#Dry Needling Pain Management

[fyzical-lawrenceville-sugarloaf]

Dry Needling for Pain Management: A Modern Approach to Relieving Muscle Pain

Dry needling is an increasingly popular technique used by physical therapists and pain management specialists to treat musculoskeletal pain and dysfunction. While it involves the use of thin, sterile needles similar to acupuncture, dry needling is based on Western medicine principles and targets specific muscles and trigger points to alleviate pain, improve range of motion, and enhance recovery. This minimally invasive treatment is effective in managing chronic pain, sports injuries, and muscle tension, making it a valuable tool for individuals seeking non-invasive pain relief.

What is Dry Needling?

Dry needling is a procedure that involves inserting fine, filiform needles into trigger points (also known as myofascial trigger points), taut bands of muscle, or other dysfunctional soft tissues. These trigger points are often sources of pain, tightness, and limited mobility, typically caused by muscle overuse, injury, or postural imbalances.

The term “dry” refers to the fact that no medication or injection is involved, as opposed to “wet needling,” which might include the injection of substances such as corticosteroids. The primary goal of dry needling is to release muscle tension, reduce pain, and restore normal muscle function by targeting specific problem areas.

How Does Dry Needling Work?

When the needles are inserted into the skin and muscle, they create a localized twitch response in the affected tissue, which helps release muscle tightness and alleviate pain. This mechanical stimulation of the muscle and nervous system promotes blood flow to the area, reduces inflammation, and activates the body’s natural healing processes.

Dry needling is based on the neurophysiological principles of trigger points, which are hyperirritable spots in skeletal muscle associated with palpable nodules. Trigger points can cause referred pain, which means the pain is felt in a different area than where the problem originates. For example, trigger points in the neck muscles can cause headaches or pain in the shoulders. By targeting these trigger points, dry needling helps reset the muscle and relieve pain and dysfunction.

Conditions Treated with Dry Needling

Dry needling is used to treat a variety of conditions that cause pain, muscle tightness, and restricted movement. Some common conditions include:

Chronic Pain: Conditions like fibromyalgia, chronic lower back pain, and neck pain can benefit from dry needling, as it helps release tight muscles and reduce chronic tension.

Sports Injuries: Dry needling is often used by athletes to treat muscle strains, tendonitis, and overuse injuries. It promotes faster recovery and helps athletes maintain flexibility and function.

Muscle Strain and Tension: People experiencing muscle tightness due to poor posture, repetitive movements, or stress may find relief through dry needling.

Tension Headaches and Migraines: Trigger points in the upper back, neck, and shoulders can cause tension headaches or migraines. Dry needling can help reduce the muscle tightness that contributes to these conditions.

Myofascial Pain Syndrome: This chronic pain disorder involves pain and inflammation in the fascia, the connective tissue that surrounds muscles. Dry needling helps release the trigger points responsible for the pain.

Sciatica and Nerve Pain: By addressing trigger points in the muscles around the spine and pelvis, dry needling can relieve nerve compression and referred pain, such as sciatica.

Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ) Disorders: Dry needling is effective in relieving the muscle tension and referred pain associated with TMJ disorders, which affect the jaw muscles and cause facial pain, headaches, and jaw clicking or locking.

Postural Problems: Conditions related to poor posture, such as rounded shoulders or forward head posture, can cause chronic muscle pain. Dry needling helps loosen the muscles contributing to postural imbalances.

Benefits of Dry Needling

Dry needling offers numerous benefits for pain management, particularly for patients suffering from chronic or difficult-to-treat muscle pain. Some key benefits include:

1. Pain Relief

Dry needling provides immediate pain relief by targeting specific trigger points responsible for muscle tension and discomfort. Patients often experience reduced pain after just one session, with improvements continuing over time as the muscles relax and heal.

2. Improved Mobility and Function

By releasing tight muscles and restoring normal function, dry needling can improve range of motion and flexibility, allowing patients to move more freely. This is particularly beneficial for athletes or individuals recovering from injuries who need to regain mobility and strength.

3. Reduced Muscle Tension

Chronic muscle tension can lead to poor posture, joint dysfunction, and reduced quality of life. Dry needling helps to alleviate muscle knots and tension, allowing muscles to relax and function optimally.

4. Enhanced Recovery from Injury

For individuals recovering from injuries, dry needling accelerates the healing process by increasing blood flow to the affected area, reducing inflammation, and stimulating the body’s natural repair mechanisms.

5. Complementary to Other Treatments

Dry needling is often used in conjunction with other pain management and rehabilitation therapies, such as physical therapy, chiropractic care, and massage therapy. Its ability to target deep tissues makes it an excellent complement to these treatments, enhancing their overall effectiveness.

6. Non-Surgical and Minimally Invasive

Dry needling is a minimally invasive procedure that does not require surgery or medications. It is an excellent option for patients looking for a natural, drug-free approach to pain relief.

What to Expect During a Dry Needling Session

During a dry needling session, a certified practitioner will assess the patient’s pain and mobility issues. They will locate the trigger points or areas of muscle tension responsible for the discomfort. Once identified, they will insert fine needles directly into these points.

The needle insertion may cause a brief, sharp sensation, followed by a muscle twitch or spasm. This is a normal response, indicating that the muscle is reacting to the stimulus and releasing tension. After the twitch response, patients often feel immediate relief as the muscle relaxes.

A typical dry needling session lasts between 30 and 60 minutes, depending on the number of areas being treated. Some patients may experience mild soreness after the treatment, similar to the feeling after a deep tissue massage, but this usually resolves within a day or two.

Dry Needling vs. Acupuncture: What’s the Difference?

While dry needling and acupuncture both use fine needles, the two practices are fundamentally different in their approach and underlying principles.

Acupuncture: Acupuncture is based on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and aims to balance the body’s energy, or “Qi,” by stimulating specific points along energy pathways (meridians). Acupuncture is used to treat a wide range of conditions, from pain management to stress relief and digestive disorders.

Dry Needling: Dry needling, on the other hand, is based on Western medical science and focuses on treating musculoskeletal pain by targeting trigger points and dysfunctional muscles. It is specifically designed to treat pain and movement issues related to muscle and tissue dysfunction.

Is Dry Needling Safe?

Dry needling is a safe and effective treatment when performed by a certified and experienced practitioner. As with any procedure, there are some risks, including mild soreness, bruising, or minor bleeding at the needle insertion site. However, these side effects are generally minimal and short-lived. It’s important to choose a practitioner who is trained in dry needling techniques to ensure safety and efficacy.

Who Can Benefit from Dry Needling?

Dry needling is suitable for individuals experiencing chronic muscle pain, tension, or restricted movement due to various conditions. It is often recommended for:

Athletes recovering from injuries or dealing with chronic pain

Patients with chronic conditions like fibromyalgia, sciatica, or myofascial pain syndrome

Individuals with tension headaches or migraines caused by muscle tension

People experiencing pain due to postural imbalances or repetitive strain

Conclusion

Dry needling is an effective, evidence-based treatment for managing musculoskeletal pain, reducing muscle tension, and improving overall function. Whether you're dealing with chronic pain, recovering from an injury, or managing muscle tightness due to stress or poor posture, dry needling offers a minimally invasive and drug-free solution to relieve discomfort and improve your quality of life. If you are struggling with persistent pain, consulting a qualified dry needling specialist may be the key to unlocking long-term relief and recovery.

[havegaysex]

hi, this was from a bit ago, but i saw on a post you mention you need dry needling to manage pain. i have a condition where that is one of the possible treatments (though id probably have to pay out of pocket) so id love to hear your experiences with that if possible

So firstly assuming you are American I recently learned that at independent clinics dry needling is often not covered as part of physical therapy but in the hospital system it can be covered as part of physical therapy treatment and not bill it as a separate item (which is what leads to us having to pay out of pocket).

Secondly as long as you work with someone who knows what they're doing and will listen to you it can be a pretty good treatment. And I say that as someone who has a lot of sensory challenges with needles.

There's some different methods which can enable them to either activate the muscle or release the tension in the muscle. A normal session for me with the PT I'm seeing for pain management looks like me coming into her office, we talk about what I've been feeling in the past two weeks in regards to my hips and then she tells me what she wants to do with the needles and I tell her that that sounds like a good plan to me. She has me get on the massage table and then she does dry needling with electrical stimulation which can be weird at first but I would compare it to a TENS machine just further in the muscle then the pads that stick on your skin can get. Oftentimes after she's done needling she'll have me do stuff specifically to use the muscles she's just targeted and to get blood flowing. Dry needling can take a lot out of you like a really intense massage, it's best to drink water and rest afterwards and if you're going to be active try to do physical therapy stretches / exercises to help with the effectiveness of the needling

For me personally going every other week or so for an over an hour drive away to get the dry needling with my pelvic PT has reduced the amount of drugs I need to rely on to manage my hip pain and made me feel like I have more control over the pain than I've ever had in my life.

(note I used speech to text for this post so if there is any words that are just not right try saying them out loud because often you can hear the word I meant talk to type to capture)

[havegaysex]

additionally if it wasn't so hard to get medical treatment if other than pain pills we wouldn't have the same kind of addiction problems.

It is actually way better for 100 addicts to get their fix on pain pills than a single person in pain go without. I call this the "Torture is bad" principle. You should be able to get the good stuff forever after a single doctor's visit. If you're worried about addicts fund rehab centers and needle exchanges instead of torturing people.

[cbphysiotherapy]

[labsportstherapy]

Sports Rehabilitation and Wellness Services St Paul

If persistent pain is affecting your daily/recreational life, LAB Sports Therapy is here for you. Our skilled Physical Therapists specialize in injury and pain management. Through a thorough assessment, we’ll identify the specifics of your pain and develop a customized plan to support your recovery. Count on our expertise for personalized care aimed at facilitating a prompt and effective rehabilitation process.

[bluemoonacupuncture]

When To Opt For Dry Needling In Oro Valley- Understand The Timing?

Are you dealing with persistent pain, muscle tightness, or mobility issues in Oro Valley? Do tight muscles leave you feeling like a pretzeled desert dweller? If you've tried the usual stretches and massages but the knots persist, dry needling might be the hidden oasis you've been searching for. But before you dive headfirst into this intriguing therapy, understanding the "when" is just as significant as the "how." So, saddle up, fellow desert explorers, as we untangle the mystery of Dry Needling in Oro Valley timing and discover if it's the right path to pain-free bliss.

The Right Time To Opt For Dry Needling In Oro Valley

Are you dealing with persistent pain, muscle tightness, or mobility issues in Oro Valley? If so, you might have heard about dry needling as a potential solution. But when is the right time to consider this technique for optimal results?

1. Lingering Discomfort

If you find yourself stuck in a cycle of chronic pain with conventional medicines missing the mark, now is the ideal time to investigate dry needling. This procedure can offer a new way to deal with addressing steady inconvenience.

2.  Post-Activity Muscle Tightness

Experiencing tightness or reduced flexibility following exercise? Dry needling can be a game-changer, helping to release tension and enhance your range of motion after physical activities. There are many reliable places such as Blue Moon Wellness where you can get the best treatment for your chronic pain.

3. Injury Rehabilitation

If you're headed straight toward recovery from a physical issue, dry needling can be a significant partner. It supports addressing muscle imbalance and speeds up the recuperating system, making it a valuable expansion to your rehabilitation plan.

4. When Specific Muscle Knots Persist

For those irritating trigger points that just won't budge with massage or stretching, dry needling might be the missing piece. It's designed to target and release tension in these stubborn areas.

5. Integrating With Other Therapies

Consider dry needling as part of a holistic approach. When combined with therapies like physical therapy or chiropractic care, it can enhance overall results, providing a comprehensive solution to your discomfort. Additionally, Pain Management Acupuncturists in Tucson help you get rid of chronic disease.

Before The Needles- Consult With A Professional

Remember, the decision to try dry needling in Oro Valley should always involve consulting with a qualified practitioner. They will assess your unique condition, discuss your symptoms, and determine if dry needling aligns with your needs. Additionally, understanding when to opt for dry needling is the first step toward effective relief. It's a personalized solution, so don't hesitate to reach out to a local practitioner for guidance tailored to your situation.

By getting the timing right, you can harness the potential of dry needling to manage pain effectively and promote better musculoskeletal health in Oro Valley. Ready to explore? You must consider Bluemoon Acupuncture and Wellness Center. Their committed team makes sure that by using best practices, they improve your well-being.  Reach out to them today!

[momentumspinephysiotherapy]

Physiotherapist edmonton: Promoting Optimal Health and Recovery | Momentum Spine and Sports Physiotherapy Clinic

Introduction: Understanding the Importance of Physiotherapy

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The Role of a Physiotherapist in Edmonton

A physiotherapist is a highly trained healthcare professional who specializes in assessing, diagnosing, and treating musculoskeletal conditions. At Momentum Spine and Sports Physiotherapy Clinic, our dedicated team of physiotherapists works closely with patients to develop personalized treatment plans that target their specific concerns.

Arthritis Physiotherapy in Edmonton: Alleviating Joint Pain

Arthritis can cause significant pain and discomfort, limiting one's ability to perform daily activities. Our arthritis physiotherapy Edmonton aims to reduce pain, improve joint mobility, and enhance overall function. Through a combination of manual therapy, therapeutic exercises, and pain management techniques, our physiotherapists help individuals with arthritis regain their independence and improve their quality of life.

Athletic Therapy Windermere: Enhancing Performance and Preventing Injuries

Athletes, both amateur and professional, can benefit from athletic therapy services in Windermere. Our skilled athletic therapists provide comprehensive assessments, injury prevention strategies, and rehabilitation programs tailored to the unique demands of sports-related activities. By optimizing performance and minimizing the risk of injuries, athletes can excel in their chosen sports.

Back Pain Physiotherapy Windermere: Restoring Comfort and Mobility

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5108 Mullen Road NW Edmonton, AB T6R0S9 Tel:(587) 409-4495

[revelboo]

hi! idk if you are taking requests right now, but if you are, could i ask for sunder dealing with a human psychologist trying to help him? (maybe a joker and harleen quinzel dynamic?)

I’ll try. Title is Whipped Cream by Ludo

Whipped Cream

Sunder x Reader

• Chains slithering against the berth they’d bound him to, he halfheartedly tugs at them again even though he knows they aren’t budging. They never do. Head falling back, he grits his denta to keep from laughing. They’re right there. Just outside the door. All those lovely minds to play in and he can’t get at them. Starving and frustrated. How long has he been here alone? Times a bit difficult to gauge since they only come in to force feed him energon occasionally, wrapped up in protective gear to keep him out. Lunging suddenly against his bonds, he screams out his fury. And hears a soft cry in answer.

• Staggering, you slam into a wall, vision blurry with tears. Have no idea what just happened, but it felt like being shredded apart and crudely put back together. Falling to your knees and dry heaving, unable to breathe like your lungs can’t remember how before you shudder and gasp. Slumping over, you let the shaking rattle you to the bone as the pain needles through you. And you hear a low, guttural growl of noises. Whatever happened, wherever you are, you’re not alone.

• Straining to see, he’s stares at the small shape on the floor of his cell. An organic? Where had you come from? But then your fear and misery spark through his mind. Thrashing against his chains, hunger lashes him. And he reaches his thoughts for you, sinking in. Not Cybertronian, but there’s still memories to lose himself in. But as he pulls them to him, they come apart and just reform. Stilling as his lips part, he keeps reaching. Little sips of you that he can’t destroy. Why can’t he devour you? What are you? Swimming through your mind, learning you, he slowly smiles.

• “Poor, little love. So much pain.” Your head snaps up at that silken, dark voice. Mouth falling open as you spot the big, metal monster chained down. “Don’t fear.” And it, he, smiles at you, expression softening. Those pretty, blue optics snaring you as a sense of safety spills into you. “I can ease your suffering,” he croons, servos twitching. That voice is dark velvet stroking over you. Coaxing. Sliding up the wall, you stand. Wanting him to help you, to help him. “That’s right, love. Come to me. You know me.”

• Crooning as he plays with your thoughts, trying to twist them to him. Because he’s desperate to get his servos on you, mnemonic needles sliding out of his fingertips as he arches. So hungry. Just a taste, let him drown himself in your memories. And then you rock to a stop. Backing away, he feels your sudden fear. “What are you doing?” That soft, sweet voice surprising him as you retreat back to the far wall. You can’t feel him in you. No one ever does. “Get out of my head,” you gasp and he jolts when you manage to push him out. Shocked, he shivers in a mix of desperation and fascination. How are you resisting?

• “I didn’t mean to overwhelm you.” That voice chimes through you, calling to you to come to him. Making you want to do whatever he wants. Covering your ears with your hands, you slide down to sit feeling weak and shaky. Can feel him in your head, spreading like poison and there’s a disjointed sense of hunger and desperation. His? Yours? You can’t tell. “Sunder. My name. I’m sorry, I’ve just been alone for so long.” That voice. Head lifting, he smiles at you and those optics are so deep you can get lost in them, hearing yourself whispering your own name to this monster.

