#Hell's Kitchen Cronicles

[edourado]

Karedevil prompt: I loved your "Daddy Lessons" fic, so this is kinda/sorta in the same vein; Karen has a pregnancy scare but when it turns out she's not, both she and Matt are a lot more disappointed than they thought they'd be.

I’ve been putting this one off for a while, because I couldn’t quite get it right, but I think we could all use some lightness after the Defenders. 

That said, there are no spoilers for it. This was mostly written before it aired, so if you haven’t watched it, you’re clear. 

Please forgive any mistakes.  I just finished writing it, and I’m not in a big editing mood. 

Hope you enjoy. 

Positive

Matt wakes up when he can’t feel her in bed by his side. After making sure she wasn’t there, he touches his alarm. Almost four in the morning.

He gets up, alert, when his quick sweep tells him she’s not in the apartment. He’s already on fight mode, scanning the place and the hallways and the streets around, when he locates her. On the roof, of all places.

He’s barefoot, his sweatpants barely on when he climbs the stairs and rushes to her. She’s fine, at least physically, but she’s crying.

“Karen”, he calls, half desperate already, when he reaches the roof. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt? What happened?”

“Oh!”, she says, turning to him, placing her hands on top of his when he touches her face, her arms, looking for something. “No, I’m fine, I’m fine, it’s nothing, I didn’t mean to wake you, I’m sorry.”

“Why are you crying?” he asks, wiping her tears away, still looking for something, trying to figure it out, his senses alert to the world around them, trying to locate a threat. “What happened?”

“I’m sorry, I’m fine, I promise, I promise.”

When he comes up with nothing, he relaxes a bit, his hands still on her face.

“You’re not fine”, he says, finally. “You wouldn’t be crying on the roof in the middle of the night if you were. What’s going on?”

There are still tears coming down her face while she looks at him.

“I-”, she starts, but interrupts herself. “I didn’t want to worry you.”

“I am worried. Please tell me what’s happening.”

Sniffing, she places her hands on his chest.

“Did someone come after you?”

“No, no, nothing like that. It’s… I think…”

He runs his hands up and down her arms, trying to comfort her.

“What?”

“I think I might be pregnant.”

Two things happen: first, he is washed with a warm flood of relief, because she’s not in danger. Second, he is almost paralyzed by her words, his brain going so fast it comes up with nothing useful for a good ten seconds.

“Matt?”

Finally, he sighs, wrapping her in his arms.

“Don’t scare me like that, please.”

“Sorry”, she whispers, hugging him back.

“Um…” he starts, and she moves back to look at his face. He tries to school his expression into a soothing one. “You- you think? You’re not sure?”

“No”, she shakes her head. “I’m late. But that’s not uncommon, so I didn’t think much of it at first. But it’s been two weeks, and today I almost gagged at the egg salad someone left in the fridge at work.”

“You didn’t, uh… Take a test, or anything?”

“I bought one, but, I don’t know, I guess I’ve been too scared to take it.”

Another tear comes down and he reaches to clean it up.

“You should have told me sooner”.

Karen sniffs.

“I didn’t want to worry you, maybe it’s nothing.”

“But what if it is… Something? What if you are really pregnant?”

When he says it, she starts crying all over again, and he pulls her back into his arms.

“Hey, hey, listen. It’s ok. Listen to me. We’ll figure it out, it’s gonna be fine.”

“I wanted to tell you only when I was sure”, she says, sobbing lightly, and the freaking out about to happen inside him has to wait.

While he stands there holding her, he takes a minute to think about it. If she really is pregnant, it’s not gonna be easy. None of them are equipped, in any way, to have a baby in a few months. They’re gonna have to make some changes, big changes, fast. He’s not entirely sure he knows how to do this, if he’s capable of doing this.

On the other hand, it’s not the worst thing in the world. He had entertained the idea of having a kid, years ago, but, every day a little more, he walked further away from what he thought a good father should be. Dressing up as the devil and beating up criminals was not, exactly, things that would make it safe for him to welcome a child into the world.

“Come on”, he says, kissing her temple. “Let’s go inside.”

“Do you- Do you want me to take the test?”

He pulls her by the hand and squeezes it a bit.

“Not if you’re not ready.”

“Ok”, she sighs, and his heart tightens at how relieved she sounds. “Thank you.”

He guides her back to bed, and holds her against him. Neither of them, he realizes after a few minutes, will be able to fall asleep anytime soon.

“How would you feel?” she whispers in the silence. “If I really am pregnant?”

“I don’t know”, he answers honestly after a few seconds. “It’s been a long time since I thought about having a kid.” He runs his fingers up and down her back. “What about you?”

She takes a little time to respond.

“I never thought of myself as the mom kind. I’m not sure.”

They lied there on his bed, both wide awake, thinking.

“Would you want me to keep it?” she asks suddenly. “If the test comes back positive?”

He blinks, startled by the question.

“Well. You know I’m a catholic.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes, it is. But… I’d also never ask you to do something you weren’t comfortable with. I’d never force you to go through with it just because-”

“No”, she interrupts. “No, I- I think I’d want to keep it, too.”

He smiled up the ceiling, not really knowing why.

“Ok. That’s one decision down. How many to go?”

Karen falls asleep before him, and her breathing lulls him eventually. He dreams of holding things too tight, but then not tight enough.

.:.

When Karen wakes up, she is feeling somewhat better.

Knowing that Matt won’t freak out eases her mind a bit. But she should have known, what with all the meditating and the lawyer thing and all the martial arts, he’s pretty level headed.

She wakes up and he’s still asleep, his arm thrown around her, hand on her belly. She wonders if it was an accident.

What if she is pregnant? Would that be the worst thing?

Sure, she was not planning for a kid, nor was she preparing for one. At all. Her life was not, in any way, suited for a child.

How would they raise it? Where would they raise it? Would they want to leave New York? Stay in Hell’s Kitchen? Would they even be able to afford it?

“I can hear you thinking”, he says, suddenly, behind her. Glad he was awake, Karen turns around to face him.

“I’ve been doing that a lot”, she whispers back.

“Let me think with you.”

Sighing, Karen places her hand on top of his on her belly.

“Let’s say I really am. We would have to do a lot of change.”

“Like what?”

“Like… I don’t see how a baby would fit in my apartment. Or your apartment, for that matter.”

“A baby is tiny.”

“Yeah, but they come with a lot of shit, Matt. A lot of shit. There has to be a nursery to fit the crib, the clothes, the diapers, the changing station, a stroller, toys-”

“Ok, ok, I get it. There’s a lot of shit.”

Breathing deep, she nods.

“Ok, so we’ll get a new place.”

“Can we afford a new place?”

“You forget your baby daddy is a lawyer. A damn good one at that”, he says, smiling because she’s laughing at the term “baby daddy”. “Trust me, I can get us a good place. You would just have to chose a good one and I’d get it for you.”

Feeling better, she decides to agree with that. Maybe let him take the lead on some stuff.

“Ok.”

“What’s next?”

“Hmm… I guess… Would you like a boy or a girl?”

That pulls a smile out of him, honest and open, and she finds herself smiling in return.

“I don’t know. I think I’d like a mini you. A little trouble maker raising hell wherever she goes.”

“Or a mini you. A tiny ninja dressed in red, beating bad kids up. You could train him to be just like you.”

“Oh, I’ll do that either way. But not exactly like me. Hopefully we’ll be able to raise them as a normal person.”

“Normal is boring.”

“Ok. Slightly weird, just like us.”

Slowly, he makes her feel better. They could figure this out.

“What about names?” he asks while picking a tie for the day.

“Isn’t it a little early to think about that?”

“Hmm. Maybe you’re right. Which one?”

“Right hand”, she picks, zipping her skirt up.

“Would you be ok with baptizing her?” he asks as they exited the building, ready to face the day.

“I don’t see why not. And ‘her’?”

He shrugs, holding her hand as they walk down the street.

“Maybe I’m partial to a girl.”

They walk together to the bakery they usually get coffee, but, today, Karen orders tea. He kisses her goodbye when she has to turn a different corner to go to work, and it’s a little bit harder to let go than usual.

“We’ll have lunch, yeah?” he asks and she nods, sharing his need to be together, at the moment.

Lunch comes and they meet at a small restaurant near his office (the new and improved Nelson and Murdock).

“Foggy would be her godfather”, he muses while they wait for their food.

“And Claire for godmother”, she completes. “I’d feel very safe with that choice. But also… Maybe Trish?”

They eat and talk about what life would be like if they were, indeed, expecting a child.

After work, he picks her up, smiling at her when she exits the building, for once clocking out with the rest of her colleagues.

Once home, when they’re already in bed (there would be no Daredevil-ing tonight), he lies with his ear to her stomach, trying to hear something, anything, different.

“No, I can’t get anything”, he says, finally.

“Well, thank God. It would be weird if you did.”

It was close to midnight when she sits up.

“Ok. Ok, I think I’m gonna take the test, now.”

Matt tries not to pace, but she can tell he’s restless.

“I actually bought two”, she says before the time was up to the result of the first one. “Should I take it, too?”

Yeah, I think you should”, he says in a hurry and she walks back into the bathroom.

One comes out positive. One comes out negative.

Karen sits on the couch with her head in her hands, face hidden, legs shaking.

“We’ll take a blood test tomorrow”, he decides, crouching in front of her, hands taking hers from her head, making her sit up. “We’ll be fine, we’ll know tomorrow.”

She sighs, upset that they didn’t know yet, and he pulls her up for them to go to bed.

“We’ll have to figure out which schools we like pretty quick”, he says to the ceiling, rubbing her back, trying to soothe her enough for her to sleep.

“Didn’t you grow up here? I thought you would know.”

“My school was very shitty. I’d want a better one for her.”

“There you go again”, she says, and he hears the smile. “Her.”

“Mini-Karen”, he muses, closing his eyes, picturing a small little thing giving him trouble.

.:.

“Matt”, she whispers above him, a light hand on his chest, trying to wake him gently.

It almost works. He fell asleep thinking about where he would like to raise a kid, in Manhattan, a nice place with space for them to play. He grips Karen’s hand when he wakes up, trying to sit up, alert, but she presses on his chest to keep him down.

“Is everything ok?” He asks, relaxing back, still holding her hand on his chest.

“Uh, yeah. Listen. I’m not pregnant”, she says as softly as she can.

Fully awake now, he focuses on her.

“You’re not? Did you-”

“I got my period. Not pregnant.”

They stay still for a moment, that information settling in their brains and, it seems, in the room around them. After a few seconds, Matt sits up, pulling her into a hug, and she lets out a long breath, her arm around him.

“That's… That’s good, right?” He asks, feeling strange, feeling… he doesn’t really know.

“I mean”, she starts, sitting by his side, and he notices her hair is washed, she’s been up for a while. “Yes. Isn’t it? We’re not really equipped to have a kid. We never talked about it, we never even… I mean, that’s a huge step for a couple. Would we be ready for something like that?”

She lies down again by his side, and her question was immediately answered inside him: yes.

“Well”, he turns towards her, glad it was the weekend, glad they didn’t really have to get up right away. “I don’t know about you, but if I had to have a kid, I’d want it to be with you.”

She shakes her head, but that smile is there, pulling at the corners of her lips.

“Sweet talker.”

“It’s true, though.”

His forehead is pressed against hers and he runs his hand up and down her back.

Her arm around him, she moves her head to press a kiss on his lips.

“Me too.”

It’s strange. He should feel relieved, and he is. A kid out of the blue like that can be a lot of trouble, and it’s not like he doesn’t have enough of that already.

Still. That little, small, tiny part of him is getting bigger. The part that considered how nice it would actually be, to have a small version of both of them running around, calling him daddy, calling her mommy, learning how to walk and talk and then, when they’re a little older, learning to fight. He would teach her - or him - everything he knows, he would teach his kid to be better than he is, he would work every single day of his life to be a good father.

He wants to be a father.

He wants to be a father and he wants Karen to be his kid’s mother. Suddenly, he wants it more than anything in the world.

When he wakes up the next morning, he hears her in the bathroom, washing her face, but when she picks up the towel, he can smell the tears.

He’s up in a second, walking out of the bedroom, opening the bathroom door.

“Karen”, he says, and she mistakes his urgency for concern.

“It’s nothing.”

He knows what it is. He felt her running her hand over her own belly last night, felt how restless she was when she was supposed to be relieved.

“Karen, listen”. Matt grabs her hands and turns her towards him, feeling excited, feeling scared, feeling nervous that she’s gonna think he’s crazy. “Let’s do it.”

Karen blinks at him and her hands tighten around his.

“Wh-what?”

“Let’s do it. Let’s have a kid.”

She looks at him for a second or two, stunned, and then a sudden huff of laughter comes out of her, she looks away, but then looks back at him, blinking.

He wants to try and convince her. He wants to ask what she thinks. He wants to stop and really think about this. He wants a lot of things, so he does nothing. Just stands there, holding her hands, waiting.

Matt hears it when she decides. Her heartbeat picks up a bit, she bites her lower lip and leans forward, kissing him softly, a press of her lips on his.

Her fingers are still wet from when she washed her face, they’re cold as she raises her hands to weave them inside his hair. Slowly, she leans back, her arms around his neck, his around her.

“Ok.”

[ao3feed-daredevil]

No Love Left to Waste

read it on the AO3 at http://ift.tt/2somzBV

by edourado

Matt finds out Karen is sick.

Words: 3607, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Series: Part 67 of Hell's Kitchen cronicles

Fandoms: Daredevil (TV)

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/M

Characters: Matt Murdock, Karen Page, Foggy Nelson (appearance), Frank Castle (mentioned)

Relationships: Matt Murdock/Karen Page

Additional Tags: karedevil - Freeform, angsty, Oneshot, prompt, sick!Karen

read it on the AO3 at http://ift.tt/2somzBV

[murdock-and-page]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Daredevil (TV) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Matt Murdock/Karen Page, Matt Murdock & Karen Page Characters: Matt Murdock, Karen Page Additional Tags: karedevil - Freeform, Fluff, Ficlet, Romance Series: Part 53 of Hell's Kitchen cronicles Summary:

Matt's bed is a good bed

[ao3feed-fratt]

Adopted

read it on the AO3 at http://ift.tt/2pxr3DK

by edourado

Frank's kids adopt Matt

Words: 1618, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Series: Part 62 of Hell's Kitchen cronicles

Fandoms: Daredevil (TV)

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: Matt Murdock, Frank Castle, Lisa Castle, Frank Castle Jr., with an appearance by, Maria Castle

Relationships: Frank Castle & Matt Murdock, Frank Castle/Matt Murdock

Additional Tags: Fratt - Freeform, Red Castle, Fluff, pure fluff, no drama here, Nobody died, no vigilantes, just fluff

read it on the AO3 at http://ift.tt/2pxr3DK

[edourado]

I'm imagining Karen at university, it's autumn and she's wearing cute sweaters with little wool skirts etc, she's persuaded to go to a pretty rough bar in town, and that's where she meets Him. He seems rough and ready, but when they start dating he's so kind & gentle with her, always encouraging her to finish assignments, walking her to lectures & meeting her from the library at night. I'm starting uni next year & this is a fantasy of mine, perhaps someone might like to write. Love your writing!

Hey Anon! First of all, let me say congrats and good luck with uni next year. Stay away from the 8 AM classes if you can and a regular sleep schedule is going to become a distant fantasy, but you should fight for it. It helps a lot. As does exercising and LOTS of water.

Second of all: you didn’t SAY Frank, but you described and I saw him. So I wrote him.

I hope you like this. Thank you for the prompt, I had fun with it.

A study in black and blue

Josie raises her eyebrows when the door opens and this life size doll walks in.

Usually, the pretty girls that walk through the door are showing either too much boob, too much stomach, or too much leg, maybe all three at once. Or they’re pretty but don’t bother with anything more elaborate than jeans and a coat over a simple t-shirt.

