall. Don’t slip away from me. I need you. 
A tear rolls down your cheek. You could sob. It feels so good—too good to be true. In that moment, you become one. There is no telling where one begins and the other ends. The coil in your stomach tightens, and the only pain you feel is the pleasure threatening to overwhelm you. He’s taking everything as you give him everything, but it is not enough. It has never been enough. 
When your body struggles to catch up with the lack of blood, he pulls away. His fangs drag out of your neck agonizingly slowly. You whimper at the sudden loss.
Matt catches you as you stumble into his arms. “You okay?” He cradles your face, brushing the hair out of your face. Your blood stains his lips. Blinking up at him, the force of your metaphysical connection slaps you awake. 
You cease to exist in all solar systems but his. 
He pokes the tip of his index finger with the sharp edge of one tooth, sliding it over the two holes that are pulsating with the work of your heartbeat.
“I shouldn’t have—” he begins. 
“No,” you say. “You did exactly what you should have.”
“I couldn’t stop.”
“But you did.” You wipe the blood from his mouth. “And I felt you. I only felt you.”
The living room passes by you. Before you know it, your back lands on something much softer than a concrete wall. He’s not a monster, that one, but he surely is an animal. 
You taste your blood on Matt’s luscious lips as he devours your tongue. It tastes of copper and a little bitter, but that is what makes him moan. That sound is the last thing you could ever grow tired of. 
His palm rests on your chest. Your heart pounds against his palm. “You’re so alive,” he says.
You cradle his face in your hands. “And you’re more human than you think.”
If he wanted to pull your heart out and hold it, you would let him in a heartbeat. 
He leans you back. He strips you bare. He kisses down your body like you are a fucking masterpiece for him to explore. That is how he sees you. 
Your head falls back. The kisses wander from your hips to the inside of your thighs. Every kiss brings his breath closer to your center. Matt pulls them apart. He opens you up to him. Your scent clouds his senses, and he groans, but he doesn’t touch. 
His fangs graze your skin. “Mine,” he growls. 
You gasp. He bites into the sensitive flesh. Hard, passionately. Your legs wrap around his head, trapping him there. He sucks, and he sucks, and he drinks, and the wetness pools out of your cunt in an obscene amount. This is foreplay to him. It drives you toward the edge leading to an abyss you are afraid you might never be able to crawl back out of. There is no bottom, it is just a pit, and he’s pushing you closer and closer, and—
Your back arches, but he pulls away before the coil can snap into a million butterflies. He pries your legs away from his head, spreading them further on the mattress, as far apart as they will go. 
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner have been served on a silver platter. He breathes in. The scent of your soaked pussy sticks to the hairs in his nose. It isn’t enough. He breathes in again, your arousal sweeter than fiction. You’re everything and more. He wants to taste that part of you more than anything, suck up the slick that is soaking the sheets—and you didn’t even think that was possible—but he waits because he needs to savor it. He doesn’t want it to be over too soon. neither for him nor for you. 
The blood is still dripping from his tongue and his fangs, and the raw inside of your thigh. He runs his finger through it. The sting runs from the wound to your folds, then back down. Still, he doesn’t touch. He plays with the blood, sucking on his fingers until they’re clean, and then he dives back in for a taste. He doesn’t bite, he kisses and sucks, but he doesn’t push it further. He doesn’t hurt you. 
You’re his saving grace; he has to worship you. Pain only has a place in pleasure. 
“Matthew,” you moan. 
He chuckles, kissing where his fangs left deep indentations. “No one will ever touch you again,” he purrs. “I’ll make sure of that.” 
You try to protest, but the words die on your tongue when he leans in, capturing your clit with his hungry mouth. The wound on your thigh closes. The blood from his lips mixes with your juices, and you cry out at the intensity of it all. 
He eats you with the ferocity of a man starved for weeks. He eats your pussy like he ate your blood, savoring every drop but still feasting for the taste to spread out in his mouth like wildfire. Sour, sweet, and copper. He sucks your sensitive clit into his mouth. His tongue drags through your folds, up and down, and then the tip slides inside, tasting your walls. He grows bolder as your moans accelerate. 
Matt cradles your thighs. He forces your hips back down to the mattress, stronger than the average human man. You have to endure his beard scratching and burning, and the pace he has set.
The orgasm creeps up on you. Before you know it, he has plunged his tongue into you, and your body convulses around him. You scream into a pillow as you come. 
You are each other’s forbidden fruit. No prayer in the world could keep you apart. 
Faintly, you can hear him say, “Good girl.” Your legs quiver. He pulls away, then comes right back like a boomerang. 
He’s warm now. He was cold before, but when he kisses you this time, he’s warm. He’s hot. You run your hands over his bare chest, the scars that lie under the dark strands of hair. You tug at it, and he moans. You can tell he is a little insecure, but by pressing your lips to one of the cuts on his shoulder, he relaxes. 
What he must have endured, what he must have lived through before he died and was resurrected in the same breath, just without a beating heart—you don’t want to think about it or you will break, but you can still feel him through the crimson tie that holds you together, and you know that he has suffered enough for more than two lifetimes. You wish you could take it all away from him. You wish you could have saved him before it was too late, loved him more than the woman who turned him, but turning back time is an impossibility. You are both acutely aware of that. 
“Hey.” Matt tilts your head toward him. “Where did you just go?” he asks. 
“Thinking about you,” you murmur. 
“Me?”
“You.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to be your salvation.”
You. His salvation. He kisses you, softly this time. He pours gratitude into his lips and bleeds them out in poetry as they slide into your mouth, and you swallow every last drop. 
If someone had told you a week ago where you would see yourself on that particular Monday, you would have laughed at them. And if someone had told you a week ago that you would be making love to the devil, you would have called them crazy. But it’s happening. 
He thrusts into you without a warning. His thick cock fills you like nothing and no one ever has before. Your cunt has been molded to fit him, you’re sure. You take him in, and you moan at the stretch. It’s a pain so delicious you could fall apart right then and there just from the feel of him inside you. 
Every thrust drags the tip of his cock along your sweet spot. Every added sensation drives you closer to your death. 
Your body tingles. He explores your face with his lips rather than his fingers, moving to your neck again. You cling to him, oh-so-desperate for him. He likes you like that, and you like him like that. 
“You’re fucking with my head,” he tells you. “Offering your pussy to a vampire. Letting me drink your blood. Begging me to fuck you. You’re in my head, baby. Can’t get you out of my system. Fuck.”
You are his downfall, his salvation, but he is all of those things to you as well—all of those things and more. If he could read your mind, you would tell him that. Words can’t do justice to how you feel. Not right now, maybe not ever. 
“Bite me again,” you beg.
His thrusts falter. He searches your body for any sign of regret. His fangs come out, and he buries them deep in your jugular vein. The floodgates open wide. Your walls clench around his cock, your clit pulsates, and the wave crashes into you. 
You come as he devours your neck and your blood. You transcend into another dimension, far away from everything and everyone but never him. Never Matthew.
The sensation of you wraps around him like a weighted blanket. His balls tighten, your blood unfolding its taste on his tongue. You are all over him, inside of him, everywhere at once. He falls head-first, dragging you down with him. 
