#Oneshot The Author | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

tuliptired · 6 months ago

Note

could you possibly write an Egon Spengler / female reader love triangle fic! With a lot of jealousy on Econ’s part? I love your Egon fics!

I Wish That I Had Jessie's Girl

Pairing: Egon Spengler/Fem!Reader

Warnings: Minor violence and being not so nice to a lady (its not Egon dw)

its been a minute...wtf yall know about plumbing???

better formatting on Ao3!

You put the phone down dreamily, smiling to yourself as Janine clung to your shoulders, having listened intently to your call. It was Duke, a friend staying with your neighbor. You had taken to talking one morning, you let it slip about your place of employment, and soon enough the boys were ridding his boiler of a spirit. He would call you during work hours, simple things like asking if you made it in ok, if you had dinner waiting- things that didn’t warrant calling a ghost hotline, but he was so sweet that you couldn’t resist. He had the cutest accent you’d ever heard, and not to mention the pure charisma he exuded with sandy hair and tanned skin. You sighed, leaning on your hand as you remembered him saying he “just wanted to talk to the sweet girl on the other end.”

Before you could indulge in your debriefing with your friend, the garage opened, and outpoured four men in brown. It didn’t take a genius to guess what they missed, brains filling in the blanks as Janine shook you around and you both giggled like highschoolers.

“That line is for work calls,” Peter scolded you lightly, picking up the phone and inspecting it. Janine rolled her eyes, going back to whatever was on her computer and you looked down at your paperwork, a little embarrassed.

“You don’t get it,” Janine typed fast. The men groaned, as Peter fell into Ray’s arms dramatically.

“Oh, I get it.” He did his best at mocking your voice. “Oh, Duke, run away with me into the sunset!” Ray played along, doing a worse impression of you as your face burned from the teasing. “Duke- let’s go horseback riding on the beach!”

Winston joined in, sounding like a belle. “Run up the phone bill, Duke!”

As you tried to speak up to put an end to the symphony of phony-you, Peter interrupted you. “Duke, I haven’t had a real date in months- of course I’ll marry- ow!” He rubbed his forehead, eyes flickering from the spot he was struck and the golf pencil clattering to the floor. Soon, the other two men were pelted as well, covering their faces as you tossed writing utensils like rice.

You placed the container down. “It’s not my fault if he’s a romantic,” you defended yourself, straightening your clothes. Ray and Winston raised unbelieving eyebrows at you, bending over to pick up the mess.

Ray stood with a small handful, unbending at the waist. “Just don’t know why you’re so obsessed with him, that’s all.” He had the cadence of a worried older brother, which made you uncross your arms.

Janine leaned in to you. “Knows guitar. Beautiful brown eyes. A little dumb.”

You nodded. “A cute smile.”

“So tall!”

“Deep voice.”

“Southern voice!”

Ray looked offended then, placing a hand on his heart. “I’m southern! What makes him so special?”

Janine pushed her glasses up with her ring finger, crystal chain swinging as she did. “Kansas doesn’t count.”

“Well, excuse me if I’m not as good as Mr. Baywatch,” he stood with his hands on his hips.

Winston looked at something over your shoulder. “What do you think, Egon?” That’s what you were forgetting- you mentally cursed yourself for foregoing the quiet man as he started up the stairs. He paused, looking over the banister.

He was silent, mouth opening but words hesitant. “I wouldn’t be tripping over myself for a plumber.” The rest of the men erupted in laughter, Janine telling them off, swatting at them as she said that they were just old and bitter. Your head fell into your hands, mind spiraling with ways you’ll get them to let it go.

You sat behind your desk, sipping on the coffee Egon had brought you. Just the right kind from just the right shop- in exchange for your help in the lab. The liquid warmed your insides as he watched you, waiting for a verdict.

You put the paper cup down. “It’s the right kind,” you admitted. He didn’t budge. “ Thank you , Egon.” He was satiated, as the door opened and you turned your attention away. It was Duke, the sudden appearance making you jump, quick to fix your hair and tug on the hem of your shirt. He was all smiles, sauntering up to you with a few things in hand. Egon looked unamused, making a small amount of space for the man.

“You have another ghost?” You beamed up and him, nervous in the air of the spontaneous visit.

He laughed, voice rich like honey. “Hey, sweet girl- I can’t see you?” You shook your head light heartedly, subconsciously leaning forward in your seat. He held up what was in his arms. “Brought you something.” a little coffee cup with a yellow sleeve, and a thin batch of flowers. “You didn’t already have, right?” He hesitated before he put the cup onto the wood. Your eyes widened a bit, as he hadn’t noticed the forgotten favor from Egon that you quickly placed in a short, open drawer space underneath the actual table top. You felt bad, doing it in front of your friend, but he’d just have to understand, right?

“Not at all,” you assured him. “Thank you, so much. You didn’t have to.” You brought the drink to your lips, taken aback by the taste. This was the kind you hated. From the place you made a point not to visit. You smiled weakly, taking the flowers in your hands. Pre-cut flowers, destined to die in a week.

He grinned back at you, before something flashed behind his eyes. “Before I forget- the bathroom pipes in your walls? The ones running through your bedroom? They’re sounding a little shaky, you might wanna get them looked at.” He leaned a hand against your desk, the other in his back pocket.

You heard a small snort that didn’t come from either you or the man trying to court you. You nodded, once. “Thanks. If my apartment floods with toilet water I’ll know who to call.” Duke looked around at your workplace, either impressed or concerned as he craned his neck towards the ceiling.

He let out a low whistle. “This place has to be at least half a century old.”

“Octogenarian.” Egon spoke up, evading your gaze as he stared down the other male.

“No kidding,” Duke stilled, before looking around again. You cleared your throat, placing a hand over his.

“Thank you, again. I don’t know anyone who’d go out of their way like this for me.” You locked eyes for a minute, just smiling at each other before Egon interrupted, again.

He started toward the lab. “The samples are ready.” You sighed out your nose, remembering how these were the ones you were particularly excited to look at under the microscope.

You patted his hand apologetically, before getting up as Egon disappeared into the firehouse. “Duty calls. I’ll see you later?” Duke looked a little disappointed, but he agreed nonetheless.

“Later,” he gave your hand a squeeze as he strolled towards the exit.

Egon had a few slides set up, as well as seedlings and sprouted plants off to the side when you arrived. You sat in your designated wheely, short-backed chair, silent and a hefty amount of awkward as he messed with something behind you.

“He got the wrong coffee.”

“I know.”

“And you hate store bought flowers. He tried to charm you by offering to fix your pipes.”

“I know. ” You swiveled around to face him, self-conscious as you remembered the fact that Egon was standing there for the entire ordeal.

You closed your eyes as you put your hands out. “Look. Everybody makes mistakes. So what if I’ve mentioned it to him a few times.” Egon ceased what he was doing and gave you a single look as you slumped back in defeat. “Just drop it.”

“I didn’t say anything,” he turned the microscope’s light on, “now, these are samples of Platanthera ciliaris grown with ectoplasm, rather than cut prematurely with store bought fertilizers-” You cut him off with a light punch to the arm. He slid the scope in front of you. As you put your eye to the lens, your mind blanked upon looking down at blurry shapes and colors. This part always got you.

“How do you…” You gestured to the knobs on either side without raising your head. He was quiet before placing light fingers on your right hand, guiding the knob forward, your skin prickling at the touch. Nothing changed as he retracted his hands.

“It’s still not…” You were about to sit back, to let him try it himself, when there was something in your way as wheels screeched across hard floors. A warm body, a respectable distance behind your own, and warm hands encompassing yours. He silently guided the knob again, back and forth until the slide was clear.

You hoped he couldn’t feel your heart through your clothes as you swallowed. “That’s- good. I can see.” Your breath was taken away at the sight underneath you, yellow and orange and green cells as far as the slide went. Little square boxes, reminiscent of sliced citrus fruit sitting in the long tendrils of the plant. With the ectoplasm, their cell walls grew thick, and seemed to breathe, coiling and writhing. Before Egon could back away, you voiced your awe.

“It’s beautiful,” you said honestly. He stayed where he was.

A beat or two of silence, but he spoke eventually. “I know. It did wonders for their growth. It makes me think, what could this mean for human development?”

You watched on as the cells seemed to twitch, reminiscent of an animal stretching itself. “Living, retentive material on a living, thinking human being? Is that ethical?”

He didn’t say anything as he raised the brightness for you. “I’m unsure.”

You could see even better now, the remaining bits of dirt clear on the root of the flower. “Venkman could help.”

“Perhaps he could.”

It was comforting, the way he was close to you. Undoubtedly, he was in a bit of an awkward position- his lower body was rolled away from the small of your back. But it was almost funny the way he nearly let all of his weight rest on you, while barely touching you at all. The scientist didn’t go out of his way to touch people, and when he did it was stiff and rigid. But he was languid now, deep breaths in tandem with yours as you reveled in the quiet. He started going out of his way for you very far into your employment, and your coworkers swiftly teased you both for it in the privacy of a room the other wasn’t occupying. He let you have the good chair, he brought you the good coffee. He let you watch on and talk endlessly while he worked, something that the other men didn’t have the privilege of. He listened to you divulge him in a topic he never previously cared for, as you ate all of his food. So to be touched, as brazenly as this, was simultaneously surprising and expected. He was your friend. But he was Egon, so his pelvis would stay out of contact with your body as he leaned forward onto you.

But the presence was lost, as the scrape of wheels against the ground made you raise your head, a bit disappointed. He had a little slide in hand, with another flower. It was your favorite, marked “ectoplasmic”, incased in clear material. He had the ghost of a guilty smile as you took it from him, marveling at the new color created.

You managed to glow so hard you nearly felt your cheeks ache. “You’re spoiling me.”

Janine was bored, taken to filing your nails to match her own in the middle of the slow day. The compact radio on your side of the desk went on, playing your station of preference as you let her work on you. She stops filing, blowing the dust off the edge.

She eyes you for a moment, before going back to your hands. You narrow your eyes as she keeps her head down. “What? What was that for?”

“Your aura is all outta whack.”

You frown. “Well then, I apologize for my ‘aura’.” Janine wasn’t pleased, cocking one eyebrow as she dragged the file back and forth.

She sits up a little straighter, bringing your hand up to her eye. “This is bad. I’ve only seen something like this in my sister.”

You sneak a look down at your nails. “Your boy-crazy sister?”

“I’m telling you- this is bad.” Janine drops the file, holding your hand. “And I can tell what’s happening.” She takes a pause, as if her next words will hurt coming out. “You’re in love.”

“Alright, you got me,” you pull your hands back, surrendering sarcastically. The little woman grabs them again, insistent.

“So you’re not in love with Duke?”

“I mean-”

“So you’re stuck between two lovers?”

Taking your hands back again, you roll away from her, eyes widening and voice reaching a ditzy pitch. “I am not in love with Egon!”

She has an expression reminiscent of a psychiatrist as the light catches in her glasses. “Honey. I never mentioned Egon.”

You freeze. Without thinking, you rise from your chair, only to be pulled back down. “You’re just confusing me,” you protest.

She cages you into the receptionist booth. “The only thing confused is your heart. You’re stuck between two guys and now you have to choose one.” You scoff, crossing your arms. She keeps on, voice lowering a bit as if she remembers the men upstairs.

“I see it, we all see it. Except the two eggheads,” she flicks you between the eyebrows with manicured nails. “Friends and coworkers don’t do what you do.”

The spot on your face stung. “I’m telling you, he’s just my friend,” you almost pleaded.

Janine’s eyes nearly rolled off her face. “Of course. He lets you bother him all day because you’re friends? He’d lay himself out on the ground for you to walk on if you asked. You just don’t think he would because you’re too scared to lose him if you make assumptions.” She presses a finger to your chest. “But you should’ve seen the two of you the other day.”

Your blood runs just short of icy. “You were there?”

“Egon does not touch people. And there you were, this 6ft scientist hanging off of your back like a koala.” She smirks to herself as she lets up, rolling back to her spot and starting to work on her own nails as you sit there, stunned. “You like the big-weird-doctor,” her voice teases you.

There’s nothing for you to do but roll back to your own spot, silent as she keeps going. “And you’re not gonna say anything to Duke?” His name snaps you back to reality as you turn your head to face her.

“I don’t…” You try to argue your case, barren as it may seem, but it served no purpose when nothing came to mind.

“So you’ll say something to Egon?” Her face brightens with hope.

“I…” Nothing, again, as you search the floor for some sort of answer.

“So you won’t say anything to anyone and you’ll die an old hag?” She whines, setting the file down against the wood, eyebrows furrowed as you throw your head back, squinting at the ceiling.

Your brain was scrambled, not knowing whether it was on the offensive or the defensive. You make a resolve without thinking, tone self-assured. Or, in denial. “I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. And I’ll…be with Duke because he actually likes me.” She starts to speak, but her words are cut off by a low, shaky rumbling reverberating throughout the firehouse. Both pairs of eyes instinctively flit downward, until a creaky note followed by a loud spraying noise and a curse resound from above you.

The voice of the man in question cuts through the very loud chaos happening in your walls, calling down the hall. “The lab sink! It’s flooding!” The sounds of running water and creaky metal fill the space. Amidst the noise, you can hear Ray announce that “he’s got it!” as he makes it to the lab along with two other sets of feet, and you rush to the staircase.

“No, you don’t! You’re an engineer, not a pipefitter!” You leant on the railing, waiting for a response. You got one, as the madness quieted for a second, Janine coming out from under the desk. In an instant, it erupted again, even worse as you and Janine’s hands went flying towards your ears. There was a hellish cacophony of metal, gushing water, and creaking inside and outside the wallpaper, comparable to construction. You stumbled back to the desk, fingers pressed into your hair.

“Who do we get? What number do we call?” Janine hands you the phone, yelling over the endless pandemonium.

You have to yell back. “No one, after the work Ray did- no commercial plumber would come within 50 feet of our driveway if he wanted to keep his license.”

She shakes the phone at you, exasperated. “Well, what do we do? This place is falling apart!” You’re forced to take it then, holding back a sigh as you bite your cheek and punch in the only number you knew to contact.

Duke was underneath the sink unit, working hard as he lay on the towel you gave him to stay out of the inch of water that accumulated onto the floor. “It’s a good thing you called me when you did,” he marveled as he reached for a tool in the worn satchel you held like the daintiest picnic basket.

“I can’t tell you how glad I am that I did.” He sends you a smile from the ground, and you return it, until you hear the slosh of something dragging against water. Duke looks to the side, and you do the same as you look up, expression flat. Egon was in his chair, working at his workbench like there wasn’t centimeters of stagnant water at his ankles. You knew he was freaked out of his mind, he was just being difficult.

“Egon,” you inquired sweetly.

“Hm?” He was playing innocent.

Your voice retained the same sweet cadence. “Why are you here?”

Egon gazed at both of you incredulously, like he had no idea what he was doing wrong. “It’s my own laboratory, I think I reserve the right to be here.”

Your jaw clenched. “Of course. Hey, Duke, tell me again about your football team,” you hid the venom in your voice as your stare didn’t leave Egon’s sitting figure.