This one has her shiny blond hair up on a neat ponytail, enough makeup to just make you wonder if she was born like this or her cheeks are really that shade of pink, a sweater with a swan wearing a crown, the sleeves rolled up and a skirt that stops a few inches above her knees, her caramel ankle boots rising a little bit above her ankle. The bag slung on her shoulder matches it.

“Hi”, she says to Josie. “Do you know where I can find Foggy? Or Matt?”

“Pool table”, Josie informs, nodding towards the back of the crowded bar.

“Ok, thanks”, she says with a polite smile, and Josie watches as she walks towards two of her regulars, and all the heads that also watch her go.

An hour later, she is coming out of the ladies room, looking at her phone, when she bumps into that one customer that Josie just can’t decide if she likes or not. Frank Castle. He’s polite, never caused any trouble, but the way he always scans the bar, as if assessing the place, or the suspicious black car that drops him or picks him up sometimes makes her wonder.

The blond doll gasps loudly at the drink that spills on her sweater and Castle is quick to apologise. Her big blue eyes are closed, and Josie recognizes the look of someone trying not to explode.

“It’s fine”, she says, short. “I wasn’t looking.”

Frank says something else, but she assures him again that “it’s ok”, turns back around and walks back into the ladies room, no doubt to try and wash the beer out of her sweater.

Josie watches as Castle stands there for a second or two, then turns around and walk to his table, where his friends are clueless to what just happened.

It’s five minutes before blondie comes out, her sweater on her hands, the tank top she was wearing under it showing off a lot of skin.

Now, Josie thinks, shaking her head, she looks like she fits in here.

“Listen”, she suddenly hears, and raises her head. Castle is standing in front of blondie again. “I feel bad for that. Is there something I can do? Like pay for the dry cleaners or something?”

She watches him with her blue eyes for a second, and then shakes her head.

“It was nothing, I washed it out.”

Frank nods.

“Ok. You sure?”

“Yep. Don’t worry.”

“Still”, he says, and looks towards Josie. “Their next round is on me, Josie.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“It’s fine”, he says, reaching for his wallet. “I’ll feel better.”

He pays for all his drinks, plus the round he bought for blondie and Nelson and Murdock. Blondie watches him with a careful look.

“Again, I’m sorry about your sweater.”

And then he is calling on the three friends that were with him. Josie is not sad to see them leave. Frank has never caused trouble, but his friends, she can tell, are just waiting for a chance.

The blond woman - Karen, Josie finds out later - looks at her, questioning, and Josie shrugs, putting the three beers on the counter for her. With a polite smile, Karen picks them up and walks back towards her friends. At least those two Josie knows are nice.

.:.

Matt is punching the sandbag, and feels the sweat running down his brow.

“Left, Murdock, come on”, Frank says, holding the bag for him. He drives his left fist three times into the leather, feeling it move slightly. “Left, left, right.”

Frank is a good guy to train with. He knows they go to the same school, but they don’t take any of the same classes. The met at the gym, and it’s practically the only place they talk, their schedules being so different.

After they’re both done and Matt is unfolding his cane to leave, Frank catches up with him, offering his arm  to him as they both walk out.

“So”, he says after a small talk that Matt could just feel was leading somewhere specific. “You were at Josie’s last Friday, right?”

“Yeah. Why?” he asks, but he’s pretty sure ‘why’.

“There was this girl with you”. Bingo. “I spilled my drink on her.”

“Oh, that was you?” he asked, remembering Karen’s comments on how some stranger almost ruined her brand new Red Valentino sweater. “She was pissed.”

“She was, right? I knew it”, he says. “I offered to pay for dry cleaning, but she brushed me off.”

“Yeah, well. Karen is pretty independent. Not really the ‘letting guys do things for her’ type.”

Frank was silent for a second or two, and Matt could hear the cogs in his head. He had never seen Karen, of course, but just from the reactions she stirred everywhere she went, he could tell she was beautiful. Foggy told him only about a million times. Apparently, Frank was the last one affected by her looks.

He couldn’t really say he was friends with Frank. He was a pretty good guy, from what he could tell, even if he was very closed off. Matt couldn’t blame him, he was, too. The way he carried himself, though, it was almost like a soldier. If he wasn’t so young, Matt would say he was a veteran, or something along these lines.

When Karen shows up for class a week from then, accompanied by Frank, Matt resists the urge to frown.

“Murdock”, Frank greets. “I’ll see you tonight?” he asks, referring to their boxing practice.

“Yeah, sure thing”, he replies, trying to act like him walking Karen to class was not a bit… weird.

“See you around, ma’am”, and then he leaves.

“Hey”, Karen greets, taking his arm, pulling him towards the stairs so they can get to class. “That was the guy, the one who spilled beer on me at Josie’s.”

“Frank was the guy?”

“Yeah. He bumped into me at the coffee shop. Bought my coffee for me. He keeps apologising.”

Matt smiles, thinking that her tone betrays a little excitement.

“Is he cool? Because that night, he looked like he was ready to shoot everyone at the bar if someone rubbed him wrong."

Matt shrugs. “He’s nice enough. I only ever see him at the gym, he has a mean right hook.”

She hums and they walk into their classroom. He wants to ask more, measure the extent of Karen’s interest, but the professor arrives, loud and already spilling content and they’re rushing to open their books and get their notes and Foggy is throwing himself on the seat next to him, panting.

He’ll ask later.

.:.

“Zack, I swear to God”, Trish says, dumping her books on her desk at the school radio station. “if you ask me about Karen Page and Frank Castle again, I’m gonna scream.”

“But it’s just so juicy!” her friend says, holding the papers for the lunch broadcast to his chest. “Have you ever seen Frank Castle walking anyone to class? Have you ever seen him with a girl during the day at all?”

“Honestly, I didn’t know he existed until you started babbling about him."

That’s a lie. She knew he existed. Has seen him more than once running with his shirt off really early in the morning, while she walked to krav maga. He looked good, Frank.

“Are they dating?” Zack asks, in spite of her warnings.

“I told you, I don’t know.”

But she knows. Has seen Karen giggle about him, has heard about the near Red Valentino disaster, had asked her about him, curious herself.

“No, we just have coffee sometimes”, her friend had said, two weeks ago. Now, she had a lot of juicy details about how good of a kisser he was. But she was not about to tell that to anyone.

“Is she still writing that story for us?”

“Yes, it’s due next week.”

“Well, can I ask her when she comes over? Maybe we could start a new social column, or something-”

“Zack, we’re not gonna write gossip about students or staff. This is an University, not high school. Take that idea out of your mind.”

But Zack didn’t really have to ask Karen anything. When Frank started walking her to her classes, hanging out waiting for her classes to finish and walking with his arm around her shoulder, greeting and saying good bye with kisses, the whole school seemed to be watching.

Never have they ever imagined someone as nice and bright as Karen would be dating brooding, scary and mysterious Frank Castle. But there they were.

Honestly, everybody half expected her to end up dating Matt Murdock or Foggy Nelson. But there she was, making Frank show his face outside during the day more and more often.

“No Frank today?” Trish asked when she ran into her on the way to Women and Gender Studies.

“No, he has a free period. Plus”, she said, with a move of her shoulder and a conspiratorial smile, dropping her voice. “He’s pretty tired.”

Trish looked at her and Karen waited.

“Are you just coming from his place?”

She nodded, looking smug and happy.

“Ok. Detour. We need to talk.”

Laughing, Karen let herself be pulled towards their regular coffee shop, where they got lattes and she heard all about Frank’s perfect body and amazing skills.

“Ugh, you bitch”, she said when Karen told her that Frank had, actually, no roommate, and she didn’t really have to keep her voice down.

That night, after Trish finished her shift at the paper and they walked to meet Jessica and Claire for wine, movies and popcorn, they all rolled their eyes when Frank showed up at the library door with his car, asking if they wanted a ride. They climbed in and then watched as Karen kissed him long and slow when he dropped them at Trish’s not so humble abode.

Eventually, they got into the elevator without her, laughing when Karen knocked on the door ten minutes later, no trace of lipstick on her lips.

.:.

When he graduated, she braced herself for an eventual break up.

Considering potential jobs for him, a new apartment, maybe even more interesting people, and her ever present pessimism when it came to relationships, there was always that little voice in the back of her mind telling her that this all could end very soon. She was still halfway through college, her graduation not coming anytime soon, and he was in the “real world”, now. “Real” women were bound to happen to him.

When, six months in, and he was asking her what time she was going to leave the library, so he could pick her up, asking her to come and check new apartments with him, still adjusting his schedule to hers, the voice started to quiet down.

He’s been living in his new apartment - the one he picked because she liked that it was near a park - for another six months, and he’s away for work for a week, when she opens one of his kitchen cabinets and finds a bag of the coffee she likes and he hates. The one from Starbucks, that he says is too weak and “too blended with unnecessary shit”, but she likes the smell of it and the taste of vanilla and the fact that when she drinks it with cream, it’s sweet and the taste lingers in her tongue. He bought it for her, even though it’s expensive and he hates it.

She’s missing him a lot, so she brews herself a cup, strips down to her underwear and sends him a picture of herself in her lingerie, lying in his bed, thanking him for her coffee.

He answers it three hours later, asking if she’s home (and she is, studying), asks for more pictures, tells her what to take off next and then she has phone sex for the first time.

The voice quiets down forever once he comes back, spends two hours making her see some stars on his ceiling, and then still manages to help her study, asking her questions from her index cards and, the next morning, wakes up at seven just to drive her to her 8 AM class, even if he didn’t have to.

Yes. Hush, now, voice.

.:.

Frank had known she was it for him for a while, now. Hadn’t said anything because it was, maybe, too soon, maybe she wasn’t ready, they were both very young, she looks the way she looks and is who she is, maybe she would realize that she’s very out of his league and want to dump him, something.  

Still, he knew.

He was sure when, after Shield promoted him and he started going on the field more often, which meant he had to travel a lot more, she went to pick him up at the airport once with a pitbull. A rescue.

“Happy birthday”, she had said, and he had, honest to God, forgotten it was his birthday.

He didn’t plan to, but he asked her to move in that night, after dinner.

“My place is bigger”, he reasoned when she looked at him with those big blue eyes on the other side of the dinner table. “You’re here all the time, my neighbors like you better than they like me.”

“Are you serious?” she asked, and he got insecure. Maybe she wanted to keep her place, she was a very self sufficient woman, Karen, valued her independence a lot.

He nodded, trying to look casual, but failing. He could feel it in his face.

But she smiled, took a deep breath and nodded, biting the inside of her lip and Frank loved her. He fucking loved her and he doesn’t think he’ll ever stop.

[edourado]

For my friend @handoftheassassin

Adopted

Matt has always known about Frank’s kids. He had met the kids before he met Frank, actually.

That's the thing about hanging out in parks. Kids are bound to happen. Frank Jr happened to Matt on a Saturday while he enjoyed a large cup of coffee and the sun on his face. The small boy had taken the seat by his side, politely asking “is this seat taken?” and immediately engaged him in conversation.

Matt had smiled, wondering if the child was aware of the “stranger danger” rule. Not that he was dangerous to the boy, but this is New York. Crazy people all around.

Frank would always smile and kiss him when they remembered that story.

“You didn't even know him, already you were parenting.”

Lisa had come after, telling her brother he was supposed to be looking for pebbles, and then, to Matt, “hello. I'm Lisa.”

Frank appeared a moment later, apologizing to him, a strict tone with his children, “what did I say about running off?”

Lisa ended up asking if she could draw Matt’s face, and he laughed, said “sure” while Frank told her not to bother him, but Matt assured him it was fine.

When the fact that he was blind became evident to the kids, Lisa took it upon herself to describe his own face to him while working on his portrait.

“You're very handsome, Matt”, she had said matter of factly and both him and her father laughed.

“Thank you, Lisa”, he had said. “Can you describe your face to me? I'm curious.”

When she told him about her blond hair and her green eyes and her freckles and her nose, he said she was very beautiful and she giggled, and thanked him.

It was while she did a very good job of describing her father’s face to him, was that he noticed the man’s eyes scanning his face.

“My dad is very handsome, too, all my teachers think so. I heard them talking”, the girl said.

“You did?” Frank asked, surprised, taking his eyes off Matt to look at his daughter.

“Yes”, she said, like it was no big deal. “Miss Marks said she could just eat you up. But wouldn't that make her a cannibal?”

“Ok”, interrupted Frank while Matt tried not to laugh. “How about we change-”

“And Miss Leelo said she thinks you look like a brute.”

“Oh my God.”

“And that she likes that idea. What's a brute, daddy?”

“When- where did you- how did you hear all that?”

Matt felt Lisa shrugging and then hopping off Frank’s lap to run around with her brother and the dog that had been lying at their feet.

“God”, Frank had said, chuckling, still sitting next to Matt. “What just happened?”

“She sounds very, very smart”, he commented, all his focus on the man sitting by his side. It's been less than an hour, but he could already say he agreed with Lisa’s teachers.

“I thought I was in the clear after the terrible twos.”

They ended up spending the whole afternoon together. From the park they went for a hot dog, and then to another bench, and then another park.

When they said goodbye, Matt sort of had a date.

With Frank, his kids and his dog, to a different park, the next weekend.

When, finally, they were able to meet without the small chaperones, Matt could read all that was going on in Frank’s body, and he smiled when he felt the two eyes intent on his face.

When Frank kissed him, it was after he insulted Matt’s coffee choice. They were in his apartment, with the excuse that Frank was going to borrow Matt’s boxing gloves until Frank got new ones for himself.

“It's not bad” he had said after the first taste. “But these fancy machines can only do so much.”

“And here I thought Nespresso was the best of the best.”

“Stick with me, Red”, he said, using the nickname he came up with because of the color of the lenses of his glasses. “And you'll never have another mediocre cup of coffee in your life.”

Matt had smiled, said he was taking him up on that, and then Frank took two steps towards him, planting his mouth on his, hand on the back of his neck, fingers inside his hair, making him shiver.

Matt did stick with him. And Frank kept his promise: only the best coffee from then on.

.:.

One month in, Matt met his ex-wife.

“Ah, the famous Matt my kids seem to adore” said Maria, shaking his hand. “Nice to finally put a face to the stories.”

“Mom!” exclaimed Frank Jr. “Did you know he can fight?!”

“Yes, baby, you told me.”

“He's really good. He's teaching me.”

“Oh, that reminds me”, she said, turning back to Matt. “I don't know how to thank you enough for the meditation thing. I swear, it worked wonders.”

“I'm glad it helps”, he said, feeling Frank’s arm on the back of his chair.

“Oh, it does. Bed time used to be such a fight, now it’s a breeze”

He was glad to have a good relationship with Maria. At first, he imagined it would be hard, to date a man with two kids and an ex wife, but he got lucky. Frank was the most difficult out of the four of them, with his temper and short, short fuse.

Two months and the school’s schedule was in Matt’s planner. He would pick them up on Thursdays and Fridays, sometimes with Frank, sometimes by himself.

“Oh my goodness”, he heard Frank Jr’s teacher say under her breath when she spotted him once, all the way across the playground that separated the door from the sidewalk where Matt was waiting. “Where can I find me one of those?”

He tried to keep the smile in, but Frank Jr politely and innocently answered, offering an excited “at the park!” to the rhetorical question he had overheard. “That's where we met.”

Matt pretended to be coughing in his hand in order to mask the smile that broke out.

“Oh!” Exclaimed the teacher, blushing. “That's nice, Frankie!”

If he was extra charming just to make the teacher blush a little more, nobody could tell.

.:.

After they moved in together, the place was a mess for a while. That first week, they both took Friday off work to sort out the unending number of boxes piled around the apartment. Until, after an entire morning and part of the afternoon, Frank had enough.

“Shit”, he said, dropping a lamp he had no idea why he had bought, let alone brought to the new place, back in its box. “I can't do this anymore. I'm fucking done for the day.”

Matt sighed, tired himself.

“Listen”, Frank said, sitting by his side on the floor, hand on the back of his neck, guiding Matt's face to his for a lingering kiss. “You're picking up the kids today, right?”

Matt nodded.