He comes with a shout that is only muffled through his teeth buried in your flesh, his cum spurting into you and filling your cunt to the brim. Your eyes roll back. You’re flying and falling all at once. 
Oh, how good it feels to be consumed by him. To be fucked and sucked dry. You would have never expected this to come out of your week, let alone your life, but now that it has happened, you are floating on cloud nine. 
Dizziness threatens to take over, but before you can pass out, he forces himself away, allowing your heart to catch up with the lack of blood in your system. He collapses on top of you. His cock softens, but he stays inside. You need him there. You want him there. And that is the only place he wants to rest tonight. 
He heals the wounds on your neck. “You have a mark,” Matt rasps, tracing your skin with his finger. 
You choke out, “Yours.”
“Yes, you are.” He kisses you there. Once, twice, even a third time. “Mine,” he says.
You’re his. He’s yours. It doesn’t get any better than this. 
The minutes tick away on the obnoxious clock on the wall. Matt pulls out eventually, wrapping you up in a blanket. He coaxes you to drink, but you’re barely lucid. Only when he begins to stroke your hair you start coming back to yourself. You thought you might regret it, but as you look at him, his almost guilty eyes staring back at you, all you can do is reach out for him. 
“Session two tomorrow?” you ask.
He chuckles and retorts, “Have I not scared you away?” There is some truth to it though.
He’s covered in your blood. It sticks to his lips, his hands, and his chest. It’s sickeningly intimate, in a way.
You shake your head in response. “You could not possibly.”
He listens to your heartbeat. You’re as honest as they come. 
“Okay,” Matt says. “Session two tomorrow then.”
That night, you fell in love with the Devil, but he also fell in love with you, his angel in the form of a reckless journalist, and the only blood he ever wants to taste again until the end of his miserable, cursed days. 
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Matt Murdock (Smut) Tag List: @shouldbestudying41 @theradioactivespidergwen @cheshirecat484 @1988-fiend @acharliecoxedfan @gpenguin666 @linamarr @mcugeekposts @itwasthereaminuteago @norestfortheshelbywicked @yarrystyleeza @littlenerdyravenclaw @etanordoesbullsh1t @thychuvaluswife @harleycao @schneeflocky @imjustcal @pipsqueakkitten @merlinbtch @sya-skies @amberritonicole @ravenclaw617 @pigeonmama @bohemianrhapsody86 @a-girl-has-n0-name @winkev1 @callsign-ember @chittaphonstar @buckyyyismahhlife
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huffelpuff210 · 8 months ago
Text
Soft Dark Mafia Steve Rogers x Reader His girl Part 2
His Girl Part 2
Warning:Violence, blood, dark behavior, abuse, torture, Kidnapping, held hostage, beatings, gunfire, swearing, 
Your head hung as blood fell from your nose and mouth, You heard the rumors about Brock from Steve and Bucky, But now you knew they weren’t just rumors, 
Brock had no morals, He didn’t care that you were a woman, He didn’t care that him and his men were much bigger than you, And he certainly didn’t care that you had nothing to do with any of this, and yet he still decided to cut you, and beat you, He only wanted one answer to his question, 
“Again I will ask you, What is Bucky’s boss up to I know he’s like a brother to you, So he must have told you something.” He says as he circles you 
“I don’t know anything,” You say you feel a punch to your ribs letting out a groan, 
You refused to give Steve up and even if you did know his plans and what he was doing you would never tell,
Steve has been very kind to you, He’s never once raised his voice, or a hand to you, he treated you like you were made of glass even gave Jeremy a chance at a job when you practically begged, 
You just couldn’t betray him as much as your body hurt, It wouldn’t make you any better than your deadbeat brother, sure you were sick of him bringing his dirty laundry to your doorstep, and sure you were tired of acting like you were the older sibling, but who would you be if you gave up on the only blood relative you have left, 
Your hair is pulled making you look at the man, 
“You will answer my question!” He yells 
“I told you I don’t know.” You say he lets go of your hair punching you square in the jaw that the impact knocks the chair off balance that you fall to the ground still in the chair, 
Your breathing ragged and uneven from the beating, you can taste the blood in your mouth, you could not tell how long you have been here, Was it hours? Days? Weeks? you couldn’t tell 
suddenly you were kicked in the stomach hard a number of times, like this man was taking all his problems out on you, as if you caused them, 
suddenly there was gunfire in the distance, everyone stopped what they were doing including Brock, suddenly the door swung open, 
“Sir! It’s Rogers He’s here!” A man says you mentally smile, 
“Damn it what the hell is he doing here!?” Brock says 
“You two, watch her,” Brock says the two men nod, 
Brock leaves the room, 
Finally alone and not being beaten, you can feel your eyelids slowly flutter shut, hoping death will take away all the pain, 
Steve wasn’t holding back, He didn’t care if the cops arrived they were in his back pocket anyway, as soon as he and his men arrived he didn’t hesitate shooting and killing anyone in his way, No one takes his precious girl, No one! 
Bucky followed behind Steve making sure no one tried anything, after taking care of the men outside of the warehouse, they enter the warehouse, shooting and killing many of Brock’s men, they all lay in a pool of blood, 
Suddenly they head walking coming form a hallway, and see the man Himself, 
“A bit excessive don’t you think Rogers.” He says 
“When you take my girl no I don’t.” Steve says in a menacing voice that even sent chills down Bucky’s spine, 
Brock’s eyes widen at the realization, 
Everyone knows that Steve doesn’t take kindly to people touching what belongs to him, and once that happens they are lucky to still have their limbs together after, 
Depending how badly you hurt someone he cares about you might as well have a bullet between the eyes and cement shoes in the Hudson river, 
“Where is she?” Steve asks clearly in no mood, 
“I didn’t know she was yours...” Brock says starting to panic, 
“Regardless, you should have known she was Bucky’s sister, and putting your hands on family is also something I don’t tolerate.” Steve says with anger in his voice, 
“But- But” Brock stutters, 
“Take him I have no patience left for this scum.” Steve says 
“Yes sir.” All of Steve’s men say at the same time
You slowly regain consciousness, You feel a big piece of glass and grab it with your bound hands, 
Bucky always insured you had some sort of training just in case something like this would happen, You just hopped you wouldn’t have to use it, 
And you secretly met with Natasha every Tuesday she taught you how to get out of situations where you were bound or confined, and how to fight, again you wished you didn’t have to use said training, 
The two men in the room were looking down at their phone’s thinking you were still unconscious, 
You took a quiet deep breath, and dislocated both of your shoulders, so you could get your arms in front of you, 
You quietly made your way to both men stabbing the one in the neck and the other in the stomach, you swung the door open, the man you stabbed in the stomach hot on your heels, you ran as fast as you could, it was proving to be a harder task than you thought it would be with your injuries, 
You turn the corner, only to hear a gun shot ring,
You run right into someone, you let out a scream, you raise your bound hands ready to stab whoever it was, 
“Kitten relax it me,” You hear you look up and see Steve, 
Your breathing ragged and shallow, 
He has a hold on your bound wrists, 
You looked at him not really sure if he was real, 
“come on kitten drop the glass.” He says 
You drop the glass hearing it shatter at your feet, 
suddenly you were brought into a hug, 
“Your alright kitten, I’m here,” He says in a low husky voice, 
You were too much in shock to speak, but suddenly you were scooped up in his arms, 
Steve walks with you in his arms, 
“Clean this up.” Steve says to Sam who is standing next to Bucky, 
“Yes sir.” He says in a gruff tone, 
Knowing you were safe with Him, a wave of exhaustion takes over you, 
and suddenly you are over come by darkness. 