Duke shined when he recalled his years in high school sports. “Oh man, you have no idea. I was the best running back in Valentine. I was riding high, ‘till I tore my ACL. Could’ve gone pro.”

Egon spoke as you were about to praise the former athlete. “Interesting you mention football injuries. Many players can develop CTEs and never notice.” Duke blinked, nodding slowly.

“My head’s okay. I think.”

“I’m sure. Poor impulse control, rage issues, and eventual dementia but- there’s no way we’ll know until you’re dead.” He shrugged, smile lopsided.

“And what a cute cadaver you’ll be, with cute Duke Juniors at your side after they do the autopsy,” you bent slightly, voice saccharine and expression strained as you got Duke’s attention again. It felt mean to think this, but he was a little easy to please.

“It might not be the CTE that gets him, after all. In fact, plumbers are easily at risk for infectious diseases. Hepatitis, staphylococcus. On account of the fecal matter and septic water.”

Before you could distract him, Duke looked offended, brows knitting together.

“Nerds like you don’t get sick? With your samples and your tests?” He glanced at Egon sideways.

Egon simply shook his head. “No. Because I’ve never swam through human shit for a paycheck.”

Duke almost got up from his spot underneath the sink, sitting up on his forearm and pointing a tool towards the seated man. “I didn’t go to some big school for years just so I could be called doctor like you did. You don’t even patch anyone up,” he retorted harshly. Egon, the man who avoided confrontation, seemed smug and amused by the insult, ready to spit back himself.

You squatted to be level with him, internally thankful that your legs were strong enough to prevent you from falling backwards into standing water. “I’ve never told you how cool I think it is that your truck is so tall. I didn’t even know they made them that big.” God, you sounded like a cheerleader as you rested a hand on his chest, but it worked.

He was content with that as he wiped his hands off on a rag. “Y’know, sweet girl, I’ve been meaning to ask. Tomorrow’s Friday, wanna come out to the bar on 5th and Franklin? I’ll show you a good time.” He spoke low, eyes lower. Egon didn’t give you time to respond, as he was fully turned towards the both of you, face more than annoyed.

“She hates that club. And she told you that, because it has to do with why she doesn’t have her license, and she tells that story to everyone. Were you the exception, or did you just not care enough to remember? Because she won’t jump into bed with you on the spot?” For the second time that day, your blood turned to icy as you stood up fast, water splashing onto Duke’s shirt underneath you going unnoticed to everyone in the room but him as he grabbed the hem.

You could barely control the anger in your voice as it rose in volume. “Egon,” was all you had to say, firm and frustrated as you stood with hands on your hips. He looked like a scolded child, wordlessly wading through the flood and following you outside.

You stood standing across from each other, Egon very interested in your shoes. “What the hell is wrong with you?” You questioned him, infuriated as you pinched each of his ears, pulling him down as he winced in pain.

When you let go, he weakly soothed his red cartilage. “You don’t understand,” he muttered, immediately regretting his choice of words as your eyes lit aflame.

“What don’t I understand? That you didn’t mean to be a jerk to the guy trying to ask me out?” Egon took your reproach, until he couldn’t anymore.

“He doesn’t really like you,”’ he said reluctantly.

“How would you know?” You crossed your arms and narrowed your eyes. Was this why he was being so petty?

Egon sighed, before looking frustrating and starting off on a tangent. “He got you the wrong coffee, the kind that gives you a stomachache. And he got you store bought flowers that died within a week. Anyone who’s ever known you will know to get you a potted plant so you can keep it alive yourself. Not to mention that you’d have more stimulating conversation with a mailbox than him.” Egon looked choleric and uncomfortable as he tried to reason with you, voice raising slightly.

You took a step towards him, lowering your voice as you weren’t all that far from the lab- only down the hall. “At least he’s trying! In all the time you’ve known me, how many people did you know to actually try?” It sounded pathetic out loud, but it was true, right? For as long as you could remember, you knew that you’d eventually have no more room to nitpick. He had a brief, hurt expression, eyebrows flying together and mouth open slightly. He looked away once, before nearly begging you.

“He’s only trying because he thinks you’re a challenge!” He put both hands on your shoulders in a moment of desperation. “I’ve lived among men all my life. Even the most mild mannered guy has only one thing in mind, taking you to a club like that. He lets you talk and talk because you won’t think twice when-”

You pushed yourself away, a cynical smile as your face burned inside. “Oh, I’m sure Janine would be surprised to hear that coming from you.” You stepped toward the door, ready to open it and accept his invitation. Egon took a step towards you, as if you were an animal.

“What? I’m trying to tell you, he is an insincere neanderthal of a man, and he’ll do nothing but treat you like dirt.” You were ready to snap then. This was all too much for you, abstract emotions having nothing to do but manifest as frustration. Janine’s words mixed with Egon’s, resounding as negative affirmations through every corner of your head.

This was all so confusing, and now here he was, telling you that the love you were receiving for so long was superficial. Wasn’t he supposed to be your friend? That hurt most of all, memories of the handful of times you were alone at night, spilling your thoughts out. You were tired, and he did more listening than talking, but you can remember him reassuring you that “ someone will love you. He’ll stop being scared and he’ll tell you with a beautiful flower in hand.” Who cares how you felt about Duke? The love he promised is here, and now it’s up to Egon to tell you it’s not true? You could barely feel tears in the corner of your eyes, disdain making them dry.

Taking a slow, yet shallow breath, you grabbed the door again, turning your back to him. “And you’re being an ass. As far as I’m concerned, you’re not at liberty to tell me who I should and shouldn’t be with.” You couldn’t bring yourself to look back at him, but if you did you’d see the visual representation of someone’s heart breaking into splinters. “I’m gonna go out with him and have fun. And drink.” With that, you were back in the lab, a little shaken as you put on a faulty smile, cheerily saying yes to his invite.

The next day came, and Peter let you go early since they’d finished all their scheduled jobs and Janine was still around. As you thanked him for excusing you, Egon stood wordlessly at the workbench.

You got nice and dressed up, perhaps a little better than you would otherwise. But this was for you, and partly to prove a point. Duke let you know how nice you looked during the ride from your place to the bar, granted he spent the rest of the drive going on about the truck itself. You seldom paid attention, mind so focused on enjoying yourself that you forgot to be in the moment.

At the door, you had to use a different form of identification to get in on account of this same club’s (teenaged?) bartender swiping your license to use for herself. Duke made some wayward comment on you proving that you were of age in some clandestine way, and you just sighed out your nose, handing the unamused bouncer your ID.

The inside was hot, and loud. You couldn’t walk too far without bumping into someone. You only frequented places like this with friends, so a date was new territory as he sat down at the bar without looking back. He ordered a large beer, for himself, and insisted that you order another drink after you had nursed yours. You declined, you needed to remember tonight, and he seemed almost annoyed at that. The air was a little tense- it was hard to have a good time when only one person’s throwing back. It was only getting better when you did the cheerleader thing again, letting him pick you up with one arm and impress you with another round of shots. You suggested he slow down, and again denied another drink, and he seemed irritated again. You felt a little despondent yourself as he wouldn’t talk, before something across the bustling room got his attention and he halfheartedly excused himself.

It didn’t take long before you found him in the corner of a bar, trying to impress much younger, much drunker girls. Drunken asshole. You dragged him back by the wrist, talking sweetly to him as you promised him a dance earlier in the night. He got excited, beating you at getting to the floor. As your sultry air fell, you caught a glimpse of bright colors in one of the booths, pointing in your direction. God damn it.

“What are you doing here?” You leaned against their table exasperated as 3 out of 4 of them beamed at you. Winston, Peter, and Ray each had the same dress shirt, buttons undone and sleeves rolled up to different degrees; in purple, red, and green respectively. Egon opted for a dress shirt he had at home, a simple light blue under a sweater vest and tie. He looked nothing sort of tense in the crowded environment, even more so now that you were in front of them. You scrunch your nose in sight of their outfits. “Did your tour bus break down?”

Winston put down his glass. “How’s your date going?” You closed your eyes and raised your eyebrows.

Peter looks over your shoulder at Duke making his way through the crowd. “He looks juiced.”

“It’s fine. Why are you here?” Ray smiled, putting a hand on Egon’s shoulder.

“Can you believe this was Egon’s idea? Here, no less?” The man looked into your eyes sheepishly as you glared down at him.

“Oh, I can believe it. Well, I hope you and Rosenberg enjoy your night.” You gave Egon a mocking grin, before departing to find Duke. You did, and he was, again, with another girl. You got his attention, and he was excited to dance- just extremely handsy. So much so that you had to hold his wrists to keep his hands on your waist, rather than your front or rear.

Eventually, he spoke low and into your ear, but it wasn’t the titillating, sensual way that one would towards someone they were trying to romance. It made the hair on your neck stand for the wrong reasons as it registered as sleazy, predatory. Drunken words:sober thoughts, Janine’s voice sounded in your mind.

“C’mon, let’s go to my place,” Duke finally ended his slurry of obscene suggestions as his hands tried at grabbing your wrist, motioning to lead you out to the apartment he didn’t even own. You resisted, heartbeat racing as you tried to politely let him know you were fine here. His half lidded eyes became aggravated as he tried again to drag you out, this time with a tighter grip and a stronger force. You couldn’t stop his strength as he started to pull you away from the safety of a crowd and towards the dimly lit exit, fingers digging at his in a desperate attempt to free yourself from the grips of this man with a getaway car and a plan.

You were able to escape his tight hold, and he spun around, irate. “I went through all this trouble to listen to you bitch and moan about stupid shit, and you won’t even sleep with me?” As you stood there, dismayed, he managed to spit out a disgusting, derogatory insult at you, looking down at you in the flashing lights of the club. Drunken bastard.

You were appalled, and before the record could change, you brought your hand up and to the side of his face, hard. He was stunned by the slap, cheek red as he looked back at you in disbelief. Your fear turned into great offense and disgust at the sight of the man in front of you. In an attempt to regain his pride he took a step forward, enraged and embarrassed. As he got almost chest to chest with you, he reached for your neck.

Before he could choke you out, there was a hand on his shoulder. Almost as quickly as he looked over his shoulder, there was a fist connected to his other cheek, and you could swear a tooth or two came flying out.

It all happened so quickly that you could’ve blinked and gotten to where you were, talking to a police officer outside as Duke and Egon were seated on the curb, handcuffed. The officer nodded as you gave your statement, and let Egon, who was sitting calmly, off with a warning as he wasn’t intoxicated and acted in your defense, while Duke hurled expletives and beer from his spot against the road. The car sped off with him in the backseat, and you tiredly sat down next to the tall man, stretching his wrists out from the handcuffs.

“Hey.”

Egon’s face was illuminated by the fluorescent lights of a 24 hour grocery behind him in the entertainment filled street. His brown eyes were soft and slightly rounded, albeit worn. “Hi.” He looked at you expectantly with a trace of worry as you scanned him. He looked beautiful at night. “Are you okay?” He bashfully held both of your hands in his.

You nodded. He didn’t seem to believe you, examining any part of your body that was exposed. You pinch his ears again, pulling him down. “Thanks for spying on me,” you let him go, “But. Thank you for being there, really. I’m sorry I didn’t listen when you were warning me.” He looked guilty as he rubbed the tops of his ears.

“I should be apologizing. It’s not my place to police what you do. I’m sorry I acted childish.” You let out a small huff, leaning your head on his shoulder. He was a warm refuge in the cooling air of the night.

“But, you wouldn’t have had to if I just rejected him.”

He hummed. “True,” he agreed without thinking. He realized what he said as you let out a short laugh. “Objectively, it is true. But you shouldn’t blame yourself for him being disgusting. This could’ve been avoided if I had just gained the courage to tell you.” You sighed, before freezing.

“Tell me?”

It was his turn to freeze, eyes on the ground as he sat still. You shook his shoulder a bit, trying to convince him to let you in.

“Tell me what? C’mon, no more secrecy from now on.” He pursed his lips, sitting like a deer in headlights. He swallowed, battling something in his head before he rose silently, stopping in front of the tiny grocery store. You watched on as he robotically made it past cut and wrapped bouquets, artificial and destined to wilt soon. He stopped in front of a little potted thing, tiny compared to the others on sale but precious and hardy in its own right as its blossoms were finished blooming.

Egon took a breath in, and you stood to be with him. “I promised you. That the love of your life will be there with a flower in hand.” He looked between you in the pot. “If you’ll have me?”

The sounds and colors of the club melted away, painting you both in light like oil portraits. How blind you were. He looked grecian, his nervous face bathed in blue.

“Of course. Even if you had to act like a caveman for me to realize."

#ghostbusters #ghostbusters 1989 #ghostbusters 1984 #egon spengler #egon spengler/reader #egon spengler x reader #egon/reader #egon x reader #peter venkman #ray stantz #janine melnitz #winston zeddemore #oneshot #fanfic #ao3 link #ao3 writer #ao3 author #open requests #ask box

171 notes · View notes

farolero-posting · 1 year ago

Text

So I was thinking about the book in the library about the multiverse theory, and how the Author in OneShot was trying to write the theory to the best of his ability and honor "her" this way.

So, who is the "she" he wanted to honor? What are your headcanons?

#i may create a poll based on A Few Ideas I Have #oneshot game #oneshotgame #the author #oneshot the author

20 notes · View notes

book-casee · 1 year ago

Text

Another thing I noticed talking about Eleventh Hour: It’s a mix of the guitar and the piano. The Guitar is associated with the Author and his children, while the Piano is associated with The World Machine. It almost feels like a conflict between The World Machine’s destructive breakdown and The Author and his children’s plan.

Thinking about Eleventh Hour from OneShot and how it makes me FFFFFFFFFFEel.

It’s a downtrodden song, sure, but it has just the amount of comforting ambiance to push you forward. It sounds dire, and the name of the song implies that the end is nigh, but *something* is keeping you going when even the world itself has stopped being able to function. Most instruments have an echoing to them, like the piano and the synth(?) at the beginning, exhibiting a feeling of loneliness, but there’s parts where the guitar shines through, creating a feeling of comfort, like someone in the midst of a storm, assuring you that it will all be okay.

#oneshot niko #oneshot twm #the world machine oneshot #oneshot the author #oneshot rue #oneshot game #oneshot prototype #AAAAAAAGH #IM SO AUTISTICCCC

21 notes · View notes

butterfly-stitches · 2 months ago

Text

AMERICAN DREAMING.