“How about I go with you?”, he kept interrupting himself, kissing and kissing and kissing and Matt smiled. “We’ll pick them up and then… I don't know… we’ll get some air?”

Matt let himself be kissed, angling his head, opening his mouth, hand pulling on the buckle of Frank’s belt. He nodded.

“How long do we have?”

Frank looked at his watch and came back to his mouth with renewed gusto, advancing on him until Matt was lying on the floor.

“Hour and a half.”

Christen the new living room: check.

Frank was sipping his usual coffee, talking to the dad of one of Lisa’s classmates about how they both missed their motorcycles, holding on to Max’s leash, when Matt heard Lisa’s excited voice coming down the hallway, the door still closed.

“And who’s picking you up today?” Asked the teacher.

“My dad”, the girl had said, simply, but Matt’s heart did something funny inside his chest and he found himself smiling.

She meant him. Had known he was picking her up by himself, thought Frank was going to be putting her new bed together.

“Oh!” She said when she saw both of them. “They're both here!”

Half an hour later, he was sitting at the outside table of the new burger place by the Hudson River while Frank taught the kids how to throw a baseball at the small grass field a few paces away.

“Ok, sir, here we go”, said the waitress, arriving with a tray full of food. “I got two double bacon cheeseburgers”.

“Yes, that’s his”, he said, pointing to the empty seat next to his, where Frank would sit.

“Alright”, she placed the two burgers on the table, in front of the empty chair. “One double, no bacon and no pickles?”

“That's mine.”

“Now…”, she read the check. “One chicken, salad and extra sauce?”

“My daughter”, he found himself saying without even thinking about it, that feeling in his heart spreading in his chest again.

“And… one single, bacon and cheese?”

“My son.”

His throat was not closing. He was just thirsty, that's all.

“Right. I'll pick up the rest. Five fries and four chocolate shakes, right?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“You're welcome. I'll be back in a minute.”

When she did come back, Frank and the kids were already at the table, digging in, talking over each other, exchanging bites and stealing fries, Lisa asking Matt to open her ketchup packet for her, sitting on his lap just because, head resting on his chest while she ate her chicken burger, tired, eyes far away at the water, and he wondered if it was now, a month ago or at that first meeting that he became a father.

[edourado]

Karedevil prompt: OK, this just came to me this morning, with winter descending upon us and me trying to fight off a cold; I've read several "Karen takes care of Matt while he's sick" fics, but I'd love to see a "Matt takes care of (or at least attempts to) Karen".

Hello, Anon. Yes, I’m aware that winter has come and gone for you (I’m assuming). But here I am, and here it is, your prompt, finally. 

It took an angsty turn. I’m sorry, I know you were hoping for fluff, and I fully intended to write it, but there, out of nowhere, I had ten pages of angsty stuff. Hope you like it, anyway. 

Enjoy, and thanks for your prompt ♥

No Love Left to Waste

Matt knew that he deserved what he got from Karen and Foggy these days. 

Everything that had happened that year was complicated. The presence of Elektra made him do some pretty stupid shit, like lying to his business partner and secretary, legal assistant, girlfriend. His friends. Yes, there was a ton of shit within himself he had to sort out.  Yes, Elektra did help him realise that he could not keep what he had going on up for much longer. Yes, everything was a mess. 

Yes, he fucked up. And no, it was not Foggy’s fault. Nor was it Karen’s.

He understood she needed time. She was not as mad as she had been, initially, once he explained, once he told her, once he came clean. She was hurt - didn’t tell him, but he could feel it. He felt it every time she moved or spoke or blinked or swallowed or tried to hide it.

She was not mad, but she was not too happy, either. They talked, she helped him, he helped her, she even smiled here and there. But it was still so strange, there was this huge gap that wasn’t there before.

That’s why he understood when he had to find out through Foggy that she was sick as a dog, caught too many times under the harsh winter weather.

“Why do you smell like chicken?” he had asked Foggy when they met in his fancy office on Wednesday, after hours.

“Oh”, he said, typing on his office computer. “I took some soup to Karen at lunch. She’s super sick, poor thing. Oh, shit, I’m in. I’m hacking my office. No big deal.”

They went to work after that, collecting important information Matt needed (well, Jessica needed), counting the minutes until the cameras started working again.

Almost two hours later, they walked out, Matt waving his cane around and holding Foggy’s arm, for the security guard’s benefit. No way the new goofy, technologically challenged and harmless looking guy and his blind friend had anything to do with the cameras powering down, right?

“So Karen’s sick?” he asked once they reached the sidewalk.

“Yeah”, Foggy confirmed. “I told her to take care of herself, but you know that one. Once she sets her mind on something…” 

Matt tried not to be obvious about the fact that he didn’t know about that.

“How you guys doing?” Foggy asked and Matt raised his brows, sighing.

“Ok, I guess.”

”Yeah, sure, that totally sounds true.”

“I don’t know, man”, he said. “I told her everything, she had a bunch of questions, I did my best to answer them, she understood. It’s just…”

“Not the same.”

“Yeah. And she’s not, like, lying to me or pushing me away or anything, but she’s… Closed off.”

They walked a few steps further.

“I think she needs some time, man. It’s a lot to process, what with Elektra and what happened between you guys and everything…”

“Yeah”, he said, feeling the wind pick up and sting his face. “Yeah, I know.”

Foggy got in a cab and Matt got in another. After giving his address to the driver, he sat back and thought about his current situation with Karen.

He knew, of course he knew, that seeing Elektra in his bed stung. And, after he told her and explained why she was there, it didn’t make it any better. Karen is an intelligent woman. She did not ask him further about their involvement, just took what he offered and that was enough for her to reach her own - the right - conclusions.

“We were not…” he had told her. “We were not involved, Karen, not anymore. She had been poisoned, Stick had just saved her life.”

She had stood there, hip against the empty office window, arms crossed, looking at him, thinking about it, not mad, not angry, listening, but closed off, reserved, hurt, she was still very hurt.

“I believe you”, she said when he started promising her he was telling the truth.

And, his senses always so sharp, he heard what she didn’t say.

“I actually don’t.”

And maybe his senses were super humanly sharp, but, in that moment, he wondered if Karen‘s were, too, since, even as he did not tell her of all the intimate moments he had shared with Elektra these past few months (the decoy kiss, the innuendos, the jokes, the mapping of each other’s scars, plans of running away together), she seemed to see them, to watch those moments as he remembered them.

Since then, that tension remained. For the rest of their talk, all throughout their next ones, even when she tried to act like it was OK, when he tried to tell himself he was imagining it.

Almost a year later and it was still there. And now she was sick,enough to miss work and enough to make Foggy use his lunch break to get her soup.

The cab left him in front of his building, and he climbed the stairs and walked through his own door in a haze.

A year ago, he would not have to find out by someone else. A year ago, he would have heard it in her voice, felt the extra heat of her skin, he would have known just by being in her presence.

Now, he didn’t know because she kept their contact to a minimum. And he couldn’t blame her, but accepting it was proving to be a challenge, too.

He changed into casual clothes and walked out again, hoodie over his head, hiding his face.

When Matt got to the corner of her street, he walked towards the alley that gave him access to her fire escape.

It didn’t take long for him to locate her. Her apartment was quiet, there was no movement, aside from her laboured breathing. She was in bed, surrounded by an armour made of blankets and pillows, almost fully asleep.

Matt thought about taking the main entrance, climbing the stairs and knocking, giving her the chance to refuse him. But she was warm in her bed, all tucked in, he didn’t want to make her move.

After that conclusion, the obvious, sound, right call would be for him to leave, call her tomorrow. But he was here and he could hear her and, he realized, his chest ached with her absence.

When he got to her window, he almost smiled. It was cracked open, a thin gap letting frigid air inside. She had been taken so many times, so many people have come for her, and here she was, leaving her window open while she lied there in her bed, ready for plucking.

Or, he noticed while opening it and swinging a leg inside, maybe not so ready. There was a gun inside her bedside table drawer, fully loaded.

Even if Matt couldn’t smell traces of gunpowder and strong coffee, he could smell Frank Castle’s influence.

Walking in and closing the window, he stood in place for a few seconds, debating if he should leave, if he should stay, if he should let her know he was there.

When she let out a series of sneezes and a moan-like little cry, he swallowed and walked to her, until he was sitting on the edge of her bed, with her facing him, lying on her side, wrapped in her blankets like a fat burrito.

Matt took his hand to her hair and almost sighed when the strands moved against his fingers and his palm. He missed that feeling so much.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, groggy, half asleep, softly, after opening her eyes slowly.

“I heard you were sick”, he said, something in his chest tightening, he missed her so much. “Wanted to see if you were ok.”

Sniffing, Karen didn’t move or protest when his hand went to her face, thumb tracing her features.

“You shouldn’t leave your window open”, he said, something like warm water running inside him, relief, maybe, that she wasn’t kicking him out.

Her eyes closed, Karen chuckled.

“Frank said the same thing.”

He knew Frank had been there. By the feel of it, he was a regular visitor. But hearing her talk about him so casually, confirming what he already knew, it almost physically hurt him.

He was jealous, Matt realized.

“Was he the one that gave you the gun?” he asked, trying not to betray his feelings, his thumb still caressing her face.

“No, that’s mine”, she said, taking a hand from inside her blanket cocoon and wiping her nose with a crumpled tissue. “He just brought me a new box of bullets.”

He had a thousand things he wanted to say to that. Most of them, he knew very well, were just out of jealousy.

He knew Frank well, by now. Knew what he had done for her, how he had saved her, knew he was not dangerous to her. But the urge to go off and tell her to stay away from Frank at all times was there, on the tip of his tongue, because he’s dangerous, he’s unpredictable, unstable, his enemies are dangerous and powerful, she could become a target, he could-

“He made me a shitload of soup”, she said, hiding her face inside her blankets right after, a fit of cough overtaking her. “Shit, I hate this”, she said, and Matt couldn’t think about the extent of her relationship with Frank right now - he had no right to think about it.

“Have you been to a doctor, Karen?”

“It’s just a cold”, she said, rubbing her nose. “I don’t need a doctor.”

Sighing, Matt reached inside his pocket for his phone. He would much rather call Claire, but he took up so much for her free time as it was, and he knew she was busy with Luke tonight, one of Rand’s hires would have to do.

Karen complained when the doctor answered the phone and Matt asked if she could do a house call. She insisted that she didn’t need to see anyone, reaching out for more tissues, coughing and sneezing, freezing.

“You have a fever, Karen”, he said, hand on her forehead, so glad she didn’t bat it away. “It’ll be quick.”

He stood there while the older doctor examined her, stethoscope to her chest and back, measuring her temperature, asking questions.

“She needs a lot of rest, regular intake of fluids and healthy food”, she told Matt. “This is a prescription for some pills, the ones she’s taking won’t do much good”, she handed him the piece of paper. “Make sure she’s warm, but  you should let some air in.”

“Thank you, doctor”, he said, walking the woman to the door.

Matt closed the door and turned around to walk back to Karen’s bedroom. He found her sitting in bed, the covers away from her, the window open again.

“This is not helping, you know?” he said, walking to it and closing it, leaving the bare minimum for some air to come and ventilate the place.

“I don’t- she said, moving to get her hair out of her face. “I don’t feel comfortable. My body hurts.”

“I know”, he said, walking to her bed, not really knowing what to do.

What he wanted to do was sit by her and wrap her in his arms, touch her head to his chest and not let go of her until she felt better. But, given her aforementioned lack of comfort, cuddling him would be the very last thing she wanted to do.

“Are you hungry?” he asked instead and she sighed, annoyed.

“No. But I have to eat, I guess.”

“You do”, he said, moving to help her up, and it was such a small thing, but he wanted to smile when she accepted his hand. “We’ll warm up some of Foggy’s chicken soup”, he tried joking, lifting her from her bed slowly.

“Frank ate that”, she said, and he could swear he heard a hint of a smile in her voice. “Said he knew Foggy meant well, but ‘store bought shit it’s only gonna make you sicker’.”

“And then he made you soup?” Matt asked, trying not to betray annoyance.

“Yes. Like a ton of it.”

It was, indeed,  in a huge pot over her stove, and it actually smelled pretty nice. It was, Matt assessed, lukewarm.

He actually opened his mouth to ask if Frank did this a lot. Came in and made himself at home at her apartment, or if he cooked for her a lot. Ask what else he did. He doubted she would dignify his questions with answers, so he just closed it again.

“If you want to eat in bed, I can take it for you”, he offered after she groaned to sit on one of the kitchen chairs.

“Yeah, ok.”

Turning around, she walked out of the kitchen, sneezing twice on her way back to bed.

He took a bowl full of - surprisingly rich - soup for her, sitting at the foot of the bed while she ate. When he came back from the kitchen a second time, with a glass of water for her, he found her asleep, her breathing heavy and her skin still too warm.

MInutes later and he was closing the door after himself, running downstairs to the first drug store he could find to get her pills, along with some chocolate things he knew she liked. When he came back, she was still sleeping.

“Karen”, he called softly, a hand on her forehead, moving some hair away from her face. “You have to take your pills.”

“Hmm”, was all she said, before sniffing and going right back to sleep.

Sighing, Matt opened the boxes and had all the four pills she needed to take in his hand when he tried again.

“Karen. Come on, just take your pills and then you can go back to sleep.”

She took a deep breath and moved her arm from inside her blankets, asking for the pills, blinking. He gave her one by one, and she took sips of water to swallow them, and then turned around to go back to sleep when she was done.

“Can you dim the lights?” she asked. “It’s too bright.”

There was only one lamp on, on the bedside table near her window. Matt walked to it and switched it off, leaving the room in complete darkness - not that it mattered to him.

Walking outside to refresh her glass of water, he rested his hands on the counter and took a deep breath.

She doesn’t seem to mind having him in her space. Yes, being sick is taking up most of her attention, but given Karen’s history, he would think she’d put up some sort of fight. Maybe things are finally starting to go back to normal, they can go back to their normal, maybe they can-

Maybe…

Maybe him being there is of no consequence to her. Maybe the way things ended between them didn’t bother her anymore because she was over it. Maybe she didn’t have time to think about it, with Frank Castle stopping by and making her soup and going with her to meet a source for one of her stories or lingering around her long enough Matt could smell traces of her perfume on him when they met, sometimes, on random rooftops.

Maybe.

Even while he told himself not to do it, he focused on the inner walls of her apartment, on the traces left in the carpet, looking for signs that another pair of shoes walked around, looking for bigger clothes in her coat closet, looking for something that didn’t belong, looking for something.

He found plenty, but not enough.

There was a box of bullets, sealed, but she had told him Frank brought it for her. There was a first aid kit stocked with enough medicine and equipment to put a few nurses to shame. There was a dog leash inside a bag, and Matt does not remember Karen owning a dog.

Still. That proved nothing. And, even if it did, why was it any of his business.

With his attention back inside her bedroom, Matt listened and moved to make her a warm cup of tea. She was about to wake up.

Just in time, she started coughing when he was halfway to her bedroom again. 

After taking a few sips, Karen placed the cup on the bedside table and lied on her side, facing him, who sat on the floor by her bed.

She looked at him for a while and he felt her eyes wandering his face.

“Why are you here, Matt?” she asked, voice so small.

There were many answers to that. “Because you’re sick”, “Because I was worried”, “Because I miss you”. None of those, however, were the whole truth. 

“Because I lost you”, was what he said, sitting there on her floor, his back against the cold wall, glad the apartment was dark, so she couldn’t really see him that well. “And it’s killing me

The “I don’t care” he said to Elektra when she expressed being sorry he lost everything rang loud in his ears, and he wondered again if Karen couldn’t read his mind.

She stayed silent for another few seconds and he could swear her eyes were drilling holes in his skin. 

“I lost you first.”

Matt felt his breathing changing, that something inside his chest tightening again.

“And it killed me, too. Because I didn’t know why it was happening.”

He didn’t need evidence of all that had gone wrong with them, he knew it all. Hearing her say it was not any easier because of it, though.