117 notes · View notes
alexfromjersey · 1 year ago
Text
𝓢𝓹𝓸𝓷𝓽𝓪𝓷𝓮𝓸𝓾𝓼 𝓞𝓾𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓰 & 𝓕𝓪𝓶𝓲𝓵𝓲𝓪𝓵 𝓐𝓿𝓸𝓲𝓭𝓪𝓷𝓬𝓮
jenna x g!poc
summary: jenna avoids talking to her family. jah plans a spontaneous outing
warnings: mature language, smut, tiny bit of violence
a/n: this is my all-time fav fanfic to write. I actually enjoy writing again, it’s been a long time since I’ve said that. also I can’t express enough how much I appreciate 230+ followers it’s small to some but this is huge to me thank you 🥺🫶🏾. enjoy the chapter - 5.5k words
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“Jenna…you’re pregnant?”
Those words coming out of her mother’s mouth made all the air in Jenna’s body disappear. Nervousness filled her and tears started to fill her eyes. At the sight, you instantly stood up from leaning against the car.
“What happened?” You mouthed in concern to her.
“Hello? Jenna?”
Jenna stepped away, “How did you find out?”
It was quiet on the other side for a moment, “So it’s true…you are pregnant.”
“Yeah, Mom I am. Listen I was going to call you and Dad and tell you guys but I had other things to handle first” Jenna explained.
“Handle? What things needed to be handled first? I get a call at one in the morning while on break at work from Hudson. My heart done fell out of my ass because I thought something bad happened to you-”
“Wait, wait Hudson called you and told you?” Jenna questioned.
“Yes. Told me that you got pregnant by some hoodlum. Who is this person anyway? You never mentioned you were seeing anyone” Natalie asked.
Jenna looked at you, you were glancing at her with concern and confusion. You saw that her face contorted into something that kinda scared you…and turned you on.
“Mom I have to go but I promise I will call you back and explain everything,” Jenna said.
Jenna didn’t wait for her mother to reply before she hung up the phone. Her walk back to you was full of annoyance and frustration.
“What happ-”
“I need to go somewhere” Jenna interrupted you and texted Big L to go home. As she passed you, she took the keys out of your hand.
“Uh…” That was all you were able to say as Jenna got into the driver's seat. Sensing the anger radiating from her, you just decided to follow her. You hopped in the car and Jenna pulled off immediately.
After a deathly silent drive to NoHo, you quickly arrive in front of a luxury loft apartment building. Jenna turned off the car and quickly hopped out. You were right on her heels.
She walked into the lobby where she was greeted by a doorman.
“Good evening Ms. Ortega” The doorman greeted.
But Jenna ignored him, her focus was on getting the little bastard on the top floor. You and her walk into the elevator which was thankfully empty.
“You gon’ talk or what? I’m lost on this entire thing right now” You questioned.
“My mother knows” Jenna revealed.
Your eyes widen at the revelation, “oh shit.”
“Oh shit is right. The person who told her lives in this building” Jenna said and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Mhmm” You hummed.
The two of you stood in silence for a moment almost to the floor Hudson lived on. You took the ring off your pinky finger and stuffed your necklace into your shirt. You also pulled off your glasses and held them in your hand.
Jenna looked at you, “What are you doing?”
“I’m getting ready just in case I gotta beat a bitch ass” You shrugged nonchalantly.
Soon, the two of you arrived on Hudson’s floor. You followed behind Jenna until she stopped at the last door on the floor. She started to bang on the door nonstop.
A few moments later, the door swung open to reveal a groggy Hudson. Before the door fully opened, Jenna pushed her way inside.
“You had no right! No fucking right to tell my mother my business” Jenna seethed.
Now Hudson was fully awake, “I did you a favor!”
You casually walked inside the apartment and close the door. You leaned against the counter watching the scene unfold.
“No! You did yourself a favor! I told you to stay out of this. I told you multiple times and you still keep doing it. You were my best friend Hudson and I trusted you! But now I’m done with you Hudson.” Jenna snapped.
Hudson’s face contorts into an angry one, “Done with me! After everything I did for you, you just going to drop me like that! You know what, maybe I should tell the world and your little thug girlfriend everything about you and I mean everything. Show everyone the real Jenna Ortega” Hudson threatened lowly.
If it was possible Hudson would be liquified by the way Jenna was glaring into his soul.
“Or maybe I should just show her all the videos and headlines. Especially the most recent one that’s not even a year old yet.” Hudson challenged the smaller brunette.
Hudson was suddenly cut off by a pain in his left cheek and his head whipped to the right. You instantly get up and pull Jenna away from Hudson.
“Okay, time to go,” You said and continued to pull her away.
Hudson glared at Jenna as he rubbed his cheek. You and Jenna leave the boy’s apartment and make your way back to the elevator. Tears were now falling freely down Jenna’s face. Once inside you push the emergency stop button. The elevator stops and you turn towards Jenna.
Immediately Jenna started to sob and you rushed in to pull her close to you. Your arm wrapped around her and she grabbed a fist full of your shirt. You felt her whole body racked with sobs. You kissed the top of her head and hugged her tighter.
🤰🏻🩵
TWO DAYS LATER
It's been two days since Jenna last spoke with her mother. Technically Natalie was calling and texting her daughter but she was too afraid to answer. Instead, the actress coped in her hotel room avoiding everyone, crying, and eating up all the room service food.
You just came back from shooting hoops with Davis and a few other friends. You took your shower and got dressed in some comfortable clothes. You haven't heard from the actress in a while and you were getting worried. So you grabbed your keys and set off to her hotel.
The journey didn't take long and you made your way up to the floor you knew she stayed on. You then knocked three knocks on the door. A few moments later, an exhausted looking Jenna opened the door.
"Damn girl you look terrible" You spoke without a second thought.
Jenna glared at you, "I will slam this door in your face."
"I'm sorry. My intrusive thoughts won that round. What you doing being cooped up in this stuffy ass room?"
"Sulking in my depression" Jenna replied and left from the door. You stepped inside and closed the door behind you. The hotel room was a lot different from the last of you were in. This was like presidential suite, it had a kitchen, multiple rooms, a big ass dining table, and 85inch TVs.
"That Scream money got you in severe luxury. I might have to dabble into the acting business" You joked.
Jenna, however, ignored you, she instead went back into her room and buried herself under her covers.
"Nah get yo ass up," You said and ripped the comforter off Jenna's body. Underneath, she was only dressed in an oversized white button up shirt and real short shorts.