[ Explicit MDNI ]

AO3

Pairings: Russell Adler / Bell, Russell Adler / Reader Russell Adler & Bell, Russell Adler & Reader Ensemble: Russell Adler, Bell (Call of Duty), Female!Bell, Reader

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence ☁️ Major Character Death ☁️ Memory Loss ☁️ False Memories ☁️ Brainwashing ☁️ Past Brainwashing ☁️ Identity Issues ☁️ Loss of Identity ☁️ Depression ☁️ Dissociation ☁️ Psychological Trauma ☁️ Medical Trauma ☁️ Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD ☁️ Flashbacks ☁️ Stockholm Syndrome ☁️ Hurt/Comfort ☁️ Hurt No Comfort ☁️ Sad Ending ☁️ Character Death ☁️ Older Man/Younger Woman ☁️ Parenthood ☁️ Family Dynamics ☁️ Family Bonding ☁️ Made For Each Other ☁️ Oral Sex ☁️ Penis In Vagina Sex ☁️ POV Second Person > Other Additional Tags to Be Added <

Synopsis: Life is but a dream… Fleeting, inconsequential. A stone unburdened by the snowfall of winter and snowmelt of spring. Like a river it flowed, a surging tributary of memory and memoir. Ever going, never ceasing. But to you, life was not fleeting nor inconsequential. Life was not dreamlike. To live, was to suffer. To suffer, was to live.

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

Chapter 1: reality, reverie.

Words: 20,020 Chapters: 1/1 Summary: In which you face reality and reverie …

Something wasn’t right.

Even in the embrace of sleep, just on the verge of consciousness, you could tell. Warm, comfortable. Cozy even, and… safe. That alone made you stir, shifting against the confines of something that held you close. Too close. Restrictive, digging into your skin. Suffocated you. Drowning, you were drowning. No, you were being dragged underneath the water. Again, you stirred. Struggled against the hold. Again and again. But to no end, as you were only being dragged down further into dark waters. Still, you fought against the restraints you couldn’t see. Freeing within yourself a sudden violence armed with teeth and claws. A trapped, aggressive beast awakened after all this time.

You fought. Fought hard, fought strong and desperately. But, it still wasn’t enough to free yourself. Further and further, like deadweight, a stone thrown into a lake, you free fall into the deep, dark depths below. Light above you, fading away in the darkness. Your lungs burned, nostrils flared. Everything in you, ached for oxygen, choking for air. Pressure built into your chest, heavier and heavier, threatening to split your ribcage open. Screams silenced by water, your mouth filling with water. Air bubbles escaped your open maw, your frantic releases of breath leaving an effervesced trail as you sunk. Buried in a watery grave, pressurized and all consuming. Death was slow. Your death was inevitable like grave soil being thrown over your coffin.

Your sight blackened but you thrashed about still, screaming and fighting in the throes of inevitable death. Then you heard it. A symphony of sounds, echoing like a whale song. Cacophonous and jarring as it reverberated in your bones and repeated in your head. An evocative vocalization that you began to understand, to recognize. It called to you, spoke a name. ‘Bell, Bell, Bell’ it said, repeating over and over like a mantra. From a voice that you knew wholeheartedly, deep down in the intertwisted threads of the tapestry of soul and flesh. Something reached for you, strong against your skin. Pulling you up and out of the water. You jolted awake. Bleary-eyed and fearful. Everything around you was but a blur of colors and shapes. A warbling in waterlogged ears, a chorus of inharmonious noise.

Your world was rendered all but a kaleidoscope of sight and sound. A clarity absent to your senses and sensibilities. But touch, though averse and scarce, was not beyond you. It was a deliberate feeling that you focused on, even as your body ached like sunken stones. Something held you down still, something tangled around your body, constricting like a boa. The hold you felt was trapping, capturing. Freedom revoked. It made you start to panic, fighting against its hold again. That viciousness returned like a cornered animal. All tooth and claw. Running on survival, guided by a pure instinctual reaction.

“Bell!”

At that name, at the voice in your ear, you immediately stilled. Chest heaving with your heavy intakes of air. There was something solid behind you, holding you tight against it. A respiring that matched your own until it synced with you. Something that was living, breathing. All blood, bone and skin just like you. A warmth emanated into you, one that you couldn’t help but indulge in. You were shivering, all shaking bones, quivering lips and sheened with cold perspiration. In the lingering feeling of being underwater. Doused in freezing water.

With a stuttering breath, you leaned back into a wide chest, the weight of burly arms around you providing you a heaviness that was more comforting than it was tenacious. Like the singing of a mother after a nightmare. It brought you back down within the gravity of reality, the weight of the world settling onto you. And you felt yourself relax. All fight leaving you as you fell limp against the person holding you. Racing hearts beat into a slow thrum. Skin pressed into skin, your shaking gone. Your sight began to clear, the instinctual takeover of your brain waning away like fog over a harbor with the onset of sunrise. Yet even then… you were still held, embraced. Allowed you the time to adjust, to process your surroundings. To recognize the illusions of dreamscape, the falsehood of truth in the face of actuality.

You were in unfamiliar surroundings. In a bright bedroom, on a bed. Early morning sun peeking through the window curtains behind you, streaked across the white wall in front of you; streams of sunlight washing over the room and onto your body. The sheets beneath you stuck to your clammy skin, your thin nightgown like a second skin. Duvet tossed away, a throw blanket tangled around your legs. The warbling in your ears, nothing but birdsong. That voice in your head, belonged to the body behind you. Who had you in their arms, limbs around your own.

You took a breath, inhaling. Smelt the familiar scent of salted skin and a faint musk. Deep like leather and aftershave. Cedarwood and bergamot; a rich smokiness that filled your lungs. Though comforting, evoking a sudden feeling of safety, such a scent was like smelling salts to your disoriented mind. You were wide awake now, though still uncertain if not confused. A sudden soft yet loud banging on wood, and you instantly recoiled, tensing up with panic. Your eyes darted to the door along the wall you faced. Fight-or-flight response started to take hold again. A firm squeeze of arms around you and you leave the trap of your mind, of your ingrained instincts, even as the banging on the door continued, voices calling on the other side.

“Bell.” The person behind you said, warm breath against your neck. A word that made you attentive, responsive. It was spoken firmly, yet gentle. You focused on the voice, the body pressed against yours. Coming down from your panic attack as you calmed down. Breathing slowed but your body still tensed by the noise, alarmed. Gradually and gingerly, you were released. The body pressed into yours moved away, the warmth at your back disappearing. In the blur of the sun, you watched as the person entered your sight, heading towards the door. A man; tall, wide-shouldered and bare-chested. Disheveled hair shimmered like gold. The expanse of a broad, muscled back tensed as he turned around.

You watched as he opened the door. Slow and careful. Using his body to block the opening from the voices on the other side as if to protect you, hide you away from prying eyes. As if the voices would burst through the door forcefully. It seemed like that rang true, was an expectation, as something did try to dart inside only to be stopped by the man. Whatever it was that wanted in, protested, verbalized their displeasure at him. But the man was adamant with his tone, assertive with his position. Yet just as gentle as his words were with you. Hushed voices, questions answered briefly, low spoken words. Too quiet for you to overhear. Whatever the man had said to them seemed to work as the voices quieted and silhouettes disappeared from the doorway and the pattering of feet sounded down the hall.

Running a hand down his face, the man closed the door, making sure to lock it. He turned, eyes glancing at your rising form before he dipped away into a side room. You heard the rush of water from a sink and less than a minute later, heavy footsteps on the carpet towards your side of the bed. You straightened up as he stood over you, something in his hand and you reacted. Scooted backwards, clawing at the sheets in an attempt to escape. Kicked out your legs as the man reached over, the beginning of a scream forming in your abraded throat.

“You need to calm down.”

But you couldn’t. Violence was all you knew, all you were. A wild animal deep down inside, hidden behind the façade of domestication and domesticity.

“Bell.”

A pet’s name, a moniker he saddled upon you. Straining at the leash to get away, you crawled further to the other side of the bed, on his side of the bed. The warmth from his body still radiating from his spot, seeping into you as your palms tightened around the sheets. He gave you a disapproving look as if you were nothing more than a misbehaving dog — his disobedient pet. One he was determined to bring back to heel. Your eyes were on him as he slowly sat on the edge of the bed, opposite of you, the mattress dipping with his weight. He held a damp towel in his hands, showing it to you. Letting you know what he had was innocuous. But you remained in your far corner, unconvinced.

You studied him from afar, watching every little movement of his. Anything to signal danger and warrant a reaction from you. He was patient nonetheless. But something in you knew that wasn’t typical, accustomed to his persistent, proactive nature. A go-getter who was on the verge of fanatical and obsessional in his pursuits. But the longer you watched him, stared at him. The more you wracked around your brain. The more you became nostalgic. A remembrance tingled in the back of your head. He was no stranger to you. No threat.

He read you easily it seemed. Called out for you again. Bell . Your name on his tongue, a gentleness, a fondness just for you. You only watched as he reached forward to you, for you. You were face-to-face now as he settled next to you. In the sun, in the warm glow of the early morning, you saw him for who he was. Who you remembered. His name was on the tip of your tongue. You searched his face; all scar-faced, square-jawed, stone-faced, and blue-eyed features of him.

“Adler.” You whispered.

He pressed the damp towel to your forehead, wiping away the beads of sweat. The sudden coolness made you flinch. You tried to move from it, but his hand went to your chin. Held it firm, keeping your head still as he tapped it along your brow.

“Adler.” You said again, more to yourself than anything.

He stopped, mouth pressed into a line as sharp eyes flicked down to you. You went slack in his grip, eyes fluttering. You pressed yourself into his body, tucking your head underneath his chin. Though he was surprised by it, Adler didn't protest. He wrapped his arms around you, your face in the crook of his neck. Taking in the smell of him greedily. Adler pulled you down with him, onto the bed. Broken memories played, too quick to grasp, too minimal comprehend but enough to give rise to some sort of response. An ache in your chest, conflicting emotions. But above all else, you clung to the arms around you. The only thing that gave you a sense of solidity, of feeling real. Your name again spoke above you, into your hair, and Adler pulled away slightly, looking down at you as he rose up, pulling you with him. With you still curled into his chest.

“You need to take your medication.”

You only pressed yourself harder into his chest, the speckling of hair there scratched against your cheek with your nuzzling.

“Bell.”

Gently, Adler pried you away. A hand on your shoulder, as he held you inches from himself. Dark blue eyes on your face. Whatever he saw there, whatever expression you showed, made his eyes narrow and his mouth twist.

“Your medication. You need to take it.”

You blinked up at him, processing what he said. From his slow unfurling palm, he revealed a capped syringe. An unknown liquid in its barrel. Your eyes widened, panic coming once again as alarms bells blared in your head. Realizing that he had hidden it underneath the towel, right underneath your nose. Like a dog’s medicine hid within a treat. Betrayal simmered, over the fear. And his face hardened at your realization.

“Focus, Bell. I need you to focus.”

Your eyes flicked to him, then back down to the syringe in his hand. Inattentive, unsure. Your mind fought against itself. Trust and mistrust, a cocktail like oil and water in your mind. His hand gripped your shoulder harder, nails into your skin as you began to pull back. Cowering from the raised hand holding your medication. Memories again, more debilitating than before. They played like a broken cassette tape in your head, experiencing them again as if renewed, reimagined. A touch of death that stained you, a resuscitation that saved you. Blood on your tongue, swollen nose seeping into your mouth — bleeding wounds.

Metal chairs, gurneys. Interrogation rooms, your reflection — bloodied and bruised — stared back at you in the dark glass. Red, white and blue. The national colors of bloodletting, of broken bones, of sorrow sown. Threats and questions. Questions you refused, threats you disregarded. Drowning, you were drowning like before. Dragged forcefully underneath dark waters, swallowing you whole. A drumming noise inside your head, a ringing in your ear. The water didn't drown it out, only amplified the overwhelming din and it only grew louder and louder inside your pounding head.

A sudden sharp pressure in your eye socket and you squirmed against the person that held you down. Your eyelid forced open as it slowly sunk into your cerebral. You grit your teeth, grinding your jaw against your molars. Then you screamed but you were soundless; mouth opened in a voiceless wail. As quickly as it came, the sensation subsided and the needle was carefully pulled from your cornea. The afflicted eye stung from the intravitreal injection. Then, a strange tranquility befell you, reined you in. Stopped your aggression. A calloused hand cupped your face softly, turning your head to the side. A worried look on his face as Adler scrutinized where the needle went into your eye, the needle just missing the blood vessels from all your movement.

His sweaty body was over you, you soon noticed. Panting down on you with uneven breaths. His other hand held your arms across your chest, his legs tangled with yours. Keeping them pinned to stop you from thrashing and kicking out at him. Adler moved away as you came to, giving you space. Letting you rise up on your own. He sat back, moving to the other side of the bed again, watching you intently from the distance he put between you two. You, yourself, took deep breaths, trying to steady your breathing and slow your rising pulse. A heavy silence waned in the bedroom, the mingled heavy breathing of both you and Adler was the only sound in the bed space. The morning sun sat higher in the sky now, shining down harder in the room, and onto you both. Noises outside the bedroom, more voices and a pattering of feet. A restlessness that beckoned you towards it. You turned towards Adler, who met your eyes. His body leaned forward, his hand reached out slow and onto your bare knee. And squeezed it.

“Bell.” Your eyes rose from his hand on your knee, to his face. Focusing on him.

The next words that he spoke, made you falter. A strange conglomerate of distant phonics, of harsh sounding syllables. A Slavic language. One that made your ears perk up, though you struggled to understand what he was saying to you. But it wasn’t foreign to you, you knew it deep down inside. You could feel the rhythm of the language. It thrummed in you, spoke to the blood that rushed into your veins. Russian . You could speak it naturally, fluently. Your mouth opened, lips dry and throat raspy. Tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth. Questions existing, but words were lost to you. Adler stood from the bed, walking back into the bathroom. He returned with a disposable paper cup full of water, a couple of pills in his hand.

“Pain relievers.” He explained in Russian, answering the questioning look you gave him.

You took them from him, making a show of swallowing them down as he watched you take mouthfuls of the cool water. When you drank all the water in the cup, he left to fill it up again. And you gulped it all down, your parched mouth and dry throat relieved by the drink. He took the cup from you when you were satisfied, setting it on the nightstand next to him. You both stared silently at each other, things unspoken. What transpired weighed down heavily on the both of you. Your gaze flicked down from his face, to his scarred lips, down to his chest, to his arms. Wholly taking in the sight of him. An awful realization and then sudden shamefulness overcame you as you tore your eyes away, to the hands in your lap. He scooted closer to you and you met his eyes again, admiring the blue of them. But you couldn’t help it when your eyes wandered back to the marks that littered all on his skin. Red welts and scratches, bumps and bruises forming. All by you.

“I’m sorry.” The apology was rough sounding still, Russian wobbly on your tongue.

Adler hummed. Letting your fingers trace along all the marks on his chest, around the dried blood of crescent marks of his arms when your nails had dug into them. All the way to the small bruises and finally to a bite mark on his wrist.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.” You told him.

“ I know .” He reassured, his chest rumbling as he let out a soft hum. Your fingers traced back up to his face, lingering over the deep trenches of a lightning strike scar, and stopping to a contusion forming on the underside of his strong jaw. Your fingertips ghosted over it in your studying.

“Haven’t gotten hit like that in a while.”

You knew it was an attempt to lighten the mood, but you couldn’t help but let it wound you. Deflated, you tried to move and pull your hand away from his jaw but his hand was quick to clasp over your own. So easily Adler enveloped it entirely, holding both against his bruising jaw. Yet you still couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Bell.”