“That’s because you didn’t have me, then”, he admitted. “Not all of me.”

He wanted to move, to get up from the floor and climb in bed with her, hold her tight to him, make up for all the time they lost, all that time he could have had her, they could have had each other.

“Frank said I loved you”, she whispered and it was like a small, tiny electric shock inside him. “And maybe I thought I did. I don’t know.”

His hands closed in fists around nothing, but when she moved to get another sip of her tea, it unlocked him from his immobile state against the wall.

“There’s too much we don’t know about each other”, she continued. “Even if I did love you, it wasn’t the real you. Maybe it was the idea of you.”

When she placed the mug back down, he was sitting with his arm supported on her mattress, his chin on top of his own hand, and her face was close to his when she lied back down.

“I loved the idea of you, too”, he said, running the tip of his fingers on her hair, like he always wanted to do, always, always, since day one. “I didn’t take the time to know you for real. Only what you made me feel.”

She sighed and went on looking at his face in the dark.

“It wasn’t just you”, she said, so small, almost afraid. “I didn’t tell you a lot of things.”

He wanted to ask why not, but he felt as if his voice would shatter the spell.

“I don’t know if you would be able to love the real me”, she said, almost as if it was a secret, her voice small and tight.

His whole body ached to hold her, to wrap his arms around her and not let go anymore, for anything.

Instead, he just sat there on her floor, his fingers on her hair, trying to fix his life.

“The parts of you I know, I already love”, he said and it felt more like a confession than anything he had ever said in church.

“Is that why you’re here?” Karen asked again, taking his hand from her hair, wrapping her fingers around his palm.

Matt nodded, closing his eyes, resting his face against her mattress, silently asking for everything.

“And because I want to love all of you.”

After a moment, she moved and he raised his head.

“Come here.”

Slowly, he got up from the floor and slipped in bed with her. She kept a small distance, a gap between them, to be closed later, if they so decided.

“Remember when I told you about my brother?” she started, and Matt nodded, listening, his whole focus right there, everything beyond the limits of her bed, forgotten and ignored.

.:.

When he woke up, it was morning, the day was happening outside, loud and fast and cold. Karen had her face tucked in his chest, wrapped around her blankets, his arms tight around her, his chin resting at the top of her head.

She had told him a lot about her. About who she was, what had happened to her, what she had done, cried (even when she tried not to) and he had finally surrendered to that urge to press her to him, to hold and protect her from everything, that urge that she always rejected, she didn’t need his protection, but it was there, inside him, nonetheless.

Checking his wristwatch, there was still half an hour to go before she had to take her pills again. He should get up to get her some food, heat up the stupid soup Frank had made, make her eat.

Settling on the decision of five more minutes, he ran a hand on her hair one more time, that certainty inside of him intensifying with every passing second.

He loved all of her.

[edourado]

A prompt for you to do whatever you please with it: "Don't you dare run away from me again". Thanks, love. ❤️❤️❤️

Bitten by the Kastle Inspiration bug? Me? What a notion. 

Thank you for that prompt, Anon. ope you like it. 

By my side

It’s a month before she sees him again.

She knows where he is, and what he’s doing. Frank has a knack for staying in the news, his trail of dead mob bosses and maimed petty criminals makes it impossible to not be aware of him. And he’s always with Matt, be it brawling at night or working together here and there.

Still. He keeps his distance from her.

During that whole first week, Karen picked up the phone countless times, opened the door to go to him, angry and more hurt than she cared to admit. Every time, she put the phone down, closed the door. Let go.

Because, as much as it angered and hurt her, she had to understand that Frank is a complicated man. It’s not like he’s a player, some casanova, some boy with petty lies and an attitude. Since the first moment she met him, before even, Karen knew that.

And, even when he made her smile less than an hour after his enemies decided to redecorate her apartment with bullets, even when he looked at her in a way that made her think he was reading every thought inside her mind, she never intended to become closer to him, to become his friend, his source, his… anchor? Is that what he had said?

So, she waited. Breathed in and out, willed herself to be patient. And even started coaching herself into accepting that there was a possibility that she might never see him again.

It was unlikely, she knew him by now. Still, she considered it.

A month and a week later, give or take, she actually managed to go to bed in a reasonable hour. Got home from work, made a point to not turn the TV, cooked herself dinner, soaked in the bath for a while, got into her PJ’s and turned off the lights.

She was half asleep when she heard the window crack. The first thought in her mind was that it was Matt, looking for information, checking in on her. It wouldn’t be the first time. And he had a talent for coming in when she couldn’t or was unwilling to talk to him.

It wasn’t Matt.

She saw the shotgun before she saw him. His big hand wrapped around the barrel, the sleeve of his heavy coat. Then, his heavy boot, careful not to touch her carpet - he was always careful about not staining her place, removing his shoes and placing them on the fire escape before getting up.

It wasn’t different this time. He sat on the floor and she saw him unlace first one boot, then another, place them outside the window and then close it. All the while, she didn’t move, remaining with the covers over herself, watching him.

Frank put the gun down silently, not looking in her direction until he finished folding his coat and putting it on top of the deadly weapon he carried as if it were part of him, on the corner of the room, under the reading chair she had bought and was yet to read on.

Boots neatly tucked outside, gun and coat under the chair, he got up, finally looking in her direction, his expression softening when he met her eyes. Slowly, he got up and walked towards her bed, slowly, and she knew he was giving her time to stop him, if she wished.

And she considered. Maybe make it a bit hard for him. Tell him no, he didn’t get to look at her the way he did, kiss her the way he did, undress her with such reverence it made her shudder just as much as his lips on her skin, disappear on her and then come back whenever he felt like it.

But she didn’t say anything, just lied there, holding the covers to her chin, her toes wiggling at the sight of him.

Slowly, he got close, sat on the mattress, on the same side he had slept on, and lied down next to her, looking at her, and she saw all the yearning and the hesitation in his face, along with that thing that looked a lot like adoration.

“Hi”, he said, like a boy who knew he was about to be scolded. She would laugh at the notion that the Punisher was afraid of her if she wasn’t so mad and relieved at the same time.

“Where have you been?”

He sighed, shaking his head, closing his eyes for a long moment before looking back at her, adjusting his head on the pillow.

“I was trying to do the right thing. I know!” he said, interrupting her when she opened her mouth to call bullshit. “I know. I should have… Fuck. I’m sorry.”

Karen realized that she had closed her hands in tight fists around the covers she still held to her chin. Relaxing them, she swallowed and let out a silent huff of breath, looking at him.

“I don’t know what I’m doing”, he whispered. “I don’t know if I should stay away from you, because it’s dangerous, or if I should keep you by me, because it’s safer.”

And then he broke her. Her resolve, her anger, her frustration, the will to punch him in the face.

“But I’m pretty sure there’s no safer place for you then by my side.”

Suddenly, there was a lump in her throat and she was removing a hand from inside her warm blanket cocoon, reaching for his face, trying to stop a shiver from running up and down her body when he closed her eyes and leaned into her touch, pressing a kiss to her palm.   

“Don’t you dare run away from me again”, she said, holding onto that last shred of anger. “Because if you do, I swear I’ll kill you myself.”

His lips curved into a slow, lazy smile that had no right to be charming, but it was.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I mean it, Frank. If you disappear again I’ll drop from the face of the Earth and you’ll never see or hear from me again.”

While she said it, he pulled the covers from her and over both of them, pulling her until she had her face tucked in the crook of his neck. Breathing in, she moved until she had her body intertwined with his, his strong arm around her, big hand running up and down her back.

“You should take a shower”, she said, letting him lift her face and accepting the kiss he pressed to her lips.

“Yes”, he said, taking his shirt off, moving to lie on top of her, and her hands dropped to undo his belt. “In a minute.”

[edourado]

Karedevil prompt: five things that make you happy.

Ok. Finally! I got it! 

How long have I been promising you a prompt? I’m sorry, my writing process is a beeaatch, but here it is. 

Hope you like it! 

(There’s more Karedevil coming. I’m in a good writing spree)

Five Things

Truth

Of course she worries. And of course she has one eye on the clock and one on the news every hour that he is out with his mask on. That’s a given. Even Matt stopped telling her not to worry. He just kisses her and promises to be back.

And he was true to his word, mostly. Sometimes it took him a while. Sometimes she would go to sleep and wake up and there would be no sign of him. Sometimes she would wait up for him until the sun was up. Sometimes she would leave for work without knowing where he was.

But, at least, every time, he called. And when he couldn’t, he explained. No half truths, no “I’ll explain later”, no secrets. He didn’t keep anything from her anymore. He told the truth and it made her feel good. It made her feel like she could trust him. Because sometimes she still had doubts. Every time he sighed and spent a few seconds in silence when she asked, she braced herself. But, now, he always set himself and spoke. The truth. No matter how hard it was, how mad it was going to make her, no matter how worried she would be when he showed her the new cuts and the new bruises. Even when it made her cry. He would hold her and kiss her and tell her he’s ok, he would promise to be careful. Sometimes they would fight.

But he would always tell the truth.

And that made her breathe in, let go of the momentary anger, put her hands on his face and kiss him, thanking whatever God he was loyal to for his safety, that he returned to her, bruised and wounded, but he came back.

And Karen would always be grateful for that. And she would make a point to make sure he knew just how grateful she was that he did not lie anymore.

.:.

Presence

She sees it all the time. The people at the office complaining about having to attend anniversary dinners with their significant others when there was not enough time, there was too much work, they were tired.

And it’s not that Karen judged them. She understands, sometimes there is so much to do, it can be overwhelming. And she knows, that that honeymoon phase, that made her and Matt want to spend every free minute glued to each other, it was not forever. It was going to phase, eventually.

But, for now, she couldn’t relate too much. For now, she would count down the minutes until she could turn the computer off and leave the office, take the first cab available and drive to his place or run home and wait for him there.

Even when she had to wait for him at the restaurant when they both had energy to go out, when he called apologising, that he was going to be late, but he would be there soon, she would still smile, still roll her shoulders and take another look at the menu, trying to anticipate what he would order.

And when he came in, bending to kiss her and pulling his seat from the other side of the table to sit by her side, his arm around her back, asking about her day, and she could see the fresh bruise under his glasses, or the split skin of his knuckles.

Matt is busier than the average boyfriend. Her career took up a lot of her time, too, but he was a very special kind of lawyer, working both for the people who cannot afford to pay him and for people who can (he has to survive somehow, and New York is not a cheap city to live in), plus his night activities, with people like him, special in their own personal way, fighting, giving their all to protect those who did not ask for their help or knew they needed it. It’s safe to say his schedule is more than full.

So it filled her heart with a feeling it was almost alien, an euphoria, a giddiness and a warmth that spread all over when she saw him running, trying, making an effort, refusing to reschedule on her, when he fell asleep with his head on her lap while she watched that movie that has been on her Netflix list for so long instead of falling asleep in bed, just because he wanted to be with her.

“Hi, sorry, sorry, I’m so sorry”, he would say, placing hurried kisses on her lips, hurrying to change out of his work clothes so they could go out for drinks, for a walk, for food. And she would try not to sigh, and yes, of course she wanted to go out, see the city, enjoy her boyfriend and her time with him.

But sometimes, just the fact that he was still willing to, after a hard day, even when he was limping, even bone tired as he would be, that was enough. So she would stop him from putting a fresh shirt on, hold him, kiss him until he let out that breath that she knew was holding him up.

“We can go out another time”, she would say.

And, of course, stubborn man, Matt Murdock, he would argue.

“No, I’m fine, we should go. We have to eat anyway.”

Karen was stubborn, too.

“Matt. You can barely stand up straight.”

“Karen-”

“No. Don’t even try using your lawyer voice with me, it’s not gonna work.”

He raised his brows.

“My lawyer voice?”

“Yes, your ‘I have a good argument’ voice. It’s not gonna work. You’re tired. And even you, Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, have to sleep.” WIth one more kiss to his lips and a hand to his hair, nails massaging his scalp, because she knew it relaxed him. “You’re not really the devil, you know?”

A chuckle, a hand on her back, bringing her closer to him.

“There are some people that swear otherwise.”

Pulling away, she took his shirt from him and hung it back in it’s designated place in his closet and he didn’t need to hug her to his chest to make her smile. Just the fact that he tried, that he was willing to go out again, just to make her happy, just because he knew she wanted to, it was enough.

“The devil couldn’t love me as much as you do.”

He chuckled in her hair and she turned around to face him again, removing his glasses.

“Indian?”

He shook his head.

“I was thinking Italian. Chelsea Market. Cappone’s?”

“Hmm. Yeah. Good idea. Not tonight, though. Tomorrow. Or whenever you’re not half asleep already.”

Holding her by the back of her neck, he kissed her like he wanted to start something, and she let him, for more than a few seconds, enjoying his hands and his body and the noises he was making. When he took a step back towards his bed, though, she resisted.

“You get ready for bed. I’ll bring you your Italian food. Homemade pasta.”

Oh, she loved that smile.  

“My own private chef?”

“That’s right, counselor. And, if you manage to stay awake until after dinner, your own private masseuse, too.”

“Hmm”, he said, suddenly becoming handsy and bolder. “Are you trying to seduce me into submission?”

“Yes”, a bite on his bottom lip, full and red, always so distracting. “And it’s working.”

“It is.”

“Then go do as I said, and I’ll fix your dinner.”

She pushed him into the bed, giggling as he tugged on her wrist, untangling before he could really pull her there with him, walking towards the kitchen to work on the quick pasta she was becoming an expert in preparing.

He didn’t wait for her in bed. Preferred to listen to her moving around in his kitchen, leaning on the counter, asking her to walk him through what she was doing.

Once they were done eating, he promised he would take care of the dishes. “Tomorrow.” Pulling her into bed with him, Matt sighed while she perched on top of him to massage his muscles before going to sleep. It was something she liked to do for him - but it was also an excuse to run her hands all over him and not have that smug grin appear on his face.

On the next day, she heard him refusing a meeting with Jeri Hogarth, that big shot lawyer that Foggy worked with and had ties to Jessica Jones and Danny Rand. Because he had promised her to go out for dinner.

And Karen smiled. Even if dinner was in Chelsea Market, eating Italian subs while standing up, paper bags on the high table next to the window, Karen loved it. Because he was there. And he wanted to be.

.:.

Joy

It’s not a new thing, to laugh when she’s with them. Their history started while she shook with fear and uncertainty, and they made their best to keep her safe. Matt and Foggy made themselves her family.

So her heart soars every time she sees them being friends again.

It took a while, after the death of Nelson & Murdock, for them to talk again. But, Foggy working now where he worked and Matt doing what he did, life forced them together eventually. It was painful, it was awkward, it even made her cry once or twice. But, slowly, they started making their way back to normal.

And she loves, she just loves seeing them teasing each other again, laughing together, sometimes working together, trading information, even arguing, when trying to take the other out of harm’s way.

“Ok, on three.”

“On three of after three?”

“On three, Foggy, or I would have said ‘on four’.”

They’re helping her put her new place back together (they all agreed she should move after the walls on her previous place were decorated with bullet holes). Now, as she took plates from boxes and put them on her new kitchen cabinets, she smiled as they tried to bring her couch from downstairs and place it where she wanted it on the living room.

“Left. No, my left”, Foggy was saying. “No, no, wait, wait! Should we maybe turn it? Is this door wide enough?”

“It’s wide enough. Come on, it’s heavy.”

He walked backwards as Foggy walked forwards, moving the couch carefully and turning it like this and like that until it was in.

“Ok”, Foggy said, throwing himself on it after it was on it’s place. “Beer break.”

Matt laughed and poked a finger on Foggy’s belly.

“You need to exercise, man.”

“Fuck off. Go get me a beer, I’m parched.”

Matt walked to the kitchen and stopped to place a kiss on her cheek before opening it.

“What are you grinning about?”

“Nothing. I just love to see you guys like this.”

He smiled and moved to get three bottles from the fridge.

“Me too.”