Next

[allaboutsturns]

ɪ ᴡɪꜱʜ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴇꜱᴛ (ᴘ2)

matthew sturniolo x reader

warnings/content: angst, car crash, mentions of death, mentions of needles, mentions of hospital, serious injuries, mentions of respiratory tubes, very sad triplets.

summary: the triplets watched from the middle of the road as your vehicle flipped in the intersection at the end of their street. each of their minds raced with thoughts. would nick ever get to share a spa night with you again? would chris ever get to have another sleepover with you? would matt ever get to apologize for hurting you? would he ever get to kiss you again, hold you again?

• 2:10am

matt, nick, and chris stood in the middle of the road in front of their shared house, looking after you as you sped off towards the intersection at the end of the street.

the three of them turned to walk back inside, each of them feeling defeated, matt especially, but that was before they heard the screeching of tires against the asphalt as they fought for friction.

matt was the first to turn, followed by chris, and then nick. immediately, without hesitation, matt starts sprinting towards the scene unfolding in front of him. nick and chris are following closely behind him.

the adrenaline coursing through matt’s veins sobers him completely, ridding his body of any trace of alcohol. his eyes begin to pool with tears that begin to fall from his eyes and fly back in the direction of the wind that he felt he was fighting to get through.

he took in shaky breaths, the cool air nipping at his lungs with each inhale. he could barely hear anything other than his own heart beat which echoed through his mind.

badum. badum. badum.

he heard the muffled screams and desperate sobs of his brothers from behind him, but it didn’t register. all that mattered to him in that moment was getting to you as quickly as possible.

badum. badum. badum.

finally, after what felt like a lifetime, he reached the intersection and threw himself to the ground right in front of the drivers side door, his bare knees hitting the pavement. he barely flinched from the pain though. he could barely feel it.

badum. badum. badum.

he began trying to pry open the door which separated himself from you. soon after he had managed to reach your flipped car, his brothers managed to reach it too. they threw themselves onto the pavement just as matt had, and immediately went to help him pry the door away.

the smell of gasoline flooded their noses, sending shocks of fear throughout their bodies, “matt, we have to get her out now!!” nick yelled through tears, his throat sore with a ripping sadness.

badum. badum. badum.

matt didn’t acknowledge his brother, he couldn’t. he didn’t even know either of them had spoken. he yanked at the door, praying that the hinges which held it in place would snap so he could pull you from the car.

snap.

the hinges did exactly as he prayed. they snapped, releasing their firm grip on the separation they had created. the three boys dragged the heavy door away from its frame, nick and chris dragging it a couple inches away.

matt had immediately gone back to you, frantically reaching for the buckle of your seatbelt, and in one fell swoop, he clicked the button which released the seatbelt from its prison, and quickly grabbed you and dragged you out of the car before you hit your head on the asphalt and injured yourself more.

he dragged himself back with one hand, scooting as far back as he could, holding onto you tightly, making sure to not let you go this time.

as soon as he was a relatively safe distance from the flipped car, it ignited into flames, a bright orange illuminating the world around them.

matt frantically looked from the car, down to you. you were laying lifelessly in his arms. he brushed the hair away from your face with the palm of his hand, gently. your hair was tangled with a mix of dry blood and shards of glass. some glass had managed to plant itself into matt’s hand when he brushed the hair out of your face.

the breath in his throat came to a halt as he saw your face. there were deep cuts scattered across your skin and dark bruises that bit at your beautiful face.

“stay with me, baby.. please stay with me…” he managed to squeeze out through sobs as he pulled you into him as closely as he possibly could, gravity pulling your limp arms back towards the ground, your soft fingers brushing the asphalt.

nick was frantically searching for a pulse in your wrist while chris sat completely frozen beside matt, tears ruthlessly running down his face as he rocked back and forth.

finally, the ambulance arrived. the boys would never be able to tell you when they got their because they were so stuck in one moment of time.

the paramedics quickly but gently placed you onto a gurney and wheeled you into the back of the ambulance. matt got into the back of the ambulance in complete and utter shock.

nick and chris would have gotten into the ambulance as well, but there was no room, so instead they would have to resort to ordering an uber.

-

• 2:40am

the paramedics rushed through the doors to the hospitals emergency room, matt holding on tightly to your hand as if his life depended on it. he was scared that if he let go, you would disappear.

“we need some help over here!” one of the paramedics shouted. almost immediately, a couple doctors and a about three nurses ran over and guided the gurney that you lay on to an unoccupied hospital room.

matt just stared at your face as one of the nurses gently removed your hand from his grip, guiding him outside of the hospital room. he couldn’t even react, he was too shocked.

the nurse rushed back into the room and shut the door behind her, “she’s got a faint pulse! someone get a damn crash cart!” one of the doctors yelled urgently.

beep. beep. beep.

matt could faintly hear the imitation of your weak heartbeat on the monitor through the door. he put his back against the hospital wall right next to the door, incapable of moving to the waiting room.

beep. beep. beeeeeeeeeeep.

“we’re losing her!” another doctor yelled. through ringing ears, matt heard the muffled flatline on the monitor, signaling that your heart had stopped. signaling that you were gone and that he’d never get to fix what he had said to you last. never get to try and mend what he broke. he fell to the floor pulling his knees to his chest and hiding his face in them, sobs escaping his lips as his lungs fought for air.

all he could think about was everything he would never be able to do now, everything he’d never be able to fix. he remembered all the plans the two of you had. he would never get to kiss you again, never get to hug you again, never get to please you again. he would never get to hold you and run his hands through your hair, and it was all his fault. all because he told a lie. he never cheated. the only reason he had been distancing himself from you was because he was stressed and his anxiety was through the roof, that also being the reason he was at the bar so much the past few nights. if anything, anytime a girl even looked at him, he would walk over to them and brag about how amazing his girlfriend was and how bad he felt about how he was treating her recently.

nick and chris pushed through the door to the hospital, frantically looking around for a sign of you or matt.

“nick, over there!” chris said to his brother, his voice cracking from the soreness in his throat. nick and chris ran to matt and when they reached him, they heard it.

beeeeeeeeeeeep.

“no…” chris whispered, covering his mouth with one of his hands, tears managing to escape his eyes once again. nick just stood there, his hands at his sides, completely frozen and unable to mutter a word.

chris fell to the floor beside matt and buried his face into his brothers shoulder, soon after nick did the same. all three of their bodies heaved up and down with each shaky, unfulfilling breath that they took.

each of their minds were racing with memories that they had with you. you may have been matt's girlfriend, but you were family to all of them. you had always been equally as involved with nick and chris as you were with matt.

nicks sobs grew louder as his thoughts wandered. you always knew how to make him laugh only in a way that his brothers had ever made him laugh. anytime he texted you alerting you that he was upset, you would read the message and immediately be bursting through his bedroom door with snacks and nail polish in hand, ready to cheer him up. you and nick had a weekly spa night, you would paint each others faces with a face mask and put a movie on the tv while you waited for them to dry. nick would always lay on your chest and listen to your heartbeat as you watched the movie together, it was comforting to him. you were his best friend and practically his sister and he loved you so much. he couldn't help but think about how two nights prior would be the last time he ever listened to your heartbeat, the last time he ever watched a movie with you, the last time he ever painted your face with a green face mask.

chris shook as he tried to scoot as closely to matt as he could. you had always had a soft spot for chris. he was like a little brother to you even though he was older. you loved him so much and he loved you. you were the only person he allowed himself to be completely vulnerable around, he trusted you entirely. you couldn't count the amount of times on two hands that he cried in your arms when he became too overwhelmed because he couldn't focus or complete the task at hand without getting sidetracked. almost every night chris would have a sleepover with you because you kept his nightmares at bay. you were his best friend and he loved you entirely. he couldn't stand the thought of you being gone, he didn't even want to imagine it. what would he do? who would he go to?

-

• 3:10am

all of the nurses and doctors had left the hospital room by now except for one. the final doctor stepped out of the room quietly, leaving the door open a crack, and looked down at the three boys who had fallen asleep due to exhaustion, their bodies had been working too hard in the short period of time that these events were occurring. the doctor frowned, sympathy washing over his features as he looked at the boys. they looked tired and definitely not at peace. their sleep looked painful and restless, each of their faces were red and puffy, cheeks stained with tears.

atter a minute or two had passed, the doctor reached a hand down and gently patted matt's head to wake him, "hey buddy," he said gently.

matt's eyes shot open and he started frantically looking around, confused as to where he was at. as soon as he remembered what was going on and where he was at, immediate tears welled in his eyes.

beep. beep. beep.

matt's eyes widened when he heard the beep of the heart monitor coming from your room. he pushed himself up off the ground quickly, which woke his brothers up, and he ran past the doctor into the room.

he paused for a moment when he saw all the tubes connected to you and the iv's in your arms. finally, he shook the thoughts away and ran to your side, grabbing your hand gently in his and placing a kiss to it.

nick and chris followed closely behind matt and ran to the other side of the bed, both of them taking your other hand in theirs gently.

"it's gonna be okay.. you're gonna be okay," matt whispered to you, unsure if you could hear him or not.

-

• 10:01am

sunlight shone through the gaps of the blinds into the hospital room, painting the room a light yellow color.

your eyes opened slowly, so slowly that it would've been painful to watch. immediately you felt pain shoot through your body, but it was gentle pain. the meds the doctors had put you on numbed it almost entirely.

you looked to each side of you at your boys. nick and chris on the right and matt on the left. they were all asleep, their heads laying gently on parts of your body. they looked peaceful. worried, but peaceful. you coughed a little when you tried to speak, unaware of the tubes that were in your mouth. you were too tired to fight the tubes, too tired to panic.

instead, you gently rubbed both of your thumbs back and forth against the soft skin of nick, chris, and matt's hands.

matt was the first one awake, almost as if he had sensed you were awake. immediately he was planting the most gentle kisses to your head and face in spots that weren't as visibly injured as the others. you weakly smiled as best you could at him, completely ignoring the argument that you and him just had. that was the least of your worries now.

almost dying made you realize you never wanted to lose any of them, not over anything. you knew you could work things out with matt and he knew he would do everything in his power to fix what he broke.

nick and chris were awake a couple minutes after matt, all three of them had tears of happiness building in their eyes.

nothing mattered in this exact moment. nothing at all, except that you were going to be okay. you weren't going to leave them.

you and nick would get to make more spa night memories and you'd get the opportunity to help him when he was sad.

you would be able to be a lighthouse for chris, a comfort person. he wasn't going to lose his best friend, his safety net. he would get to cry into your arms and have sleepovers after a nightmare with you again.

you and matt would be able to fix things and finish everything you had planned together, make more memories and share more love. pain came with the territory but you knew you two would always find a way to work through it.

you were family to two of them, and to the other, well you were the love of his life. none of them wanted to lose you, not now and not ever, and you didn't want to lose them either.

you may not share their blood, but you share their happiness, their sadness, their anger. you share their love, and that was all that mattered. that's what made them so important to you.

today you lay in a bed with tubes and wires connected to you, but in a month you lay in bed with nick while your face masks dry. in a month you hold chris in your arms while he cries because he's so overwhelmed. in a month you kiss matt lovingly and hold his face gently in your hands.

today you hurt, but in a month you will continue to make memories with your boys.

divider by: @/Kafekitsune

ERMMM i'm crying wtf.

this is my SECOND time writing this because the first time the draft DIDNT SAVE and it had like 2000+ words. i cried many tears. hopefully you guys like thissss!! ¡ probably wont do a part 3 but if you guys absolutely want it i will! the support on my page the past 2 days has been insane and i love you guys so much and am so grateful!!

- ace <3

tags: @whoisabbyysblog @mattyblover07 @b2cute @samandcolbyfan22 @norr1ssturni0lo @sturnlover4eva @sturniololover-09

[lila-lou]

✨His second exception - Pt. 28/?✨

Summary: The moment Ben found out you were pregnant was probably the happiest moment of his life. However, happiness proved fleeting. Now, he is faced with the aftermath of his shattered dreams. Of what is left of you, and what is left of him.

Pairing: Soldier Boy x Reader

Warnings: Language, fluff, ANGST, Maybe some triggers (death chances etc.)

Word Count: 7667

A/N: This is the sequel to “His only exeption” - and Part 28 of "His second exception".

English isn’t my first language, so please be lenient. 💙

Another week crawled by, and the days felt like an endless cycle of exhaustion, pain, and fleeting moments of solace when Ben was by your side. The injections had become unbearable. Each dose of V had increased incrementally, pushing your body to its limits. Now, the second the serum hit your veins, it overwhelmed you so completely that you passed out, your body unable to cope with the intensity.

Today was no exception.

You’d barely managed to register Dr. Collins’ voice as she explained the procedure for the hundredth time. Ben had stayed close, his hand gripping yours tightly, his jaw locked as he watched the needle sink into your arm. The sharp sting of the injection was the last thing you felt before the familiar heat seared through your body, pulling you under like a tidal wave.

You awoke hours later, your body drenched in sweat, your muscles trembling from the aftereffects. The pain lingered like a dull ache in your bones, a constant reminder of the toll this was taking. Your head throbbed as you blinked, the dim light of Dr. Collins’ office coming into focus.

“Hey”, Ben’s voice broke through the haze, low and rough but filled with worry. He was seated right next to you, his hand resting on your thigh. His face looked more tired than you’d ever seen it, dark circles shadowing his eyes. “You’re awake”.

You tried to speak, but your throat felt dry and raw. Instead, you managed a faint nod, your fingers twitching slightly against the blanket draped over you.

Dr. Collins appeared in your peripheral vision, her expression neutral but her tone clinical. “You passed out for three and a half hours this time”, she said, glancing at the chart in her hands. “Your body is still metabolizing the dose, but your vitals are stable for now”.

Ben exhaled sharply, his head tilting back as he muttered under his breath, “Stable. Sure, great”.

You reached out weakly, your hand finding his. “Ben”, you croaked, your voice barely audible.

He leaned forward instantly, his eyes softening as he wrapped his hand around yours. “I’m here”, he said gruffly. “You scared the shit out of me… again, but I’m here”.

You managed a faint smile, though it felt like it took all the energy you had left. “How… long can we keep this up?”, you whispered, your voice shaky.

Dr. Collins hesitated, her lips pressing into a thin line before she spoke. “We’re nearing the limits of what your body can handle”, she admitted. “But the baby’s growth is stabilizing slightly. If we can make it another two weeks, you’ll both be in a much safer place”.

Ben’s grip on your hand tightened, his knuckles white as he turned his gaze back to you. “Two more weeks”, he said, his voice a low rumble. “You just have to hold on, doll. Two more weeks, and this’ll all be worth it”.

You closed your eyes, the weight of his words sinking in. Two weeks felt like an eternity, but with the way Ben was looking at you, the fierce determination in his eyes, you knew you couldn’t give up now. Not when you’d come this far. Not when he was counting on you.

“Okay”, you whispered, the word barely audible, but it was enough. Enough to reassure him. Enough to keep going.

When Ben carried you into the house that evening, you were visibly weaker than usual. Your body ached in ways that were becoming all too familiar, but the sight of the baby’s room as he passed by stirred something in you—a determination you hadn’t felt in days. You placed a shaky hand on his chest and looked up at him, your voice soft but firm.

“Ben… take me to the baby’s room”, you whispered, your eyes glinting with a quiet resolve.

Ben groaned, his jaw tightening. “You need to be in bed”, he grumbled, his grip tightening protectively around you. “You can barely move. What the hell do you think you’re gonna do in there?”.

“Please”, you said, your tone more insistent now. “Just let me sit in the rocking chair. I want to get the last stuff ready. I promise I won’t overdo it. I just need to… I need to feel like I’m doing something”.

He stared at you for a long moment, his lips pressing into a thin line as he considered arguing further. But the determination in your eyes was something he couldn’t ignore. With a heavy sigh, he carried you to the baby’s room and gently set you down in the rocking chair.

“There”, he said, his voice laced with frustration but also a hint of fondness. “Now what?”.

You gave him a small, tired smile, gesturing to the nearby boxes and items that still needed organizing. “Well, the blankets need to go in that drawer”, you said, pointing, “and the diapers should go in the cabinet by the changing table. Oh, and that mobile needs to be hung up—”.

Ben raised a hand, cutting you off with an exaggerated groan. “Alright, alright, boss”, he muttered, rolling his eyes but already moving to start on the tasks. “You’re lucky you’re cute, you know that?”.

You chuckled softly, leaning back in the chair as you watched him work. He was gruff as ever, muttering under his breath as he carefully folded blankets and stacked diapers, but there was a tenderness to his movements that made your chest ache in the best way.

“You’re doing great", you said, your voice full of warmth as he fumbled with the mobile.

Ben glanced back at you, narrowing his eyes. “Don’t patronize me”, he grumbled, but the corner of his mouth twitched into a faint smirk.