Back to English now, as he intertwined your fingers together, moving both your hands from his jaw to his rough lips. Turning them, to kiss the back of your knuckles. But something else caught your scrying eyes, marks on your own skin. All over your arms. Scratches and welts similar to the ones on the man in front of you. All from yourself, all self-afflicted.

Silently, Adler cleaned up your scratches and cuts. You didn’t flinch as he did. Unfazed by the cold sting of the cotton ball across them. Soaked in disinfectant that he pulled from the first aid kit, retrieved from underneath the bathroom sink moments ago. You watched him care for you, inspecting each inch of skin, and tend to your wounds. So attentively, so… lovingly . That realization made something stir within you, in the confines of a twisted soul. Deep seated, deep rooted. Bile rose in your throat. Wrong, this was all wrong. It wasn’t right. Wrongness you felt underneath it all. By the way your skin crawled, the hair on your nape standing on ends, and muscles tensed up. Fight or flight instinct on overdrive.

D̷̡̫̯̪̺͚̬̥̘̭̻͈̼̐͌͒o̷̹̻͚͔͇̠̓͛̉̂͐̿̐̔̒̈́̚͜͠͝͝ ̵̨̱̬̰̰̺̝̠̐̍̀̐͐̉͒̆̾̽͂̽̏n̵̯͐̊̓̊̉͑͛̽͊̅͝ó̴͖̝͍̩͊̏ț̸̢̬̪̙̯͎̝́̃̓̒̈́͋͜͠͝ ̵̢̟͊̐̓̅͋̒͝t̸͚͐̎r̸̢̼͔̜͒̃́̃́͋̐̓̏̒̇̕ȗ̶̬̓̇̇s̶̨͙̘͇͓̗̯̓͊̾̈̂̿̎͛̏̃͛͘͘͜͜͠͝t̴̜͙̗̺̯̘͍͎͓̮̱̤̣̝̔ ̷̨̝͔̻͕͉͔͙̔͆̃̄͛̃̿̃̚̚͝A̶͔̘̟͓͙͊̋͐̆̓̕͠d̵̛̲̲̯̫͇̘̱̿̈́̂͜l̴̯̫̠͚̗̺̞̀̄̈́e̸̢̢̥̩̦͓͕̣͎͍̞̞̦̦̮̗͐̃̏̓̄̈́̚͜r̸̢̲̦̼̗͙͆͛̔̓́̅̈͊̋̕͘͘̚̚͝

Lies. Lies, all of it lies. This wasn’t real. Nothing was. You looked around, saw everything for what it was. Head pounding, memories that weren’t your own stuffed in your head. You were a shell of a woman, a discarded shed of old skin repurposed. Disturbed metamorphosis, an empty chrysalis, from where a butterfly would have emerged, unfurling its wings for flight, only to be picked open like a old wound and swallowed up. Hollowed out until all that kept you together was the name given to you and the person who gave it to you. This wasn’t you, you weren’t this… Bell. And this man in front of you who tended to you so delicately, wasn’t the savior you saw him as. Not a pure and noble heart, but had one as black as night. You didn’t know him, not truly. He was not your safety, not the gravity keeping you on your feet.

You should loathe him, you should fear him. You shouldn’t trust the man in front of you. You knew it all as true.

But love and hate always tasted the same to you.

Hadn’t it?

“Who I am?” You asked as he tended to your throat, where you had clawed and scratched at it in your sleep. Adler stopped and looked at you then. Quiet as the weight of your words settled onto him, while weighing out his own.

“Bell.” Adler soon replied, bringing your intertwined hands to his torso, over the red scratches across the expanse of his chest, right to the center. Where his heart beat against your open palm. “You’re Bell.”

Noisiness from behind the door again, shadows moving underneath the door frame, knocking on the door’s wood more rapidly in succession. More impatient. A harsh sigh left Adler’s scarred lips in response. He stood from the bed, packing away the first aid materials back into the plastic kit box. Tucked it underneath the bed frame.

“You should lay down and rest.” Adler grabbed the duvet from the floor and pulled it over your bare legs. You blinked at the action, at him. His form disappeared into another space in the bedroom then back out. A walk-in closet you realized. Staring at his back as Adler pulled a shirt over his head and headed towards the door.

“I’m dangerous.” You told him in English, Russian was suddenly sour on your tastebuds. “I can’t trust myself. I don’t know who I am.”

“Then trust me.” He said, exhaustion was clear on his careworn face. Bags underneath his eyes. But there was something there, beneath his words. An undercurrent in the baritone of his voice… something akin to defeat in his tone. A vulnerability that you recognized, a weakness mirrored within yourself. Something you both buried away within yourselves. You swallowed then, running your tongue across your teeth. You shouldn’t put your trust in him, or believe his words. Yet… and yet. Without another word, you nodded at him. You believed him.

Adler ran a hand through his hair, brushing it back. In a semblance of tidiness.

“Lay down and rest.” Adler repeated, hand on the doorknob as he gave you a once over. “I’ll wrangle the kids.”

Your head snapped to his face, eyes wide like saucers.

“ Kids ?!” You repeated as if such a word was foreign to you, even spoken in your mother tongue.

Adler gave you a look, lips pressed tight together. Knuckles whitened as his hand flexed around the turned doorknob.

“Yes. I’ll deal with them. Just… please lay down. You need to rest up.”

At your speechlessness, and with a one last longing look, Adler left the bedroom, closing the door behind him. But even as he left, you were still sitting up, staring at the door right where he had stood moments ago. You heard muffled sounds behind the door, far down in the hallway. You blinked, feeling your body start to slacken, your body heeding Adler’s words as you nestled into the covers. Right on his side of the bed. The blankets and pillows still smelt of him. A scent that, like the smoking of a beehive, calmed the thoughts swarming around in your skull. You closed your eyes, relaxing, but it wasn’t enough to slumber. The sensation of sinking, of being dragged down, down, down. Made you afraid to fully commit to sleep once more. Still you laid in bed, underneath the blankets. Basked in his warmth and smell.

But eventually, you grew restless, tossing and turning. Felt his absence deep inside. You threw the covers away from yourself, standing on shaky legs towards the bathroom. Then to the bedroom door, wrapping a silk bathrobe you grabbed on your way out around your nightgown. You stared at the door. The edges of your surroundings started to fade away around you as it stared back at you. The sensation was jarring, like freefalling. A loss of gravity. You had to move away, stepping back until you felt the bed behind you. You sat on it for a moment, letting the motion sickness and the upturning of your stomach peter out.

Facing the door once more, you took a breath and grabbed the doorknob. The door shook, rattling against its hinges from your touch as you tried to pry it open. But to no avail. Trapped, you are trapped. You pressed your hands onto the wood, pushing against it. Beneath your palms, the door creaked and then it cracked. Fissures in the wood grain, splitting open as the layers started to peel like wood shavings. Rot and corrosion bloomed by your hand, by your simple touch. Like stab wounds, from the cracks in the door a deep scarlet poured out. Stained the wood grain darker. The smell of metal in the air. And before you knew it, the wood door was gone, wasted away. But in its wake was another door. A red metal door like the ones leading to an underground bunker. It beckoned you. Whispered to you, called you in an accented voice that sounded far too familiar. A faraway memory. It said your name, your true name. One you had long forgotten. An itch in the recesses of your mind, a jolt down your spinal cord. A hesitancy in your step, in your hand that hovered over the metal door bar. Fascination or recognition, you couldn’t tell what drove you forward. You lifted the bar up with an audible click, pushing against it until it opened.

You went through, blinded by a bright light on the other side. Behind the door, you were met with a long hallway that stretched on and on. Miles upon miles. Faint laughter echoed from the end of it and you walked forward, following the sound. Just when you thought you reached the end of the hallway, it grew longer. The end was more imperceivable than before, indeterminate in its entirety. Seemingly going on and on indefinitely as you stared down the way. But still you continued onwards, voices in the distance. Although it was nothing but a maze of white walls, white tiles, and linoleum flooring.

There were wide windows all along the length of the long hall, a consistent width apart. The windows peeked into lab rooms full of medical equipment, surgical tools, flickering projectors in the ceiling, and T.V.s sat on metallic utility carts; cassette tapes stuck in their players. You stopped at one of the windows, looking inside, curious. You scanned around but like a moth to a flame, an old habit, your eyes instantly trained to the T.V. display, waiting expectantly. The streams of static on the screen flickered. A bell clanged, white noise in your ears. Fixated on the sudden flashing images, the pieces of war footage playing then it stuttered, only to rewind and start again.

A single exhale and blink of dry eyes, and you were suddenly inside the room. Strapped down to an integration chair. You tested the restraints, feeling how they cut into the circulation of your wrists and ankles. Another clamor rang out, and your body sat straight in the seat, expectant and attentive. Pavlovian conditioning — a dog that waited for their kibble. The display screen flicked on in front of you. Like staring into an endless void, on a blackhole’s event horizon, your surroundings melted away and your body jerked forward. Pulled into a fierce orbit, lunged headfirst through the playing T.V. screen. Warped into some sort of dark backroom.

Two projectors, right beside each other, both sat on small wooden tables on either side of where you stood. Their lights converged, shone nothing onto a single projector screen in front of you. There were a few show slides slotted into both of their compartments, in random order, in different spacings. All you needed to do was change the slides and the projectors would display them on the screen. You changed the slides on the projector to your left, it clicked a couple times as you rotate by the empty slots to the first inputted slide. The left slide showcased a split image, the other half missing like a photo torn into two pieces. It was hard for you to make out the image, to grasp what it showcased. You stared at it for a beat, before moving to the projector to your right. Flicked through its rotation, the first slide of it closer in slot than the left one.

Then the display was completed, the other half of the image found. Whatever it showed, whatever it was, grew clearer the longer you stared at it. Red, you saw red. Another red bunker door. You stepped forward towards the projector screen, confused just as you were intrigued. In front of it now, your body in front of the projector lights doesn’t cast a shadow onto the image or screen. As if you were non-corporeal, a ghost lost in limbo. But unlike you, the display image of the red bunker door wasn’t intangible. You reached forward and pulled the handle bar up. And it opened and you walked through it.

A sequence of fading whispers, a little girl’s giggle, while you looked around your new surroundings. Dark, damp, and dank. A cavern, like a hollowed out chest missing its heart. Stalagmites and stalactites jutted out like jagged teeth, water dripping from the ceiling above, trickling down and pooled in the eroded stone. You heard something moving in the cave, somewhere in the dark, slow and steady, like the dragging of chains across the floor. More childlike giggling from afar, and the noises got louder, more disturbing. Inhuman and innumerable. Feet shuffling onwards, a thousand marching on. Dripping liquid onto the cave floor, louder than the cave condensation. Of a removed heart, still bleeding and beating outside the body. You gathered yourself, looking around in the dark. Tried to pinpoint the sound’s source in the dark, squinting but you couldn’t even see even an inch in front of your face.

You backed away, until your foot caught something on the floor. You reached down for it, patting around the rock empty-handed until your fingers brush against something cold. It is heavy in your hands, but the feel is familiar. A pistol and an extra mag, loaded already but with the safety lock in place. You held it, old training coming back to you like clockwork. A flashlight attachment on your pistol flicked on wasn’t enough to penetrate the dark. From the shadows, eyes glowed like they do on trail cams. Predators on the hunt. You shined your flashlight to them, only to see rotten bodies. Flesh falling off the bone, gray skin – stringy and gamey. Walking dead. Rumbling roars and screams from ripped open throats. The rapid resonate of dragging limbs, peeling flesh, congealed blood splattered in globs.

They all lunged forward on decaying legs, too quick to be natural. You dropped a few of them with shots to the head and torso, they dropped like sandbags only to be trampled over by the others, their positions replaced. But they only kept coming and coming, and your pistol soon clicked, the chamber empty. You run, legs shaky on the uneven rocky surface. Deeper and deeper into the cave you went, kiting them through. Glowing eyes right behind you. You reloaded your last mag, shooting the ones leading the pack then running forward to gain distance. You went until your lungs burned, your legs aching. Until your pistol was empty, the flashlight attachment dimming out. But ahead, in the dark, a blaring light. An escape route. A bunker door, the light at the end of the tunnel.

You were sprinting to it, the once wide cave seeming to get smaller. Gradually, the surrounding cave walls narrowed around you. You had to slow, to squeeze through the gaps and holes, the sight of the bunker door in the distance are only glimpses now behind the small openings. A crowd of dead right on your trail, a misstep, a moment of being too slow, and they would catch you. You were hyperventilating now, your skin abraded and cut from squeezing yourself through the narrow gapes and crevices. But the light was closer, the bunker door just out of reach ahead of you. Your body against a stone wall, pressing against the solid form. One with no opening.

Animalistic roars echoed against the rock and stone catching up to you. Dimming light of the flashlight scanned around the wall, anything that dictated a path forward as you desperately searched around. Shining on a pile of loose stone at your feet. You wasted no time, no effort. Dropping the empty gun, low light shining to the dark behind you. You clawed on the rock formation, pushing and rolling away heavy stones. Uncaring as your fingernails were chipped and torn from the nail roots. Leaving bloody handprints behind onto the discarded stone surfaces.

Underneath the rubble, was a crawl space uncovered in the stone wall. Cramped and claustrophobic but without nowhere else to go, the undead behind you as encouragement, and you went on your belly. Squeezing yourself into the passageway. You crawled on, forcing yourself through even when the space grew smaller around you, compressing down onto your body. It became harder to breathe in such a tight space. You were panicking, breathing uneven. The crawl space constricted, like a fist around your throat. Something reached in behind you, arms extended to grab for you. A mass of rotting hands outstretched, bodies colliding as they tried to enter the small spacing all at once. They clawed and crawled, teeth gnashing against their loosening jowls behind you; fingers grasping out for you. A bear trap around your foot as multiple hands curled around one of your legs. Hauled you back, your skin scraping against the stone. You kicked out at them, fingers digging into rock for purchase. Sharp pointed stones, loosened by your movement, cut into your body as you were dragged back.

But you saw it ahead of you. A distant light, a red door – opened. And you saw him. Adler on the other side of the door. Standing, staring. Waiting for you. You called out to him, but to no avail. You were voiceless and he remained there in the doorway. The tear of fabric being ripped, cracked teeth sunk into flesh. The burst of skin breaking. Pain in your leg, shooting up your spinal cord. One of them had your leg in what remained of their mouth, as others clawed at your bare calf. You were being eaten alive, torn apart, dragged back. You fought against them still, kicking and shaking your captured leg as much as you could in the small space. You were tired, bleeding out. Still you pulled yourself through the crawlspace, eyes frontward. Towards Adler who awaited you. A final push, a final effort and you were on the other side. Your extraction within reach.

You grabbed a rock, between both hands, and down onto the undead hanging off your leg like a tick. You brought the stone down and the head caved it, split open like overripe fruit. But even then, it didn’t let you go. You brought the stone down again and again, until the head was nothing but a splatter of brains and shattered skull pieces on the stone. The hands around your leg were next, as you slammed the stone onto the rotting arms until they snapped at the elbow joint. Limbs loosened on you, as they fell to the side, lifeless. Freeing you. You crawled backwards. Yellow glowing eyes deep in the crawlspace, bodies conjoined and mutilated, forced into a single space. More arms outstretched from the other side, growls and screams in your ears.