He pulled her by the hand and they sat on her couch, talking on the otherwise empty apartment, the easy conversations that were the true aspect of their friendship flowing and flowing, until Karen sighed and got up to keep unpacking the kitchen.

“Come on”, Matt said, getting up, too. “Her bed is next.”

Foggy groaned and got up, following Matt out the door.

“We should have called Luke and Jessica”, he mused and Karen smiled at the sound of Matt’s laughter.

This is how it should be.

.:.

Comfort

As much as she loves those moments, where she felt her small family getting stronger, she also loved, loved, loved the ones where it was just them.

He’s busy. She’s busy. Ellison likes her stories and says she is a natural, but she has had no real journalistic training. She has a lot to learn. It’s not just writing and publishing, she wishes. There are so many details, political ones, technical ones, graphical ones, ethical ones, not to mention the actually writing process of a story. Seems easy, but it’s not.

So time alone, to sit and relax and enjoy being together, it can be a luxury.

So it makes it that much more meaningful when she can lock the world outside her door and windows, when he climbs the stairs from his roof access and strips the red suit off, or when he closes the front door and undoes the knot of his tie and it’s just them.

Of course she loves it when they’re naked and breathless and there’s no space between them. She loves those times. But, if she had to pick, her favorites would be when he gets home and sits in front of her on the couch, in bed, on a chair, and presses his back to her chest, head resting on one of her shoulders, letting her run her fingers through his hair, and she could feel him breathin deep, in and out, his eyes drifting close.

That he can be comfortable with her, even if it’s such a simple thing, means so much. After he told her about how much effort it was to keep that secret from the world, how he felt like he couldn’t trust anyone, be himself with anyone, it made it that much more important.

She wants his honesty, his respect, but she also wants him to trust her. To be himself around her. She wants to be that for him, a source of comfort, someone he liked to be around.

His presence already let her heart at ease. She wanted hers to be the same for him. And when he leaned on her like that, vulnerable, letting her ease away the weight he carried on his shoulders every day, it felt good. It felt right.

“Hard day?” she asks when he does it one night, pulling her attention from that  book she had been meaning to finish reading a month ago. It has started raining outside, his hair and shirt are a little wet from when he hopped off the cab in front of her building.

“Hmm. No. Not particularly. It was actually kind of boring.”

She’s unbuttoning his shirt because a cold is the last thing he needs and he nuzzles his nose on the side of her neck.

“I missed you, though.”

Karen smiles, because oh, she did, too. Every time the weather is like this, rainy but not cold, she felt the urge to be close to him. Maybe it had something to do with that first kiss. Maybe not. She’s not too eager to find out. Doesn’t matter.

Because she has him. And he has her.

“I love you”, he says, eyes closed, one hand closing around hers when she finishes taking his shirt off him.

“I love you, too”, she says with a kiss on his temple.

She tries to read while he sleeps against her, but soon she is resting her head on the back of the couch, staring out the window, drifting off, lulled by the rhythm of his breathing.

And she wakes a few minutes later when her neck starts hurting, and he gets up and pulls her until they’re both in bed. There, he cuddles against her again, holding her flush against him, and she can feel his heartbeat against her skin.

It’s been awhile since the nightmares kept her up at night.

.:.

Peace

There are days, weeks, sometimes months, that she thinks it’s all pointless. Why fight so hard for humanity, when humanity itself can be such an ugly, hateful, hard thing? Why keep uncovering the filth, why expose evil, why put herself through this if they keep coming back? Greed and hate and so much dirt, so much ugliness. Every time she’s done with one, another one comes, bigger, worse. Sometimes she feels like she’s punching a wall, drowning in a sea of wrong.

And she knows he feels it, too. If her work gives her a front seat view of all that is wrong, his - both of them - puts him right in the middle of everything.

Including those who try to twist the good he tries to do. Who call him a criminal and a deviant, dangerous, demon, devil, dangerous. A threat to those he tries to protect, every day, every day, every day.

She gets to his place and she’s tired. Annoyed and irritated. A senator, hurt and angry that she had exposed where his campaign money comes from and where his voters taxes go, had written a long article, full of lies, accusing her of sensationalism, of taking money from his opponent, of trying to bribe him, trying to make her look as corrupt and dirty as he is.

When Matt got there, she was already in bed, having skipped dinner.

Of course he had read it. She could feel it the way he walked, careful and measured. When he opened the bedroom door and sat carefully on the edge of the bed, Karen waited.

And, sure enough, he bent and dropped a kiss on her head, long and lingering, getting up right after to change into his other suit.

“So”, he started, soft and low, but also sure and determined. “What’s the next move?”

She sighed, turning to lie on her back.

“I don’t know yet.”

“We’ll figure it out.” And then he was, shirtless and barefoot, kneeling in bed, supporting his weight on his hands and crawling the distance from her feet to her face to catch her mouth in his. “You want me to teach him a lesson?”

Karen smiled against his mouth, shaking her head and pressing another kiss or two on his lips.

“No. Best not make it obvious Daredevil cares what people say about me, wouldn’t you say?”

“I can send Jessica.”

“God, no. Can you imagine? She already doesn’t like him. Let’s not give her a reason to use that considerable strength of hers on him.”

He shrugged.

“I wouldn’t mind, actually.”

As it turns out, he didn’t have to do anything. Trish called asking her to come over for some wine, snacks and The Bachelorette reruns at her place. She was trying to convince her friend to let her take a rain check when Jessica took the phone.

“Listen, just stop whining and come over. And bring that righteous asshole you call a boyfriend, I need to talk to him. Claire found some pretty interesting shit, I need to run it by him. Ok? Ok. See you soon.”

So, off they went. She did have a few glasses of wine with Trish, listening on tips how to deal with misogynist assholes while Jessica and Matt talked about their vigilante business. And when they decided to go, she was feeling better. A little light headed from Trish’s expensive wine, but better.

“Tell me the truth”, she said, when he had his arm around her in the cab. “Did you call Trish?”

He didn’t answer right away, so she turned her face and looked up at him, the red lenses of his glasses reflecting the street lights as they drove by them. And then that smirk.

“No.”

Rolling her eyes, she smiled and pressed a kiss to his jaw.

“Thank you. You didn’t have to, but thank you.”

She fell asleep around one in the morning, after he stripped her naked and made her forget why she was upset in the first place. She was boneless and the tip of her fingers and toes were tingling when she pulled him to her, insisting he stayed, please, she didn’t feel like sleeping alone tonight, please, please.

He did. She knew he was going to leave after she fell asleep - and she doesn’t really blame him anymore. It’s his nature. She’s done fighting it. -, but he waited, held her tight and did as she asked.

To her surprise, he was still there the next morning, his alarm waking both of them up, and they got ready for work and ate breakfast together and he walked her to the Bulletin’s door.

“Have a nice day”, he said, kissing her lips and stealing one more bite of her bagel before walking towards his own office, and Karen felt like the exact opposite of how she felt the night before.

Not jaded and angry and hopeless, but energized and ready and… supported. She had him in her corner. He had her. They could do this. He was strong in ways she wasn’t and she was strong in ways he wasn’t. And it sounds sappy and teenager and cliché, but oh, if that doesn’t motivate her to go on.

(And if the hostess of Trish Talk made a speech in her defense that day and made her smile, she also had him to thank. Maybe having a vigilante boyfriend is not so bad, if his friends are willing to adopt you as one of their own and defend you with the same fierce will they did him.)

[edourado]

KASTLE?? ❛ Two corpses we were, two corpses I saw. ❜ :D :D

Hello, my dear. Here I am, with your prompt, so long after you sent it. 

I hate my writing pace. 

But I did it. Even I strayed a little from the song and it’s angsty feel, I did it. I hope you like it. 

Muah ♥

@carry-the-sky, yours is also ready. I’ll post it tomorrow ;)

We the dead

When he told her the plan, she had, for a good minute there, thought he had lost his mind.

But then everything started going to shit. She had to duck, run, shoot, hide, be quiet, she was bleeding, and she understood. It had to end. And she had to die for it to happen.

Officially, Karen had died. So had Frank. Drowned, shot, tortured, who knows. The last news on her were that she had been taken by the Italian mafia. Nobody was really expecting to find her body, not after the things she had written.

Frank Castle died with her because his name was involved. Indirectly, they were careful about that, but he was both after the Italians and running from the Italians, so it was not very difficult to put his name in the dead list.

He had gotten to her place almost 24 hours ago, asking her to hear him out. She was used to him being over protective of her, forever apologising with actions for using her as bait that one time.

This time, he asked her to let herself be captured. And Karen really did think he was crazy.

But then he explained. Promised he would be there, he would not take his eyes off her, not for one minute. But in order for this to be finished, this underground bounty on her head and the sheer reign of terror the family from Sicily was building, he had to have a way in. And she was it.

Karen from Vermont would never agree to something like that. Karen from New York did, paraded herself for two hours at the last place she should ever be, let herself be followed home, let herself be captured, didn’t put up much of a fight, prayed that Frank was there, behind her, like he promised.

He doesn’t lie to her. And he didn’t. As promised, he got to her right before she got a violent slap to her face, a shot to her head, God knows what else. Suddenly there was someone else’s blood on her skin, her clothes, her face. Frank was there, putting a gun in her hand, shooting a thousand bullets per second, pulling her through a door she never noticed was there, running towards a car, pressing a button, starting the engine at the same time an explosion blew behind them, driving away and she could not believe she didn’t have a scratch on her. Maybe her arms would be bruised from when they grabbed her at her apartment, but that was it.

Frank drove for hours. Three, four, maybe five. Maybe less than that. It didn’t occur to her to ask where they were going. She focused on breathing and looked at the night sky, the lights of the city fading behind them.

When he parked outside a house hidden in the middle of the woods, she saw Max looking out the front window, his excited breathing fogging up the glass.

“I got your suitcase”, Frank said after killing the engine. “It’s in your bedroom.”

“My bedroom?”

He nodded.

“The one you’re gonna occupy while we’re here”. He looked outside the car towards the two story house. “It’s the nice one.”

“What is this place, Frank?”

He looked at her and she didn’t know what to feel. Tired, scared, relieved, angry, sad, what? She was all of those things and a few more she couldn’t name.

He just shrugged.

“Belonged to a friend. Come on.”

He collected the bag of weapons he had put in the trunk and they made their way inside. The bag with her clothes and basic belongings and his were already there, he had brought them the day before, along with Max.

Karen let him look at her, looking for bruises, didn’t complain when he fussed over the simplest of scrapes, putting a bandage over it. She let him apply medicine to the one on her forehead she hadn’t noticed, let him examine the ones of her arms, answered all his questions of “does it hurt?”

They had microwaved frozen meals for dinner and she announced that she was going to bed after swallowing maybe a third of it.

He was right, her room was nice. Big bed and curtains on the windows and her own en suite bathroom. There was even a desk where her computer sat.  

It was one in the morning when she decided she was not going to be able to sleep.

Making her silent way downstairs, she spotted a blanket folded over the couch. Picking it up, she opened the front door and walked until she was halfway between the house and the edge of the woods.

She had been staring at the stars in the sky for maybe twenty minutes when he sat down next to her, and then lied down.

Karen waited for him to say something. To apologise again. He didn’t. Just looked at the sky and there they stayed.

When she opened her eyes again, the blue of the sky was not so dark. Dawn was threatening to break and she let herself cry, silently, tear after tear rolling down ter temples towards the blanket under them.

She was dead. They were dead.

She could feel herself calming down when his arm started moving slowly towards her and he pulled her to him.

“Did you tell someone?” she asked, voice small.

He took a second and then answered her, soft and slow.

“Red. And Micro.”

She sighed in relief. At least someone knew she was alive.

“Who’s Micro?”

“Associate of mine.”

“Do you trust him?”

“Yes.”

She fell asleep again after that, inside his arms, feeling safe.

.:.

Matt called once, that afternoon, voice tortured and sighing when she answered.

He asked all the questions. Was she ok? Was she hurt? Did she need anything? Promised he would help with this fucked up situation, promised to do his best.

Asked if she wanted to go back home.

Frank sat on a chair by her side, elbows on his knees, head down, cracking his knuckles, waiting for her to finish. Max sat in front of her chair, sweet round eyes looking at her and she reached a hand to caress his face.

“No. I’m ok.”

.:.

Frank spent a lot of time talking on that strange looking phone. Satellite phone, she realized. From what she could hear, he was giving orders, asking for status, giving more orders, adjusting plans.

Other than that, she was not allowed to log into her email or any other account.

“Don’t worry, they’ll all be there for you when we go back. Micro is taking care of it.”

All she could do in her computer was check the news and try to distract herself.

.:.

After just two days, she had cabin fever. And Frank was the one feeling it’s effects.

“Wanna to go for a drive?” he offered after she used too much force to throw the ball for Max, grunting, and the pitbull ran towards the trees after it. “Maybe pick up some stuff to eat.”

She realized what he was doing. And she wanted to snap at him, tell him not to treat her like a child. Instead, she got up and said “yes”, rolling her eyes as he sighed and bent to put his boots on.

They found a farmer’s market on the way. She had never, in her life, enjoyed a farmer’s market. When her mother forced her to go when she was younger, after church, she would complain the whole way. Today, it felt like the gates of heaven.

“Karen”, he said, using that voice she imagined he used when he was bossing people around in the army, when she asked him to stop the car.

“Don’t ‘Karen’ me. Come on”, she said, putting the leash on Max’s collar. “It’s just a bunch of old ladies.”

It wasn’t. But she enjoyed talking to people, buying stuff she doesn’t usually buy, like half a pound of cherries and a dozen donuts.

She held Max’s leash, who walked by her side and stopped when she wanted to stop, not complaining, just looking behind them here and there to make sure Frank was still there.

She was paying for apples when the lady giving her her change asked if Max wanted some water.

“Oh, yes, thank you very much.”

“No problem, dear.”

She filled a bowl and Max lapped it up happily.

“I have one, myself. Well, actually he’s my husband’s. He’s like yours.”

At first, Karen thought she meant her dog was like Max, but she motioned with her head and Karen looked behind her to see Frank, wearing his sunglasses and hoodie over a beanie.

(He looked good, a part of her brain noticed. Really good.)

“Only Charles does not look like that anymore”, the lady whispered, humor in her voice. “Military?” she asked, already nodding, a small smile.

“Uh, yeah”, Karen answered.

“Mine, too. After forty years, you learn to recognize them just by the way they walk and stand.”

Max finished his water, Karen thanked the lady and then walked back to Frank, saying that they could go.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

.:.

Two nights later, she was crying on the porch, thinking he had gone to bed already, but he opened the door and crouched in front of her.

“What is it?” he asked, careful, distant and present at the same time.

She tried to wipe her tears  away, tell him it was nothing, but he insisted, and insisted, and she told him she felt strange, knowing the world was going on without her.

“I’m…” she started, sighing, annoyed with herself. “I’m dead, and it seems to make zero difference.”

It was his turn to sigh, getting up, asking her to move, to make way for him.

He sat with one leg bent against the back of the bench, a foot on the seat, and made her sit with her back against his chest, his arms coming around her.

She thought he was going to hug her, but suddenly there was a gun in his left hand, and he was placing it on hers.

Before she knew what was happening, she was holding his gun and he was making her point it towards the trees.

“Do you see the thick one, a little behind?”

“What-”

“Do you see it?”

Confused, Karen looked and spotted the tree he was talking about. It was taller and thicker than the others around it.

“Yes.”

His thumb clicked the safety off and he cocked the gun, his finger guiding her own to the trigger.

“Come on.”

She blinked, not understanding why he wanted her to shoot a tree, a wild thought that there was someone hiding there and he was making her kill them crossing her mind, but vanishing when she realized his mouth was there by her ear. She could feel his breath, his chest rising and falling slowly against her back.

“Ma’am. Pull the trigger.”

Swallowing once, she did. And she felt so good after the shot echoed and she spotted the bullet mark on the bark of the tree, she did it again without prompting. And again. And again, again until the gun clicked empty.