“No” Jenna moaned and tried to grab the comforter but you moved it out of the way.
“Nah get your pregnant emotional ass up” You stated.
“Real talk, I know the news hitting your fam is not the way you wanted it but they know now. It’s been two days, you can’t keep avoiding them, especially your Moms.” You continued.
“You didn’t hear how she sounded Jah. I never heard my mother sound so disappointed in my life. Not even when pictures of me smoking cigarettes came out” Jenna said.
“I get it. You do your best trying to be this perfect child for your parents. When you disappoint them, you’re afraid that they’ll look at you differently” You commented.
“Yeah,” Jenna nodded.
“But they also gotta understand that you are human. Regardless of how perfect you try to be, you are going to make mistakes in your life. If they can’t accept that then, no offense, they got parenting all wrong” You added.
“You gonna be the fun parent while I be the strict one?” Jenna questioned.
"Why can't we both be fun parents with understandable boundaries" You stated and lay back to next to her.
Jenna sighed and the two of you just lay there in a comfortable silence staring at the ceiling before Jenna spoke again. "This room is suffocating. I need to go somewhere or do something"
You sat up on your forearms, "You are just luck Hollywood. I need you to get up and get dressed. I wanna take you somewhere to get your mind off things."
"I mean there are other ways to take my mind off things" Jenna smirked.
For a second you considered what she was implying but then you had to remember your talk yesterday.
"You are a very horny woman Jenna Ortega. Now get up and get a move on you smell like a reheated supreme pizza" You smirk at her annoyed face and leave her room.
“Asshole” Jenna grumbled.
🤰🏻🩵
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It was an hour later, Jenna still had a little attitude with you, which you found amusing. She was finally ready to go. The two of you left your apartment and got in your car.
“Where are we going?” Jenna asked.
“You’ll see.” You smiled and started the journey to your destination. Jenna pouted and sat back in her seat. The car journey was mostly just filled with you bopping along to the music while Jenna stared at the scenery.
The disappointment in her mother’s voice still echoed throughout her head. She knew that she needed to talk to her family and explain everything but she wasn’t ready just yet.
Shortly after, you finally arrived at your destination, The Bronx Museum of the Arts. You always wanted to take someone here but you never found the right person until now.
“Welcome to the Bronx Museum of the Arts,” You smiled as you opened the door for her. The two of you walked into the building that was playing a jazzy instrumental softly.
Immediately, Jenna was amazed by the art she saw. From paintings to sculptures to graffiti art. You stood a little bit behind her as she looked over the art. You, too were interested in all the art, especially the graffiti.
Graffiti reminded you of your father. Before he left, he was a construction worker but had a talent for graffiti art. Often getting in trouble in his youth with his friends for tagging buildings, cars, and billboards. Your father tried to teach your older brother how to make graffiti art but he was never interested enough. But when you came along, he was ecstatic to finally share his talent with his one of his offspring.
“This is amazing” Jenna beamed after she finished reading the description of one of the statues.
“I’m glad you like it. I was kinda worried you wouldn’t like it” You said and scratched the back of your neck nervously.
Jenna smirked as she looked at you, “Nervous?”
You stopped scratching the back of your neck and shoved your hands in your jeans pockets.
“Nah I don’t get nervous,” You said and cleared your throat.
Jenna just nodded with a smile. As much as she wanted to hold your hand, she restrained herself and kept walking through the exhibit. You followed behind her and put a good enough distance between the two of you. Jenna took notice of it but didn't make a comment. The two of you just continued enjoying your time at the museum, learning more about the Bronx and Hip-Hop culture.
Two hours have passed and the museum was, unfortunately, closing. You and Jenna left the building, vowing to come back to finish.
Instead of leading her to the car, you make your way down the street.
It wasn’t long until you arrived at the second destination, Black Knight Lounge. It was recommended to you by one of your buddies you play hoop with. It was a low-key club that served banging food and played fire music. But what made you come here was the fact that it had an open mic night, which coincidentally was tonight.
“Party for 2,” You said to the hostess who nodded and grabbed two menus. The hostess led you to a booth to the right of the stage.
“Enjoy” The hostess smiled and placed the menus down before leaving.
“This seems familiar” Jenna joked.
You chuckled and thought back to the night your child was conceived, “Reminds me of the night we conceived our child. A night that I remember daily.”
Jenna hid her red face in the menu which you laughed at. She went back to looking over the menu while you stared at her, taking in her natural beauty. This was the most relaxed you had seen her in the past week. The girl was a busybody and often forgot that she was human and can get exhausted. Hopefully, since she’s pregnant now she’ll take her body's health into consideration more.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the Black Knight Open Mic Night. For all my newcomers, open mic night is the chance to showcase your musical, poetic, or comedic talents in front of everyone. Do your best cause you never know who’s watching. Rules are: each person gets a limit of 3-4 minutes, you may perform an original or cover, and you must have the instrumental for your music or perform it yourself. The winner gets $500. Without further ado let’s get it started!” The DJ announced excitedly.
Everyone in the building clapped their hands while one person went up to the DJ booth and handed him a USB.
“Alright, we have our first performer for the night. Give it up Mr. ChiBX” The DJ yelled into the microphone.
“Twenty bucks, he chokes” You challenged the girl.
“He’s not going to choke. I believe in him” Jenna said optimistic.
You pulled out a $20 bill and smacked it on the table with a smirk. Jenna smiled and also pulled out a $20 bill and smacked it on top of yours. The two of you then turned towards the stage where the overweight middle-aged man was sweating bullets.
“I like to start off my set by telling a little joke. What do you call an angry carrot?” ChiBX asked.
No one in the room answered the man so the DJ took pity on him, “I don’t know man what do you call an angry carrot?”
“A steamed veggie” ChiBX wheezed.
You and Jenna covered your mouths as you laughed from secondhand embarrassment. Again, no one in the room laughed or chuckled. The DJ cringed before hitting a button that made a buzzing sound.
ChiBX frowned and without another word just left the stage.
“Poor guy” Jenna pouted.
You, on the other hand, grabbed the $40 from the table, “Aye I’m $40 richer.”
Jenna rolled her eyes in amusement while you did a quick little dance in your seat. The two of you continued playing the game after ordering your drinks and entrees, only adding money to the mix when one of you was super confident of winning.
While sipping your Sprite, you noticed Jenna kept glancing down at her phone.
“Call them” You blurt out.
Jenna looked up, “What?”
“Call your folks. Avoiding them more is only going to make things worse than they should be” You explained.
Jenna didn’t want to talk about it so she switched the subject, “When are you going to tell your mom?”
You sighed when she switched the subject but you didn’t want to push her to talk about anything she didn’t want to.
“She gets back from Jamaica tomorrow. Which brings me to asking you if you feel comfortable meeting her tomorrow? You can absolutely suggest another time too” You said.
Jenna contemplated meeting your mom right now, especially when she’s not on speaking terms with hers right now. But then she weighed the facts that, she’s going to be gone for a few months filming Beetlejuice in London. She didn’t want to wait until she was halfway from giving birth to tell your mother.
“Yeah I would love to meet her” Jenna smiled and nodded.