You pushed yourself onto your feet, limping. Hobbled forward as fast as you could, adrenaline numbing the pain. You called Adler’s name, relieved, exhausted. You get closer and closer, your blood swirling into the ankle deep pool you push yourself through. On the threshold now, and the image of Adler grew fuzzy. Red, red, red. He was a maroon figure, his face was blurred. Like a glitch, a horizontal blear twisting his identity. The door slammed shut, metal mechanisms inside shifting and grinding as it locked in place. You called out to him, pounding your bloody fists against the metal. The metal handle bar unmoving as you pushed it. Rumbling roars and screams, bodies yanked themselves out from the crawlspace. Inflamed eyes in the dark. You pushed and pulled, banging on the door. Blood prints on the metal, a darker red smeared all over. Screaming, wailing. Adler, Adler, Adler . But he was never there to save you. Only to drag you down, down, down. Deeper in hell and to keep you there. Laughter, laughter all around you. The undead were laughing at you, cackling like hyenas in the deep of night.

You pushed the bar up once more, desperate and frantic. Underneath your fingers, the door starts rusting, metal oxidizing. Painting peeled away. Door handle rusted in place. Still you pushed, all your might, all your effort. Flakes of verdigris crumbled, falling like ash on your skin. The handle squealed, corroded metal grinding against each other, as the mechanisms are forced to move. The metal handle snapped in your hand, but the door creaked open; Not fully but with a sliver of opening. The bash of your shoulder against the bunker door and it moved gradually, hanging off of its hinges, the bottom of the door scraping against the doorstop. The dead scrambled to you, limbs missing, slower than before.

But you made enough of an opening to squeeze yourself through it and you push yourself through. Falling onto your hands and knees onto the other side. You looked up to see a stipple ceiling. Sun on your face, plush carpet against your palms. No pain in your leg, no scrapes on your body. Elbows and knees unscathed. Shoulder not dislocated from your battering against metal. You looked behind you only to see a wooden door ajar and a bedroom behind you. A girl’s laugh in the distance filled your ears.

But it felt real. All of it felt real. Too real, to be nothing but night horrors.

“Mommy?”

A small voice down the hall and you snapped your head to it. A small child at the end of the hallway stared at you. Face dipped in shadow, features obscured. You were frozen, still on your knees. Head pounding, confused. But something inside you tugged at the title. A mother’s love, a mother’s embrace. A mother’s sacrifice. The child scurried down the hallway towards you and you recoiled. A phantom pain in your leg and you reached down for a weapon at your side that wasn’t there. The child jumped to a stop, looking down at you with big, blue eyes as you tensed up.

“Mommy, why are you on the floor?”

Silent and still, you were emotionless, motionless. An uneasiness that made your body stiffen. Your mouth opened but you couldn’t speak. The child watched you curiously, attention waning as they balanced on the balls of their feet. Soon the child joined you, kneeling down. From the way they smiled, the child thought it was a game.

“You can’t be on the floor, silly.” The child chastised and you only stared at them. Grubby hands outstretched.

You expected them to claw you, to rip open your skin. But they only grabbed your wrist. With all their strength, they tug on your hand, trying to help you up. It took you a moment to process it as anything but a threat to you. Gradually, you stood up as the child helped. Who thought it was because of them that you were able to get up. You didn't pull your hand away, even as the child intertwined their own. You let them lead you down the hall, the smell of food wafting ahead of you both. The child took you into the living room. You recognized the blonde man in the kitchen next to the living area. Who stirred something on the stovetop, whatever it was that he was cooking, smelt delicious despite your nausea.

“I found her!”

The child announced, letting your hand go and bouncing like a bunny to Adler. The child tugged at his shirt, pointing to you with a toothy grin. Adler’s head snapped towards you hovering in the threshold of the hall. A pointed look aimed straight at you, sharp eyes narrowed, and mouth pressed tight. Another face appeared, bounding from the living room. Another child. Taller, older than the first. They smiled at you, shyer. But went to you nonetheless, hugging your waist. Eyelashes framed over blue eyes, staring up at you.

“Now we can go have a picnic!” The youngest exclaimed, beaming up at the man in the kitchen. Obviously too excited to be contained as they hopped up and down. Using the countertops for stability.

Adler patted the child’s head, stopping his jumping up and down with a firm hand. Eyes still on you. “Not today. Your mother’s sick, she needs to rest.”

There was a command there. A jab at you that made your skin prickle.

“But you promised.” The child whined on. The oldest around your waist made a disappointed sound too. “You said we can go.”

“I know I did. But not today, kiddo. We can go next time.”

Both children sulked, huffing and awing at Adler. But Adler didn’t relent, absolute with his decision. He walked forward, his shoulders tensed. A few steps and he was stood in front of you. His attention went to the oldest at your hip.

“Come on.” He jutted his chin to the side, a gesture for them to move away. “Let your mom go. She needs to go back to bed.”

You didn’t know what overcame you as your arm wrapped around the child’s body, protectively. Keeping them in place, close to you as you took a step forward. The action doesn’t go unnoticed by Adler. He stared at you, eyes flitting down to your hand clutching to the child’s pajama shirt. You had trouble reading what he was feeling, what he was thinking. Yet Adler had always been like that, you thought. Difficult to read, to predict and to understand. Like you.

“We should go.” You finally said, your voice shaky and raspy. A clearing of your throat and you steeled your spine. “Let’s go have a picnic, Adler.”

The children audibly agreed. You released the oldest that clung to you as they moved and joined the youngest at Adler’s side, who was tugging on his shirt, begging and pleading. He was displeased, you could tell. But you challenged him nonetheless, eyes meeting his own. A chorus of: ‘Please, dad!’, ‘Can we go!’, ‘Mom says we can.’ ‘You promised we could go.’ chanted out in the tension between you both. And eventually Adler let out a deep sigh, shoulders heaving as he did.

“Alright.” He agreed. That defeated tone returned but it was quickly gone as the children cheered happily, clinging onto him now.

You watched them, a sudden emotion fluttering your heart at the sight. Of Adler’s small smile, though strained, it was genuine. Of the children… your children. Their happiness you felt as your own. The early morning forgotten, the wounds, the memories, the hallucinations, the night terrors. The ringing inside your own head. Your suffering, your pain, your detachment from the world.

It was all worth it for this.

You were pulled from your thoughts as the oldest grabbed your hand again. Clasping the smaller hand back, you walked to Adler whose attention went back to you. He let out a huff, an annoyed sound. But he leaned down, pressing a small kiss to your forehead. A sudden softness on his hardened features. The smell of something burning, rising smoke in the kitchen made Adler quickly duck to the stovetop towards the simmering pan. You were led by your hand again to the dining room, that was connected right to the kitchen. You sat down, watching the child run off to the living room to join the youngest sitting on the sofa. Your gaze shifted. To the television. A sudden feeling as you focused on the screen. White noise, your sight wavering.

Something clunked down next to your arm and you blinked up at Adler leaning against the tabletop. A fresh cup of tea next to you, a coffee of his own in his hand — a dark bitter brew. No sugar, no cream.

You smiled your thanks, eyes back to the children. But Adler’s eyes were on you.

“Saturday cartoons.” Your head turned to him right as he took a sip from his steaming mug. “They wanted to watch them. I can turn it off and cover the T.V. if it’s bothering you again.”

Your eyes fluttered at that, giving a quick look back to the living room then back to him. “No, it’s ok. Let them enjoy it. I'll live.”

But he was unconvinced. Lines on his face, more prominent. Those ending words of yours made his frown deepened.

“I’m fine.”

But you didn’t know if you were trying to reassure him or yourself.

He shook his head at you. “No, you aren’t, Bell. You’re not fine.”

Something inside ached. For him, for you.

But before more could be said, Adler left into the kitchen. His back to you. Alone now, you sat there wordlessly. Taking slow sips of your tea. It helped you think. Its warmth spread throughout your body, reinvigorating you with a comforting feeling. Your wary eyes looked around as you finished the rest of your tea. Training was still an instinct as you took mental notes of the windows and doors, places to hide, places to bunker down, ways to escape, choke points and objects to use as defense. You wondered if Adler did the same.

But you were not alone for long, not lost in your own head. Soon Adler served breakfast, a simple meal of eggs, bacon and toast. He seated the children, though they protested. Wanting to eat in the living room so they could watch their cartoons. Only to be upset when Adler shook his head no. He served you a plate, your eggs made the way you liked; an additional bowl of sliced fruit on the side. Along with a cup of warmed bone broth in case you couldn’t stomach the solid food. The kids were quiet as they ate, heads turned to the television across the way. Like them, you and Adler ate quietly as well. Both lost in your own thoughts.

You ate as much as you could handle, taking a few bites here and there of your food. But mostly you nibbled on your toast. It helped your nausea, abating the queasiness you felt. When the children were done eating, they gathered their dishes, rushing to put them in the kitchen sink. Before racing into the living room and onto the sofa just as a new cartoon show began. You pushed your plate away towards Adler. He grimaced at it, at the food you barely touched. Yet wordlessly took your plate, adding your breakfast to his own to finish. You sat there quietly, forcing yourself to drink the broth. It was enough of an effort to ease Adler’s disgruntlement.

But mostly, your attention was to the children. Your children; yours and Adler’s. Who had eyes just like the man sat next to you, reading a newspaper. A deep dark blue. Their faces, a blur in your withered memories. Their names you didn’t remember. But that pull, that motherly instinct in the back of your head was all that you needed to know. There was a time you think, some time ago where such a life. Such a domestic thing was not meant for you. Surrounded by death and secrecy, a pact of self-sacrifice. Of yourself and others. By your own hand, the world’s strings pulled taunt like nooses. Such a life was never for you. But you wondered if you had wanted such a life. Had you yearned for it still? Or did you accept it, for a cause. Or had you never wanted it in the first place? A family. You tried to recall but no answer came to you. As Adler grabbed both of your dishes, taking them to the kitchen to start cleaning up. You walked to the living room. Hiding in the shadow of the archway as you watched your children. The oldest sat on the sofa while the youngest was on the rug in front of the television. Playing with a toy as they watched, the same one as one of the characters of the show.

You avoided looking too long at the screen, an old habit you’re struggling to fight off especially now. Whispering bells in your head again, tolling in a soft breeze. You found yourself moving on your own accord. Walking into the living room, taking a seat on the sofa. You were at the far end of it, tucked away in the corner. Distance put between your oldest and yourself. Observing closer, wanting to be closer despite yourself. But still cautious. Your vicinity wasn’t as ignored as you hoped, as your oldest moved closer to you. And your youngest began to show you their toys, the ones from the cartoon they’re watching. Your youngest chatted on, giving you all the details of the show and the characters. Pointing them out on the screen. Your oldest at your side, listening along, and adding more details. And you listened intently, engaged, intrigued. Your heart ached.

A feeling at the back of your neck and goosebumps rise on your arms. You grew stiff, turning around to catch Adler watching you from afar, leaning in the archway. Closely. Too closely. As if you were dangerous, a muzzled mutt. But you were, weren’t you? So volatile, so impulsive. Even you couldn’t control yourself. It was only a matter of time before you lashed out again. A commercial break that caught your attention as your oldest wanted you to look at a toy product – some sort of puzzle cube with multicolored squares on each side. But when you turned back to the archway, Adler was gone. You tried not to be on edge, that wrong feeling returning once more.

Something was draped over you, something soft in your lap. A throw blanket. You run your fingers through the soft wool as Adler interjected himself between you and your oldest. Forced apart from your side, they expressed their complaint, but eventually acquiesced as he made room for them to lay against him. The other arm was thrown around you, pulling you close to his side. You inhaled his scent, conflicting feelings subsided and you went lax against him. The rest of the morning was spent like this, all of you in the living room. Your face pressed into his shoulder when looking at the television grew too much for you to bear. Focusing instead on the sounds of his breathing, of the smell of him. All of him against you. Until it was just you and him in the living room.

Eventually, the kids had run off somewhere when Adler changed the channel and flicked on the news. But soon they grew impatient as the afternoon came. Asking when you all were leaving for a picnic. Adler brushed them off, using your dozing off as an excuse to delay and obfuscate. But when you stirred, looking up at him from his chest. You gave Adler a pointed look of your own. It was enough to get him on his feet, knees audibly creaking. And you followed suit. The kids rushed to their rooms, getting dressed to go. You went to get ready too, into something casual and light. A sundress you decided on, your favorite one you think. A pretty long cotton. Didn’t Adler get this for you? You pulled it over your body, smoothing the wrinkles out in the fabric, and stood in front of the bathroom mirror. A stranger stared back at you. Sickly looking. Hollow-eyed with a haunted look, hair frizzy and brittle. Life drained from your face; wan and ghastly.

Shell-shocked.

Feelings of repugnance. Of sadness and of disbelief.

Was that truly who you were? That person who was staring straight back at you, was you?

Warmth at your back as a body stood behind you, into your back. Fingers went to your shoulder, brushing against your collarbone and pulled a loose strap of your dress up. Your eyes lifted upward to meet Adler��s in the mirror. Watched him bend down, mouth going to your neck. You bared it out to him, instinctively turning your head to the side. Marred lips traced up along your jugular vein — slowly and steadily. Sharp blue eyes kept your gaze in the reflection as he did. A small act, yet you were already worked up. Breathing hard, heart beating in your chest. A death grip on either side of the porcelain sink. Adler stopped behind your jaw, right on the thrumming pulse there.

“Ready?” He asked, voice husky. Lips still on your neck.

You nodded, breathless and speechless. He took a step back from you, giving you a nod. Your eyes were still on his in the mirror.

“C’mon.”

You ran your tongue across your lips deliberately as Adler watched. Turned fully around to face him. Taking in the sight of the man in front of you. Light sandy brown hair brushed down and groomed to the side. Always stylish, always well-coordinated. Even in leisure clothing. You followed him out of the bedroom. A cardigan sweater in your arms. The kids were waiting by the front door. Your oldest was holding folded quilts and a straw picnic basket, and the youngest was with an armful of toys. You tried to help carry supplies, plastic wrapped food, drinks, anything you all needed. But Adler was quick to stop you. You both agreed to let you at least hold the picnic basket. While your oldest helped Adler with packing the cooler.

You shielded your eyes from the sun outside, a burst of white light that blinded you as you stepped out of the house. The day was warm and mellow with a cool breeze like a soft sigh. It made your sundress flutter, a relief against your heated skin. You stared out at a suburban neighborhood full of large family homes, green lawns, and white picket fences – the all American Dream. It was almost nauseous, the manufactured appearance. People were out and about: walking dogs, mowing their lawns, sitting on their porches talking to each other as their kids played outside. You kept your eyes downcast, not wanting to garner any attention or be greeted by overly friendly neighbors. But you could feel their unsubtle eyes on you.