Silently, Frank pulled a full magazine from his pocket and placed it in her hand. Karen changed it, letting him take the empty one, clicking it in place and cocking the gun herself, shooting again and again until there was a faint ringing in her ear.

She felt incredibly better. Her hands were vibrating, her heart was pounding and she felt she wanted to smile.

“Better?” Frank asked after she lowered the weapon. She nodded.

Getting the gun from her, he placed it on the floor near his foot.

“The world didn’t stop because you didn’t really die”, he said, picking her chin and turning her face to his. “If you did, everybody else would die with you.”

She had time to recognize a different quality in his voice before he put his lips on hers. He didn’t whisper, but his words were low, meant only for her, and she was close enough.

Or at least she thought she was.

She had always, somehow, known he would be a good kisser. And that he would, eventually, kiss her. The effects his mouth had on her, though, were a bit of a pleasant surprise. It was a natural thing, felt right and organic, but also an addicting one. The more she did it, the more she discovered, lips and teeth and tongues, the more she wanted, the more she craved, the more she needed.

Karen turned around and Frank latched onto her neck, hands gripping at her, the intensity of him making her shiver, her own hands grabbing at him when he slid his hands from her waist to grab at her ass, getting up, her legs instinctively going around his hips, mouth looking for his again,God, it felt like breathing.

Frank stripped her with his hands and covered her body with his mouth. The look in his face when he lifted it to look at her made her feel warm inside, but not the cozy kind. Warm like there was a fire starting in the pit of her stomach, spreading up her spine and through her limbs, making her skin ignite and she felt like she could conduct electricity, shock him the next time he touched her.

It didn’t happen. Frank lowered his face again and she ran her hands on the skin revealed by his shirt.

She was focusing on the feeling of his hands on her when he rolled them over, and she moved to sit on top of him, straddling his lap, no teasing, it was not about that, it was just about them, getting and giving, everything.

He tugged at the hem of her sweater and she removed it, watching as he watched, feeling powerful and beautiful, but cold without him pressed up against her.

Karen tugged on his wrist and he sat up, an arm around her waist, his tongue on her neck, teeth scraping skin, breathing intense and palm heavy. He held her firmly and she reveled in it, in his strength, how he didn’t touch her as if she was made of paper.

She forgot she had been crying, remembering only when he lied down again, after bringing two hands to her face and wiping the dried up tears from her cheeks, and she turned her face towards his palm.

Frank was on top of her again, her legs were up and around him, arms too, her back was arched and she was feeling so good, the world falling silent around them, moving slow, all she could see was him, all she could feel was him, all she wanted was him.

Karen and Frank needed to die in order to feel alive again.

.:.

It had been a week when his phone made itself known one more time.

Her computer had been off for days and all she wore were his shirts, not because she felt comfortable in them (which she did, but her own clothes were also efficient in that department), but because she liked the way he looked at her when she did. Watching her with precision, focused, chasing the movement of her legs with his eyes, unmasked, unguarded, no Punisher, just Frank.

She was wearing one of his hoodies, the grey one he loved to throw over his bare chest, perched on the kitchen island with her legs around him when the satellite phone beeped in his pocket.

Sighing, he picked it up, but kept scanning her with his eyes, and she brought her hands to his face, the tip of her fingers caressing his jaw, the contour of his nose, ghosting over his lips.

Damn it. She was in love with him.

She has heard some people describing that feeling as heavy. “The weight of realization”. To her, it felt the opposite. She felt like she would float away if he wasn’t holding her down.

“Yeah. Fine. Thanks, man. I’ll call back later.”

Hanging up, he drew a deep breath and leaned in to kiss her, sweet and gentle and… Devoted.

“It’s been a week”, he said, forehead touching hers. “We have to go back.”

It was her turn to sigh and cast a quick look around, to this mysterious house in the middle of nowhere, where she already felt so at home.

“I don’t want to”, she admitted, lacing her fingers on the back of his neck, kissing his forehead and he held her to him, chest to chest, tight and sweet.

“Yeah”, he said. “Me neither.”

“Can’t we stay?”

Lifting his head from her neck, he gave her a teasing look.

“Weren’t you crying over your own death just the other day?”

She smiled, pinching his side, making him squirm, smile, and she wanted to make him smile everyday, take him away from his demons, for good.

“That was before.”

“Before what?”

She kissed him once, open mouth and sliding tongue, and leaned back, back, his hands sliding from her back around her waist, lifting the hoodie, exploring, warm and heavy, she loved that pressure.

“Before you”, she said, laying down on the marble counter, arching her back, letting him lower the zipper, knowing his eyes were doing a sweep of her, reveling in it. “Before us.”

He grunted and he moaned and she breathed deep, lost in the feeling of him, sitting back up to hold him, unable to resist the allure of his mouth on hers for too long.

“I want to stay”, she told him again, hand on his chest, feeling his heart beating.

Alive. Both of them.

His burner vibrated in his pocket. The world called.

But they wanted to stay.

[edourado]

"I clutched my life, and wished it kept. My dearest love, I’m not done yet. " for the hozier sentence meme pleeeeease! :)

Hi sweetheart! Here it is, FINALLY, I’m so sorry it took me so long, but I have it. 

I do hope you like it. It’s shorter than my usual stuff, but there is more coming, I got hit by Kastle lightening this week, let’s hope it’s worth it ;-)

Big, big kisses ♥

Promise

Funny how these things happened.

For the longest time, Frank did not care if he lived or died. When he dodged bullets, it was because he had a mission. To find the ones that took his family from him, the ones who killed his wife and his kids, the ones responsible for him having to see his children bloodied and not breathing, his love’s heart not beating, no life in her eyes. That was what kept him up, what made him get up in the morning and what made him try and save his own life from time to time.

And then, her.

The paths that led him here really didn’t matter anymore. All it did was that Frank has walked them, step by step and, and before he knew it, someone cared about him. Someone cried for him, smiled at him, trusted him and welcomed him. Fought for him.

Before, when he was nothing to no one, he lived. Walked away from unthinkable situations, beaten and bloody, but standing.

Now that there was a heart that beat for him again, he was going to die by the hand of someone else’s enemy.

He saw Karen’s face and he knew he was hallucinating. She was miles and miles and miles away, safe in that hel holel of a city while he hunted people down, people that did not have their eyes on her yet, but he could not risk it. Damn it, he could not risk it.

Red’s enemies were, by definition, her enemies. Nelson’s enemies, that nurse’s enemies. And as much as Frank didn’t really mind saving their lives by proxy, it was hers that mattered the most, he was doing it because they knew who she was, they knew who Red was, they knew she mattered to him.

So he took it upon himself. And Red told him, the righteous bastard, he told him to wait, to stay out of it, to trust him, but Frank didn’t listen, because he could not, for the life of him, wait around for them to find her.

He found the small dart on his neck and it struck him odd, that they would attack like that. Subtle. But maybe the goal was to make him suffer.

His fever began and he lost his balance, managing to, at the very least, close the door to the shed behind him before collapsing, his vision dancing and his skin erupting like it was on fire, he could feel the sweat beading down towards the floor.

And he saw her. All the times she had made him feel, unintentionally, all the times he found himself smiling, averting his gaze from her because she was hard to look at. Too beautiful.

He called her name to the ceiling and she called his back, reaching her hand, asking him to come with her, follow her, it’s quiet here.

Frank knew it wasn’t real because his imagination did not measure up to the feeling of when she was really touching him. He always thought he remembered it right, but he didn’t. It was always a shock when her fingers found his skin again. Every single time.

When he woke back up, his head was spinning and he could not yet sit up, but the echoes in his mind were gone. He could see it was day, could see his gun right there by his hip, his vest was tight against his chest, the dart that had poisoned him still secure in his left hand.

He picked up his phone and dialed the number he hated having in his speed dial.

“Frank?” he answered, voice already frantic. “Where the hell are you?”

“Red”, was all he managed to say before Karen appeared before his eyes again, smiling bright and warm, calling him, come with me, Frank.

The phone fell to the ground and he could hear Red’s distant voice calling him, and he knew that one was real. The one in his head, though, hers, was better, it made him feel better, he wanted to go with her.

But he knew it was a lie. His imagination was not that good, she was always better when she was there, always. This was not her.

Frank closed his eyes and focused on his blood. “Flush it out”, he thought. “Flush it out so you can go back to her, don’t die, don’t you die now, don’t die, don’t die.”

While she smiled and he ran the tip of his fingers on her face, her voice distant even when she was right there in front of him, he felt a palm on his mouth, and a bitter taste. Karen disappeared and he saw eyes, dark and focused, looking at him, and he swallowed, and Karen was there again. The pressure was off his mouth, the taste gone.

He promised himself he would kiss her if he got to see her again. It seemed so stupid now, all that reasoning and the useless distance he kept from her. If he’s gonna die, he might as well know how she tastes like.

(Except he did know. He never kissed her, she never kissed him, but he knew, he knew it on his tongue and his brain and his eyelids.

If he didn’t die, he would kiss her and make sure.)

He opened his eyes again when he felt himself being moved. There were people, it was dark, he was being turned sideways and there were fingers inside his mouth, then he was gagging, his stomach was convulsing and he was vomiting whatever it was someone with dark eyes had made him swallow before.

He wished the image of her would come back.

When he could breathe again, hands turned him to lay on his back once more, and there was someone on top of him, prying his eyes open with their fingers, a light blinding him, one eye at a time. He moved to push them out, get rid of them, but then his arms were pinned to the floor.

“Whoa, ok, calm down”, said a deep voice he didn’t recognize. “Wake up, man, come on.”

“We need to move him, he needs an IV now, or he’s not gonna make it.”

That voice he knew.

Opening his eyes, he saw Karen smiling big again, but he blinked it away (the real one was better). When his vision came into focus again, the nurse, Claire, was looking at him with a frown.

“Frank. Do you remember me?”

Looking around, he saw a big man holding his arms down. He didn’t know him.

“Frank!” she called again. “I’m Claire. Do you remember me?”

He wanted to say yes, but his voice didn’t come out, so he nodded.

“Ok, good”, she said, climbing down from him. “We need to go. Luke, get Matt, we need to get him home now. Like right now.”

.:.

The theory was they tried to weaken him. Frank was too strong to waste, Red said.

After that place that looked like a hospital, but wasn’t, after the needle Claire put in his arm, after Red’s theories, after his fever broke and after he said he had to go, he was knocking on her door. Still not steady on his feet, his head still spun, but he had to be there.

When she opened the door, his heart tightened at the sight of her face. Her real face, not the half assed one his mind conjured up during poison induced hallucinations.

“Frank? You ok?” she asked, her voice careful, and he smiled at her. He was sure the sight was not a good one. “You look like shit.”

Stepping inside and closing the door behind him, he swallowed past the lump in his throat and reached for her.

He had a promise to keep.  

[edourado]

Irrevocable

Just a lil fluffysomething for @ambrosiaswhispers, just  because she’s amazing. 

And because we’re all gonna die once The Punisher is here, so. Yeah, 

Hope you like it, lovely lady. 

He looks at her, sitting there on the bed, typing at her computer faster than he thought it was possible, wearing one of his shirts, hair still wet from the shower they had taken together.

Frank is lying back on the side of her bed he had claimed as his, not even feeling the wound where the knife had cut on his thigh two days ago, Claire's pills working their magic.

He reaches out a hand and runs it on her back, tracing the curve of her spine, down to her hips and from side to side, sneaking under the shirt and caressing skin, his heart tightening and expanding as if breathing.

She is an universe of contradiction, Karen Page. The face of something holy, pure and full of light, on a woman with many colors, both dark and light. A bright and warm smile that can hide such strength and a dark, complicated, traumatic past. Hands that soothe him, calm his nerves but also rile and excite him, making his skin crawl and his blood run faster.

Fingers that type fast, seeking justice and trying to do good, but can pull triggers without hesitation.

Her contradictions and her logic obliterate his train of thought, and leave him at a loss for words.

Frank Castle still does not fully understand the phenomenon that is Karen Page, but damn him if he doesn't try his best.

And that duality only sharpens the dilemma inside of him, every time she opens the door.

It is a nonnegotiable truth that the good thing for her would be to stay away from him. That he should leave her be. That is not a question, every single person in the world could easily tell you that.

Still, she invites him in. She opens the door, accepts his coffee and lets him stay close. He should know better, but still he calls her, uses her skills for digging up information for his own benefit, indulges his yearn for her. He comes back, walks inside her apartment, he lets himself feel her, covering her mouth with his and letting her take his clothes off.

He shouldn't. But he does. Over and over and over again.

When it became clear that she is not going to hear his guilty arguments that he is endangering her anymore, he stopped beating himself up over it and started focusing on what he could do to ensure she was safe, every step of the way.

And heis. Everyday. But that feeling still creeps up sometimes, right alongside that solid notion that he is not letting go of her.

“You know that this”, he says when she reaches for the coffee mug on the bedside table, pausing on her writing. “This is not just… a ‘thing’, right?”

Karen looks at him, big blue eyes blinking.

“I'm not just sleeping with you”, he tries to clarify. “This is… important, to me. You are. More than-” he interrupts himself, shaking his head, not finding the words that he needed to find. “Right?”

That slow smile that kills him appeares, and she bites the inside of her lip. Turning back around, she closes her computer and moves to put it on the floor by the bed.

When she comes back, it’s to lie by his side, one hand reaching for his face, and Frank pulls her to him by her waist, his nose touching hers.

“What are you trying to say, Frank?”

He closes his eyes, breathing deep, cursing himself for allowing her to get this close, for allowing her to dig that nest inside his heart and plant herself in there.

Moving his head, he presses his mouth on top of hers, thinking that this was his favorite thing in life. Lying on her bed with her, between sheets and pillows and blankets while heavy rain washes the world outside.

“Just say it”, she presses on, a hand on his back, soothing. Exciting. Relaxing his muscles and waking his skin up.

Frank finds himself smiling, his hand sneaks up her back, her neck, fist closing around her hair, keeping her there pressed to him.

“You know, don’t ya?”

He guesses she is smiling too, when she nods.

“But I want you to say it.”

Placing soft, lazy kisses on his lips, she runs that hand on his back.

“I know it's difficult, for so many reasons.”

Maria and Lisa and Frank Jr appear in his mind, their smiling faces making his heart tighten.

“But I promise you it'll be ok.”

The silence that stretches is both heavy and comfortable.

“I love you”, he finally says, and feels her smile against his face.

“Yeah”, she says, doing that thing she did, hugging him to her with arms and legs and hands and feet. “Me too.”

[edourado]

Stay

Happy Valentines Day, ship mates ;-)

This got away from me - again - in a NSFW way. So, yeah, smut ahead.

Right before she left work, Matt had called her.

“Hey. I have kinda of a strange favor to ask you.”

He wanted her to use her influence on Frank to keep him from going out that night. There was a lead they were both chasing and if Frank killed the guy he wanted to kill, Matt was going to lose the trail to the Japanese mob - the one that was not the Yakuza - and it would be incredibly hard to find it again.

Considering that they had kidnapped her, Karen had an interest in seeing them dismantled, so she agreed.

“Can you do that?” he asked, sounding kinda desperate. He was running, she realized.

“I’m on it.”

“What are you gonna do? Actually, no. Don’t tell me. Best if I don’t know.”

Matt was lucky that Frank had spent the afternoon at her place. Well, not lucky. Karen suspected he had means of finding that stuff out, even if she never did tell him the extent of her relationship with the Punisher. Not that it was any of his business, anyway.

She walked in, hoping he was still there. It was not uncommon for him to leave, leaving just a note behind.

He was putting his boots on when she walked in.

“Hey”, she greeted, smiling, trying to think fast. “You leaving?”

“Have to go, ma’am.”  

“Oh”, she said, making her voice softer and a bit slower. There was a certain tone that made him more… Agreeable, she had found out. “I thought that maybe we could have dinner together”

She walked to him while he checked one of his guns for bullets.

“Gonna have to take a rain check on that.”