“Great” You smiled.
Moments later, your food has arrived. The two of you sat in silence and devoured your plates entirely. By the time you were both done, the place was packed now. More people got up to the mic and performed comedy pieces with only three performing rap songs.
You were now sitting beside Jenna with your arm around her and her leaning into your side. You guys wanted to stay for a little bit longer to watch whoever got on stage.
“Jahaziel?” Someone called your name from behind you.
The both of you looked to the side and saw an older gentleman dressed in a polo shirt and slacks. You recognized him as one of your father’s old friends.
“Mr. Greenhill, how you doing?” You greeted the man and shook his hand.
“I’m doing good young blood. I haven’t seen you since you were little. How’s Moms?” Mr. Greenhill gleamed.
“Yeah. She’s doing good. She comes back from Jamaica tomorrow” You answered.
“Word? I might stop by and visit her. I haven’t seen her since she and Emanuel moved to Highbridge” Mr. Greenhill said.
At the mention of your father’s name, your smile faltered a little. You hoped he didn’t ask you about how or where your father was.
“Excuse me, where are my manners. I’m Mr. Greenhill, I was a friend of her father's and I used to babysit this knucklehead” Mr. Greenhill introduced himself.
"This is Jenna...we're friends" You introduced her.
Friends. The title left a bitter taste in your mouth and an arrow in Jenna's heart.
"Nice to meet you Jenna" Mr. Greenhill smiled at her which she reciprocated. "Am I gonna see you on that stage?"
“Nah I don’t think so. I don’t have anything prepared” You declined.
“The lies you tell. You are always prepared when it comes to music. This one used to put on concerts for the whole block when she was little. Singing her heart out using songs no one expected her to sing. Like that time you sang Chain Reaction by Diana Ross” Mr. Greenhill reminisced.
You chuckled, “I remember. Dre and I were using buckets as drums.”
“Yes! Good times” Mr. Greenhill said.
You nodded in agreement.
"Alright, I don't want to interrupt your outing more than I already have. It was good seeing you young blood and again nice meeting you too Jenna." Mr. Greenhill said.
"Likewise" Jenna smiled. Mr. Greenhill left your table. You take a sip of your drink but you felt eyes burning into the side of your skull.
“What?” You questioned as you looked at Jenna.
“When were you going to tell me you made music?” Jenna raised an eyebrow.
"Oh see that's how I know you are a fake friend because I have music out," You said.
“How was I supposed to know that? You don’t even promote it” Jenna replied.
"Because I made it when I was 13. I put out four songs and three had music videos. We spent a hefty amount of money on them. Almost went homeless because of it" You shrugged and placed your drink down.
“What do you mean?” Jenna asked.
“I used to do little shows on the corner by my house with Davis and a few other friends. One day, a guy came up to me after I finished performing a song and basically sold me a dream. Told me that he was a record label agent and if I signed with him I’ll be this big child singer and I’ll be rich and yadayadayadaya. So I begged my Moms to let me sign with this man cause music is my dream, singing and dancing and performing is my love language. It took a while but my mom eventually let me sign with the man under the conditions that she will manage everything and I’ll still be in school. Everything was smooth, I made those four songs and did the music videos, my mom went from having two jobs to basically a part time job so she can manage my career. So I don’t know what made her look more deeply into these people but I’m glad she did because she found out that they were pocketing the money I made from those songs.” You explained.
Jenna gasped, “How much?”
“They pocketed almost 70k from us. We never noticed because they would show us falsified documents of where the money was going too. They would tell us all our money was going to these fake ass fees and shit. ” You said and sipped your soda.
“Wow. Do you want to make music again?” Jenna asked.
"Eh I don’t know maybe later in my career. I haven’t properly performed in almost ten years so I don’t know if I still got it in me" You shrugged.
"Doesn’t hurt to try again. This is a good opportunity to practice " Jenna said and motioned to the stage.
“Oh no thank you. I’m good" You stated.
“Aw come on Jah…like you said singing, dancing, and performing is your love language. Don’t give up on something you love. Don’t let those people prior take away your passion” Jenna said.
After a moment of contemplating, you let out a sigh, “Fine.”
You stood up from the booth and Jenna watched with excitement as you walked over to the DJ booth. You opened your phone to the notes section. You found a song you wrote a couple years ago. You skimmed through the lyrics until you felt like you had the lyrics down pack. You handed the DJ your phone with the beat on it.
“What you wanna be introduced as?” The DJ asked.
“Just Jah is fine” You answered and he nodded.
You walked up to the microphone on the small stage. You can feel everyone’s eyes on you which placed your nerves in. But when your eyes locked on brown ones, you felt every single nerve disappear. You took a deep breath in and gave a thumbs up to the DJ.
“Alright ladies and gentlemen, give it up for our first singing performance of the night, Just Jah!” The DJ announced.
That’s not…whatever.
The beat for your song started playing.
“It’s crazy how your heart just has a mind of its own, yeah, yeah” You started singing.
Jenna’s jaw dropped at the sound of your raspy R&B-suited voice.
“Like when a smile, that makes a choice on its own”
Jenna was completely enchanted by everything about you. From learning that you can sing to your beauty to your mindset. Everything about you made her realize something.
She was falling in love with you. Hard. Which made her even more petrified.
“My mind tries to deny it but girl I can’t fight what I know. I know. I want you baby ooh” You take your voice up a few octaves and stun every single person in the room except for one.
Mr. Greenhill was by the entrance of the building with a proud smile on his face.
You finished the rest of the song and everyone was giving you a standing ovation. You thanked everyone and went back to the booth.
“I need you to sing just for me every day from now on,” Jenna said.
You laugh as you sat down, “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Seriously, I need more music from you. I need it like yesterday” Jenna joked.
You continued to laugh at Jenna's eagerness for more music from you. It gave you the confidence boost you didn't know you needed to actually start making music again.
“Wow! What an amazing performance by Just Jah. Now I’m gonna take a quick 30-minute break and I’ll be right back with some more performances” The DJ said and switched on some music.
You recognized the song as Aaliyah's. All the couples in the room stood from their seats and went to the small dance floor. You grabbed Jenna's hand and pulled her up and towards the dance floor.
"May I have a dance with you darling?" You spoke in a British accent which made Jenna giggle.
"You shall" She replied.
You placed her arms around your neck and your hands on her waist. The two of you start swaying to the beat of the song.
"I know this was a spontaneous friend outing but did you enjoy yourself today?" You asked.
"Best friend outing I've ever been on" Jenna answered honestly.
“The best? You just boosted my ego to astronomical heights” You joked.
Jenna giggled before staring into your hazel eyes. The blue strobe lights in the room bounce off your skin beautifully.
“I want to kiss you so bad” You admitted to the shorter girl.
Before Jenna can stop herself and think, her answer spilled out her mouth instantly.
“Do it” Jenna muttered.
At the consent, you didn't hesitate to connect your lips with hers. The kiss was full of passion and love that it made the both of you slightly dizzy. You pull her closer and grip her waist as the kiss gets deeper. Jenna gripped the hair on the back of your neck. Before the kiss could escalate more in public, you pulled away but kept your forehead on hers.