In the driveway sat a vintage muscle car. Adler’s most prized possession, besides yourself. You headed to the sedan parked further down the driveway where your youngest child waited next to it, talking to a neighborhood kid riding their bike. Boasted about the picnic you were going to have. It wasn't long until your oldest appeared then Adler afterwards. A cooler in one hand, car keys and his iconic shades in the other; a portable radio tucked underneath one of his arms. It seemed Adler had the same idea as you, kept his gaze away and not making any eye contact with the neighbors.

You sat in the passenger seat while the kids and him packed some stuff in the trunk. So quickly that it wasn’t surprising that an efficient man like Adler would teach your children to be as well. Before long, you were all on the road. Assured beforehand that the drive wasn’t too long. You stared out the window to the blurring shapes of the surroundings passing by. Music in your ear, filled the silence inside the car. A song that Adler particularly liked started and he turned the volume dial up. Gary Wright’s “Really Wanna Know You” played louder from the car speaker. He rested a hand on your knee, rubbing it soothingly. The other wrapped around the steering wheel. You took a peek at him from the passenger seat. The interior of the car reflected on his sunglasses. Noticed him mouthing the lyrics.

Adler pulled the car into a municipal park. Surprisingly vast and full of greenery — trees, shrubs, fields of long grass and plants. Picnic tables underneath the shades of towering pines and oaks. Benches were set along the sidewalks. Hiking trails that lead further in the park grounds. A playground was at the forefront of it, surrounded by a pit of play sand. Your children were restive, overly excited just by the sight of it. But were made to stay and help unload the car before they could go run off and play. With a nod from Adler, like missiles, they beelined straight to the playground. Adler carried the cooler, radio, and disposable dishes. You, on the other hand, had just the picnic basket in the crook of your elbow and the quilts. You followed Adler towards a picnic table across the way, in the shade of an overarching American basswood – a lush crown of heart-shaped leaves swayed with the subtle breeze. It was more private, situated just on the edge of the treeline yet it was still near eyesight of the playground.

But you and your family weren’t the only ones there enjoying the nice weekend. People were there walking the trails. Other parents sat on the benches near the playground, other families on other benches. Kids in Various age ranges were also on the playground; running and tumbling in the grass. And your children made friends instantly. You kept a watchful eye on them, on others in your peripheral. Aware of the strangers, of any possible threat or hazard. All while Adler fiddled with his radio – pitches of high and low frequency static emitting with his tinkering. Until he grew annoyed, slamming a fist on top of it until it juddered with music. You scoffed at him, eyes still focused on your children on the playground, playing tag with other kids.

“Ok?” Adler settled down next to you with a long, weary sigh.

You nodded at him, pulling your cardigan sweater over yourself and leaned closer. Knees touching, his body heat transferring into you. The radio was a nice thrum in the background as you enjoyed the sight and smell of the surrounding nature. It was a salve to your broken mind, a tortured heart. You both stared straight ahead towards the playground.

“Are you mad?”

Your question was softened, spoken as you exhaled an uneven breath.

He was quiet for a moment.

“No.” Adler rubbed the underside of his jaw where the bruise blossomed. “I’m not mad, Bell.”

You felt him relax next to you, shoulders dropping as he leaned his weight into you. There was nothing more to say. Nothing more for him or you to add. With that, a silence befell between you both, in each other’s company. Guilt and shame came and went, soon replaced by a stifling numbness. You focused externally instead. Adler next you, the soft breeze against your face. The tumbling of the canopy above you. Another one of Adler’s favorites playing from the crackly radio on the picnic table. The laughter of children in the park; yours amongst them. All of it; the pace of the world around you.

But such tranquility was only temporary as your children ran towards the picnic table. Out of breath and sweating, gulping down cold bottles of cola from the cooler. Before running off again like energetic puppies. It was a pattern. Going to play then coming back to get refreshments before returning to the playground again. By the third time, you expected them to be too tired to play anymore. But you underestimated their energy. The youngest tugged at your arm while the oldest did the same to Adler, wanting both of you to get up and join them. Adler was the first to give in, luckily for you. Letting the kids drag him up and away from the picnic table; his sunglasses handed to you for safekeeping. Though by the look Adler gave you as he was taken away, it was deliberate. Letting you have the time to rest and relax, saving you from their clutches. Although your kids definitely tried.

So you sat back and resumed your relaxation. Watched Adler play with the children, chasing them around as they screamed and laughed. A warm feeling spread throughout your body, a feeling you didn’t want to think too much about. One that was too bittersweet for you. Then a strange thought, a bewildering realization as you started to ponder more on it. Of your childhood. One that you didn’t remember, couldn’t remember. Even if you tried. It was a time lost to you. A blank space in the gray matter of your brain. To remember was to stare in murky water. At a muddled reflection. You wondered if you were the same as a young girl. A wild child without a care in the world. That drove your parents crazy. Or if you were a quiet child. Shy and sweet – your parent’s pride and joy.

Did you have siblings? Cousins and grandparents? Were they alive? Dead or excommunicated? Were you excommunicated? Did you even have a family?

That query made you queasy, made you startled.

What did you remember?

Not very much. Always forgetful, always unstable. Always lost in your own head. Gathering the pieces of your shattered mind until your fingers bled. Putting them together to make a mosaic. A tattered paper collage that made a semblance of a begotten past. All you really knew was the here and now. All you knew was Adler and the bits and pieces of your long history together. Camaraderie, kinship; Enduring war together. Bled together. Fought together. Together , always together. Then a relationship beyond warfare. Beyond bloodshed and despair. A soul, once long lost and far forgotten. He was your world, your everything. The reason you were here breathing still. Still living, and still a part of a world that was so cruel and unforgiving. Despite all your reservations.

Did Adler feel the same towards you? Were you his purpose now? His everything? Like he was to you? Did both of your children occupy the same space in his heart as you think it did yours?

A man like him was not easily readable; reticent as he was. But his actions spoke volumes. From the picnic table underneath the span of the basswood, where you watched your family, there you felt it. An understanding between the uncertainty of past and the certainty of the present. Memories like sand between your fingers. No matter your identity crisis, memory issues or brain trauma, Adler was there. Now and always. Like he had been throughout your deployment together, during your clandestine operations. You were his shadow. His protégé. Two sides of the same coin. Eyes that always found each other in a battlefield. Always accounted for each other afterwards. Shared rations, shared canteens. The stench of cigarettes as you smoked side-by-side. A mutual respect. A symbiotic bond.

It was always ever you two — Bell and Adler. Adler and Bell.

Always had been.

Even now as he and your children walked back to the picnic table as the afternoon sun came and went; giving way to the early hours of the evening. As the sky exploded in watercolors of yellow, orange and pink. You stood up, smiling. It was a small upturn of your mouth. A strange, unpracticed facial motion. But with such a sight as the man you held dear and both of your beautiful children together, you couldn’t help but want to smile. And snap out of your torment and conflicts. Even if it was only temporary, just for now. You approached Adler, the children at either side of you both. Hair out of place. His dark polo was drenched at the collar and underarms, khaki jeans stained from wet grass. And you couldn’t help the fleeting feeling of wanting to taste the salt of his skin. You shared a look with him, unspoken communication between you both. A wordless exchange just like on a battlefield.

You ushered all three of them to the picnic table. All exhausted, breathless, and sweaty. And unsurprisingly starving. You pulled all the plastic wrapped food from the cooler and the bags on the table. Setting up the family picnic, a simple one. But one nonetheless. Everyone was practically salivating as they watched you set it up. A platter of sandwiches, chips, potato salad, pasta salad, sliced seasonal fruit, deviled eggs, and lemonade. Cola and water in the cooler. And with your go ahead, all three immediately dug in; your children had to be corrected more than once from their table manners. Even you served yourself a plate of food. In the corner of your eye, the hint of a smile on Adler’s marred lips. Sparse for him just as it was for you. By the time you finished eating, so had everyone else. Even the peach cobbler, Adler’s favorite, remained untouched. A treat for later you imagined.

Reinvigorated and re-energized by their meal, you and Adler watched in surprise as your children went to go play again. Most of the families there had left beforehand, but there were a few still there; the remaining children on the playground too.

Adler let out a sigh next to you, arms across his wide chest. “I’m getting too old for this.”

You leaned towards him, staring up from where you lay against his shoulder, and laughed. In the setting sun, he was a god to you. Hardened face dipped in half-shadow. The searing hue of the sunset highlighted the other side; scars, skin, and all. Made his eyes that much brighter, his hair like aureate silk. But at this angle, you also could see the years on him. Of his time on the field that whittled him down: a battle-hardened veteran, a calculated agent. A red-blooded American patriot through and through. Wrinkles and lines on the planes of his face, crow’s feet in the corner of his eyes. A slight grizzling in his golden mane as you brushed your fingers through it.

Still good looking as ever, still in shape.

Aged like a fine wine.

“You’re practically dust, old man.”

A hearty chuckle rumbled through you, deep from within Adler’s chest.

“Don’t get me started on you, kid .”

An old nickname that made you stare up at him and playfully glare at the side of his face. Your nose crinkled and face grimaced before huffing and nestled back against him.

As the sun started to disappear in the horizon, in the shadow of dusk, you and Adler began to pack everything away and clean up. You called for your children, rounded them up while Adler put things in the car. Not even a few feet down the road, and the youngest and oldest were already asleep in the backseat. The ride home was pleasant, a companionable silence between you both, listening to the lowered radio. Cruising to the blues. Sunglasses perched on Adler’s face despite the dark. You found yourself starting to doze off, your head leaned against your arm on the car door. Until a hand on your shoulder shook you. You jumped a bit, blinked rapidly at the blurry face in front of you.

“Bell, c’mon.”

Rubbing at your eyes, you stretched a bit before getting out of the passenger seat. The youngest, still asleep, was slung over Adler’s shoulder while the oldest groggily slid out of the backseat. Tasked with putting away the food and drinks while Adler put your kids to bed, you grabbed the rest of the food and the cooler, leaving the rest of the stuff in the car to be put away tomorrow. The day had come and gone. Faster than you anticipated. The entirety of it weighed down on you. The strain of it held in your shoulders, in your neck. You opted to take a much needed shower. Hot water pelted against your body, washing yourself of the stress and weariness and down into the drain.

The duration of your shower was longer than you thought. Making even Adler worried as he knocked on the bathroom door to make sure you were still breathing. By the time you got out, the entire bathroom was filled with steam. The humidity made you lightheaded. You expected Adler to already be in bed but you were surprised to find your bedroom empty and the bed untouched. You padded across the carpet, towel wrapped around your body towards your dresser. The curtains blew open with a sudden breeze, making you shiver. The balcony door was slightly ajar. Let in the night air inside and the smell of pungent smoke. You dressed yourself swiftly into just another nightgown and walked towards the balcony. There, leaning against the wood guardrail, was an outline of a tall, imposing figure. The flicker of a small ember where a lit cigarette rested between thick fingers.

“Thought you wanted to quit?”

You joined the shadow on the balcony. Arms around yourself as you looked up at a dark night, the moon eclipsed by passing clouds. The flickering light of the cigarette reflected in his sepia lenses.

“Hm… I said that?”

You rubbed at your bare arms as a cold wind blew against your skin. Hair still damp, your nightgown was helpless against the chill. And you moved closer, seeking his body heat. “Something of the sort.”

Adler inhaled, the cigarette burning brighter with his deep intake. Then exhaled.

“Can’t shake off old habits.”

You hummed at him, plucking the cigarette from his fingers just before he could take another hit of it. Adler turned to you, curious and interested. Watched you take a long drag. Saw your own reflection in his sunglass lens from the bedroom light behind you. Instantly, the addictive taste of nicotine filled your mouth, a rush of dopamine straight to the brain. You let out a soft sigh, smoke curling out of your lips. As you savored the taste of it on your tongue.

With an effortless motion, Adler retrieved the cigarette that was taken from him. And puffed at the end of it. “Thought I weaned you off of cigarettes.”

“You did. Doesn’t mean the cravings ever stop.”

He passed you the cigarette again. “Hm, guess so.”

You both stayed like that. The comfortable silence of the night. Smoking in each other’s company. Reminded you of the times in Vietnam after a long, hard day. Adler let you finish the rest of the cigarette, disappearing into the bedroom, wanting to take a shower to wash the day off too. Adler didn’t leave you much, having smoked most of the cigarette. But you weren’t picky, grateful for his scraps like a starved dog. When it was finished, you snubbed the rest of it against the railing. Uncaring for the stain of soot and ash on the white paint. Then discarded it in an ashtray on a coastal glass side table in the far corner. Where your potted plant sat on top next to it. Leaves yellowed and withering, but saved. But not by your nurturing care that was for certain. You realized that your revitalized plant had just been watered, by Adler no doubt. You went inside, locking the balcony door and nestled yourself into the bed covers. But you couldn’t fall asleep. Something in your chest prevented you, like the beat of your heart was too much for you to bear. Your mind was disquiet, running rampant. The older man was the centerfold of it all.

Adler didn’t take as long of a shower as you had. He walked out of the bathroom, a towel around his waist. Hair darkened from his shower and brushed back. His upper body was on full display in the glow of the table lamp, stray water droplets rolling down the expanse of his chest, down to his abdomen. Adler disappeared into the walk-in closet. Coming out a minute later, dressed in loose fitting pajama pants and a plain T-shirt.

He flicked the lamp off, plunging the bedroom into sudden darkness. You felt the mattress dip as he got under the duvet and settled on his side of the bed.

Adler wrapped his arms around you, pulling you closer. You burrowed your face into his chest. Head tucked underneath his chin. The smell of his body wash and the fresh scent of detergent from his shirt filled your nose. Your body relaxed against him. Feeling him do the same against you. Your lips pressed to his cheek, a goodnight kiss he thought. Until your lips strayed to the bruise on his jaw then dipped down to his neck. Where you found his pulse, running your tongue against it slowly. Feeling it began to quicken underneath. His body tensed against yours. Arms tightened around you, fingers digging into your waist.

“Go to sleep, Bell.”

A low, sleep-ridden voice said above you. It was a warning. A chastisement. A command he expected you to follow. But you were in no mood to listen, let alone close your eyes and go to sleep. You swallowed, moving away from Adler’s neck. Then back up to his face and ghosted your lips over Adler’s. He stirred, body still tensed, but laid unmoving.

“ Bell .”

Another warning. Spoken like a growl right before the bite. But you were determined, undeterred.

Your hand went to his face, thumbing softly at his scars. “Adler.”

He leaned into your touch. Stubbled and scarred cheek against the plush of your hand.

“ Please .”

You didn’t need to ask twice.

He was hesitant at first, worried. Fingers pressed into your skin, keeping a gap between you two. Warm breath fanned against your face. But you guided his head down to yours, brushing your lips together with his. It was a chaste kiss. Lips against each other for a fleeting moment before separating again. Where tongues just barely brushed, barely stroked into each other's mouth. Before you both braved another then another. Until such restraint was forgotten in light of unbridled passion. A crash of mouths, a hungriness between you both. Blood rushed throughout your bodies. Hearts racing, heat rising. The hint of smoke on his tongue.