“Are you sure?”, she asked, standing in front of him, stepping closer when he moved to put the gun in the back of his pants. “I have a nice dessert for you”. Standing on her tiptoes, she touched her mouth to his ear, whispering silly, private things. His hand touched her waist, squeezing for a second, but then he stepped away.

“If it goes the way I want it to go, I won’t be long. We can work on that later.”

Pulling on his hand, she turned around and stepped to him again, placing her arms around his neck, this time, to force him to stand still, lips touching his slowly, probing his mouth open with her tongue.

That gave him pause. Karen was proud to feel his tongue moving sensually against hers, both his hands on her waist, now, lowering to her hips, bringing her closer to his a bit. When she sensed he was going to step away from her again, she nibbled on his lower lip and lowered her hands to his chest, moving to speak in his ear once more.

“I’ve been thinking about you all day”, she whispered, biting on his ear lobe, fingers finding the hem of his shirt, threatening to lift.

“Karen”, he warned. It was a warning, but the real ones had more conviction. This was, actually, more of a plead.

“Had to sit there on my desk all day and write about the Punisher, pretending to be detached, pretending I didn’t have you sleeping behind me last night.”

When she moved to suck on the skin of his neck, he moved his face to give her access and she had to stop herself from smiling.

“It’s hard to focus when I know you’re here”. She was practically moaning, now, and when his right hand went inside her skirt to squeeze at the flesh of her ass, she did, lifting his shirt to his chest, going back to his mouth as soon as he finished taking it off.

That didn’t mean she was in the clear. Frank was a determinate man. Being momentarily distracted by her did not make is sure he was not going out that night. So, she decided, she had to pace herself.

In a bold move, she reached behind him to take the gun from him, placing it on the coffee table. He was the only one allowed to touch his guns.

“We won’t be needing that right now”, she said when he tensed.

Smiling, she guided his hands to the zipper of her skirt while she worked on her top. When she was standing there in just her underwear, she pulled him until they reached the couch, kissing him stupid, and pushing him to sit down.

She climbed on his lap, she guided his hands on her, she told many tales in his ear, about how she had spent her day imagining him there, occupying her space, all alone while she worked, told him about daydreams involving his body and his hands and his tongue and that thing he did with his teeth he knew she liked. Karen worked him up, pressed up against him, allowing and denying friction when he wanted it.

She undid his belt and unfastened his jeans. She sank onto him and let him guide her until she could feel he was about to lose control, and then she stopped, kissed him and, when she felt her legs would not give out, got up, pulling him by the hand towards the bathroom.

“What are you doing, ma’am?” he asked, voice low and rough, almost dangerous, hugging her to him, her back firm against his chest, letting go of her hand to close both around her breasts, not exactly delicate. Punisher, indeed.

Not  coming up with an answer that wouldn’t betray her intentions, she just turned around in his arms and went back to kissing him, glad when he let out a breath that could be, maybe, classified as a moan, his tongue not hesitating to taste hers.

Once inside the bathroom, Karen turned the water on, letting the tub fill up. But she did have to keep him occupied until they could get in, so she pushed him against the wall, kissed him hard enough to make her own knees buckle, let him squeeze and press for a while before moving her mouth to his jaw, his ear, whispering that she had been thinking about this all day, licking on his neck, collarbone, his chest and then sinking down to her knees and going to work on him.

His hand alternated between tight holds and little tugs on her hair and gentle caresses, moving the blond strands so he could watch her, little praises and curses falling from his mouth from time to time.

Right before she decided she needed to stop, he pulled her up, and she looked at the tub, they could go in already, but he decided he wanted to press her against the wall. Well, fine by her.

With her breasts and her belly pressed against the cold tiles, she dropped her head on his shoulder, crying out because of that angle, that amazing angle, because of his grunts in her ear, because of his intense pace but his gentle hand around her neck.

He seemed to understand that she wanted it to last. As hard and intense as he was, he kept is as slow as he could, adjusting her against him, kissing her deeply when she angled her face to his, his lips tattooing marks and adoration on her skin, both with his teeth and his words.

Again, when she felt his rhythm faltering, she stopped, and the grunt he let out made her feel both good and bad for him. She had never denied him like that, not even once.

It didn’t last long, though. Once they were in the tub, she moved to sit on his lap, straddling him, kissing and offering her body to him, loving to feel adored. When she felt it was safe to start again, she took him inside one more time, crying out herself this time, already sensitive, already so high up on that precipice.

“Is that good, ma’am?” he asked, making her roll her hips on him, fingers on his right hand going there between them, that nervous trigger finger making her see some stars.

“Yeah”, she breathed out, trying to focus, trying not to lose herself in the feeling of him.

“Yeah?” he confirmed and she nodded, opening her eyes when he took his hand away, both of them, closing his fingers around the edges of the tub, moving to rest his back against the end. “Show me”, he requested and Karen had to breathe deep, biting her lower lip, looking at his face, letting out a smile at the look he gave her, daring, sensual, serious, hungry, powerful, God, of all his crimes, that look should be one of them.

Supporting her hands on his chest, she moved on her own, his legs moving and flexing here and there to help her, the water jostling, her insides burning, she was burning for him.   

“God damn it”, he let out, a hand slipping from his grip on the edge of the tub to close around one breast before sliding up, closing around her throat, going around, pulling her face to his. “You’re too beautiful, fuck”. With teeth on her lower lip and his tongue, indecent, against hers, he placed his left hand back on her hip when she started to tremble around him. “That how you want it?” Her affirmative was wanton, a cry, she held on to his shoulder and his arm, legs tight around him, steadying herself when she could feel the world begin to crumble from within her. “Look at me”, he asked, commanded, and she did, opened her eyes to his, to that evil side smile, lowering her face to get a kiss. “You’re mine”, he decided for the millionth time after he finally admitted it for the first time.

“Yes”, she confirmed, breathy, moving still, moving harder, eyes closing again, because the feeling was becoming too much.

With his face tucked on the curve of her neck, he moved under her, taking over when she became to lose her rhythm.

“You’re mine, aren’t you?”

“Yes, yes”, her heart was going so fast, her legs were trembling. His hand was firm on her hip, gripping flesh and grinding her against him, the other one, in contrast, soft on her face, pulling her hair away from her cheek.

“Then come for me”, he said against her mouth and she didn’t know how he did it, if he was just that good in reading her body or if she was so his that she could do that on command. All she knew is that her vision went white for a second and she forgot herself, lost in feeling and sensation, riding out all that pleasure, enjoying his hands on her, softer, his mouth on her cheek, teeth on her ear lobe, he was still hard and pulsing inside her, and that made her open her eyes, her vision clear again. Karen looked down on his face with hooded eyes, a lazy smile stretching her lips and he smiled back up, unrestrained and open, she loved that smile.

Moving her hips for a while longer, she kissed him again, she could never get enough of kissing him. When his hand tightened on her hip one more time and he grunted against her mouth, she stopped, moaning, slowing him down, kissing him to make it better, moving up and off him, earning a groan and a pull on her leg, trying to bring her back.

“Come on, Frank”, she said, standing up, shivering when he lunged forward and bit the skin of her hip. “Come to bed with me”, she called, turning around, stepping out of the tub, running her towel on her skin to dry herself and remove the residual suds of the soap she had rubbed on both of them at some point. It was a poor job, but it was better than lying down soaking wet on her fresh sheets.

“God, fucking-” Frank cussed, getting up after her, running his own towel precariously over himself and following her out of the bathroom.

She made him lie down when they got there, admiring the view of his body there on her bed, all ready for her.

“I know, baby”, she said, standing on her knees over him, resisting when his hands tried to guide her, scooting up, up, up, hands closing around the rails of the bed, his face lighting up when he realized what she was doing, hands caressing her thighs, no longer trying to guide her. “You’re so good to me, Frank”, she said, hands on his chest, first, then caressing her own sensitive and still slightly damp skin. “You make me feel so good, I never want it to stop.”

“Don’t have to stop”, he promised, shaking his head once, eager, so eager, like a kid wanting his candy. “Come on, I’m here”.

And she gave it to him.

When she lowered herself and his mouth opened on her, hungy and perfect, just perfect, she tossed her head back, holding on for dear life on the bed rails while he took her apart with his teeth and his lips and his tongue, one arm closing around her thigh to keep her there, his elbow there by her hip, the other one shotting up to steady her, keep her up and tease her, getting handful of her breast before splaying out again.

Maybe it was minutes, maybe it was hours, maybe it was mere seconds, Karen lost track of time, she was only aware of her own voice, far away, when he tipped her over that edge again.

She had him in her mouth again before she gave him what he really wanted. Not that he didn’t want her mouth, but it was not his favorite, as much as he liked it.

“Come here, come here”, he breathed out and she kissed her way up his body, turning around towards the foot of the bed, hearing him let out what sounded like a groan within a cry, slapping his hands on her ass when it came into his view.

This wasn’t her favorite, but she knew he liked it. And she could take the chance to gather herself a bit, so there she stayed, looking over her shoulder here and there, to measure his reaction, look at all those muscles contracting, his focus on her body, his hands wandering, and that view, plus that feeling, plus that little voice in her head that kept repeating his name, over and over, she started feeling it again, far and slow, simmering warm, and she knew there was one more crash within her, because it was him, and he knew how to handle her perfectly, as if they had been at it forever and not only just a few months.

When she tossed her hair back and looked at him again, over her other shoulder, his eyes met hers and he sat up, lunging forward and she found herself on her knees and elbows while he moved, hard hard hard, behind her.

Her elbows were the first to give out. Feeling her shoulders complain, she lowered her face to the mattress and stretched her arms in front of her, getting a hold of the foot rails, creating some resistance, crying out, loud moans filling up her bedroom.

“Good?” he asked, he always asked.

“Yeah, God, please-” she had to stop talking in order to breathe.

Then, it was her knees. A dull ache and she relaxed her legs, letting his hands prop her hips up for him. But that didn’t last long. If he had to hold her, he prefered to do it with his arm around her waist, so she found herself on her back again while Frank stood on the floor and bent her leg over his elbow, the other hand supporting his weight on the mattress.

“God, yes, Frank”, she cried and he kissed her neck, his own breathing laboured. “Come on, baby, come on”, it was her turn to say.

“You first”, he growled against her.

“Hmm, no, it’s ok”, she said, breathing out. “I don’t think I c-”

“Yes, you can. Yes, you can, come on”.

A man on a mission, the hand that held her leg up slid down and between them and she bit on the pillow that was right there by her head, screaming into it.

He had to slow down for a minute, to help her build up that fire again, and the nails on his chest were the sign he needed to speed up, to chase his own, she was going to follow naturally.

He collapsed on top of her, hands soothing, lips kissing, arranging her until there was a pillow under her head and a blanket over her body.

“Perfect”, he praised. “You’re perfect.”

He fell asleep before her, not a minute later, holding her to him, done for the night. Karen smiled, picturing the gun he left on the coffee table, all plans of going out forgotten.

She fell asleep tucked into his chest.

.:.

It was not morning when she stirred awake, the street outside was still silent, there was no light coming through the curtains.

Nonetheless, Frank was moving, hands groping, lips warm on her neck, tongue darting out to poke at her skin.

With a sigh, she lifted her hands to his face when he moved to hover over her. Still sleepy, she smiled, arching when his hand dipped low and between them, awakening her body before she could form coherent sentences.

“Should know better than to sleep naked, ma’am”, he whispered, voice rough and low, his fingers agile, warm body settling between her legs. “I wake up and you’re pressed against me”, is all he offered as an explanation, shutting up to suck at the skin of her neck.

It’s slow, loving, full of kisses and sweet caresses, her hands on his back, legs around him while he moves within her, whispering praises and sweet words the world would not expect from the Punisher.

.:.

When the day did break and the sunlight streamed through the window and touched her face, waking her up again, he was breathing deep, in and out, lying on his chest, face buried in one of her pillows, his favorite one, one heavy arm thrown around her waist, on leg hooked with hers, sound asleep.

Sitting up, Karen stretched her arms up and moved to look at him, bending to place a kiss on his face. He didn’t move a muscle.

Frank usually woke up before her, and when he didn’t, one move was enough to rouse him, light sleeper, always vigilant man, Frank Castle. He only slept like that when he was recovering from a particularly violent night of punishing. There was, of course, that one night a few months ago, on his birthday, when she had knocked him out cold after so much sex he accused her or trying to kill him when he did wake up, hours and hours later.

Getting up, Karen smiled as she walked to the kitchen to start the coffee maker, and bit her lower lip on her way to the bathroom, to take a shower and start her day and, still, not a peep out of him.

Mission accomplished.

[edourado]

Cold outside

Small Karedevil ficlet. Happy Valentine’s Day Week.

It was snowing a lot. Opening his eyes, Matt accessed the condition of the streets outside his apartment.

Snow, snow, so much snow. Covering the streets, sidewalks, front steps, gathering on rooftops, trees, trapping cars and bikes and shutting off exits.

And quiet. So quiet he almost moaned in pleasure.

With a hand to his alarm, he clicked on the button.

“Four. Sixteen. AM”, the electronic voice informed him.

Good.

Turning to his left, he dropped his mouth on the back of her neck, her long hair smelling of the floral shampoo that now lived in his bathroom, his hand gliding from her shoulder to her back, the dip of her waist, fingers bunching on the fabric of the T shirt she wore to bed. His Columbia Law one.

“Get this off”, he whispered and she stirred, curling her toes.

“Hmm?” she “asked”, turning her head, not really reacting when he pulled on her underwear, sliding it down her legs.

“Off, take this off”, he repeated, throwing the small garment behind him on the floor.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because I want you naked. Please?”

She moved her arms so he could pull the shirt off her, her skin warm, soft, vanilla scented.

Matt moved to pull the covers more securely around them, satisfied with the temperature of the room - no need to get up and adjust the heater.

“You’re not getting naked?” she asked, apparently not really caring, turning to face him, cuddling against his chest.

“Later. Now I just want to feel you”, he said, hugging her to him, hand travelling under the covers over plains of smooth, uninterrupted skin.

“Hmm. Ok.” Karen dropped a kiss on his collarbone and closed her eyes again, ready to fall back asleep.

A few seconds, though, and she was moving again, hands grabbing his shirt.

“At least this one”, she whispered when he smiled, moving his arms to take it off. “God, you look great”, she said, dropping kisses on his chest, hands holding his arms.

“Glad you think so.”

“I do. You know I do.”

Karen moved to lie on her side again, her naked body molding around his, breasts pressed against his chest, hand on his back, the both of them tangled together, occupying the center of the big mattress.

“My feet are cold”, she complained, rubbing her soles on the sweatpants he still had on.

“They’ll be warm in a minute”, he said, kissing her face, tucking the heavy duvet around her more securely.

She fell back asleep soon, breathing on his chest, hand relaxing on his back, resting against the mattress. The snow kept falling outside, the wind picking up here and there, shutting the city up.

Matt’s world of fire was, for once, silent when he fell back asleep.

I hate begging for love, but this is me doing it

[edourado]

Welcome

If this was prompted by this unholy picture, nobody can prove it. 

I will claim, though, that it was the combined efforts of some people to “invalidate” and ridicule fanfiction of Frank and the many ships that include him that made me start writing this one on my phone (I hate writing on my phone).

So there you go, you cry babies, one more for you. 

Tagging @phenomenaaa and @cautiouslyshipping, because they dig the Kastledevil. Also, I remember @aryastark-baratheon used to like it? Where are you, hon?

If anyone else wants to be tagged in future pieces, let me know.

Oh, and - duh -  this one is NSFW. Like, you know my style, but, just to be safe. They’re naughty, naughty people. 

Matt heard her screams from two blocks away. The grunts and words of encouragement or praise or tease from Frank were not so loud - not by a long shot - but he still heard them.

It was impossible that the neighbors didn’t hear her.

Danny walked by his side, saying something, probably important, but Matt wasn’t listening anymore. All his focus was on them, inside his apartment. It was his apartment, and they didn’t even wait for him.

That’s not polite.

“Hey”, Danny said, finally. “What do you think?”