“My place?” You suggested lowly.
“Absolutely” Jenna nodded quickly.
🤰🏻🩵
The both of you knew it was wrong, especially after the discussion you had two days ago. But you couldn't stop yourselves, you were both addicted to each other. An addiction that is going to generate consequences in the future.
By the time the two of you were back in your apartment, lips were interlocked and clothes were scattered everywhere. You barely made it up to the apartment with how much the two of you couldn't keep your hands to yourselves. But you made it safe and clothed until the door was shut.
Jenna sighed in pleasure as your lips enclosed her nipple. Your other hand makes itself useful by rolling the other bud in between your fingers. You gave attention to the other nipple before continuing your way down her body. Kissing every patch of her skin, worshipping her body.
But Jenna was impatient, she wanted you at her golden area to take care of the ache between her thighs. But you weren’t ready just yet.
"Jah...please" Jenna whined.
The sound of her calling your name was enough to get you even harder than before. You decided to stop teasing her and settled between her legs. You looked up and saw her staring down at you with lust-filled eyes waiting for you. You kept eye contact with her as you slowly licked from her hole up to her clit.
Instantly, she threw her head back against the pillows and dragged out a moan. Then, you went to work. You started your pleasurable assault on her clit, going from kitty licks to sucking on it repeatedly.
“Oh my…fuck” Jenna moaned and arched her back while gripping the sheets in her hands. You hook your hands under her thighs and pull her closer. You moaned at the sweet taste of her which sent vibrations throughout her body.
Her moans went up an octave each time you did it. She felt the knot in her stomach appear and she knew she was going to cum soon. You removed one of your hands from her thigh. You ran a finger up and down her slit, gathering wetness before pushing your middle finger inside her hole.
Her knuckles turned white from her grip on the sheets. You started slowly pumping in and out before reattaching your lips to her clit. You added a second finger, your ring finger to the mix.
Jenna’s chest rose and fell rapidly as she panted from the insertion.
You sat up and hovered over the girl with one free arm. You leaned down towards her lips just brushing yours against hers. She tried to lean up and connect your lips but you backed away. She let out a whine which quickly turned into a gasp as you abruptly sped up your fingers.
“Fuck!” She gasped.
Your fingers were increasing in pace, they also were starting to cramp but you pushed through it. The only sounds being heard were the slapping of your palm against her vagina and the moans spewing from Jenna’s mouth. You slowed your pace and curled your fingers and instantly hit the spongy spot inside her walls. Jenna let out a scream as she now gripped your forearm.
You felt her walls pulsating around your fingers. A few more curls and Jenna’s back arched to the sky as her walls trapped your fingers and you felt hot liquid around them. Her jaw fell open as choked moans came out from her intense orgasm. After a moment, Jenna started to relax and you pulled your fingers out.
“You taste delicious” You smirked as you licked her cum off your fingers. She looked at you with half-lidded eyes and a smirk.
After you finished cleaning her off your fingers, you leaned down and captured her lips. She moaned as she tasted herself on your tongue. You took this time to position yourself over her entrance. You broke the kiss for a moment to grab a condom from your dresser, rolling it on your hardened shaft, and lining yourself up before capturing her lips again.
Slowly, you pushed yourself inside her. Jenna broke the kiss as her eyes rolled to the back of her head.
You loved seeing her like this, so vulnerable. It was only for your eyes and you couldn’t get enough of it. You bottom out in her as she clenched around you at the feeling of you being deep in her.
“Shit” You hissed as a deep groan escaped your mouth.
Jenna’s eyes snapped to you as she watched your face twist in pleasure. She wanted that godly sent sound to escape your lips again.
“Pick me up” Jenna mumbled.
You obeyed her request and sat up on her your knees with her in your arms. You hooked your arms around the back of her knees and gripped her cheeks with your hands.
Instead of starting slow this time, your hips snapped into a quick pace. Nails dug into your shoulder blades making moon crescent-shaped indents. Your lips attached themselves to her collarbone, bruising up the area with love marks.
"F-F-Fuck Jah" Jenna cried out. Her hips bucked wildly as you hit the right spot inside her. Sweat cling to your forehead as you concentrated on bringing her into a blissful state. But there was something in the back of your head telling you this was wrong. But you ignored it and focused on the trembling woman in your arms.
I can definitely handle you…
A devilish smirk grew on your face. You were going to have fun with her tonight. You stopped your thrusts, much to her dismay. You laid her down back on the bed, her legs now resting on your shoulders. You interlock your fingers with hers and start going to town.
Jenna looked down at the sight of your stick, glistening from her arousal, disappearing inside of her. The knot in her stomach tightened and her walls fluttered around you, signaling how close she was. So naturally, your pace sped up to an inhuman one. Your headboard knocks against the wall.
“Yes, don’t stop!” Jenna sobbed.
A couple more thrusts and immediately Jenna saw stars. The knot in her stomach snapped and she arched into you once more, no sound escaping her lips as her second orgasm ripped through her harsher than the first one. She expected you to stop and let her catch her breath but you did the opposite. You kept thrusting into the girl, fucking her through her orgasm.
“W-W-Wait baby” She hissed as her eyes widen from you continuing. She removed her right hand from yours and pushed it against your pelvis, trying to get you to stop and let her catch her breath.
"Nah" You smirked.
Her legs fell from your shoulders, effectively giving you more access to go deeper. At the feeling of you being deeper, Jenna tried to scoot away from you.
"Nah, where you going?" You said. You flipped her onto her stomach. You pulled her ass towards you and you inserted yourself back into her before she could properly take a breath. A long dragged-out moan escaped her lips. Your hands gripped her hips, forcing the girl to move back onto you.
Jenna’s eyes slammed shut and she buried her face into the pillow. But a gasp was muffled by the pillow escaped her as you delivered a sharp hard thrust.
“Fuck!” Jenna screamed. You smirked as you delivered more sharp thrusts. Choked moans spilled from her mouth until she felt herself tremble. She was sent into another orgasm, her third one for the night.
“I can’t. I-I-I can’t baby” She sobbed as she tried running from you once more.
Your hand went around her throat and you pulled her up against you. You kissed her jawline as your other hand explored her body.
“Give me one more baby girl” Your voice dripped with lust. It was deeper and raspier which made Jenna swoon. You littered her neck with hickeys as she reached behind you and slid her fingers through your hair.
You started slow this last time, setting a smooth pace for both of you. Her heavenly pants went straight into your ear as she rested her head on your shoulder.
“You feel so good” You stated with a groan.
Her fourth and final orgasm was quickly approaching. You were almost there too, you wanted to cum together for the final one. Jenna knew you were close to exploding by the way your hands gripped her hips tighter. She purposely clenched around you which made you hiss and bury your face into her neck.
“Baby…look at…me” Jenna moaned.
You didn't want to look at her because you knew if you do, you'll be a goner. But Jenna wasn't having that, she tugged your hair and forced you to look at her. One look into her eyes had you gone, your hips stuttered as you felt yourself empty into the condom.