“I’m serious”, you said, your hand resting on your belly. “You’re going to be the best dad, Ben”.

He paused for a moment, his eyes softening as he looked at you. “Yeah, well”, he muttered, turning back to his task, “she’s gonna have one stubborn-ass mom too”.

"Hopefully”, you whispered quietly, almost to yourself. But the weight of your words hit the air like a stone, and Ben froze where he stood, his hands pausing mid-motion as he hung the mobile.

He turned to face you, his eyes narrowing, a storm brewing in his expression. “Stop fucking talking like that”, he snapped, his voice sharp and cutting, though the fear behind his words was unmistakable. He crossed the room in a few long strides, crouching down in front of you so he could look you directly in the eye.

You didn’t flinch, but your chest tightened as you saw the raw emotion etched across his face. “Ben—”, you started, but he cut you off, his hands gripping the armrests of the rocking chair to steady himself.

“No”, he growled, his voice low and trembling with anger. “I’m serious. I don’t want to hear that kind of shit coming out of your mouth. Not now. Not ever”.

You swallowed hard, your throat tight as the tears welled up again. “I’m just being realistic”, you said softly, your voice cracking. The weight of the day’s conversation with Dr. Collins loomed heavy between you and Ben, like a storm cloud that refused to pass.

Earlier, the doctor had laid it out plainly: while the V medication had stabilized your condition for now, the next weeks were critical. If your body didn’t adapt more to the medication—and quickly—the strain of carrying a supe baby could prove too much. She hadn’t minced words. The risks were terrifyingly high.

And right now, instead of adapting, your body seemed to be doing the opposite—struggling more and more each day.

“You heard what she said”, you whispered, looking at Ben with tear-filled eyes. “There’s a huge chance I might not make it through giving birth if my body doesn’t start adapting. And it’s not. It’s getting worse, Ben”.

Ben’s face twisted, his jaw clenching so tightly you could hear the faint grind of his teeth. His hand tightened on the armrest, his knuckles white. “No”, he said sharply, his voice like steel. “I don’t give a fuck what the odds are. You’re going to make it”.

You stared at him, your emotions bubbling over. “Ben, you can’t just decide that—”.

“Yes, I can!”, he barked, his voice rising, though there was a tremble in it now, betraying his fear. “You think I’m just gonna sit here and let that happen? No fucking way”.

His hands moved from the armrests to your face, cupping it gently as his thumbs brushed away your tears. “You’re not leaving me”, he said firmly, his green eyes boring into yours, fierce and unwavering. “I don’t care what it takes, or what we have to do. We’ll figure it out. But you’re not leaving me, and you’re sure as hell not leaving her”.

You let out a choked sob, gripping his wrists tightly as you leaned into his touch. “Ben, I’m scared”, you admitted, your voice breaking. “I want to believe that, but every day feels harder. What if—”.

“No”, he interrupted, his voice softer now, though no less resolute. “No ‘what if’. I don’t want to hear it. You’re going to fight, just like you always do”.

Your tears falling freely now as he pulled you into his arms. His hold was strong, protective, as if he thought he could shield you from everything with just his embrace.

“You’re not going anywhere”, he murmured against your hair, his voice low and thick with emotion. “Not on my watch”.

Over the next few days, Ben couldn’t shake the gnawing feeling in his gut. You were exhausted, drained from the relentless injections and the toll your body was enduring, but in the rare hours when you weren’t asleep or recovering, you were laser-focused. Too focused.

You walked him through the baby’s room, showing him where you’d organized everything. “The diapers are here, wipes over there”, you said softly, gesturing to the neatly arranged cabinets. “And if you run out, there are extra boxes in the hall closet”.

Ben stood there, arms crossed, his brow furrowed deeply. “I’ll remember”, he said gruffly, though he hated the edge of finality in your voice, the way it felt like you were handing over the reins of a life you weren’t sure you’d be part of.

It didn’t stop there. The next day, you sat on the couch with him, the laptop balanced on your lap. “I bookmarked a bunch of tutorials”, you explained, your tone calm but tinged with a quiet urgency. “Feeding, diaper changes, how to swaddle, how to bathe her… just in case—”.

Ben slammed his hand down on the armrest, cutting you off. “Stop”, he snapped, his voice sharp and filled with anger he couldn’t fully contain. “You don’t need to show me this shit. You’re going to fucking be here to do it yourself”.

You flinched slightly at his tone, but instead of backing down, you met his glare head-on. “I’m trying to make sure you’re ready, Ben”, you said, your voice trembling but firm. “Because we don’t know what’s going to happen, and I need to know you’ll be okay. That she’ll be okay”.

Ben’s jaw tightened, his green eyes blazing with a mix of frustration and fear. “I don’t need a fucking tutorial”, he growled. “I need you to stop acting like you’re already gone”.

The tension in the room was palpable as the doorbell echoed through the house. You sighed, pushing the laptop aside and glancing toward Ben, who was still radiating frustration. He squeezed the bridge of his nose, muttering something under his breath before standing up to answer the door.

When he opened it, your parents stepped in, their cheerful expressions quickly fading as they took in the somber atmosphere. Your mom glanced at you, her brow furrowing with concern, while your dad’s gaze shifted to Ben, reading the tension in his rigid posture.

“What’s going on?”, your mom asked cautiously, her eyes darting between the two of you.

Ben didn’t answer right away. He stood there for a moment, his hand gripping the edge of the doorframe as if he were trying to ground himself. Finally, he let out a heavy sigh, muttering, “I need a break”, before turning and heading toward the kitchen.

Your parents exchanged a worried glance before your mom moved closer to you, sitting down beside you on the couch. “What’s wrong?”, she asked softly, her hand resting lightly on your arm. “You two seem… off”.

You shook your head quickly, forcing a small smile onto your face. “It’s nothing”, you lied, your voice shaky. “Just… a long day”.

Your dad wasn’t buying it. He crossed his arms, his expression growing more serious. “Come on”, he said, his tone firm but gentle. “Something’s going on. You’ve been distant the last few times we’ve talked. And now he’s walking away like that?”.

You swallowed hard, avoiding their gazes as you tried to think of a way to deflect the conversation. The last thing you wanted was to tell them about the survival odds. But your mom wasn’t letting it go.

“Sweetheart”, she said, her voice trembling slightly, “if something’s wrong, you need to tell us. Please”.

You opened your mouth to respond, but the words wouldn’t come. Your throat felt tight, your chest constricted with the weight of everything you were carrying. You couldn’t bring yourself to say it—not when their worried faces were looking at you so intently.

From the kitchen, the faint sound of a cabinet closing signaled that Ben was still nearby. You glanced toward the doorway, half-hoping he’d come back in and steer the conversation away, but he stayed out of sight.

Finally, you shook your head again, forcing another strained smile. “I’m fine”, you whispered. “We’re fine”.

Your mom didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t push further—for now. She simply wrapped an arm around your shoulder, holding you close.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Ben leaned against the counter, a glass of whiskey in his hand. He stared down at it, his jaw tight as he tried to collect himself. He hated this—hated feeling so powerless, hated seeing you so determined to plan for a future without you in it. His chest heaved with every breath, the tension in his body palpable. He barely registered the sound of footsteps behind him until your dad spoke, his voice low but filled with restrained anger.

“You know”, your dad started, crossing his arms as he leaned against the doorframe, “she’s pregnant. In a lot of pain. While carrying your baby”. He let the words hang in the air for a moment, his tone sharpening as he continued. “Leaving her out there and saying something about ‘needing a break’? That’s a shit move, Ben”.

Ben’s jaw tightened, his grip on the counter white-knuckled as your dad’s words hit home. But your dad wasn’t finished.

“You put a ring on her finger, didn’t you?”, he said, stepping closer now, his voice growing more forceful. “There’s no such thing as a damn break! You don’t walk away when things get hard. You step up”.

For a moment, Ben didn’t move. Then, without warning, he inhaled sharply, his breath catching as the tension in his body exploded outward. His chest began to glow faintly—a phenomenon that hadn’t happened in months. It was faint, but unmistakable, a flickering reminder of the storm building inside him.

In a sudden motion, Ben grabbed his glass of whiskey and hurled it against the wall. The sound of shattering glass echoed through the kitchen, cutting through the heavy silence. The glowing in his chest intensified for a brief moment before he visibly forced himself to calm down, taking a ragged breath as he pressed his palms flat against the counter.

“She’s already given up”, Ben muttered finally, his voice hoarse, almost broken.

Your dad frowned, his expression shifting from anger to confusion. “What the hell are you talking about?”, he asked, stepping closer.

Ben’s shoulders sagged, and he turned to face your dad, his green eyes dark with frustration and fear. “She’s planning for a future she thinks she’s not gonna be in”, he said, his voice low but filled with raw emotion. “Every time she talks about the baby, it’s about what I need to do, what I need to know. Like she’s already decided she’s not gonna make it”.

Your dad stared at him, stunned into silence for a moment. Then he shook his head slowly, his voice softening. “She’s scared, Ben. That’s not the same as giving up”.

Ben let out a sharp, humorless laugh, shaking his head in disbelief. “She didn’t tell you, did she?”, he hissed, his voice low and angry, though the anger wasn’t directed at your dad. He looked at the shattered glass on the floor as if it held all the answers he couldn’t give.

“Told us what?”, your dad pressed, his tone sharp now, stepping closer.

But Ben didn’t answer, his jaw clenching tightly as he turned away. His chest still glowed faintly, the tension in his body barely contained. Whatever was boiling inside him, he wasn’t ready to let it out.

Your dad frowned, studying Ben for a moment before making a decision. Without another word, he turned and walked back into the living room where you were sitting with your mom. The worry on both your parents’ faces deepened as they exchanged a glance.

“What’s going on?”, your mom asked, her voice cautious but concerned as she looked between you and your dad.

Your dad’s jaw tightened, and he knelt beside you, his tone softening as he asked, “Honey, what’s Ben talking about? He’s in the kitchen losing it, saying you haven’t told us something. What is it?”.

You froze, your eyes widening slightly. You glanced toward the kitchen, where you could hear Ben pacing, the faint sound of his boots against the tile. You swallowed hard, your hands instinctively moving to your belly.

“It’s… it’s nothing”, you said quickly, though your voice wavered. “He’s just upset. It’s been a hard week”.

Your dad didn’t look convinced. “Don’t give me that”, he said firmly. “If there’s something we need to know—something serious—you tell us. Right now”.

Your mom reached for your hand, her grip gentle but steady. “Sweetheart, please. We can see something’s wrong”.

The weight of their worry combined with your own exhaustion was too much. Your shoulders sagged, and you let out a shaky breath as tears welled in your eyes. “It’s just…”, you started, your voice trembling. “The doctors… they said… there’s a chance I might not make it through the delivery”.

The words hung heavy in the air, and you could feel the sharp intake of breath from both your parents. Your mom’s hand flew to her mouth, her eyes filling with tears, while your dad’s expression darkened with a mix of fear and anger.

“What?”, he whispered, his voice barely audible.

You nodded, tears streaming down your face. “My body… it’s not adapting to the V medication like they hoped. The strain of the baby… it’s too much. They’re doing everything they can, but… there’s no guarantee”.

Your mom was already holding you tightly, her tears falling freely as she whispered, “Oh, my baby…”.

Your dad stood up abruptly, his fists clenching at his sides. “And you didn’t tell us? Either of you?”, he demanded, his voice trembling with emotion.

Before you could respond, Ben appeared in the doorway, his expression a mix of guilt and defensiveness. “Because she didn’t want you to worry”, he said, his voice gruff. “But now you know. So congratulations”.

Your dad turned on him, his voice rising. “You knew about this, and you let her sit here planning for her death instead of fighting for her to believe she’s going to live? What the hell is wrong with you?”.

Ben’s eyes flashed with anger, his chest glowing faintly again as he stepped forward. “You think I’m not fighting for her every fucking day?”, he snapped. “You don’t know what it’s like, watching her go through this and not being able to fucking fix it!”.

The room fell into a tense silence, the weight of the situation crashing down on everyone. Your mom pulled you closer, her tears soaking into your shoulder as your dad stared down Ben, neither man willing to back down.

Finally, you broke the silence, your voice soft but firm. “Stop”, you said, looking between them. “I can’t… I can’t handle this right now”.

Both men looked at you, their expressions softening slightly as the anger in the room ebbed. Ben sighed heavily, running a hand down his face, while your dad knelt back beside you.

“We’re here for you”, your dad said, his voice steady now. “Whatever happens, we’re not going anywhere. None of us”.

Ben stood there, his shoulders tense and his fists clenched at his sides as he stared at your dad. He didn’t need any sort of enhanced ability to read your parents’ thoughts; their expressions said it all. The flicker of blame in your dad’s eyes, the heartbreak on your mom’s face as she held you—Ben knew exactly what they were thinking.

If she’d fallen for a normal guy, she wouldn’t be going through this. She wouldn’t be suffering like this. This is his fault.

And the thing was, for Ben, they weren’t wrong.

His chest felt tight, the guilt clawing its way up his throat as he looked at you, fragile and exhausted in your mom’s arms. This was his fault. His child growing inside you, his DNA causing your body to break down, his life—the one you’d chosen to share—dragging you into this impossible situation. If you’d fallen for anyone else, someone normal, you wouldn’t be facing the possibility of not surviving childbirth.

Ben’s jaw clenched as he forced himself to speak, his voice rough and strained. “You think I don’t know?”, he said, his green eyes locking onto your dad’s. “You think I don’t get it? That if it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t be going through this?”.

Your dad opened his mouth to respond, but Ben didn’t let him. “I know it’s my fucking fault”, Ben said, his voice rising slightly, the frustration and guilt spilling out. “I know I’m the reason she’s in this mess. But don’t think for a second that I’m not doing everything I fucking can to fix it”.

Your mom glanced up at Ben, her face softening slightly, though her expression was still etched with worry. “Ben, no one is blaming you—”.

“Yes, you are”. Ben snapped, his voice sharper than he intended. He exhaled shakily, running a hand through his hair. “And you´re right. I don’t care if you say it out loud or not—I know what you’re thinking. If it wasn’t for me, she’d be fine. She’d be safe”.

“Ben, stop”, you said softly, your voice thick with exhaustion. “This isn’t your fault. None of this is”.

“How can you say that?”, he muttered, his voice breaking slightly. “I’m the reason this is happening. I’m the one who put you in this position”.

“You didn’t force me to fall in love with you”, you said quietly, your voice steady despite the tears in your eyes. “You didn’t force me to choose this life, Ben. I did. And I’d choose it again, even knowing how hard it is. Because I love you”.

The room fell silent, the weight of your words settling over everyone. Ben stared at you, his jaw tight as he fought to keep his emotions in check. Finally, he let out a shaky breath, his hand tightening around yours.

“I just don’t want to lose you”, he said, his voice almost a whisper. “I can’t”.

As the evening settled, the room was quiet except for the faint hum of the bedside lamp. Ben sat behind you in bed, his strong arms wrapped protectively around you, cradling you in his lap. You leaned back against his chest, your head resting against his shoulder as your hands brushed softly over your growing belly. The baby moved faintly beneath your touch, and you spoke to her in a soothing, gentle voice, telling her little stories, your voice filled with a love that never wavered despite your exhaustion.

Ben stayed silent, his chin resting lightly on the top of your head. He didn’t trust himself to speak, not with the turmoil churning inside him. He tightened his arms around you slightly, as if holding you closer could somehow anchor him, could somehow keep you tethered to him and away from the reality that loomed over both of you.

He tried to keep his emotions in check, tried to focus on the steady rhythm of your voice as you spoke to the baby. But his mind wouldn’t stop racing. How could he raise his daughter alone, without you? How could he navigate a world without the one person who made it all bearable, who made him better?

His chest tightened, the memories of the past few weeks crashing into him like waves. Just a short time ago, you’d both been so happy, so full of excitement and hope. The life you were building together had felt untouchable, like nothing could break the two of you. And now… now everything felt like it was slipping through his fingers, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Without saying a word, Ben reached down and took your hand in his. His thumb brushed over the delicate band of the ring he had placed on your finger in Brazil. The memory of that moment—how beautiful and sure you’d looked, how his world had felt complete—hit him hard. He closed his eyes for a moment, swallowing the lump in his throat.

Ben’s grip on your hand tightened slightly, his thumb still tracing slow circles over the ring as he finally found the courage to speak. His voice was low and rough, almost a whisper, as he broke the heavy silence between you. “Promise me”, he said, his words trembling under the weight of emotion he rarely showed. “Promise me you’ll fight”.

You turned your head slightly, trying to see his face, but he was staring down at your hands, avoiding your gaze. His thumb brushed over your knuckles, and he let out a shaky breath. “For me”, he continued, his voice cracking ever so slightly, “for her. Please”.