Matt snapped his head to the left, where Rand stood, taking his focus away from Karen and her wails and her moans for a moment.

“Uh, what?”

Danny clicked his tongue, slapping a hand on Matt’s arm in farewell.

“Never mind. We’ll talk tonight”, he said, walking away. “Say ‘hi’ for me.”

His cane was really useful on the remaining way home. His focus was totally and completely on them.

“Fuck”, Frank breathed out - well, grunted - while Matt crossed the street. “You’re perfect.”

To which Karen let out a strangled cry, making Matt raise his brows at the high pitched tone of her voice. That meant she was really having fun.

When he got closer, he listened for the neighbors. At this hour, the only ones home were the elderly retired couple on the first floor (and they were getting ready to leave for their daily walk) and the woman in 3B, but she had her headphones on, working out to YouTube video or something.

He wondered if Frank calculated those odds or they were just that lucky.

Crossing the last street, he listened on as Karen kept screaming, crying out. Frank had her hair wrapped around his fist (she always liked that), other hand holding her hip against his while he thruster down into her. Her hands were both on his shoulders, holding on as if she was going to fall from a cliff is she didn’t. Her left leg was wrapped around Frank’s right one, the right was raised and bent, foot resting on the small of his back.

“Oh, hello dear!” Greeted Mrs. Pyper when he arrived at the building door.

“Hi, how are you?” He forced himself to smile, putting his breathing in check while Frank bit on the skin of Karen’s neck, coaxing her towards her peak.

“That’s it. Fuck, come on”, he was breathing out while Mr. Pyper patted Matt’s shoulder.

Grateful for not having to stop and make small talk, Matt folded his cane and climbed up the stairs, two at a time.

Karen’s voice vanished, he could just hear her breathing and the whispered repetition of Frank’s name.

When he got to his floor, fishing his keys from his pocket, her hands were in Frank’s hair, now, who had his mouth in her ear, not saying anything, just grunting while shivers ran down his spine, Karen’s own making their rounds.

When he opened the door, Matt was hit in the face by the smell of sweat and sex and her perfume, gun powder and wine. A lot of wine. If his body wasn’t reacting before, it sure was now.

When he pulled the bedroom door open, Frank was still on top of her, hands on her sides, kissing her between her breasts, down her stomach, humming as he always did after a good, good round of sex. Her arms were open, her head was tumbling off the mattress. They were lying with their feet near the headboard, heads on the foot of the bed. Long strands of hair cascaded down, the tips grazing the floor slightly.

Her breathing was hard, she was slick with sweat, eyes closed, heart going fast and hard.

Matt walked and, touching one knee to the floor, rose his hand to her face.

She hadn’t noticed him there, yet, was startled by his touch, sucking in a breath. When she saw him, though, she hummed a note that was so satisfied and lazy Matt had to smile.

“You ok?” He asked, leaning in to press a kiss on her lips, upside down like that, noticing as Frank’s hand rose, closed around one of her breasts for a moment and then continued up, probably looking for him.

“Hmmm, I’m great”, Karen meowed, right hand rising unsteadily, shaking, to his hair, the other on top of Frank’s when it found his face. “I’m so good, baby.”

He kissed her at that odd angle for a second, Frank’s fingers going from his cheek, bypassing his ear and combing through his hair, Karen’s own hands doing the same before sneaking back down and pulling on his tie slightly.

“Couldn’t wait for me, huh?” He asked, not getting up, moving to shed his jacket right there, not caring where it landed, closing his eyes when Karen moved to lie on her stomach, loving the sound her slick skin made against Frank’s body and his sheets.

After one or two strokes of her tongue against his, he got up again, working on his belt while she kneeled on the mattress to unbutton his shirt.

After just the top two were undone, she decided they could work on it a different way and pulled on his arm, making him kneel on the bed and then lie down, his head hitting the pillow just right.

Karen perched on top of him, one leg on each side, and pulled his shirt from inside his pants, unbuttoning and undressing, while Frank’s hand moved to pull his belt off, mouth on his, tongue probing in, licking it’s way around his lips, nipping for a quick second. Matt tasted wine in their mouths, Frank’s usual strong coffee taste very subdued. That hand then made slow work of the buttons, the zipper.

“You had some sort of party?”

“Shut up, Red”, Frank said in his ear, sneaking his hand inside his pants while Karen moved to tug them down. When Matt rose his hips to help her, it was a happy coincidence that he thrust right into Frank’s fist. “And catch up.”

It wasn’t long until he was feeling his muscles tense while Karen moved on top of him, one of his hands tight on one of her thighs, the other one inside Frank’s hair, tugging while he felt his tongue and teeth marking up a bruise on his neck, right at the joint of his shoulder.

“Why are you holding back, baby?” Karen asked there on top of him, rolling her hips so good, to and fro and left and right, hands supporting her own weight on his stomach. “Come on, now.”

He had been holding back because he thought she might be still too sensitive. Frank hadn’t been exactly gentle with her - the complete opposite, in fact - and he didn’t want to overwhelm and possibly hurt her.

But she was moaning and her moves were getting sharper, her nails were biting on the skin of his abdomen a bit, she was shivering again.

“She got home with wine”, Frank whispered in his ear. “Opened one and asked me for a foot massage”.

Matt would smile if there weren’t four hands on him, working together as if they had practiced it. He was losing track of things quickly.

“She had been keyed up the whole day, see?” Frank continued, that hand sliding down his stomach, caressing Karen’s, moving around them to reach under his belly button and Matt’s own hand reached out. “Four glasses down and she was kneeling between my legs, taking me in her mouth that way you know she does.”

“God”, he breathed out, thrusting up, her small cries effective, but not enough.

“Nope, try again”, Frank said against his cheek and Matt turned his face to kiss him, thrusting up again, and Karen cried harder, yes, that’s more like it.

“Harder, Matt”, she pleaded and he removed his hand from Frank’s slowly responding body to anchor them on her hips, looking for more leverage. “Ah, yes, like that!” She praised, tossing her head back.

“Slow and sweet isn’t cutting it for her today”, Frank continued in his ear, one of his ankles hooking with Matt’s left. “Is it, ma’am?”

“Hmm, no”, she breathed out, and Matt felt the way her skin was starting to raise in shivers already.

She was already too worked up for this to last too long. With a kiss on Frank’s cheek and a warning for him to “wait, hold on”, he sat up, kissed her neck once, brought her head back up with his hand so he could place one on her mouth, and then flipped them, placing her on her stomach, smiling when she locked her knees, propping her hips up for him a bit. With a hand on the wall and the other on her hair, pulling it back a bit to whisper in her ear, he drove in, hard and fast and strong, feeling Frank’s mouth there on his face, teeth nipping in his ear while Karen screamed into the pillow and he kept whispering words of encouragement to her, how beautiful she is, she feels so good, does she feel good?, his own teeth sinking into the fleshy part of her shoulder when she clenched and slowed down around him, her body jerking violently while he shuddered his own pleasure.

Matt dropped to the mattress, to the left, his own breathing heavy, chest going up and down, listening as Karen breathed in and out, too, still lying on her belly.

“My head is spinning”, she said, voice too mellow to be sober, one hand sneaking to rest on top of his chest, the other one reaching for Frank’s.

Grasping her hand, Matt shook his head.

“What the hell was that?”

Not that it was the first time he was welcomed home with sex, but this fast, intense, drunk event was a first.

“Stop complaining”, Frank says from his side of the bed.

“I’m not, I’m just curious.”

At that, Karen got to her hands and knees and moved to drop her upper body on him, kissing him slow and deep, hands on his face, hair and chest.

“I’m gonna take a bath, now”, moving from him, she moves to kiss Frank on his lips, neck, chest, nipping on his hip. “I don’t think I can stand in the shower”.

With that, she gets up and makes her way, measured steps, swinging her hips, to the bathroom.

Matt lies there, breathing in and out, and turns to face Frank.

“She’s drunk”, he says, reaching and tracing the features of his face with his fingertips. “What’s your excuse?”

“She wasn’t drunk when she got here”, he offers, scooting closer, throwing an arm over Matt’s waist. “And she was all over me, I’m not gonna say no to that.”

“No?” Matt confirms, sliding his hand, grasping him, and Frank chuckles.

“Gimme a minute, here.”

Frank is almost fully asleep when Matt gets up to open a window, to make some air circulate. Karen is getting up from the tub when he walks into the bathroom, wanting a shower himself.

When Frank wakes up, it’s to the smell of the roast chicken Karen had in the oven. They have dinner and, too soon, they both have to leave to deal with their vigilante business.

“No more wine for you”, Frank tells Karen, climbing up the stairs to the roof access.

“Yes, sir”, she agrees, lying on the couch with her computer on top of her belly.

“Maybe a little bit of wine”, Matt whispers against her mouth and she giggles while he slips his mask on, giving Frank a head start. “I’ll be home before him, this time.”

Fun fact: this was titled “Petty kstldvl ficlet” on Google Docs.

[edourado]

Candle of the wild

For  @goddamnitkastle, for the Hozier Sentence Meme. I hope you like it, sweetheart!

"So tired trying to see from behind the red in my eyes, no better version of me I could pretend to be tonight." 

Muah ;-*

It wasn’t as if he had planned this.

He planned a lot. Calculated everything, and when he couldn’t, the bullets made the math for him. It worked. He got turned inside out, over and over, spat teeth and blood and saw through bloody eyes, limped his way down the path of death he swore to walk since the day he stepped back inside his family home and there was no family left, but it worked.

He got his vengeance. He put the ones that killed his babies and his love on the ground. Every last one of them. His plan worked. And when that plan was done, he worked on another. Got addicted to cleaning the filth, it became his mission and his obsession, his duty. It was expected of him. Hero and villain, all wrapped up in a not so neat package.

But he did not plan this. He did not plan for her. For the hurricane of blond hair, blue eyes, long legs, mighty aim and steady grip on her .380. How could he?

And he saw the danger of her. It did not start like that, but he saw it. First, it was the memories, and he smiled because he was remembering his family, she was smiling because she was picturing them and remembering her own childhood.

But then she went to visit him in prison. She had a way to get under his skin and he tried to be mad at her, brush her off, but she said it was important to her and there he was, taking a fucking stand on his own fucking trial - none of which were planned, he was supposed to be dead by now - because it was important to her.

He walked away, after he got her from Schoonover. He saved her, but then he walked away. For a year, he stayed far, but she was vocal, loud, with her printed words and then there he was again, sitting by her on a bench and she was feeding him information and he was listening and looking at her, asking about Murdock, trying to act casual when she brushed it aside and took a big sip from his coffee, not looking at him.

He did not plan on looking at her like that. He did not plan on caring. He did not plan on kissing her while he had blood on his hands, literal blood, that stained her dress and her bathroom tiles.

It got on her cheek as he gripped her jaw and on her hair when he tangled his fingers through it. She held him back without a hint of hesitation, her own fingers smelling of gunpowder.

He did not want that for her. But she hushed and kissed him into oblivion, and when one of her shoulders became bare, he placed his mouth over it, warm skin against his lips while his teeth dragged the strap of her bra out of his way.

Months and months later, God knows how many, Frank doesn’t count anymore, and she kept frustrating his plans. It should have been over a long time ago, she should have found something normal by now. But she always rolled her eyes, dismissed it and sat down to talk business before pulling him in bed with her, kissing him goodnight or licking his skin awake.

And this, sitting in her bathtub, his back resting against her chest, long legs around his hips, his skin and hers slick with scented bath oils, his head resting on her right shoulder as she traced her finger around a fresh set of stitches she had sewn into his skin not ten minutes ago, that was never in the plans.

She was supposed to be married to some nice, boring man, living in the suburbs, safe, sound and decorating a nursery for her first child, and he was supposed to be dead. Every day, Frank was supposed to die and she was supposed to cry for a week and then move on. Every day he didn’t. He survived and went back to her so he could also live, and he would wake up the next morning and plan it all over again, and she would wreck it.

“So”, she started, soft, running her fingers up his biceps, tracing bruises and cuts delicately, rubbing her essential oils on his skin. “I’m going to the Hamptons this Friday.”

“That this week?” he asked, his voice so lazy, he was a fucking lazy cat around her, adjusting his head on her shoulder, closing his eyes when she started running her right hand through his hair.

“Yes”, she replied, and her mouth was right there in his ear and she was nipping, whispering, tightening her legs around his waist, running her feet up his thighs underwater. “I want you to come with me.”

He chuckled.

“I don’t think your friend wants the Punisher house-sitting for her.”

“She doesn’t care.”

The hand that traced around his stitches lowered to his chest, soothing, caressing, doing something he didn’t know, but he knew, he never wanted her to stop, even if he knew she needed to.

“Plus. There’s two dogs.”

“Why you think you can bribe me with dogs, ma’am?”

It was not the first time she had tried.

“Because I know you like dogs. You can take Max, too, Trish said it was ok.”

He sighed, too tired and too relaxed to actually try and explain to her why it was a bad idea.

Plus, he was considering.

As much as he liked her apartment - and he liked it, that small, thin walled sanctuary of theirs - a house in a beach somewhere with limited neighbors did sound so good. No wake up calls, no time to get up in the morning, no articles to write and no low life to shoot for a whole week. And it was an actual safe house, security freak that was Trish Walker. Shit, it sounds so good.

“Come on, baby”, she whispered in his ear again, and that was so low, so low, because no one else was ever supposed to call him ‘baby’ again, but she did, and he liked it, he tried not to and she even asked him once if it was ok, Frank found himself nodding, smiling, leaning in to kiss her. “She’s lending me her beach house, she says I need to relax, and she knows about you.”

“Because you told her.”

“Come on. She’s a journalist, and my friend, she saw that little gift you left on the back of my neck that time” - he smiled in spite of himself - “and she gets it. You know Trish, you know she’s good. She has Jessica, she understands.”

“Weather I trust her or not is not the question here, ma’am.”

“Then just come away with me, please. I don’t want to go alone, there’s no point in that.”

And then she started moving, hands and feet and body sneaking from under him until she was straddling him inside the tub, water moving, splattering to the floor, her skin was glowing with scented oils, she was so naked on top of him, Frank moved to support his arms on the edges of the tub, looking up at her, enjoying the view and the case she was trying to make.

Why does she want him? Why does she care? He’s the last thing she needs, the last person she should be getting attached to, why does she pull him to her by his slippery shoulders and cradles his face in her hands, runs her fingers through his hair as if he’s precious, as precious as she is, like she loved the feel of him against her?

“Please?” she tries, just a word, before a kiss, before arms around his neck, before her hips are working on his, before his body is going against the plan again, responding to her, his mouth is opening, he’s tasting her tongue and he’s gripping the wet porcelain to keep from making it obvious she already won.

She’s a damn mystery, Karen Page. Why she forgives him, over and over, and helps him wash all the blood away, he’ll never know. She deserves so much better, and yet here she is, asking him to go away with her, if only just for a week, because she knows he needs to come back and resume his work, resume his mission, resume whatever it is that he does, and she needs to come back, too, to the filth and the horror, to this city that keeps trying to swallow her up, and she still tries to save, exposing and shedding light, one article at a time, working with or without him, trying to clean up the mud he swims in every day and every night.

Three days later, he’s carrying her suitcase down the stairs to the car, she’s walking ahead of him, holding onto Max’s leash, and he sees the gun inside her purse, it’s barrel glimmering as they walk under a light.

Maybe that’s why he can’t stick to his plans. She knows him whole, doesn’t expect him to change, adapts to the situation, keeps her gun loaded, her first aid kit stocked and her burner phone charged, just in case all that planning gets blown up.

Driving up to Trish’s beach house, he opens the door for her and she pulls him inside by his hand, and he spends a week covering her in lazy kisses and having lazy sex and being lazy while Max runs on the sand until he’s too tired to run anymore.

Karen sleeps naked against him every night they’re there, no clothes between them, no skulls on his chest, just his skin against hers, him, open and honest, just a man, getting warm against the flame that burned inside her and shone the path ahead of him. Ahead of them, as short as it is.