“Oh fuck” You groaned and gripped her hips tighter. You knew that was going to leave a bruise.
At the sight of you reaching your climax, Jenna cried out, incoherent words escaping her as she climaxed for the final time tonight. You held her close to you as she trembled in your arms. The two of you shared lazy kisses as you calmed down from tonight's activities. Both of you have tired smiles on your faces.
You pulled out her and she whined from the loss and overstimulation. You pulled the used condom off you, tied it up, and threw it into the trashcan beside your bed. The both of you laid back down on the bed. You lay on your back with your arm behind your head as Jenna cuddled up to your side. It wasn't long until Jenna's breath evened out, signaling that she was asleep and you were following her.
a/n: I also change my mind constantly on everything so the fans/public still don't know...yet cause I have a plan for that *insert evil smile*
taglist: @grandpatrolnut @raven-ss @fanboy7794 @morganismspam23 @cinffy23 @darklron @cheesybacon1 @octavias-next-meat-bite @playboysaleen @niqmandu @zaclewiss @yescruzzzzzzz @silentfor @gemz5 @alwaysdangerouschild @onceblinkarmyandmore @melonfruit442 @zataracloud @nepobaby08 @jennasslut @rimaybank @jaewu @j3nc0re
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holmesianlove · 26 days ago
Text
Chapter 12 - Red
Sherlock had been out when John arrived home. Another failed date which barely made it through the first drink of his evening and ended before the second drink had been delivered to their table. He had hoped to come home and find Sherlock on the couch. He wasn’t really sure why. There was just some sense of comfort in that. Even though Sherlock would have deduced ten things about the date and ribbed him mercilessly, it had become their little ritual. Somehow, it made John feel better, despite his grumblings to the contrary. Sherlock noticed things about him. About his comings and goings to Baker Street and he secretly enjoyed it: which shoes were his good date shoes; what shirt signified a second date; or when it was a clinic day, based on the trousers he chose. Sherlock’s little quirks made John’s every day feel important, somehow. Someone noticed him.
But Sherlock wasn’t there tonight. The flat was cold, empty, still. It was unnerving. He much preferred the detective to be at home, even when he was contorted on the couch in a sulk, or messing up the kitchen with an experiment. One time he was even using a staple gun to attach photographs to the wallpaper for a case. It was never dull at Baker Street. His home. He smiled to himself, very briefly, before his face fell again. What on earth was he going to do with himself, all alone? He’d lost his appetite on the date, but maybe he’d make some toast and a cup of tea. He could read through the case notes again. There were a couple of things he was still wanting to read back over.
He dropped his keys on the table beside his laptop and he noticed, on top of the mess of papers, the new pair of headphones that Sherlock had purchased during the week. Noise cancelling, top of the line, beautiful headphones. It was too late to respectably play music to unwind after the date, but with the headphones, maybe he could put on something loud and angry to lament the fact he would be a bachelor forever. Mrs Hudson wouldn’t be disturbed and he could do some rage cleaning or something. The bathroom was due a scrub down.
He put them on and paired it to his phone, picking something to listen to. Some heavy rock was in order. At first, he stood there enjoying it - the loud angry rage music. Single, pathetic John Watson. A soldier and surgeon and now crime solver, and still he couldn’t hold someone down long enough for a third date. These days, he was just hopeful he’d pick someone who didn’t stand by the three date rule. There has been some dirty alleyway trysts and a bit of uncomfortable car sex and occasionally an offer to come up to theirs. John never brought them to Baker Street through. It somehow felt wrong. He never had figured out why. It just did. He sat precariously, on the edge of the coffee table, pondering that for a moment and the image of Sherlock with the kitten nestled against his neck came flooding into his head. He blushed. Again. What was that? Why was he getting strange stirrings about snuggling up to Sherlock? Sherlock didn’t do relationships. It had always just been the two of them. As friends. And Sherlock never wanted to discuss it.
He needed to stop thinking about his flatmate in that way. Nothing good could come of that. He actually hadn’t really dated any men for a long time. Now that he thought about it, maybe he’d have more luck on Grindr. Men were always more prone to one night stands on Grindr. Women always wanted to start with the pretence of a date, at least. Fake romance before admitting to wanting to just get off with someone.
A particularly good song came on and John was inspired to dance. He started dancing across the whole flat, using the furniture as props to grind against or lean into. He grabbed a chair and straddled it and then ran up and down the stairs to his room. He kicked off his shoes and socks and started stripping down piece by piece, twirling items of clothing around his head. Yeah, John Watson. You’ve still got it, he told himself. You could absolutely be one of those hot male strippers. He looked down and tried to ignore the little belly he had there. Maybe he needed to do some jogging again. Get back into shape. But here, right now in Casa del Baker, he would be the hot stud that everyone wanted.
By the time he was stripped down to his underpants, the plan had been to grab pyjamas and go have a warm shower. But a particularly good song came on and distracted him, so the dance moves now took priority. He used every inch of the floor space. Dancing in his favourite red underpants. Very festive. Red for speed. Red supposedly induced hunger in the brain. John Watson was the house stud.
Bathroom. Stay focussed, Watson. He was going to rage clean that bathroom and then he could shower and get in pyjamas and make some toast and tea. Yes, that was a good plan.
Meanwhile, Sherlock had finally returned home from his brother’s after a really long walk home, trying to think through the sorts of things he might say to John, to potentially, maybe flag that there was something between them he’d like to discuss. He stood in the foyer downstairs just mulling over his options one more time, trying to encourage himself to get up the courage, give himself a gee-up.
Just make the first move. That’s easy. Right? That’s all you have to do. Then, apparently, he will jump off a cliff with you… or maybe without you… in terror.
He rolled his eyes at the very thought. But willed himself to go forward. As he came up the stairs, he could hear John humming from somewhere in the flat. Good mood. That’s a good start.
“John? You there? I had something I wanted to…?” Sherlock looked around the empty flat. “John?”
Some of John’s clothes were balanced in odd ways on parts of the furniture and a Sherlock struggled to piece together what was happening. The humming kept coming, but John didn’t seem to be responding so Sherlock wandered over to the kitchen and then back to the lounge.
“John?” he called out with more volume. Why wasn’t he hearing this?
He was going to go up towards John’s room next, but his ears told him it was coming from the corridor.
Ah. Bathroom. Was he in a bath? On the toilet? Was that a bad time to do this? Or maybe he could say it through the closed door and save some of the embarrassment.
As he turned towards the corridor, heading for the bathroom, quite suddenly, out of nowhere, John Watson leapt out from the bathroom, into the corridor, straight in front of Sherlock. He had not been expecting to see Sherlock. Clearly. And Sherlock had not expected to be under attack either.
John Watson stood there in his red underpants and noise cancelling headphones and a sponge in hand. His body glistened with the sweat of an excellent rage cleaning session. He had planned to grab one more product to get a particularly stubborn stain out, but it was in the kitchen. So he had planned to dance there and unfortunately leapt out dramatically into the corridor to find Sherlock gaping at him. The embarrassment was acute. He wanted to shrivel up and die in this moment.