The word hung in the air, and it hit you harder than you expected. It was so unlike Ben to plead, to lay himself bare like this. He was always the strong one, the unshakable force that held everything together. Seeing him like this, vulnerable and desperate, made your heart ache.

You reached up with your free hand, cupping his cheek and gently turning his face toward you. His green eyes met yours, and you could see the fear there—the fear he’d been trying to bury, to mask with his usual bravado. “Ben”, you whispered, your voice soft but firm. “I’m not giving up. I’m fighting. I swear to you, I am”.

His jaw tightened, and he leaned into your touch, his eyes closing briefly as if drawing strength from you. “You say that”, he muttered, his voice quieter now, “but you’re so tired. And I—I don’t know how much more you can take”.

You shook your head, your hand sliding from his cheek to rest on his chest, right over his heart. “I can take more”, you said, your voice steady despite the tears brimming in your eyes. “Because I have to. For you. For her. I’m not leaving you, Ben”.

“Then stop showing me all this stuff”, he muttered, his frustration and fear bubbling to the surface. “I don’t need to know how to bathe her without drowning her, or how to swaddle her like she’s some little burrito, because you’ll be at my side”.

You blinked at him, your breath catching at the raw vulnerability in his words. He wasn’t just asking you to fight—he was demanding it, refusing to let himself believe in any other outcome. “Ben—”, you started, but he interrupted, his green eyes blazing.

“I’m serious”, he said, his voice rough but resolute. “I can’t stand hearing you talk like I have to do this alone. Like I have to figure it all out without you. I don’t need to know all that shit because you’ll be there. You promised”.

You nodded, your throat tightening as tears welled up in your eyes again. “I did”, you whispered, your voice trembling. “And I’ll keep that promise. I just—”. You paused, looking away for a moment before meeting his intense gaze again. “I just want to make sure everything is perfect for her. Just in case…”.

“No”, Ben said firmly, shaking his head as his hand cupped your face, forcing you to hold his gaze. “No just in case. We’re not doing that. We’re doing this together, and you’re going to be there to make it perfect yourself. Got it?”.

A tear slipped down your cheek, and you nodded again, this time with more conviction. “Got it”, you murmured, your voice barely audible.

Ben leaned down, pressing his forehead against yours, his thumb brushing gently over your cheek to wipe away the tear. “Good”, he muttered, his voice softening as he tried to steady himself. “Because I need you, doll. More than I can even say”.

You exhaled shakily, your hand resting over his on your cheek. “I need you too, Ben”.

For a long moment, the two of you stayed like that, clinging to each other as if the world outside the room didn’t exist.

By the time the due date was just four weeks away, the days had fallen into a rhythm of quiet intimacy. Ben stayed by your side almost constantly, rubbing oil on your belly, massaging your aching feet, and sitting beside you on the couch while the two of you watched movies. Most nights ended with you falling asleep on him, his strong arms cradling you as though he could shield you from the world. Those small moments of normalcy became everything—your shared anchor in the midst of the storm.

So, when you asked him for an hour or two alone that morning, Ben had been reluctant but agreed, albeit begrudgingly. Now, as he stood in the kitchen, staring at the half-empty glass of whiskey in his hand, he felt utterly out of place. For weeks, he’d been glued to your side, hyper-focused on keeping you safe and ensuring you didn’t lift a finger. Now, without you nearby, he didn’t quite know what to do with himself.

With a heavy sigh, Ben downed the rest of the drink and pushed the glass aside. Determined to stay busy, he wandered over to the dryer, pulling out the last few pieces of tiny baby clothes. He frowned as he tried to fold them neatly, muttering under his breath as the impossibly small socks refused to stay paired. Eventually, he gave up, leaving a messy pile on the counter.

Unable to ignore the pull in his chest any longer, he grabbed the clothes and headed toward the baby’s room. He hadn’t meant to disturb you, but the idea of you being alone for too long didn’t sit right with him. He figured he could pop in, drop off the clothes, and maybe just… check on you.

When he reached the doorway, he froze.

You were sitting in the rocking chair, your belly prominent and your face etched with concentration as you leaned over a small stack of papers. Your hand moved slowly, deliberately, across the page, and it took him a moment to realize what you were doing.

Letters.

His heart dropped as the realization hit him like a freight train. These weren’t just notes or lists; they were goodbye letters. One was addressed to your parents, another with “To My Baby” written in soft, shaky handwriting, and one more, sitting beside you, with his name written at the top.

“Y/N", Ben muttered, stepping into the room, his voice thick with disbelief and barely restrained anger. “What the fuck are you doing?”.

You startled, looking up at him with wide eyes, your hand freezing mid-sentence. “Ben”, you said softly, your voice wavering. “I thought I asked for some time—”.

“What the hell is this?”, he interrupted, gesturing toward the letters as he walked closer. His green eyes were blazing, his chest rising and falling with barely contained emotion. “You’re writing fucking goodbye letters? Is that what this is?”.

You swallowed hard, your throat tightening as you set the pen down. “It’s just in case”, you said quietly, your voice trembling. “I just… I needed to—”.

“No”, Ben growled, cutting you off as he dropped the clothes onto the dresser and moved closer to you. “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to sit here and write shit like this, like you’re planning to leave”.

You looked away, unable to meet his piercing gaze. “Ben”, you whispered, your voice breaking. “You know what the odds are. I need to make sure—”.

“No!”, he snapped, crouching down in front of you, his hands gripping the armrests of the rocking chair. His voice cracked with emotion, the raw edge of his fear cutting through the air. “I don’t give a shit about the odds! You promised me you’d fight. You promised me you wouldn’t fucking give up”.

Tears spilled down your cheeks as you finally looked at him, your heart breaking at the pain in his eyes. “I’m not giving up!", you said, your voice trembling. “I just… I need to be prepared, Ben. For her. For you”.

“I don’t need your damn letter”, he hissed, his voice thick as his hands moved to cup your face, forcing you to meet his gaze. “You think some piece of paper is gonna replace you? You think I’m gonna read your words and feel better when you’re not fucking here?”.

“Ben—”.

“No”, he said firmly, his voice dropping to a whisper as his thumbs brushed your tears away. “You’re not writing letters. You’re not leaving. You’re staying right here with me, with her.

"Please Ben… Just… keep them somewhere safe".

But Ben wasn’t having it. He shook his head, his jaw tight as he pushed the letters back toward you. “No”, he said firmly, his voice low and trembling with emotion. “I’m not keeping them. I’m not hiding them. These letters don’t fucking exist because you’re not going anywhere”.

“Ben—”, you started, but he cut you off, his hands gripping yours tightly as though he could hold you in place by sheer will.

“No. Listen to me”, he said, his voice breaking as his forehead dropped to rest against yours. “I can’t do this without you. I won’t do this without you. So you don’t get to prepare for some worst-case scenario like it’s inevitable. You hear me? You’re going to be here. You’re going to see her take her first steps. You’re going to watch her grow up. You’re going to be right here with us, every single day”.

Tears streamed down your face, but his resolve didn’t waver. His hands came up to cup your face again, his thumbs brushing away your tears. “You’re staying”, he repeated, his voice soft but unyielding. “You’re staying because I need you. She needs you. And I’ll be fucking damned if I let you go without a fight”.

The raw emotion in his voice shattered something inside you, and you collapsed against him, sobbing into his chest. His arms came around you, strong and steady, holding you as though his grip alone could anchor you to this world.

“Please, Ben”, you whispered against his chest, your voice breaking as you clutched the fabric of his shirt. “Please just take them. I need you to keep them”.

He stiffened, his arms tightening around you for a moment before pulling back to look at you. His jaw clenching as he shook his head. “No”, he said firmly, his voice rough but steady. “I’m not taking them. I’m not even going to pretend like this is an option”.

“Ben”, you pleaded, your hands trembling as you reached for his. “I need to know they’re somewhere safe. I need to know that if something happens—”.

“Nothing is going to happen”, he interrupted, his voice rising just enough to cut through the air. He exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair as if trying to ground himself. “You’re not leaving me. You’re not leaving her. I won’t even entertain the fucking idea”.

Tears poured down your cheeks as you grabbed the letters from the table, pressing them against his chest with trembling hands. “Ben, please”, you begged, your voice breaking into a sob. “I’m not trying to give up. I’m not planning to leave. But if the worst happens, I need you to have these. I need to know you’ll tell her how much I love her”.

For a long moment, he said nothing, his breath shallow and uneven as he looked at you, torn between his fear and his love for you.

Finally, he spoke, his voice hoarse and barely audible. “Do you know what you’re asking me to do?”, he whispered. “You’re asking me to fucking accept the possibility of losing you. You’re asking me to prepare for something I can’t even think about without fucking falling apart”.

Your heart shattered at the anguish in his voice, and you nodded, fresh tears spilling down your cheeks. “I know”, you whispered. “I know I’m asking for too much, but Ben, I don’t want to leave you unprepared. I don’t want you to have nothing if—if I don’t—”.

“Stop”, he cut you off, his voice breaking as he dropped his forehead against yours again.

“Please, if you love me, just take them. Don’t read them. Just keep them somewhere safe. Promise me, Ben”, you said, your voice trembling as you pressed your hands harder against his chest, forcing him to feel the letters.

He let out a shaky breath, his face crumpling as he closed his eyes. For a long, agonizing moment, he didn’t move, and you thought he might refuse again. But then, slowly, he reached up and took the letters from your hands. His fingers trembled as he held them, his green eyes opening to meet yours, raw and vulnerable.

“I’ll take them”, he said finally, his voice barely more than a whisper. “But only because it’s what you need. Not because I think I’ll ever have to read them. Because I won’t. You’re going to be here. You hear me? You’re going to be here”.

“I hear you”, you whispered, your voice breaking as you collapsed against him again, your arms wrapping around his neck. “Thank you, Ben. Thank you”.

He held you tightly, the letters clutched in one hand as his other wrapped around you, grounding you both in the shared fear and love that bound you together.

The evening was quiet, save for the low hum of the TV in the background. You were curled up in Ben’s lap on the couch, his arms wrapped protectively around you as he absently stroked your back. Outside, the world was preparing for Christmas, but inside your home, the festive spirit was dim. The half-hearted string of lights Ben had thrown over the window frame hung crookedly, blinking in mismatched intervals. You’d joked about it looking like a crime scene earlier, and Ben had tried to laugh, but you knew he hated that he couldn’t make things perfect for you.

Your stomach growled softly, a reminder that you hadn’t eaten much all day. The latest round of treatments had left you feeling weaker than ever, each injection draining a little more of the fight from your body. You sighed and began to shift in Ben’s arms, pushing yourself up.

“Hey, what the fuck are you doing?”, Ben asked, his tone laced with concern as his hands immediately went to steady you.

“I’m getting some snacks”, you mumbled, your voice shaky but determined as you tried to push his hands away. “I need to eat something”.

Ben’s brows furrowed, and he shook his head, already moving to stand. “No, you’re not. Sit your ass back down. I’ll get it for you”.

But you shook your head, your hands gripping the armrest as you slowly stood up. The world tilted slightly, but you steadied yourself, breathing through the wave of dizziness. “No”, you said firmly, even though your voice was barely above a whisper. “I can do it. I need to do it”.

Ben stood as well, his arms hovering around you like a safety net as he watched you take a shaky step toward the kitchen. “Sweetheart, come on”, he said, his voice softer now but still tinged with worry. “You don’t have to prove anything. Let me take care of you”.

You stopped, your back to him as you gripped the edge of the couch for support. “It’s not about proving anything to you”, you murmured, your voice tight with emotion. “It’s about proving it to myself. I need to know I can still… do something. Anything”.

Ben was silent for a moment, and you could feel the weight of his gaze on your back. Finally, he let out a heavy sigh, running a hand through his hair. “Alright”, he said reluctantly. “But I’m staying right here. You fall, I’m catching you”.

You nodded, not trusting your voice as you took another step, then another. Each movement felt like a monumental effort, your legs trembling beneath you as you made your way toward the kitchen. When you finally reached the counter, you leaned against it, your hands shaking as you opened a cabinet and grabbed a box of crackers.

Ben hovered in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest, his jaw tight as he watched you struggle. “You’ve got it, baby”, he said softly, his voice steady even though you could see the tension in his shoulders. “Take your time”.

You managed to grab the crackers and a jar of peanut butter, setting them on the counter before reaching for a plate. By the time you turned around, your knees were buckling, and Ben was there in an instant, his hands steadying you as he guided you back toward the couch.

“Alright, that’s enough hero shit for one night”, he said, his tone soft but firm as he helped you sit down. “You did good, but now you’re done”.

"Oh… Now I forgot the jam”, you muttered, half to yourself, half to Ben as you glanced toward the kitchen.

Ben immediately shot you a look, his brows furrowing. “Don’t even think about it”, he said, his tone a mix of exasperation and concern. “I’ll get it”.

But you were already trying to stand, determined once again to prove you could handle something, even if it was just fetching jam. “Ben, I’ve got it”, you said stubbornly, waving him off as you pushed yourself up.

“Damn it”, he growled under his breath, moving to your side as if he could physically stop you. “Why do you have to be so—”.

“Because I can do this!”, you interrupted, glaring at him as you took a careful step forward. “I’m still fighting, Ben. Let me do it”.

He threw up his hands, his jaw clenching in frustration. “Fine. Three steps. That’s all you’re getting before I step in”.

You rolled your eyes but didn’t argue, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. One step. Two steps. Then, just as you took the third, a sudden rush of warmth spread down your thighs, and you froze in the middle of the living room.

Your breath hitched, your hands instinctively going to your belly as you looked down at the growing puddle on the floor. For a moment, your mind went blank, and then it hit you all at once.

———————————

A/N: Please let me know what you think. 🥰

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Part 29

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[imagine-darksiders]

On the Ropes - Chapter 26

A Spark.

Montgomery Gator x Reader.

----

You couldn’t immediately say what is it that drags you from the bliss of a sleepy fugue at some unknown but doubtlessly ludicrous hour in the morning.

Not that it matters much, you suppose. Awake is awake, regardless of how sluggishly your brain chugs itself into gear and hauls with it a familiar and unwelcome ache that spreads down the length of your spine and sharpens to a needling point when it reaches your ankle.

In a voice that’s thick and laden with fatigue, you peel cracked lips apart and croak out a single, scratchy, “Ouch…”

Was that pain always there…?

Little sparks of fire dance and zip around your foot, each strike as unwelcome as a bee sting, and accompanying them is a substantial weight that’s been draped across your thighs, too heavy to simply be your duvet.

Reluctant to face cognizance but resigned to it all the same, you hesitantly pry open your eyelids and find yourself squinting out into an almost pitch-dark room. Only the dim glow of a streetlamp standing outside the alleyway manages to cast its light far enough to creep between the gap in your curtains.

Settled against the opposite wall, the filter on your fish tank gurgles softly in the darkness, the residents inside unaware and undisturbed by your plight.

Still ensnared in that strange interim that hangs between awake and asleep, you don’t connect the pain to its root for some time. Instead, a gentle sigh whistles through your nose as your chest rises and falls, and you send several lazy blinks up at the ceiling.

You have to summon the strength to turn your head over on your pillow and squint at the little red numbers flashing back at you from the clock that’s perched on your bedside table.

‘4:12am’

Your lungs deflate with mild relief.

If nothing else, at least there’s still plenty of time to catch a few more hours of sleep before you have to get up for work. Maybe, you muse in your sleep-addled brain, you can ignore the twinges and the pressure on your lap, and simply drift right back off to sleep.

You just need to relax.

Turning your head back to the ceiling, your senses still clumsy and dull, you sink against the pillow and smack your lips, relishing the softness beneath your skull.

…. Wait…

No sooner has your head touched down however than your eyes flutter open again, brows furling together into a quizzical frown.

‘Work…? No… That’s not right…’

Another timely spike of pain twists down the outside of your ankle.

And just like that, clarity sets in with such harsh ferocity, your heart just about takes a nosedive off your sternum and plunges down into your guts, dragging with it the grim truth of a reality you’d managed to forget in your sleep.

‘Ah… Right…’ you lament to yourself with a grimace, ‘The ‘incident.’

The endo… Stella… Monty coming to your rescue…

There in the darkness, your brain arduously begins fitting the puzzle pieces together, though it pauses once you reach the part where Doctor Timpson handed you a prescription for a bag full of painkillers, and suddenly, that’s all you can focus on.

Wincing, you suck in a breath through your teeth and shift uncomfortably on the bed as the pain grows from tender to worrisome.

Now you know why you woke up.

Your painkillers must have worn off during the night.

… Figures…

Heaving a weary sigh, you reach up to scrub your fingertips roughly over your eyes, groaning like you’re scratching a satisfying itch until little bursts of colour and light start to flash across the black expanse behind each eyelid.

The painkillers, of course, are not on your bedside table, because it would have been too much to expect of yourself to place them there next to a handy glass of water…

No.