Just as quickly, you both pulled away from each other. Panting, out of breath. Lips swollen. And all you and Adler could do was stare at each other. Wide-eyed and mouths agape. But the standstill didn’t last long. Adler was the first to close the gap again. Arms around your waist pulled you flush against him, your fingers in his hair. Lips locked to yours in a searing kiss. Siphoning the air from your lungs. You gasped for breath as Adler angled his head, pulling you into a deeper kiss. All tongue and teeth. His desperation matching your own.

You moved forward, Adler chasing after your lips when you pulled away. And quickly straddled him. His fingers dug into your hips, keeping you still. Dilated eyes met dilated eyes as you stared down at the older man from above. He was a mess underneath you already: hair disheveled, skin flushed, the rapid rise and fall of his chest under your palms. Marred lips bruised from the aggressiveness of you both. You couldn’t help but admire the beautiful sight below you. To have such a man like Adler at your mercy. Looking up at you so eagerly. So hungry for more.

But in your admiration you let your guard down. And Adler had full intention to take advantage of that. He shifted, quicker than you anticipated, and before you knew it you were on your back. Him over you, caging you against the mattress with his frame. A slight upturn of his lips at your surprised gasp before you were swallowed into another kiss – softer and slower this time. But just as devouring. You squirmed against his hold. Felt him shift again, a knee hooking underneath your leg and pushing it aside as he leaned forward, body pressed down onto you.

Adler left your mouth, lips across your jaw before dipping down. Lips to the pulse underneath your jaw like you had done to him. His teeth tracing it as it throbbed against his tongue before he bit down – leaving the indentation of teeth in his wake. The morning came back to you, standing in front of the mirror. Watching Adler against your throat. You wished you could see him now like you did then, as he kissed down the column of your neck, tongue trailing all along your jugular. Nipping at your collarbone towards your chest. Nipples poking through the material of your nightgown.

Hands at your hips that held you still hiked your nightgown up, bunching it at your abdomen before it is pulled over your head and tossed on the floor. Bared to him now. He admired you for a long moment, piercing gaze taking your nakedness in, all along your goosebumped skin. He pulled his shirt over his head. Then Adler pressed his lips between your breasts, ever slow and ever steady. Ignoring your whimpers, your impatience. Heeded his own need to savor you. To evince your worth. His mouth left a scorching path down your abdomen. All across the scars and marks that littered your body, new and old. To the recent bruises, scratches and cuts. On the florets of old gunshot wounds on your torso and midriff that still felt freshly healed and much too tender against Adler’s scarred lips and light stubble.

His head descended down, down, down . Your fingers threaded through his mane of hair, feeling his warm breath above your hips. Calloused hands against your thighs, the one he hooked with his leg was thrown over his shoulder. His body settled between your legs. Already so wet. His mouth kissed up the one over his shoulder. From your thigh all the way up to your ankle. Then back down in a trail of wet kisses. You watched, heavy-lidded, your eyes meeting Adler’s. As he buried his face between your spread legs. You choked a gasp, tugging at his hair. Your thighs wrapped around his head, hips automatically bucked against his face. As Adler eased you open with his tongue slowly. Kissing, sucking, licking, lapping. Your hips lifted up from the bed, legs taunt, but he held you down. Using his arms wrapped around your waist to stop your squirming and the width of shoulders to pry your legs open even wider.

Adler was merciless with his tongue. Swirling around the most sensitive part of you. Sending jolts of electricity shooting up your spine, right up to your foggy brain. Added onto the heated pressure that was building in your core. You were already making a mess, dripping down your thighs onto the sheets. Your breathing only grew more uneven, more quicker. Chokes and moans fell from your lips, encouraging the man between your legs. Adler leaned on his side, moving an arm from underneath your waist only to go back and resume to his assail on you. He pressed a thick digit into you slowly, between the lapping of his tongue. Until he was up to the knuckle. Though you moaned at the feeling, you wished he filled you with something else. Adler pumped the finger into you, curling it against your tight, slick walls. Then, after a few moments, added a second. His fingers were calloused but clever. It didn’t take long before you were keening off the bed. Mouth agape, hands clenched around the sheets, hearing the sounds Adler was making between your legs. You were already close, right at the summit. But it wasn’t surprising, adroit and ambidextrous as he was.

Your fingers shot to his hair again, pulling as the pressure in your core grew more and more. Your thighs squeezed against his head, legs shaking, hips rolling against the movements of his tongue and pumping of his fingers into you. But Adler didn’t relent. He was never a man who could. You were close. So, so, so close. Right on the edge, fire coaxed underneath your skin. Heart bursting, tears pricking the corner of your eyes. Focused solely on the pleasure Adler was giving you. You begged and pleaded, sighed his name in broken breaths. Russell, Russell, Russell. Until your breathing stuttered, breathless as you began to quiver. Like the snap of string, the unspooling of thread, your orgasm crashed over you. Hard and unexpected. Pulled you down underneath the depths, slamming you against the ocean floor.

Mouth opened in a silent cry, body rose, hips rolling, fluttering around Adler’s fingers, tears rolling down your cheeks as Adler talked you through it. All the emotions, all your pain and suffering, all your fears and insensibility surged forward. A hurricane of mixed, conflicted feelings. Then all at once, it was gone. And you felt… you felt. You didn’t feel much of anything. You didn’t know what to feel. At peace? Unburdened? In limbo? It wasn’t numbness or detachment. But something you couldn’t quite name nor explain. In its wake, as you came down from your orgasm, all you could do was stare up at the ceiling, trying to catch your breath. Tears were still falling from your eyes from an unknown cause. Hands intertwined with yours, grounded you as you laid there motionless.

Carefully, Adler moved away from between your legs, kissing lazily against your salty skin. Up to your collarbone and neck, then a gentle kiss to the corner of your mouth. He laid beside you, not holding you, but there just so you could feel the tangibility of him. Of the warmth of him next to you. Skin against skin, heart beating in the ribcage next to yours.

“Bell.”

Your name was whispered in the crook of your neck. Your hands intertwined with his once more. You blinked, shaking through the fog in your mind. Turned your head, eyes meeting Adler’s as he stared at you worriedly. His eyes still dilated, his face drenched with your wet slick. Watched him as he licked his lips. You leaned forward, kissing Adler again. Tasting yourself on his lips. His hand cupped your jaw, deepening the kiss. He pulled away from you, kissing away the tear streaks on your face. Your arms wrapped around his neck, tugging him closer until he hovered over you. Adler was tense again, searching your face.

But you wasted no time, fingers following along his happy trail, tugging at the waistline of his pajama pants. Adler was quick to get the message. Still hesitated, still worried that it was too much for you. Convinced only by your gentle kiss and your pleading eyes. He helped you tug away his clothing, relieving the tightness there. He was rock hard; heavy, ruddy, and curved. You couldn’t help but ogle, licking your lips. Wanted to run your tongue on the underside of it, along a thick vein. Reciprocating, giving him the same pleasure he gave you. But you were both too eager. Your arms were still thrown over his neck, keeping him still as Adler settled between your legs again. Wished he would hurry up already. But the man had other plans. Osculated along the inside of your thigh again, all the way up to your ankle like before.

“Adler.” Your voice was hoarse, growing frustrated at his delay.

He ignored you however, still taking his sweet time. Sucking on the skin until he left welts and marks all over. Then did the same to your other thigh. Only stopped when he was satisfied. You pulled him closer, feeling him finally prod against you. Adler hissed low and you winced as he entered you. Still oversensitive, still overwhelmed. Still unused to the size of him. He pressed himself into you leisurely — inch by inch. Much too tight to take him in all at once, but you took as much of him as you could.

Adler stopped, feeling you squeeze around him in a vice grip.

“Bell.” He hissed through his teeth, “I need you to relax for me.”

You heard the strain in his velvet voice, felt the tensity of him above you. You took a slow breath, trying to get your body to relax. It worked somewhat, Adler eased up. But you could feel him throb inside you. Surprised by his restraint. He searched your face. Pulled out of you carefully, then drew his muscular thighs closer for leverage and sunk his fists into the mattress on either side of your head. Your hands on his shoulders gripped tight as Adler enfolded over you. A measured thrust and you both threw your heads back. He rocked his hips slowly, grunting as you clung to him. Legs wrapped around his hips, whimpering and keening. His face in the crook of your neck. Teeth on the underside of your jaw. His pacing was relentless, persistent. Not too slow, not too fast, but steady. Unwavering, as he fucked you into the mattress. But you wanted more. You wanted his brutality, that calculated violence. The agony and misery. You wanted him to ruin you.

He already had.

You were in a muddled state already. Cried out his name as Adler sunk deeper into you. Having been fucked wider to take all of him now. A hum of approval low in Adler’s throat, pleased by how well you took him. Like you were made for him. And only for him. Falling on his forearms, his body pressed on top of you. Flattened by his weight, caged by him. Large, calloused hand over your mouth, to muffle the noises you made; cries, whines and moans. His other ventured down, between your legs, where you were both connected. Felt him cup you, deft fingers rubbed against you. You tugged at his hair, sweat sheening on you both. Adler growled in your ear as you constricted around him again, writhing underneath him. Overstimulated. Your eyes closed shut. It was too much, it was all too much.

Adler panted above you, jaw clenched. Your name spat through clenched teeth. But you were too lost in the feeling of him pistoning in and out of you, your toes curling, breathing unstable. Bed frame wobbling under you both. Adler removed the hand from your mouth, shot out to the headboard. His other hand left from between your legs, grabbing your jaw. Pulled it forward to face him, forcing you to open your eyes and meet his own. Your mouth opened wide, wanting to cry out. But Adler shoved his fingers into your mouth. Fingers glistened from your sticky slick, curling inside your cheek. Making you taste yourself again. You wrapped your lips around his fingers, sucking them clean. The only sounds you could make now was incoherent babbling. As Russian filth was whispered in your ear.

Close. You were both so close.

Together, always together.

Adler pulled his fingers from your mouth, throwing your legs over his wide shoulders. Placed his hands on your hips in a bruising grip; knew it would leave prints afterwards. He was even deeper now that you thought possible. Still kept that steady pace of his. You pulled him into a messy kiss; all tongue and swollen lips. As the foundation of your orgasm grew stronger and more powerful. You broke the kiss as you felt it building higher and higher. Ready to all come crashing down. Adler could feel it too by the way

you tightened around him. It only encouraged him. His pace grew faster, enough to make you arch up from the bed. Your nails clawed at his back. Mouth agape in a silent scream. Then it crashed over you. Harder than your first. More violent and intense. Your eyes rolled to the back of your head. You fluttered around Adler, gushing over both your thighs. And it wasn’t long before he followed suit. A guttural groan deep from within his chest and a hard thrust into you. Then another and another, rocking your body forward, making the headboard slam the plaster. As he spilled himself inside you. Groaning and growling, his head thrown back. Exposing the column of his throat and the bites you left there.

“Fuck. FUCK.”

Then a few final thrusts and he collapsed on top of you. Panting, kissing along your neck. As you both came back down like falling feathers. You both laid there like that, in each other’s arms. Trying to catch your breath. Eventually, Adler rolled off of you, pulling himself out as you winced. You could feel him start to spill out of you already, mixing with your slick on your thighs. You had the mind to take your fingers and push it back inside you where it belonged, and by the way Adler watched in deep thought, he shared the same idea. But instead, the older man grabbed his discarded shirt from the floor and cleaned you up. Tossing it away when he was done. Adler pulled you close, your head to his sweaty chest as you let out a drawled out sigh. Ear to his rapid heartbeat, cheek nuzzling against his coiled chest hair. His arms wrapped around you, his legs intertwined with yours. Skin against skin, souls bared to each other.

“Sleep, Bell.”

His hands rubbed at your back softly. As he kissed your forehead and let out a deep sigh. Already falling asleep. Your eyes felt heavy. You were exhausted and satisfied. You were starting to ache everywhere; knew that you would feel it all in the morning. Adler fell asleep before you, soft snoring into your hair. His deep breathing lulled you. And for once, sleep came to you easily…

And yet…

Yet…

Something wasn’t right.

Even in the embrace of sleep, just on the verge of consciousness, you could tell. Cold, uncomfortable. Unbearable even, and… unsafe. It made you stir, shifting against the confines of something that held you close. Too close. Restrictive, digging deep into your skin. Suffocated you. Drowning, you were drowning again. Being dragged down underneath dark torrents. But there was no sudden violence to save you, no inner animalistic urge to weaponize. You were pacified, a limp body lost in the depths. A corpse sinking to the endless bottom.

You couldn’t fight. Couldn’t fight hard, couldn’t fight strong or desperately. Nothing was enough to free yourself, nothing would ever be. You were a deadweight, a stone thrown into a lake. Free falling into the deep, dark depths below. Light above you, fading away from you. Everything in you, ached for oxygen. Your lungs burned, nostrils flared – choking for air. Pressure built into your chest like wet concrete. You opened your mouth to scream, but your cries were silenced by the water, your mouth filling with it. Frantic releases of breath left an effervesced trail as you sunk. Down, down. Further and further. Buried in a watery grave, pressurized and all consuming. Death was slow. Your death was inevitable like grave soil being thrown over your coffin. There was no more fighting the throes of inevitable death. No screaming and no mercy.

Your sight blackened until all you saw was red. Red, red, red . The color of wounds, the color of bloodsport. The color of hellfire. Then you heard it. A symphony of sounds, an echo like a whale song. Cacophonous and jarring. It reverberated in your bones and repeated in your head. An evocation that you began to understand, to recognize. It called to you, spoke a name. ‘Bell, Bell, Bell’ it said, repeating over and over like a mantra. From a voice that you knew wholeheartedly, deep down in the intertwisted threads of the tapestry of soul, bones and flesh. An echo, a whisper in the nothingness.

“Bell, we've got a job to do.”

We’ve got a job to do.

W̸̡̾e̸̙̽’̷̮̅v̷͎͝ë̶̥́ ̸̳̈́g̸̓ͅō̸͎t̶͎͆ ̷͚͘a̵͍̔ ̴̘̈j̵̦̈́o̴̮̊b̵̥́ ̸̖́t̶̢̓o̵͔͌ ̴̢̀d̵̻̕o̵̲̎.̸̞͝

A trip down memory lane. A series of memories: the smell of napalm and gunpowder. Sweat stinging the eyes, the taste of blood and mud in the mouth. Mazes of wire and explosives. Booby traps, land mines. VC rats scurrying in escape tunnels. The flash of the muzzles. The clink of bloodstained dog tags as they were yanked off of dead soldiers. Shadows between the trees; VietCong hiding in plain sight. Gunfire, a helicopter crash. Burning remnants of it stuck in a canopy. Thrown in a firefight in a paddy field. A voice, a narrator to the palimpsest of your own narrative. A tour guide through your own head; the devil on your shoulder. Old ruins, a fork in the road. Across a river, a rope bridge. A tunnel. A burning village. Then a red door. Always one at the end. You cannot escape it.

You walked through the door. A bright light blinded your sight. The sounds of a tropical jungle, palm leaves and elephant grass brushed against your skin. An oppressing heat. A long, white hallway that stretched on and on. Miles upon miles upon miles. Imperceivable, indeterminate. An endless iteration, a feedback loop. White walls and one way windows. Lab rooms full of medical equipment, surgical tools, projectors, and flickering television screens.