The two of them froze in place, eyes wide. John had let out a yelp in fright and Sherlock had sucked in a breath that he had almost forgotten about until he let out an aggravated growl in frustration at being surprised in that way. Especially with the thoughts that were spinning around in his head in the moment.
John dropped the sponge and ripped the headphones off his head, creating a sweaty, scruffy mess of hair in its wake. The music could still be heard, albeit in a much softer incarnation as the headphones continued playing the track he had been on. John reached down and pressed the pause button on the side of the headphones without his eyes leaving Sherlock’s. They were two flatmates locked in a confused stand off, neither able to process the moment.
“What the… hell�� John?” Sherlock finally asked loudly. His eyeballs drifted up and down John’s entire body. He didn’t even hide the action, and then he dropped his key to the floor, and turned bright red with embarrassment as his brain caught up. That had completely put a spanner in his plan.
“Sorry I…” John also stood, completely frozen, utterly humiliated. Suddenly his brilliant idea seemed very un-brilliant. This is why Sherlock thinks you’re an idiot.
“You had… a date.” Sherlock stuttered out, suddenly looking horrified. “Did you bring her here? You never… Sorry, I didn’t… You really should message me if you want… privacy….” He sounded disgusted, though. He was disgusted. He was about to declare his love and John was about to copulate with some below-par woman in their flat.
“We never set up any rules,” John retorted, completely caught off guard by Sherlock’s slightly aggressive tone.
“No. But it’s never come up before. And I’ve certainly never come home to you dancing around in your underwear either. Is she upstairs? Or did you just decide to go all out and use my bed?” Sherlock snapped.
“What kind of psychopath do you take me for?!” John yelled back not understanding Sherlock’s behaviour.
“I don’t know, John. You’re the one naked in our flat.”
“You’ve been naked plenty of times.” John stormed past Sherlock, their shoulders colliding as he moved to the lounge, grabbing his shirt to cover his torso at least. Not that an open shirt really did much, but somehow he felt less naked in the moment. A protective layer. He turned back to Sherlock. “You were naked in the god damned Palace, need I remind you. Perhaps you should have mentioned your double standards before I moved in too.”
“Oh is that another cat-related-criticism, is it?” Sherlock spat back.
John crossed his arms. “I’m not going to stand here and argue with you in my underpants.”
“Good, I’d much prefer that you didn’t.” Sherlock crossed his arms as well. “And you should tell her to leave too,” he said, nodding towards the stairs. “She’s not welcome.”
“There’s no-one bloody here, Sherlock!” John yelled. He sucked in a few breaths trying to calm things. What the hell was going on? “I was just… bored… and you weren’t home… and I was listening to music and… ugh never mind. It shouldn’t matter either way, but for your information, I’m here alone.”
“Alone. In your underpants?” Sherlock scoffed in disbelief.
“Yes. So?” John bristled.
Sherlock just stood staring at John. His brother’s words challenged him over and over in his head and yet, somehow even he knew this was not the best time to suddenly make a first move. Despite how ridiculously enticing John looked, and how incredibly charged the room was with their testosterone-fuelled argument now. Sherlock could easily just cross the floor and kiss John right now. That’s what his brain wanted him to do. His whole body flushed with embarrassment as the realisation hit him and he glanced briefly over at the mirror on the mantle to see he was almost as red as the stupid underpants that somehow were glaring back at him, almost as aggressively as John was.
“Where were you tonight, anyway?” John asked, trying to save some face.
“I went to see my brother, if you must know.”
“Your brother?” John was surprised.
Sherlock avoided seeing his brother at all costs. In fact, he often sent John in his place to annoy everyone as much as possible. “Is everything… alright?” John suddenly found himself asking, his demeanour relaxing somewhat as he stepped forward, dropping his arms, genuinely concerned, but this only seemed to upset Sherlock more as he took a step away from John.
“God, could you just put some clothes on!” Sherlock snapped, turning on his heel and storming to his room. He slammed the door and threw himself down on the bed, face planting with an impressive level of dramatic flare.
John stood alone in the lounge room completely humiliated. He and Sherlock rarely argued like that. They yelled and carried on all the time and took their moods out on each other but this one felt so very different. Sherlock had been startled by John’s appearance. And properly angry about it. And John didn’t understand why. He certainly felt mortified to his bones. He put his face in his hands and ran straight back up to his room. He pulled the shirt off and grabbed a dressing gown instead, collapsing backwards onto his bed. “You are a bloody idiot, John Watson. You may as well have gone out and danced in the middle of the street. What the devil were you thinking?” he whispered. He never did anything like that. Sex in public? Maybe. Solo John Watson showing off in any way, with no clothing on? Never. It had felt so freeing and wonderful for the length of a few songs. And then the fun had crashed down around his bare ankles.
After a considerable time lying there in his dressing gown feeling like a real idiot, he remembered he hadn’t eaten and really did need something in his stomach. He put on some socks and padded down to the kitchen, his dressing gown wrapped safely, tightly around his body and double knotted for safety.
While he waited for the kettle to boil, he heard a phone vibrating loudly and he walked back into the main area to find his phone. No, it wasn’t his phone. He could still hear the vibrating so he searched around and finally found the spot Sherlock had put his scarf and coat and his phone - probably when he came in before he was set upon by a naked pesterer. John groaned to himself as the memory refreshed itself in his brain and re-established new levels of embarrasment.
He grabbed the phone and answered. “Sherlock’s phone.”
“Oh John, it’s Greg. I wanted Sherlock to look into something for me tonight. Is he home?”
John paused before answering. Was Sherlock home? Was that Sherlock in his usual form? Or some demon clone? Clearly whatever had happened at his brother’s house had upset him. Maybe it was best to leave him alone. But Sherlock prized The Work over everything and would never forgive John for ignoring a call-out. If he had been that mad about John’s red underpants, ignoring this call would probably be eviction worthy.
“Yeah, hang on Greg. I’ll get him.”
John made the terrifying walk down the corridor to Sherlock’s bedroom and stood outside, unable to muster up the courage for a moment.
“How urgent is it, Greg?” John asked, hoping for an excuse to not have to do this.
“Pretty time sensitive,” he replied.
John tapped lightly at the door. “Ah… Sherlock? It’s Greg. It’s work stuff,” he said. He was embarrassed to hear a little quiver in his own voice. He was a coward. He stood there for what felt like too long. Maybe Sherlock wouldn’t come out. Maybe he’d crawled out a window and escaped to the streets of London below, disgusted by his naked flatmate.
Suddenly the door unlatched and Sherlock peeked through a crack. His eyes raked over John’s full length to check for clothing first, then he looked into John’s eyes, very hesitantly in silence. They stood just staring at each other, assessing. It seemed the argument had equally frightened Sherlock.
“Greg,” John reiterated holding up the phone to show him in the crack.
Sherlock opened the door more and went to grab the phone but stopped. “John…”
“I’ll get dressed and come with you,” he simply said, handing Sherlock the phone and walking away to put on some clothes.
And with that, the argument would remain unresolved and festering between them. And they would probably behave as if nothing had happened.
— —
Thanks @notjustamumj for the prompt list. I’m so enjoying writing these for you all!
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