Instead, they’re still sitting by the bathroom sink in their crumpled white bag alongside a dry toothbrush and the neglected care instructions for your cast.

Just then, your ankle gives another unpleasant throb, hot and swollen within the confines of its bulky stocking.

Yielding to the fact that you’ll never get back to sleep unless you take those pills, you let out a belligerent moan and thrust your hands off your face, reaching down the length of your body instead to grasp the duvet that’s been scrunched up around your waist.

You move with every intention of tossing it aside so you can heave yourself out of bed. What you don’t expect however, is for the tips of your outstretched fingers to collide painfully with a smooth, solid obstruction nestled heavily in your lap.

There’s a dull ‘clunk!’ followed almost immediately by your squeaked, “Aah!”

The shrill bleat of alarm ruptures an otherwise peaceful twilight, but the compulsion to cry out is too overbearing to bite down on. After all, you’ve just been rocked by a very palpable wrongness in learning there’s something on your bed that definitely should not be there.

Violently, like you’ve just been burned, you rip your hand away and flail clumsily on the mattress, making a pitiful attempt to shimmy yourself backwards up the headboard only to find that your legs are trapped by the inexplicable weight still settled over them, far more noticeable now that you’ve been jolted properly awake.

In the next second though, you grow very still, frantically stuffing your lips together and choking on an expletive as your shock ducks aside to allow abject horror to take its place.

Whatever it was you’d struck utters a sharp, throaty grunt that sends reverberations rattling up through your bed frame. Without warning, the unseen obstruction gives a rough lurch and promptly shoots upright, and as it does, the weight in your lap disappears.

Your eyes - still unaccustomed to the dark - stare wildly at a massive black shape that shifts against the ebony backdrop of your bedroom, its edges indiscernible despite how you try frantically to search for definition.

Are you still dreaming? Is this a nightmare?

The bones in your ankle sing as you jerk your legs up, curling the one not in a cast as far from the silhouette as you can bear.

And then, with a mechanical whir, two spots of vivid, blood-red light sputter into existence, hanging side by side several feet off the ground, far higher than any human’s eyes ought to be.

For just a split second, you’re a child again, laying in your bed late at night with the covers pulled right up to your chin, plagued by thoughts of red-eyed monsters rising out from under the bed to eat you or kidnap you or do whatever it was monsters did to overimaginative children.

Then all of a sudden, it speaks.

The voice is gruff and pitched deep like the growl of some wild, feral animal. It fills the room, pulling a visceral flinch out of you before the words even reach your ears.

“Ugh, Lady? Whus’wrong?” it slurs drowsily, muffled as though it’s talking to you over an untuned radio, “Y’okay?” A sharp burst of static buzzes through your eardrums, and this time when the voice speaks again, there isn’t a hint of drowsiness to it. Just clear and abrupt urgency. “You hurt!?”

And just like that, the neurons in your brain light up, and the final puzzle piece shoves itself back into place, such an obvious and unmistakable piece that you wonder how you didn’t see where it fit in the first instance.

“Monty!” you gasp out in a rush, only mildly relieved by the revelation as those fearsome red lights above you start to take on a softer tinge of pink, illuminating the rounded tip of a familiar, green snout, “Jesus Christ! You scared the shit out of me!”

Eyes – ‘optics,’ you remind yourself – swivel wider before they narrow again, then turn into little halfmoons hanging above you, a sign that he’s shuttering his plastic eyelids, leaving them to droop dejectedly over the lights of his LEDs.

“Oh…” the animatronic mumbles, and you hear the heavy thud of his foot as he takes a step back, away from the bed, his pistons hissing with renewed activity, “… M’sorry…”

You’re not sure you’ll ever get used to hearing an apology escape from Montgomery Gator’s speakers, and you might’ve even taken the time to recognise its rarity if you weren’t so abruptly swept up in a whirlwind of alarm and borderline panic.

All at once, your limbs spring apart as you sit ramrod straight in the bed and try to pick out Monty’s features through the gloom, ignoring the angry jolt of red-hot heat that sparks a fire in your ankle.

That heat is nothing compared to the broiling ruckus currently churning in the pit of your stomach.

“The Hell are you still doing here!?” you blurt out, all but throwing yourself sideways to fumble for the lamp on your bedside table, “You should have been long gone by now! Oh, my fucking…-! What’s your battery on!?”

Scrambling fingers find the little push switch on the side of the lamp, and you waste no time flicking it on, instantly hissing at the intrusion of light that rudely sears your retinas and forces you to squeeze your eyes shut.

“My battery’s fine,” the gator retorts, unseen, sounding less morose and more like his usual self, “I was in standby… Low energy consumption.”

Your eyelids protest valiantly when you attempt to pry them apart, but little by little, you coax them open again and blink through bleary vision at the wobbly blob of green towering above your bed. “Standby,” you echo flatly.

As if that even vaguely answers the question as to what he’s still doing in your room.

Montgomery Gator, in all his great, green glory, is standing at the side of your bed when he really, really shouldn’t be. He shouldn’t be anywhere near your bed, in fact, not when he was supposed to have made his way back home hours ago.

It still comes as a shock to see how much larger he appears without the high roofs and vast rooms of the Plex as a backdrop.

In here, stuffed between your bed and the wall, with the top of his mohawk almost brushing the ceiling, and his tail sprawled out across your carpet, he seems over twice his normal size.

Apparently oblivious to the crisis of his own making, the animatronic tips his long snout down at you, the black, plastic brows on his head slotting neatly together as he declares, “S’your battery you should be worryin’ about. Can’t’ve got much charge yourself.”

You resist the urge to scoff as you match his disapproval, scowling right back up into his optics, half hidden behind his glasses.

“Humans don’t have batteries,” you argue at last, gingerly extracting your legs from the bed and lowering them over the side, taking care not to let your injured appendage bump against the floor. All the while, you have to suppress a wince.

Because watching you like a hawk, Monty grunts, “You know what I mean.”

With a shake of your head, you brace your hands on the edge of the mattress and peer glumly down at the cast covering your leg as a question springs to mind; Is this really an argument you want to have right now…? Is this an argument you want to have at all? The shock of waking up to find the animatronic in your room is slowly but surely receding with each subsequent second.

You suppose having him all but break in last night was about as shocking as it could get. Anything that follows simply doesn’t measure up. And besides, getting into a verbal spat won’t change the very glaring fact that he’s still here… All it’ll do is sap what little energy you’re pulling from your reserves, never mind what it could do to his.

It’s too early. You’re too tired. You’re in too much pain. And you do so hate to fight…

Your ears twitch when the gears in Monty’s jaw spin softly as he opens it to ask, “Did you get any sleep at all?”

The ‘you look terrible’ comment remains unspoken but conceals itself badly behind his teeth.

Tearing your eyes off the cast, you bend your neck back and release your longest sigh yet. When it ends, you just blink languidly up at the gator, and at last reply, “Doesn’t matter. A few hours’ll have to do for now.”

Under your breath, in a voice deliberately pitched so quiet that he can’t pick it up, you softly mutter, “Painkillers…”

As you start to push yourself off the squeaking mattress, you hear an unhappy grumble from the speakers of the massive animatronic, and in just one swift stride, he’s suddenly hovering right above you, curling his thick, sturdy palms under your elbows and gently lifting you onto your feet with far more care than such a formidable bot should possess.

“Does matter,” he retorts petulantly, keeping his hands under one of your arms whilst you bend awkwardly and fish around on the floor for the crutch you’d discarded near the side of your bed.

“Why’d you wake up anyway?” he continues to grouse, “I was comfy…”

Blowing an exasperated huff through your nose, you straighten up and slip your unoccupied arm through the crutch’s handle, tugging your captured appendage from the gator’s palm and making the awkward squeeze around his sizeable bulk.

“Gee, I don’t know,” you yawn, raking your fingers across your scalp and cringing at the oily slickness clinging to your hair. When did you last have a shower? “Maybe because I realised there was a giant gator in my lap. Who probably shouldn’t still be here.”

Heavy footsteps clunk after you into the ensuite bathroom. “You said I could stay!”

“For a little while, I recall,” you snap waspishly over your shoulder, running a hand over the wall until your fingertips find the light switch. With a dull ‘click,’ the tiled, white room is suddenly flooded in a buzzing fluorescence that hurts your eyes. Not a second later, you’re already regretting the sharpness of your tone.

Hissing a sigh through your teeth like a pressure valve being released, you hobble forwards to the sink and brace your front against it, lifting your eyes to the mirror and peering at your reflection.

‘Ugh.’

Well… you suppose the dark bags are a given, but did you have to drool so profusely as to leave a line of dried, crusty spit down the side of your chin?

Wetting your fingertips under the dripping tap, you scrub them fervently at the spittle and turn your gaze instead to the reflection of the large animatronic lurking behind you in the doorway.

He doesn’t meet your gaze. He’s too busy frowning down at his feet, brows resting heavily above his optics.

In contrast, your own expression softens, weary and apologetic.

“Look,” you say in a far less agitated tone, turning off the tap with a squeak of metal and inspecting your now clean chin, “I’m sorry. I don’t want to argue with you, Monty. I just want you to go home-”

“-Why’re you so keen to get rid of me?”

What follows is a silence so fragile, you could probably drop a feather and it would shatter into a thousand, fibrous pieces.

Your fingertips find the edge of the sink and flex bruisingly on the porcelain whilst you stare through the mirror, at a loss for words.

This time, Monty is looking back. His optics are set into a hard, unflinching scowl, aperture pupils shrunk down to mere pinpricks.

You’re not about to let that slide…

“That,” you snap, “is not what this is, and you know it.”

And the thing is, he does know it. Even as he admonishes himself for asking the question, he knows. You wouldn’t… do that to him. Time and again, you prove to be a better person than he consistently expects you to be.

But experience has driven a recognisable pattern right into his code that isn’t so easily shaken loose.

Montgomery Gator knows rejection far better than he knows acceptance. Humans want him gone more than they want him around, it’s been that way since he was first turned online, and proceeded to malfunction so badly, his tail broke several laptops and a workbench. Good things don’t tend to last for bots like him. He’s told himself that before. It’s a notion that’s been haunting the back of his processor from the day he met you.

There’s always another shoe, and it’s always about to drop…

He… doesn’t want you to be the one to drop it.

Anyone else… anyone at all…

Just not you.

He hadn’t realised before just how much he needs you to choose his presence over his absence. And although he knows you’re right, it’s bad that he’s here, it’s bad for both of you that he’s here… something in his programming, something that shines as green as the snout on his face, selfishly vies for your acquiescence.

Then all of a sudden, you’re doing it, you’re turning arduously around until your back is to the sink, and you’re staring him in the optics straight on, not through the surface of the mirror.

Suddenly, he finds himself straining his audials in anticipation, every wire and node in his frame poised to hear you tell him he can stay. Here.

With you. 

Instead, you do something else entirely.

In a fashion he should have expected by now, you step delicately into the middle of the playing field, no man’s land, neither telling him you want him here, nor that you want him to go.

“You think I want to say goodbye and not see you for six weeks?” you ask plainly instead, bringing his processor to a grinding halt, then viciously knocking it off its tracks with the follow-up, “I don’t want to get rid of you, Monty, I want you to be safe.”

Safe…?

Several of the gator’s systems have to reset themselves, his optics first and foremost, flickering narrow then wide again as he shutters his lids in a few rapid-fire blinks.

Dumbly, he has to thump a fist against his chest when the speaker inside it stalls on a clumsy, “Huh?”

But you don’t seem all that willing to let him get his thoughts in order. “What do you think Mick’ll do if he finds out you’re not in the Plex? Hm?” you press on, “And I really hope it is ‘if’ and not ‘when’.”

… Safe…

Unbidden, one of the gator’s hands worms its way up to lay over the cavity of his chest, rubbing tenderly at the plastic casing as if it’s sore.

“I’m sorry, Monty...” you tell him, earnest and frank, setting aside the grief of your leg in favour of spending a few more moments consoling the animatronic, “I’m sorry, I don’t want to have to say it, but…” Hesitating, your brows dip, and you offer the gator a sad, tired frown. “Not everyone is on your side.”

‘Understatement of the century,’ he gripes to himself. But why should he care about that? So long as you’re on his side, things will be okay.

“But lot of people are,” you squeeze out with conviction, pouring as much encouragement into your words as you can fit, “I’m on your side. That exec came around too, didn’t she? Stella, and her mums. Andy is starting to trust you! Andy Flowers! Hell, even the public are seeing you properly for the first time. But it’s the people who aren’t on your side who you need to tread carefully around. People like Mick,” you continue, earning a sudden, guttural thrum from the gator’s speakers that you deliberately ignore. Let him be angry. You’re pretty angry too if you’re being honest.

Resisting the urge to wring your hands together imploringly, you add, “Right now, Mick is gonna be looking for any excuse to hurt you.”

You’re hardly surprised when Monty sticks his snout into the air and expels a haughty grunt, his prior astonishment all but forgotten in the overpowering wake of his pride.

“I’d like to see ‘im try,” he declares, jamming the pad of a thumb against his chest, “I protected you from an endo, an’ I can protect myself from old Mick too. I’m stronger than that pipsqueak by a mile.”

His bluster, however, is almost immediately knocked back out of him when you abruptly shove yourself off the sink with an exasperated shake of your head. “It isn’t about how strong you are!”

In your haste however, you stumble on your bad foot, and just like that, Monty is there, stooping forwards with his arms outstretched to catch you by the shoulders. At the same time, your own hands clasp feverishly on top of the gator’s wide wrists, squeezing at the plastic panelling as if you could physically press upon him the gravity of the situation.

“Monty,” you chew his name through clenched teeth, meeting his stare behind those star-shaped sunglasses, “He can hurt you – No, stop–! He can.” You have to interrupt him when his jaw opens to argue.

“Mick can hurt you,” you reiterate once the gator’s fangs click together again, “Without even touching you, Mont. All he needs is a reason. And you being here instead of the Plex?” One of your hands leaves the silent animatronic’s wrist and ventures up towards his face, cupping your palm gently over his rounded cheek. “That’s reason enough for him,” you finish, watching as the black holes of Monty’s apertures swirl wider and wider with every second that the warmth of your fingertips seeps through to his sensors.

If he was capable of swallowing, he would. His optics swivel over to your hand near his teeth, and once again, Monty finds himself slamming a firewall down to cut communications with the gears in his tail. This is not the size of room where the overeager appendage will be subtle if it starts swinging.

There’s a thought pinging around his processor, one he doesn’t dare give voice to lest the truth of it betray just how much the great Montgomery Gator has come to rely on the presence of another when the only back he’s watched for so long is his own.

How… How in the world is he supposed to survive for six weeks without you?

Almost of its own accord, his processor starts to run several hypotheticals detailing emergency protocols he’ll have to follow in the event of an incident occurring while you’re not with him.

And on the opposite side of the equation, he can’t help but wonder what you’ll do without somebody to watch over you when he’s not around?

It’s an unforeseen element of Friendship he hadn’t factored in until now, this… this worry.

Monty casts about for a better word, one that doesn’t have so many connotations attached to it, but he comes up empty, failing to marry his unease with anything more applicable.

He’s worried. And that in itself is worrying.

The blooming warmth emanating from your palm suddenly retracts, and Monty jerks his head upright, realising with some alarm that he’d been leaning his cheek quite heavily against your hand.

You’ve dropped it back down in favour of scrubbing it tiredly over your face. “I’m not sure what I’d do with myself if you got decommissioned because of me,” you admit sullenly, forcing him to cycle back several moments to recall your last words.

Still, the guilt woven through your tone is surprising.

“Cause of you?” he grunts, “Why would it be your fault what they do to me?”

You look up at him then, your eyes focused and sharp like whetted blades. “Monty,” you say slowly, “Why are you here?”

The question stops him in his tracks.

Because the answer is simple. It’s standing in front of him, staring him quite literally in the face.

It’s you. He came here tonight for you. He left the Plex for you, risked being found out for you, is still risking his own safety… for you.

It wouldn’t be your fault if Management does something drastic to him.

But it will be because of you.

Slowly, so slowly he half wonders if there’s a fault in his systems, Monty’s optics droop to observe your hands. The tiny appendages – so much smaller than his own – are clenched with a rigorous fervour, one around the handle of your crutch, and the other into the shirt you fell asleep in, twisting the fabric between your fingers that have gone white at the knuckle to expose the bone underneath.

You're scared. 

“So please. For my sake,” you continue, drawing his gaze from your hands to your face, “To stop me from worrying about you so much-“

The gator’s lips twitch in a wince.

“-Will you please go back to the Plex?”

And this time, with a new perspective rolling around in his processor and gumming up the gears in his jaw, he doesn’t bother to open his mouth, relying on his speakers to offer a concise and muted response.

“Okay.”

And maybe… Just maybe… the tired but dazzling smile that flutters then blooms across your expression and brightens the room makes his acquiescence all the more worth it.

“Thank you, Monty,” you tell him, the fatigue in your eyes never once stealing from the sparkling gratitude you’re trying to drown him in, “Thank you.”

And Hell, maybe he’s inclined to let your palpable waves of relief wash over him for just a bit longer.

-----------------------------------------------------

You never shut the window last night…

Standing awkwardly like a looming giant in your - now rather chilly - living room, Monty’s optics trace the scrapes and gouges he’d inadvertently torn from the wooden frame in his haste to reach you after you took that tumble yesterday.

Wincing, he clears the static from his voice box with a sheepish cough and mutters, “Uhm… I… um… Sorry, ‘bout your window…”

Leaning on your crutch beside him, you ponder the same destruction, one palm clasped around your chin.

With the painkillers now working their quick and heavenly magic around your ankle, the thoughts in your head are less of a nuisance to put together. Monty had almost tripped over his own tail in his haste to get you your requested glass of water from the kitchen. It was the only thing you could think of that would make him feel helpful and get him out of your bathroom long enough for you to splash some water on your face and idly tousle your hair.

Needless to say, it worked like a charm.

Now, you have to take several quiet breaths, in through your nose then out through your mouth before your momentary alarm at finding your window wide open starts to fade away.

It could have been worse, you suppose.

Oh certainly, the window’s frame will need to be repaired, but you’re less concerned about such a potential cost now than you would have been before Faz Co. paid you that hush money. And sure, someone could have broken in while you slept, but somehow, knowing you had a gigantic animatronic alligator on standby diminishes that particular concern. Besides, nothing looks to have been stolen. There isn’t really much to steal, after all, and you don’t live on the ground floor, a fact which deters all but the most desperate of thieves.

Besides…  

“Windows can always be fixed,” you tell him, turning to flash him a warm tilt of your lips, “You, on the other hand…”

He doesn’t miss the none-too subtle hint.

Monty’s snout tilts up towards the ceiling, his tail thwacking carefully against the carpeted floor in mock exasperation. “A’right,” he huffs, venting out a hot blast of air from the regulator valves in his nostrils, “I’m goin’, m’goin’…”

Leaning your body on the crutch, you bite the inside of your cheek and muscle back a grin when Monty takes a slow, lumbering step towards the window, dragging his tail like a dead weight across the living area.

A performer to the end…

He doesn’t even make it to the window before he stops once more, twisting his nose over a shoulder strut to peer down at you, his crimson LEDs glowing faintly behind his glasses. “You sure you don’t-?”

“-I’m sure.”

“But what if somethi-!?”

“-It won’t.”

“… Right…” he concedes quietly, turning back to the open window.

With laboured movements betraying a reluctance that clogs his every motor, Monty meticulously begins navigating his too-large frame through the window, taking great care that his shoulders don’t scrape any more paint off the wood as he goes.

You’re grateful for his effort, enough to swallow back a laugh when his mohawk clunks solidly on the wood above him and he releases an audible hiss of annoyance, swivelling his optics up to give the frame a dark glare.

It isn’t lost on you that two weeks ago, if you’d asked Monty to ‘be careful,’ he’d more than likely go out of his way to do the exact opposite.

You really are proud to see the work he’s put in to improve his standing at the Plex.

As the gator turns to feed the length of his tail through your window, you give your head a fond shake and step forwards, following his path to the sill and leaning against it on your elbows and watching your breath billow out of you in a soft cloud of white.

Awkwardly sized on the fire escape, Monty manoeuvres himself about to face you, ducking his head low and dropping down onto a knee, bringing himself to your level.

His massive frame rises and falls as he synthesises a sigh, reaching up to sweep the sunglasses off his nose and drape his forearm over a bent knee.

“Guess this is it, huh?” he gripes aloud, brightening ever so slightly when you give a husky laugh.

“Monty. It’s not forever, you know.”

“Might as well be.”

Blinking, your lips quirk affectionately, and you lean your chin on a palm, tilting your head to one side. “Aww~. I thought Freddy was meant to be the charming one.”

As you should have expected, Monty’s plating immediately flares around his neck and he draws himself up, thoroughly affronted. “I’m plenty charming!” he declares.

Flashing him a sly grin, you reply, “So I’m gathering.”

You can see the moment his CPU connects your words together. The animatronic’s brows tick up his forehead and his jaws promptly snap shut with a loud ‘clack.’

You figured he’d appreciate ‘charming’ over ‘cute.’

Even with the nightly bustle of the city drifting into the alleyway, you can hear several of Monty’s gears kick up a notch, whirring noisily in the relatively peaceful alleyway.

Taking pity on the stupefied animatronic, you tip your head upright again and lose the teasing lilt.

“It was very kind of you to come and check on me, Monty.”

Optics click shut, then open again, spinning prettily as they land on you. Without his sunglasses, you find him all the more expressive. An odd realisation for you to have about a robot.

“Yeah?” he utters softly.

Humming, you nod your head, slapping on a sickly-sweet smile and a tone that oozes warning. “Yep… Don’t you ever do it again.”

Dipping his nose sheepishly, Monty rubs at the back of his neck, avoiding your stern glare.

“You’ll head straight back to the Plex?” you add.

“Uh huh.”

“And you’ll be careful and make sure nobody sees you?”

“Mmhmm…”

The façade crumbles and you’re smiling again, still weary, but a smile all the same.

The animatronic catches it when he braves a glance up, and his contrition melts away at the sight of it, as it seems to be doing more and more often of late.

“Good,” you murmur, swaying your torso further out the window, hardly putting a lot of thought into what you’re about to do.

Later, you’ll blame it on the ungodly hour dulling your senses, and the bud of gratitude for Monty swelling in your chest until it was large enough that you thought nothing of stretching your neck out and pressing a gentle, chaste peck on the very tip of his nose.

It’s over and done in a moment, nothing noteworthy about it, just a fond farewell between friends.

But that’s only half of the collective perspective.

Because Monty…. Well, he could have lived in that second for the rest of eternity.

The warmth of soft, tender skin squashing against his snout is at first surprising, thought it almost immediately gives way to something a little more abrupt once his processor registers what you’re doing.

When it does, a surging jolt of electricity thrusts his internal fans into overdrive, riding the currents of his wiring all the way through his frame and overloading several core systems. One after the other, they shut down, rebooting after a nanosecond, and still your lips are on him, so, so perilously close to his teeth.

His jaw motors fail then, followed immediately by the hydraulics in his arms, letting them fall slack to his sides. His optics flutter closed in blissful contentment as his entire frame threatens to buckle and teeter sideways, held aloft when the fail-safes in his limbs lock them into place to prevent damage from a fall.

The warmth – the sheer, unutterable warmth is there for eons, and for a mere second – and then…

Cold. The spot you’d graced with a fabled kiss is cold once more, and Monty’s optics snap open and his fingers fumble to resecure their slackened grip on his sunglasses.

You’re there, in front of him, haloed by the golden light of your living room, looking every bit the angel he’s only seen on Christmas cards they sell in the gift shops. 

They don't hold a candle to real thing, he realises mutely. 

“Goodnight, Monty. Be safe, okay?” you ask. 

Is that all? Don't you realise you could ask him to bring you the Moon and he'd find a way to do it? 

Starstruck, the gator just nods his head dumbly in response, barely paying attention as you withdraw from the windowsill and raise your hands to the frame over your head, slowly drawing it shut. He’s still standing there when your hands slide around the curtains and you cock a smile, flapping one arm at him in a shooing motion.

With his frame still buzzing and sparking with excess electricity, Monty’s residual processing power manages to turn him about on a heel and take the stairs one at a time, each clanging footstep growing faster and faster as his systems burst back to life.

He doesn’t recall how he made it to the rooftops again. Only that his thundering footfalls feel light – lighter than they’ve ever felt before, even when he’s performing on stage, even when the crowd is roaring with excitement.

Monty flies over the buildings, he’s sure he’s flying.

Perhaps there’s a hidden feature the engineers snuck into his programming that would cause him to barely notice his own weight because this euphoria shouldn’t be possible for an animatronic made of wires and codes.

The early morning is dark and bitingly cold.

But Monty only has sensors for the patch of warmth his silicone still remembers on the tip of his nose.

Already, in the corner of his HUD, the feedback of that moment is playing on a loop. 

When the lights of the Megaplex come into view on the city’s outskirts, he almost believes he could leap right off the current building and soar all the way over the immense carpark to the rooftop he began his journey from. He only stops himself when logic catches up and reminds him that he definitely cannot fly.

Keeping his promise to you, he scales down the wall and slinks silently across the vast ocean of tarmac, sticking to the shadows on the perimeter of the Plex until he finds the same spot he’d jumped from last night.

It’s just as easy – easier, in fact with the residual energy coursing through his systems – to launch himself halfway up the towering wall, grabbing onto a gutter and then kicking off again, hauling himself hand over hand and digging his claws into the brickwork until he’s vaulting over the guard rail and onto the roof proper.

There, he turns - his chest bloated and bursting with elation – to face the city.

Somewhere among those shimmering lights is your home. And by extension, you.

He knows where you are, and that alone is enough to soothe the glaring code that longs to be within reach of you.

He’ll stay at the Plex to make you happy, and he’ll do so gladly.

Because Montgomery Gator is not about to jeopardise his chances of getting another kiss.

[here2bbtstrash]

crybaby (explicit)

genre: all pwp all smut babeyyyyyy

pairing: jungkook x reader

summary: your boyfriend has always mixed his pleasure with pain.

word count: 4.3k

contains: explicit sexual content!!!!!! like that's the whole fic lmao 😵‍💫 established relationship, marathon sex, wrist restraints/bondage, cocky yet eager sub!jungkook 🥵, soft dom!reader but she can be a lil tough, clothed tit play, objectification, she calls him bunny which i think is cute 🥺, spitting, dick riding, unprotected sex, fingers in mouth, humping/grinding, jk has a nipple piercing 🙈, overstimulation/multiple orgasms - for both of them hehe, vibrator use, jungkook (and reader!) pushing himself to his limits bc..... he's jungkook, he cries 🥲, reader finds it hot 👀, a lottttt of sweat & cum lol, cum licking/eating, blowjob, maybe some subspace if you squint, winners never quit 💪, talk of coming dry at the end, jk is kind of a little shit lmaooooo - alright i think that's it 😩

A/N: not me barely managing to get this up before the ticket sales start 😅 happy hunger games to y'all who have codes!!! this fic is a birthday gift to my love, my angel, my cunning linguist @moni-logues 💜 HAPPY (yesterday) BIRTHDAY bb, can't wait to marry you on our first date, it is the joy of my life to build castles in the air with you~

and god bless jk for his lives the past few weeks bc they breathed so much life into this regular degular "sub!jk" fic idea. i'm v obsessed with his personality and the way he always pushes himself "just a little more", whether it's in staying up til 5 am singing karaoke on his couch or giving his absolute all in a workout. just so in love with our bunny tbh, so i hope you enjoy this spicy version of him too!! 🥰

read on AO3!

~*~

You know your boyfriend has always mixed his pleasure with pain.

He stays up late even when he’s exhausted, likes to do his workouts to failure, could spend hours in a tattoo session with the needle pressed to his skin and his bones humming from the buzz. Always holding out for as long as he can, always wanting just a little bit more before he calls it quits, even when it’s hard, even when it hurts. Because he wants to test his limits.

And today, you want to test them, too.

That’s why you text him to meet you in the bedroom, let him find you in nothing but one of his oversized Carhartt shirts, kneeling up on the bed as you affix a pair of purple silk restraints to the headboard.

There’s the soft creak of the mattress from Jungkook’s added weight, and you feel the heat of him as he crowds you from behind, hands dragging up the curve of your hips and taking the hem of your borrowed shirt with it.

“This was the emergency, huh?” The low murmur of his voice is chased by the cool touch of his lip ring as he drags his mouth up the nape of your neck. A blossom of arousal starts to unfurl in your core. “Wanted to use these?”

“Yeah,” you answer, feigning nonchalance as you give the silk a firm tug to test that it holds. Satisfied, you let yourself sink back into Jungkook’s touch, dropping your head against his shoulder and smiling when he leans down to brush his lips over yours. He hums a soft little sound into your mouth.

You cup your hand to the nape of his neck when you pull away to finish the thought. “Thought we could try them on you.”

The words are seemingly all your boyfriend needs to hear; he drops down onto the mattress so hard that he bounces a little. You can’t help but laugh at the way he scrambles to strip out of his sweatshirt, like he’s being timed, then hurriedly centers himself on the pillows, eyes glinting dark with desire.

When you first started talking to Jungkook, everything about him made you expect that he would be the one to call the shots. The good looks, the tattoos and piercings, the muscles— and definitely the motorcycle. But once you’d sat across from him at dinner on your first official date, only to watch him blush and fumble his way through a conversation, you started to suspect that maybe he preferred to follow rather than lead.

That thought was certainly confirmed the next time you saw him out in public: it’d been a full two weeks since your first date, with nothing but radio silence between you since. You were admittedly maybe a little too drunk when you spotted him out with his friends at the same bar you’d been dragged to by yours— drunk enough to have no problem walking right up to him to read him for filth, in front of all of his friends, for ghosting you.

Except he’d just blinked those big brown eyes up at you, mouth dropped open in disbelief, and quietly admitted that he’d been waiting all this time for you to text him.

One of his friends had clapped him on the back, laughing loudly as he corroborated Jungkook’s confession. “He’s been having midnight karaoke pity parties because he never heard from you. Please take this boy out again before his neighbors have him evicted!”

That night told you everything you needed to know about how the dynamics in your relationship would work out. That if you wanted something, there was a very good chance Jungkook wanted it, too.

Which is why it doesn’t surprise you that your boyfriend is already sprawled out half-naked on the bed beneath you, arms folded behind his head in a way that makes his biceps bulge, dangerously attractive.

His mouth pulls into a cocky, flirtatious grin. “Ah, so you wanna use me?”

“I do,” you murmur, straddling your thighs over his torso and leaning up to take the smooth purple silk between your fingers. He offers you one hand before you even have to ask for it, and takes advantage of the other’s last few minutes of freedom to paw at you over your shirt. His tattooed fingers seek out your breast and squeeze, his thumb flicking lazy strokes over your nipple.

You tug the knot of the restraint to tighten it, then look back just as Jungkook closes his lips around the clothed bud of your breast. The rough drag of cotton against your sensitive skin makes you hot all over, your nipple stiffening easily at the rub of his insistent tongue.

“How’s that? Too tight?”

He smirks with your tit still in his mouth, soaking a wet spot into your shirt, teeth scraping gently. “Could be tighter.”

“You are such a show-off,” you huff, more endeared than aggravated as you redo the knot, this time as tight as you can manage. Jungkook pulls against it teasingly, but it does actually seem to hold him in place, and you can feel a dull thud between your legs at the flex of his muscles on full display, the image of him already half-helpless beneath you.

“I’m Jeon Jungkook,” he says, as if in explanation, giving your breast a final playful jiggle before you tug his other hand off to tie it up, too.

“Well, Jeon Jungkook,” you retort with a smirk and a grunt of effort as you lean over him to tug the knot tight. You glance down to find him already using the leverage of his restraints to pull himself up so that he can continue to nuzzle his face into your shirt between your tits, abdominals shaking a little from the effort, undeterred despite the loss of both of his hands.

You take his jaw in your grip and scoot yourself further down his body, dipping in to plant a kiss on his soft lips.

“Are you gonna be a good little toy for me?”

“Uh-huh,” he grunts, and you enjoy the tease of hovering just past where he can reach, watching him strain up toward your mouth to seek another kiss and fall ever so short.

You can feel arousal already dripping from your folds as you slide further down the bed, slipping off from on top of Jungkook to easily rid him of his joggers and briefs. His dick smacks against his stomach, thick and hard; wet, too, at the pretty brown tip. You toss his clothes over the edge of the bed, then strip your own shirt to follow before lowering yourself between his spread legs.

The muscles in Jungkook’s thighs tighten with visible anticipation as you hover above his cock, letting the heat of your breath fan out over him, not unlike the warm afternoon air leaking in through the cracked bedroom window, the first taste of spring. You can hear the wet clicks of Jungkook’s tongue in his mouth.

“Easy, bunny,” you murmur, and then you work up a mouthful of saliva and spit it right onto the head of his dick.

He hisses in a breath at the splatter of it, then gasps a soft little sound when you take him in your hand to slip your fist down the length of him. That’s Jungkook all over; always so eager, always so sensitive.

“What do you think?” you muse, your mouth ticking up as you feel Jungkook’s hips roll into your grasp. “Think it’s ready for me, baby?”

“‘Sready,” he grunts, teeth clenched. “Use it, jagi.”

You waste no time, crawling back up Jungkook’s body to settle your hips over his, flattening your palms against his chest. He’s still squirming, thighs flexing against the bed as he rocks up in a desperate attempt to find the wet heat of your cunt, and you giggle as you work yourself backwards until the head of his dick catches on your entrance.

It’s a bit of a stretch, but you’re wet enough to take it. You bite down on a smug smile as you manage to seat yourself on him hands-free.

“Fuck, love when you do that.” Jungkook’s voice is a low growl, and you slide a hand up the firm definition in his chest and slowly start to rock yourself along his length. His cock fills you up like he was made for it; you can feel every detail of him drag against your ridges, trailing sparks of pleasure as you tilt your hips to drive him right into your sweet spot.

Jungkook’s head kicks back against the pillow as a groan rips through him. There’s a gentle crease in his brow, furrowed in the way that tells you it’s so good: the tight heat of your pussy, the slick stretch of it when you work it on him. You ride him rough, make him take it like a good boy.

Another noise stutters out of Jungkook, chased this time by a huff of breath that it takes you a second to realize is a laugh, the tone caught halfway between shy and horny. You watch the way he squirms, restless against his restraints, like he can’t help himself.

He answers before you can ask. “The way your tits— fuckin’ bounce— fuck, I wanna touch you.”

The feeling sinks in as you watch him writhe beneath you, as you shove your hips back harder to pull more desperate sounds out of him. It’s fun, not letting him have what he wants, makes you drip that much more down the length of him.

“You can’t.”

“I know,” he grunts, wrists tugging uselessly. “It’s hot— that I can’t.”

“It is,” you concede, feigning composure despite the hitch in your breath, the way you’re already close to the edge and pushed that much closer by having Jungkook like this. Tied up, all yours, free to do with as you please.

And still fighting against his fucking restraints.

“Think I could rip these?”

It’s like your body acts faster than your pleasure-driven mind can keep up with: all at once, you’re tracing the pouted curve of Jungkook’s bottom lip, then slipping two fingers past it into the heat of his mouth.

“Shh, bunny,” you murmur. He blinks up at you, glassy-eyed as you pet over his tongue, all lush and wet on your fingertips. “Toys don’t talk.”

You press down more firmly as if for emphasis, enjoying how his soft parts give so easily to your touch, and then Jungkook outright moans around your fingers in his mouth.

The needy little sound makes your pussy pulse hot between your thighs.

“Fuck,” you hiss as you take him to the hilt, changing the stroke of your hips to grind against your toy, used solely to get yourself off now. Humping, really, rubbing your clit over the smooth skin of his abdomen where he’s blooming feverglow, flushed with need. Jungkook’s eyes flicker back in his head at the way your pussy’s taking him, squeezed tight like a vice and gushing wet. Working raw sounds out of him, his jaw gone slack; you can feel the blunt edge of his teeth and his heavy, shaky breath on the palm of your hand.

Your thighs shift to spread wider and the next drag of your clit is at just the right angle that pleasure surges up in you, undeniable, overwhelming. It’s all you can do now to chase your release, to keep rocking yourself into it, Jungkook’s thick cock plugged up inside of you and drool slicking out of his mouth to drip down your wrist.

“Gonna make myself come on my pretty little toy,” you manage to gasp.

Jungkook’s eyes find yours, burning intensity, the way he gets, and then he closes his lips tight around your fingers in his mouth and sucks, as if he’s begging to be used, and it sends you over the edge all at once. Your head tips back as your orgasm kicks through you, white noise pleasure, enough to get lost in.

Hips still rolling, you grind yourself through it, the waves of your climax swelling and receding again, until you finally drop forward against Jungkook’s chest, breathless and buzzing all over.

You let your fingers slip out of his mouth, exhale a laugh as they skip over the defined ridges of his stomach when you wipe your hand dry, taking full advantage of the fact that he’s powerless to stop you.

“Shit, that was hot.”

Jungkook’s voice is hoarse with desire as you shift to find the curve of his neck under your mouth, trailing kisses until your lips brush over the pretty lines of ink just behind his ear. He’s still thick and stiff inside you, with a steady pulse-throb that tells you how badly he needs to come, how worked up he is from being used as your personal hump-toy.

“Yeah,” you echo, paired with a tentative rock of your hips that makes your cunt flutter, overstimulated, tugs a little whine out of Jungkook, too. Your tongue feels thick in your mouth as you breathe against his flushed skin.

“Think I— wanna keep using my toy. Kinda feel like being greedy.”

Jungkook’s cock twitches, shameless, at your admission, again when you flick a thumb over the silver jewelry studded through his nipple. There’s a part of you that wants to keep him like this, his leaking-hard dick filling you up while you purr nasty shit in his ear, just to see if he can come from it.

“Might ride it until I break it.” You scrape your teeth up his neck and he moans. “Gonna take all I can give you, bunny?”

His throat jumps visibly as he swallows, fights to gasp a desperate “uh-huh”. Answers with his body, too, arching up to press himself deeper into you, rubbing the slick, hot tip of his cock into your front wall in just the right way to melt pleasure down your spine. You reward his eager submission with a soft kiss, then lick along the seam of his lips, enjoying the sweet little noises that pour into your mouth when you open him up.

Still intertwined, his tongue stroking over yours, your hand goes fumbling for the nightstand, comes away with the slender cylinder of your vibrator, and switches it on before slipping it down to press between your bodies.

“Oh my god,” Jungkook groans as you nestle the shuddering bullet between your folds and find the bud of your clit. You know he can feel it too from the way his hips jerk beneath you, the steady buzz engulfing his cock as you squeeze your pussy around him, all lush sensitivity from your first orgasm. “Oh fuck, I’m gonna come.”

“You can.” The words are hardly more than a warm exhale from your mouth to his, your lips brushing. “But I’m not gonna stop.”

You don’t give him time to respond or even heave in another gasp of air before your thumb finds the button at the base of your vibrator, clicks it once, then again.

“F— ahh!”

Jungkook’s body jolts like a live wire as he falls apart beneath you. You sit up to take in the whole of him, your free palm slipping to the jut of his hip, fingertips splayed out and pressed heavy to anchor.

Pinned down and helpless, he trembles through the hot rush of his release, dick buried deep and pulsing as it all comes spilling out of him.

“That’s it, baby,” you coo. Your nails scratch lovingly against his skin to coax him out of it— taking such good care of your toy. His breath is punching out of his chest in these ragged, overwhelmed gasps, sweat glittering at his temples while he whimpers through the comedown. So fucking beautiful like this.

The hum of the vibrator rolls through you, strong enough with the change in angle that your eyes drop shut to focus on the feeling.

Jungkook whines when you circle your hips with him still tucked up inside of you— it’s a wrecked little noise, high and sweet, underscored by the thick squelch of his cum starting to leak back down his shaft. Your thighs tense just right from the filthy sound of it, and then it’s all throbbing velvet glow in your core as you clench up and come on his cock again.

“Fuuuuuck, bunny,” you groan up to the ceiling, your head tipped back as it washes over you. “God, yeah.”

You flick the vibrator off when it gets to be too much, let it go rolling down the mattress— the bedroom feels bigger for the silence. Sweat slicks at the back of your knees, warm spring breeze still licking through the window to flutter the sheer-gauze curtains.

You’re fluttering too, all over: the kick of your heartbeat, the breath stuttering out of your lungs. The throb of your cunt, split open and drooling out juice, messy-wet fresh fruit.

The sound of the bedsheets shifting has your lashes flickering open again, and there’s Jungkook. Dark hair fanned out on the pillow, wrists bound, and that look in his eyes. Like he can take a little more. Like he’s waiting for your cue. Like there’s this whole-heart want brimming up inside of him, making his blood run hot.

He’s still hard between your legs.

“Go on then,” you tell him. “Give me another one.”

With a concentrated growl, Jungkook flattens his feet to the bed, grips tighter to his restraints for leverage, and starts to pound up into you. You can feel an overstimulated shudder in the stroke of his hips, how his cockhead twitches, sensitive, as it rubs over your g-spot. But he doesn’t stop; doesn’t even lose his rhythm.

He fucks you like a machine, and it’s all you can do to brace your palms against his chest and tip forward, rocking yourself down to meet him thrust for thrust.

The harsh slap of body on body is almost enough to drown out the rest: your open-mouthed panting, Jungkook’s groan when your nails dig crescent moon slivers into his tan skin, the gravel edge to your words, “Yeah, like that, fuck me just like that.”

It takes you a second to notice, the sound buried beneath it all, but then it floats through— Jungkook’s sucking his breath in through his teeth now, his jaw tight. You can see the jump of a muscle working there.

“Does it hurt, baby?” you gasp, more air than voice.

Jungkook’s head drops back against the pillow, brow pinched from the focus of keeping his pace steady. He’s breathless, too, when he answers: “Feels good.”

“Feels good because it hurts, huh? Is that how you like it?”

A strangled noise tears out of his throat, and he shoves up even harder, like he wants to fuck you into the shape of him. You splay one hand over the column of his throat and watch his pretty brown eyes blink-blink back at you, and then you have to bury your moans in the crook of his neck as you come hard.

The world around you returns a little at a time. First, the tremble of your tired thighs, the dull ache that’s already started to bloom at the bend of your knees. Then, Jungkook’s body curved up against yours, hips still slow-rolling as you exhale in hot, jagged bursts against his skin. There’s the distinct drip of his cum sliding out of you, and all the sticky-wet places where it’s slicked up the swell of your ass.

“Shit,” you laugh when you manage to find the breath for it. “That was crazy.”

Jungkook shifts a little, but doesn’t respond, and then he makes this wet, soft gasp. You realize he’s shaking beneath you.

You sit up so fast the room spins; your tether is Jungkook’s face, cupped lovingly now between your palms.

“Oh, baby.”

A fat teardrop traces a path down his cheek. Another threatens the dark border of his lashes. He can’t wipe them away with his wrists tied up, but you can see him trying to hold back even as a sob shudders through him, his chest heaving.

“You okay, my love?” you murmur, swiping a thumb across his face. He sniffles, nods, hiccups a little. The tip of his nose is flushed pink. “Shoulda told me to stop, if it was too much.”

“It feels good,” he insists, and his voice cracks around the words. “It’s just a lot. But ‘m not— don’t wanna stop.”

“No? You sure?”

Jungkook sucks his lip ring into his mouth as he nods again, sniffs again. That sends a bolt of something through you.

“You’ve been so good to me,” you praise, and you tip your ass back until his softening cock slips out, smeared glossy-white with your shared release. Jungkook’s still wound-up, pulled so tight inside himself that he flinches when you slip a hand down to ease his legs apart, sliding lower on the bed to slot yourself between them.

“Can I take care of you, bun?” The question’s posed sweetly, chased with a flutter of your lashes and kisses dropped down on the flat plane of his abdomen. “I’ll be gentle.”

He whimpers— answers in the way his hips lift up to meet your mouth.

Your hands press flat to Jungkook’s broad thighs, and you can feel the overwhelmed static-shiver beneath your palms, little tremors that jolt through his muscles. Head dipped low, you drag your tongue up his length and it punches a thick sob out of him, hips stirring like he’s trying to crawl up the bed. But you just keep going, pin him down and make him take it, working broad flat stripes over the whole of his shaft, root to tip. Tasting him, salt and slick and your own heady flavor; you lick him clean.

Jungkook comes quietly this time, feet flexing restless on the bed as you tongue it all out of him. You swipe two fingers through the mess on his stomach and suck that up, too.

Humming around the digits in your mouth, you surface from between Jungkook’s legs to take him in: eyes closed, face wet with tears. You can see the rise and fall of his chest as he gasps for air, shaky, coming down from it.

“Alright baby,” you soothe, shifting up to straddle his chest, knees sinking into the sheets. “All done now, just breathe. Gonna untie you.”

Reaching up, you gently tug open the knot on one restraint, then the other, easing Jungkook’s limp arms to the mattress. Your thumbs find his wrists to massage soft love-circles in case he’s gone numb there, gently coaxing him back to earth.

“Did so good for me, bunny.”

There’s a whimper, and then Jungkook’s surging up to kiss you, forceful enough that you give a little hum of surprise against his lips.

His hands are all over you, all at once, tugging at your legs to drag them forward until you’re flat on your back on the mattress. Your sore thighs shake when he shoves them up and apart, and then a sharp buzz rolls right over the bud of your clit and you keen. Fuck, when did he even grab the vibrator?

“Wanna make you come again,” he pants, and you smile even as your spine arches off the bed. Of course. You should’ve known.

It’s Jungkook all over, you think, hyper-focused on your pleasure even when he’s out of commission, and then you feel the head of his cock push inside and you both gasp. Your cunt aches, so swollen that it’s like he’s stretching you out all over again when you take him to the hilt.

“Oh my god,” you breathe. Jungkook’s hips snap, punctuated by a strangled grunt of effort, but he keeps going, making soft little sweet-pain whines with every thrust, brow scrunched as he brute-forces his way well past overstimulation.

He’s still crying, you realize.

Tears roll down his face and drip onto your collarbone, and everything’s somehow hotter for it. His length is slick, painted in the stored-up remnants of his cum, and you can hear the squish of your folds at the base of his cock each time he fucks it all back into you, so dirty it makes your head spin.

“J-just like that, baby,” you groan, overwhelmed; you can barely get the words out. “Oh fuck, I’m gonna come.”

Jungkook buries his face in the crook of your neck, and you can feel him shaking, dripping, still rabbiting his hips into you, and then the hum of pleasure reverberating through your body explodes. Your clit throbs with an orgasm that feels endless, dizzying, divine. Jungkook outright sobs as your walls pulse pulse pulse around him, begging for every last drop.

When it’s all too much, you swat at his hand, mumbling shapes that aren’t words until the vibrator’s switched off and tossed away. He pulls out with a thick wet sound and the hiss of his breath between his teeth.

Together, you come down slow. Exhaling staccato, limbs tangled, bodies flushed and sweat-sticking.

Jungkook moves first: flops onto the mattress next to you, entirely exhausted, the way you’ve seen him get after a particularly rough workout. Scrubs at his face with one hand, this shy laugh fluttering out of him. “Can’t believe I cried. Ah, so embarrassing.”

You turn onto your side, tugging his hand away so you can press a kiss to his open palm. “Don’t ask me why but… in the moment? Very hot, actually.” A flush colors his cheeks and you giggle. “My perfect little crybaby.”

He flashes you his signature cocky grin, eyes squeezing shut as it morphs into something nearer to a wince. “Fuck, I’m so sweaty.” A breathless gasp, again. “And my dick hurts. I think I came dry that last time.”

“Poor baby,” you coo, not quite sincere. “You really could’ve stopped at… what, three?”

Eyes closed and still smirking, he shakes his head, damp hair falling in his face. “No I couldn’t have— I’m Jeon Jungkook.”

“You certainly are.”

[divainecstasy]

Momentary Blissness (L.V)

Summary: After a brutal fight, Hanno is left severely wounded — needing the assistance of a certain healer, who not only tends to him, but also shows him something he had only ever dreamt of before.

Word Count: 617

Warnings: Violence & Blood

The shouting of the crowd echoed throughout the arena as the last slice of the sword rung out. 

"Give it up for Hanno!"

The applause grew tenfolds as he scanned the masses, lifting his sword in victory with a stern, yet pained frown. 

She watched from the sidelines, noticing the gash on his side. It looked horrid, blood slowly yet steadily seeping through the cotton beneath his chestplate. 

"I must excuse myself. I ought to tend the wounded, make sure they're ready for the next spectacle, right?" She spoke with a dry laugh and tightlipped smile, overshadowing the worry in her words.

She had always been fond of Hanno, since the beginning. He was strongwilled with a pure heart, she could tell. His eyes glimmered with something she had never seen before, hope underlined by unbearable pain. 

Yet she had never truly interacted with the gladiator before, only glances and soft murmurs of greetings. In a way he was lucky, not having to get tended to yet. 

But he sure as hell would need to now. His teeth clenched together as he hissed, softly limping through the hallways of the Colloseum.

"I was looking for you!" A voice sounded as he reached the quarters.

He looked to his left, her figure standing under the arches to her chamber. She held the curtains open, urging him to come into the small refuge.

He just loosely nodded before following her lead, tiredly crashing down onto the seating with a groan.

"It will be alright..." she whispered out softly before removing the chestplate in a smooth motion. The cotton underneath shone burgundy in the dim lightning. Her fingertips lifted the fabric, revealing the deep cut into his side.

Hanno hissed as the cold air hit the wound, his breathing ragged as he looked down at her. His vision was blurry, the harsh racing of his heart filling his ears.

"I will have to stitch this... Inhale deeply, it will make the procedure more bearable." she spoke tightly, holding up a dosage of opium for him to breathe in.

His blue eyes glistened with a hazy expression, yet he managed to hum out in agreement as he sniffed it in. Ease filled his being at the drug, too distracted to even noticed the cold sting of the needle piercing his skin, followed by eight more to close the gouge.

"All done..." she mumbled out, gently rubbing over the stitches with soiled cotton, disinfecting the wound.

He smiled as he watched every move, each smoothing motion of her hand. It was a softness he had never felt before, her fingertips slipped like satin along his skin.

"You were great out there, Hanno. Truly grand." she whispered into the air, her eyes catching his glance.

"Thank you..." he hummed out, pain still ringing through every word.

"You can stay here for the night... In case of emergency, there is always a danger of the gash opening up again. Besides, my cot is more comfortable..." she laughed softly, her eyes crinkling at the last comment.

"Truly? You would let me? I don't — I ought not to filthen your sheets." 

"Hanno... It is fine. Please, for me — I insist." she spoke tenderly yet earnest.

That night, Hanno hadn't felt restless like the ones prior. With her by his side, he felt close to what heaven promises to be. A tender and graceful place — found in the confinements of her chamber. 

In his life as a warrior, slave and gladiator, filled with brutality — softness was a foreign ideal, one he could only dream of in his rest. Yet he had found it somehow, and he did not intend to lose this momentary blissness. Not now, not ever.

[uzurakis]

as a fellow nagumo lover, how about i request nagumo saving reader (who’s also an assassin) while she’s badly injured and teasing her as she recovers 🙃

your eyes flutter awake, and you're greeted by the sight of yoichi nagumo lounging in a chair by your bed, his feet propped up on the edge. those dark eyes light up the moment he sees you stir.

"well, look who's decided to join the land of the living~!" he exclaims, a wide grin spreading across his face. awhile ago, you slowly regain consciousness, the beeping of the hospital machines faintly registering in your ears. the body of yours feels heavy and sore, memories of the mission flooding back; remembering the ambush, the fight, and then the pain. but most of all, you remember nagumo’s face, his expression uncharacteristically serious as he saved you. and you don’t see that often, never, actually.

you try to speak, but your throat is dry, and all that comes out is a croak. nagumo jumps up, leaning over you with an exaggeratedly concerned expression.

"oh no! have you forgotten how to talk? i guess i'll just have to handle all the conversation from now on," he says, feigning a dramatic sigh.

you roll your eyes, managing to croak out, "water."

he grabs a cup of water from the table, but instead of handing it to you, he holds it just out of your reach. "first, you have to answer a riddle. what has four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?"

"nagumo, seriously?" you rasp, your annoyance mingled with a slight, very tiny hint of amusement. man, i just woke up, you say in your head.

he only chuckles and finally gives you the water. "fine, i'll let you off this time. but only because you look like you’ve been through a meat grinder."

the cool liquid soothing your parched throat as you take a grateful sip. "thanks.. for the rescue," you manage to say.

nagumo waves his hand dismissively. "oh, don't mention it. just another day in the life of your favorite assassin."

don't mention it, he says with a casual wave of his hand, his trademark grin firmly in place. but beneath that easygoing facade, he's a whirlwind of emotions. the memory of finding you bleeding and unresponsive still haunts him, a gnawing fear that he might lose you forever. he can still feel the cold dread that settles in his stomach when you don't respond to his frantic calls, the way his heart pounds in his chest as he carries you to safety. every step is a desperate prayer that you'll hold on, that you'll survive. seeing you lying so still, so vulnerable, shakes him to his core. regardless of his lighthearted demeanour, he can't shake the residual anxiety of nearly losing you, the concern that one day his abilities may be worthless to keep you safe.

"favorite, huh?" you tease, a small smile tugging at your lips despite the pain.

"absolutely," he says, winking. "and you know, you gave us quite a scare. i mean, i had to carry you all the way back here. do you have any idea how heavy you are?"

you glare at him playfully. "maybe if you weren't so scrawny, it wouldn't have been a problem."

the guy laughs, the sound infectious. "touché. but really, you had us all worried. even sakamoto looked like he might actually break a sweat."

"i'm sorry," you say softly, feeling a pang of guilt for the trouble you caused. “i really thought it could handle them by myself. sorry..”

nagumo's expression softens for a moment, his usual levity giving way to genuine concern. "hey, don't apologize. i've got your back, and you've got mine. besides, it’s not like i’d let anything happen to my favorite partner, riiight? why are you looking at me like that?”

before you can respond, he suddenly leans in close, a mischievous glint in black pupils. "oh, by the way, did i tell you? i told the nurses you’re afraid of needles. so they might have a surprise for you when they come to change your IV."

your eyes widen in horror, and he bursts out laughing at your reaction. "relax, i’m kidding. or am i? guess you’ll find out soon enough."

"you rascal," you mutter, shaking your head.

"you owe me a box of pocky sticks," he says with a grin, leaning back in his chair.

despite the pain and exhaustion, you can’t help but smile. "i guess i do."

he reaches over and gently squeezes your hand. "get some rest. i’ll be here when you wake up. and who knows, maybe i’ll have another riddle for you."

"great," you say sarcastically, if it’s not for your injuries, maybe you’ve already thrown a pillow at his face. though, you know you can always count on him to be there for you, pranks and all.

@uzurakis

[lucygxybaird]

imagine holding billy in your arms as he lays dying, pat garrett's gun still breathing smoke like a dragon you can't vanquish.

billy's breath is rattling in his chest, each struggling to escape, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes and over his temples. they leave stains on your skirt the color of storm clouds, stains that spread, stains that grow, like a tumor. you aren't crying. you feel as though you are being forced through the eye of a needle, everything inside you crushed and broken to fit, and in the process you are wrung dry.

his hand clutches tightly at your arm, his eyes flitting around blindly, a pair of frightened bluebirds. you stroke his forehead with your other hand as if you're his mother trying to soothe away a fever.

"hush," you whisper. "hush, hush, lie still. don't move too much."

as if it matters. as if it would save him, to lay still as a statue, a marble monument to youth bludgeoned into gray obscurity by a bullet, to tragedy, to a broken future. but you don't know what else to say, how else to comfort him.

he manages to say, in a voice cracked and sharp like shattered porcelain: "i'm scared."

"don't be scared," you say, although you're scared too.

scared of what your life is going to be when his is extinguished. scared of seeing him in every pale dawn and bitter-black night, of hearing his voice at the very edge of your hearing and turning your head toward the specter sound. scared -- even more so -- of forgetting precisely how he looks, how he sounds.

how he feels. how he tastes.

billy whimpers.

"hush," you say again. "just close your eyes, listen to me."

his eyes flutter shut.

"there's nothing to be afraid of." you swallow. "it's just like falling asleep. soon there won't be any more pain. you'll float in my arms, like you're floating in a sweet river. above you there's just blue sky, and the riverbanks are green as emeralds."

his grip on your arm softens.

"when you wake up, you'll be home," you say. "your mother will be there, your father, and joe. they're waiting for you, just like you'll wait for me. someday we'll all be together."

just not today.

"tunstall," he croaks, and you nod.

"yes, and mr. tunstall," you say. "he'll be so proud of you, billy. they all will. you fought so hard, and you've been so brave."

you lean down to press your lips against his forehead, which is clammy and slick with sweat. "you've been so brave," you say again. "i've always been so proud of you, you know that? so proud to be yours."

another kiss to his forehead. you think his skin is even cooler now than it was just a moment before.

"my love," you murmur.

you want to say, don't leave me. you want to beg him to fight, to hang on; but you can't ask that of him. not after everything he's been through, the pain he's suffered in the past and in this moment. it's time for you both to let go.

you hold him like that, hunched over with him cradled in your lap. shielding him, your hair framing his face like a curtain protecting him from the rest of the world. the world that has been so hard on him, the world he is slipping away from by degrees, as though chains are rusting away from a prisoner seeking freedom.

you keep your eyes on his face, his beloved, beautiful face, but you're aware, too, of his grip on your wrist. how it slackens moment by moment, until his fingertips are just barely resting on your sleeve. you hear him trying, fruitlessly, to catch his breath; it almost sounds like he's drowning.

he gasps, as though he's seen something astonishing, although his eyes are still closed. you think -- you're not sure, because your heartbeat is roaring in your ears, like it's attempting to remind you that you're alive despite any desire to the contrary -- that you hear him whisper, "ma?"

his hand slips away from your arm to land on the floor. the soft thump is louder than the gunshot. it echoes and it lacerates, tearing you apart inside.

when they try to take him away from you, the tears come. you struggle the best you can without letting go of him; you clutch him to you with one arm, your free hand curled into claws. you bare your teeth. you scream, you curse -- not epithets, but bitter prayers, as if you're a witch who can work dark magic.

finally, they overpower you.

they bury him. you wish you could burrow into the earth like a worm and lay down there with him.

but you know he wouldn't want that for you. so you live, despite every day, every moment, feeling like a stone in your mouth, weighing you down and entombing your speech. not that you have anything to say, not anymore.

months go by. summer is scorching. you imagine the unforgiving sun burning you up, like a dry leaf caught in a campfire. you imagine yourself as ash, drifting away in the wind.

autumn brings damp rain, keeping everyone inside. it doesn't matter to you. you can hardly bring yourself to leave your bed, despite the memories that lurk in the sheets like fleas, waiting to bite you.

winter is cold and gray, but you hardly notice the snows, the howling winds, the disconsolate pewter skies. if anything, it's only a reflection of how you feel.

and then --

despite the cruelty of the world, the frozen fist of january trying to choke the warmth out of every breath of breeze, out of each brittle beam of sunshine -- despite nothing meaning anything -- despite what feel like the greatest of odds --

spring comes again. flowers push their stubborn, colorful heads up out of the ground. the wind softens. the sun gains strength. you find yourself climbing out of bed; the floors and the chimney are swept, the windows cleaned, dishes and clothes are washed. you prop your front door open so the fresh air can come in.

one morning, you come outside to find a kitten huddled under the rocking chair on your front porch. it mewls, sounding rather cross with you, as though asking what took you so long.

you smile.

you take him inside, pour out a saucer of milk and slice up a piece of chicken. you notice, as you're holding him on your lap, that his eyes are blue.

you name him bonney.

[missmoonfrost]

You're scared of me - a wolfstar short fic

Written for @wolfstarmicrofic and the prompt: The Forbidden Forest. But once again I failed to limit the word count to 1k...

Remus wakes up panting, with an acute sense of something being wrong. There is the familiar ache and nausea after the transformation. He is freezing cold. The wind blows around him and he reaches out after a blanket or something to cover himself with. His hands grab pine needles and damp moss. His eyes jolt open. This is not the shack.

He is alone in The Forbidden Forest. Completely bare under a leather jacket, spread over him like a blanket. Sirius’ jacket. As if that wouldn’t be enough to worry about, he has a gnawing feeling there is something more. Something worse.

He tries to sit up but doesn’t get far before a sharp pain in his back stops him. He manages to heave up on one elbow and get a look around. He doesn’t recognise it, as far as he knows he could be in the middle of nowhere.  There is a pile of fir twigs and dry grass underneath him and the canopy of brushwood shielding him has been enhanced with dense branches. Someone has built him shelter.

He hears the rustling of something big approaching. Fear overcomes the pain. Fire shoots through his back as he turns towards the sound. The sight of large teeth and dark fur makes his heart stop. He scrambles backwards before he realises it’s Padfoot. Relief floods him and with a big exhale he collapses down onto the little nest.

Padfoot yaps happily, lets go of the mouthful of branches he has been dragging along and immediately cuddles close to Remus, licking him and brushing his head against his body. Remus closes his eyes and weakly lays his arms around Padfoot. The dog presses his warm furry body against him. With a moment of concentrated stillness, he turns into Sirius.

“It’s okay”, he murmurs, “I’m here. You’re here. You’re awake. It’s going to be okay.”

Remus tightens his grip and buries his face against Sirius' shoulder.

“What happened?”

The tension in Sirius' chest and the fraction of a second longer than expected before he answers is enough for Remus to know. He has done something terrible.

“There were hikers in the woods. Muggles.”

Remus sits up despite the pain and pinches his eyes closed as hard as he can. No. Anything but that. Not biting some innocent soul and condemning them to this hellish fate.

“It’s okay.” Sirius hands rubs his back.

“It’s not okay!”

Sirius sighs and continues rubbing Remus' back in big calm circles.

“Did I…” Remus manages after a moment.

“You didn’t bite anyone. But they saw you. James and Peter stayed to calm things over. I chased you away.”

“Thank you.”

The wolf’s memory is always fussy, but Remus thinks he can recall the dog bouncing around, inviting him to play. The wolf usually likes that. But this time the dog had annoyed him and got in his way. He had been hunting something, trying to follow a scent.

That thought has him cold to his bones.

But the dog had not let him finish his hunt. It had lounged itself at him until he’d snapped at it and chased after it instead.

Remus puts his hand before his mouth. “Did I hurt you?”

“No”, Sirius reassures and tugs the sleeve of his T-shirt to cover something, “not much.”

“Let me see!”

Sirius rolls his eyes and holds his arm out. It’s a slash of claws, running down half his upper arm. The blood has dried, but there is the tell-tale shimmering tint of a magic wound. His claws made this.

“See? It’s nothing.”

“I could have bit you”, Remus gasps. The trees start spinning around him. Sirius, a damned werewolf because of him.

Sirius gently puts his arms around Remus back again, but he brushes him of.

“I could have bit you, Sirius!”

“But you didn’t.” Sirius looks into Remus' eyes and when Remus franticly looks around, Sirius moves his head catching his gaze again and holding it firm. “Hey! You didn’t.”

Remus is lightheaded and nauseous and feels like he is drowning. If he is going to drown anyway, he can as well drown in these caring honest silver eyes.

“Breath”, Sirius reminds him.

Remus takes a deep breath, and then another. The trees stop spinning. Sirius moves his hand as if to touch Remus’ back again, but then stops as if to ask permission. Remus can’t find the words but leans into his touch. Sirius' arms gently wrap around him. The warmth of the closeness is welcome in the cold. Remus lays his arms around Sirius' back as well. The smell in the crook of Sirius' neck is comforting. His steady breaths are soothing. His raven hair tickling Remus' cheek is uplifting.

Too soon Sirius draws back and looks examining at him.

“Can you walk?”

Remus tries to straighten up and the pain in his back returns. With a deep breath, he pushes through it and stands, only to tumble forward and get caught by Sirius in the last second.

“No. My back. It’s too much.”

“I would heal you, but my wand is still in the shack.”

The thought of Sirius leaving him here has his breath catch in panic.

“I’ll stay here with you”, Sirius reassures. “Everything will be all right.”

“How, though?”

“They will find us.”

“And do what? I am supposed to stay in the shack. They are going to expel me! They are going to put me in Azkaban!”

“Shh, calm down. We’ll figure it out.”

Remus closes his eyes and tries his best to calm down. Tries to focus on Sirius' voice, breaths, and heartbeats.

As he shifts closer to Sirius the breaths become irregular and the heartbeats speed up. For a moment Remus is confused, but then it dawns on him.

“You’re scared of me.”

Sirius scoffs. “No, I’m not.”

“I can hear your heartbeat.”

“Yeah?” The drumming speeds up even more as well as Sirius' breath and he wets his lips.

“It’s okay.” Remus lets go of him and rolls over on the other side. “I realise it was scary. I was scary. You don’t have to pretend you like me. I am a monster after all.”

Sirius sits up. “You are not a monster. And you don’t realise how much I like you at all.”

Remus draws further away. “Keep saying that. I can still hear your heartbeat.”

Sirius' hand lands on his shoulder but he shrugs him off.

Sirius lets out a deep shaky breath and says in a small trembling voice. “Is that really so strange? Of course, my heart speeds up when I’m near you, you’re… Moony, you’re beautiful. And kind of naked. I like being near you.“

His heartbeats are faster than ever now, but other than that he doesn’t move. Remus rolls over to face him and sees him sitting with his hands clenched in his lap, cheeks flushed and eyes firmly set on the ground.

Remus slowly sits up and leans forward to try to catch Sirius eye.

“You… really?”

“I know. I’m sorry. I don’t know how I can think of that when you're hurt, and we’re out here, and you just went through a big trauma. But believe me, it’s not because I’m scared.

For a long moment, Remus just sits there and marvels at the thought. Sirius Black, his friend and saviour, is attracted to him. Is he supposed to think that is weird? Sirius sure acts it is as if it’s something bad. It doesn’t feel bad. Not bad at all. Does that mean he is weird as well? Does that mean his fondness and adoration for Sirius is something it shouldn’t be?

That is too much to think about. All he knows is that Sirius' presence feels like a lifebuoy keeping him afloat. For now, that is enough.

Remus reaches a hand out and gently strokes Sirius' arm, from the shoulder down to the fingertips, and takes his hand. Sirius looks up with a questioning expression. Remus smiles, scoots closer and rests his head on Sirius' shoulder. Sirius puts Remus' hand in his other one, careful to never lose the grip, and throws his arm around Remus' back.

For the longest time, they just held each other, trying to stay as close as possible. When there’s a rustle in the bushes Sirius jolts and springs to his feet.

“There you are.” James relieved voice cuts through the branches. “Peter is distracting Madam Pomfrey, but we need to hurry back. Are you hurt?”