Purgatory .

White noise in your ears. In the distance, a bell swings. But there’s no ring.

Your surroundings started to crumble, decaying right in front of you. The walls cracked, the foundation split. The windows shattered. Falling, it was all collapsing in, from the ceiling to the floor. And all onto you. You sprinted through, running down the deteriorating hallway endlessly. A voice in your head again; another red door in front of your face. Through it again as always. And there in the middle of endless darkness was a long metal table. You knew what to do even with a broken mind; took a seat at the head of the table. Right where you knew you belonged. Faces, faces all around. Other people in the room, sitting around the table too. And a towering man with silver, slicked back hair and a thick mustache. He looked at you, talked to you in an accented voice that sounded far too familiar. Too familial . He said a name, your true name; Your real name. One you had long forgotten. You blinked at him as the man spoke, words like a distant echo. It reverberated in your head. Resurfaced memories. Of a plan. One you helped contrive.

‘Nukes. Europe. Detonation. Safety of Solovetsky.’

Solovetsky .

From the safety of Solovetsky.

Something reached for you, someone. You started to wake. Your body ached all over. Your left eye throbbed. Your sight burned – white, white. Too bright. Bright lights above you. Bleary-eyed; eyes seeing and unseeing, like a camera lens trying to find focus. Your surroundings were nothing but a blur. A warbling in waterlogged ears, a chorus of inharmonious noise.

Sepia shades in the dark, a looming figure crept out from the shadows.

“Bell, no more fucking around.”

You tried to sit up. But you’re restrained to a metal gurney. Forced to lay down on your back. There was relief there, seeing Adler. Affection and admiration, relief. Underneath all your confusion, all your dubiety. The fogginess in your head, the conflicting emotions that bubbled in the cauldron of your sensibility. He wasn’t alone in the dark room. But your eyes always looked to him. Only him. Pinpointed him wherever and whenever. Adler grabbed you roughly, a hard grip on a tactile vest you were wearing. Forced your upper body up from the gurney, the thick strap around your chest that held you down, cut into your ribs and stomach.

“What did Perseus say? Where is he?”

You stared at Adler. It was all you could do. Alarm sirens in your head at the way he looked down at you, acted towards you. Like you were nothing to him. There was no subtle softness on the rough features of his face. No crinkling of his crow’s feet in the corner of his eyes as he looked down at you. You weren’t in the bedroom like you expected, sunlight streaming through the curtains. Wrapped in his embrace, your children sleeping in.

Children.

Where are your children at?

Your gaze darted around, eyes bulging with a sudden panic. But all you saw was Adler. Your tongue was like lead, heavy and stuck to the roof of your mouth. Your jaw ached like you’ve been grinding your molars together. Despite it, you tried to speak. Throat dry and scratchy.

Where are your children? Are they safe? Where are you?

Who are you, really?

Disoriented, Adler assured you. You were just disorientated. Help is what you needed. But it wasn’t just your own, Adler needed it as well. An exchange, you both needed to help each other.

Bullshit. It was all bullshit.

Adler wasn’t pleased with you.

“‘Bullshit’ is what your whole life will amount to if you don’t come clean. Tell us where Perseus is!”

Adler was unrecognizable in that moment, not the man you remembered. One you held dear to your heart. This wasn’t him, was it? This wasn’t the Adler you knew and cherished. He wouldn't subject you to this. Adler would never do this. Wouldn’t he? This man wore his face, spoke his words. But he wasn’t Adler. You blinked up at him, this wasn’t real. He wasn’t real. You tested the restraints, feeling how they cut into the circulation of your wrists and ankles. And his grip on you only tightened, fist flexed around the rough textile of your tactile vest. Your head throbbed. You felt your chest tighten with the constricting compression of pain. Emotional turmoil churned inside you. This fake Adler, this impersonator was the cause of your pain, of your suffering. The puppeteer behind the scenes. A conjuring of your worst fears.

What did this man do to you?

“We gave you a second chance when you were shit out of luck. Now we just want some assistance in return.”

He dropped you with a harsh push, and you fell back onto the gurney. A second chance. Tit for tat; quid pro quo. Someone held up a blue folder; a dossier soiled with a dried bloody handprint.

Then you remembered. Remembered it all.

A quick succession of memory; Betrayed. Bleeding out in the back of your hummer on an airfield. Blood stained dossier in your lap. Melting metal and burning rubber – a gas leak. The wreckage of a plane on fire in the far distance. Dying, you were dying. Left for dead. But these people, this man with the face of Adler. They’re perfidious. Manipulating you, you were nothing but entertainment to them. Like picking a scab and watching it bleed over and over again.

Lying. He’s lying. He put all that shit in your head.

“The CIA reinvented you, Bell.”

Reinvented you; built you back up. Fragments of your consciousness, stained-glass windows. Shards of you too sharp to fully put back together. You were just a golden joinery of flesh and bone. Nothing but haphazardly put-together. A shell of a person. A conflict of your own self. Memories that weren’t your own stuffed in your damaged brain. Menticide, MK-Ultra. A fabrication, a falsification. Of identity, of background, of bonds. They used you and your expertise. Used you for their own bidding. Adler used you, pretended your ties together.

But this was all a trick. It was all in your head, a torment specified for you. Your children were real, they were safe back home. And this man, he wasn’t truly Adler; Adler would never do such a thing to you. You've been through so much together, done so much together.

Together, always together.

It was a macabre joke, all a sadistic game. They were toying with you.

These people were sick. Sick in the head, more than you.

“Are your hands clean, Bell?”

Were they clean? Cleansed of wrongdoings like Adler said? Weren’t you a sinner, just like them?

Purgatory.

This was purgatory. Consequences, punishment. What you deserved for sins that stained your soul. For a past, a personhood you cannot remember. A false identity given and granted by them, for you. A trick, a false reassurance. Integration, interrogation. Interrogated? You were interrogated? No, it was a confessional. An admission. One you fought, one you refused. You weren’t a sinner like them. Like they claimed you were. Purgatory.

This purgatory was all in your head. A delusion.

Fuck this. Fuck them.

“I don’t think so. You’re still holding back on us, and we are going it out of you.”

Again, ‘Adler’ seized hold of you. Hand curled into a fist around your tactical vest. With the other the older man grabbed your jaw, rough fingers digging into your skin. He forced your head to the side. Face-to-face with him now.

He leaned down closer.

“We have a job to do.”

Your brain went blank, something within you triggered. Like a switch. Enchanted, hypnotized, mesmerized. Stuck in a trance. You instantly relaxed. Eyes to those behind his shades. Waited for his direction, for his command. A dog at his heel.

He released you slowly, stepping back from you.

“The trigger phrase kept you in line but it didn’t give us everything we needed. Your innermost secrets were always locked behind a door.”

The red door. Always an obstacle in your way. A gateway through the labyrinthine corridors of a shattered psyche, the ruins of broken mind. For which all paths converged and led back to him. Back to Adler. Like a northern star; a flame in the dark. He was always the one to reel you in, to ground you. A planet caught in his gravity. But this trick, this manipulation tactic was not untrue. This brutal man that stood over you was not a figment of your imagination, no matter how much you blinked. Nor was he a trickster or an impersonator. This man was Adler. And what you both had… your complicated and complex relationship. It was never real. None of it was. Your past together, even your future together. Your children… none of it was real. Pain deep in your chest, coiling around your heart like thorn vines. The mother inside wailed and sobbed, grieving for what you never had in the first place.

You watched him as he talked on. Words he was saying to you, seeped into your head. You probably hate them right now, he said. Hate, you should hate. It was the only understanding you needed; nothing of the stakes, of a threat of nuclear fallout, of the death of millions off the face of the earth. A realization. One that you couldn’t fully heal from. A pain that broke your rhythm. A flow of agonizing hurt washed over you, a remembrance of a ghostly past and a once tangible future. This was purgatory. Not one manifested by your woes and fears, or created by your own head or designed for you. It was a byproduct, a fact of life. To live, was to suffer. To suffer, was to live.

It had all been a dream, a fantasy. Hopeful wishing in light of your suffering. The only source of strength and hope you could cling onto. You shared no life with him. No allegiance, or connection. You didn’t know him, not truly. He was not your safety, not the gravity keeping you on your feet. Your world crumbled, unfurling at the seams. Between the subtle shading and the absence of light laid the nuance of illusion. Of the lie fed to you, of the life spun for you, of the personhood falsified unto you. You should loathe him, you should fear him. You shouldn’t trust the man in front of you. You knew it all as true.

“This is your chance to define who you really are, Bell.”

But love and hate had always tasted the same to you.

Remember?

“Where is Perseus?” Adler asked you, expectantly.

The voice of that tall silver-haired man in that dark room, in your ear once more. Whisperings in your head. Truth on the tip of your tongue.

From the safety of Solovetsky.

….Solovetsky.

“Solovetsky. It’s the Solovetsky Monastery.” You told him.

Adler repeated the word. “Solovetsky.”

He sent whoever was there out of the room, appointed tasks in preparation for what’s to come. You watched as he untied your restraints around your wrists and legs. Undid the one around your chest. Without hesitation.

“You made the right choice, Bell.”

Truly? Had you truly chosen correctly?

Adler clasped your hand, helped you up from the gurney. The heat of his palm seeping through your fingerless gloves. The hand on your shoulder, steadied you as you stood on wobbly legs.

“You’re still one of us.”

One of us.

It was bittersweet beneath it all.

All the conflicting emotions, the pain and fear, the grieving for a life you never shared together. The memories that weren’t yours, but Adler’s. In that, you at least shared. But despite it all. You did what you always had done. Even now. You put your trust in him. Followed him dutifully. Heeded his words. It was all you knew. All you knew how to do. Whether it was implanted into you or learned over time. His ambition, his will; your purpose. A fatal flaw. Following him to the ends of the world, to hell on earth by his side. As the cards of fate were shuffled and played.

Even now after the all-out assault on Solovetsky, the foiling of Perseus' plan. You were found and rescued from underneath all the debris: rubble, concrete and metal sheets. Rebars stuck out of the remnants of the monastery like broken bones. Voices on the other side. A figure between the dust and smoke, fires burning around you. Adler appeared in front of you, and you couldn’t help the sigh of relief at the sight of him. He extended an arm out to you there on the ground.

“Take my hand, Bell.” He said.

And you did.

Reached out for him. Let him pull you back on your feet as you steadied yourself. Listened to his triumphant speech afterwards. Of the evil you helped stop. Without your knowledge at first, then with it afterwards.

“This is how wars are won, Bell.”

You couldn’t help the chill that ran down your spinal cord as he spoke directly to you. Goosebumps rose. Felt like ants marching one by one, up and down your skin. It was a declaration of devotion. Not to you, never to you. But to his country. For the safekeeping and welfare of the Western world and its idealisms. You were nothing but a means to an end. A stepping stone in the cobble path. Just another pawn on the chess board sacrificed for the checkmate. The early morning broke through the clouds of smoke. The fires still burned bright against the waning dusk, even throughout the incoming dawn. Soon the leeching light of the fires was but a memory. Fleeced clouds roamed through the pastorals of a calm sky, subsiding away, and freeing the sun from its subjugation. The sun rose, blooming against an azure sky, unfurling its golden tendrils, to bare its fierce face once again. Apprehension prickled along the back of your neck, the hairs there stood at end. You couldn’t shake off the feeling and that fight or flight instinct was becoming very hard to ignore.

Yet, you still followed right behind Adler as he led you up a hill. Towards a cliff that overlooked the Arctic sea. He was a few paces ahead but still looked back towards you to make sure you were still following. As if you would bolt in a split second when he turned his back and wasn’t looking. The smell of brine became stronger as you reached the top of the cliff. Carried on the cold winds, the exhale of wintry dread. Of death’s call. The taste of salt was a sharp bitterness on your tongue, making your mouth prune and your thirst more fierce. You watched him take a deep breath through his nose, inhaling the cool scent of the sea. Adler leaned a leg on top of a rock and peered over the edge. He lit up a cigarette, taking a drag of it, and stared out to the sea.

You stood only a couple feet away, just observing him. Wallowed in uncertainty, in the unknown. In the aftermath of the truth revealed. The dealer’s hand had already been dealt, but you didn’t know what it read. What it entailed when it came to you. The roar of crashing waves battered against the jagged rock of the cliffside in your ears. Filled the silence between you both. But it wasn’t enough to drown the endless stream of thoughts in your headspace.

Adler turned towards you. Cool and impassive. Wholly inscrutable to you.

“Arctic air. Clears the head, doesn’t it.”

An ice breaker, something to cut through the tension between you both. Then came his praise, and something inside fawned at his words. A simple acknowledgement that was everything to you.

“I just want you to know that this little thing that’s happened with you and me. It was always for the greater good.”

Adler flicked his cigarette away. Your eyes watched him waste it, as it fell down into the sea. More praise from him. You were a hero, he told you. That dreaded nickname tumbling from his lips again. Kid . More talk about being a hero. Heroism, sacrifice. Sacrifice of the self, of others. Sacrifice. You were the sacrificial lamb, another pawn on the chess board sacrificed for the checkmate. For the greater good. Why would it turn out any different? You served your purpose. You were no longer useful.

It would always end this way, with your death at the very culmination. You were just another loose end that needed to be dealt with.

“... it was never personal.”

You habitually wobbled on the precipice of life and death. Between luck of the draw and the short end of the stick. Firm-footed at its edge at the very last second. Death had been elusive to you once. A mercy neither given nor received. But now, you saw the margins of error permitted in between. You barely felt the bullet as it struck through your chest. Scarlet bloomed beneath your fingertips, stained your skin like overripe raspberries. Shedding liquid dripped onto the ground in splatters. A contrast of color that was vibrant against the mellow pigmentation. There it burgeoned under the sun, roses and scarlet sage. Sarcodes and carnations. Bouquets and garlands, a gathering of plucked lifeblood. Your knees buckled as your body went slack and you collapsed to the ground. Clutching at your lower chest, you grimaced at the excruciating pain of a deep-seeded wound. The bitter taste of a sob was on your tongue. But you swallowed it down, let it simmer out as the coppery taste overpowered both the bitterness and the saltiness in your mouth.

You could only lie there on the dirt, bleeding and exhausted. Supine in your own pool of blood, your eyes to the sky. Watched the seagulls glide in and out of your vision carried by the oceanic winds and the clouds floating above you. Blood swarmed in your mouth. Your respiration stuttered, uneven and wheezing with every breath rattling your ribcage. Dirt and gravel shifted as heavy footsteps approached you, stopping inches away from where you lay. You turned your head, letting it loll to the side. Wanting to look out to the horizon in the distance. The boots in front of your face moved. Feet planted next to your head instead, giving you a clear view of the sight over the cliffside. He was quiet as he stood next to you, looking out the horizon like you were. But you felt his eyes glance down at you every so often. Waiting for your last breath.

There was a strange comfort there with him by your side. As a bedside presence, as company as death creeped in. Nobody wanted to die all alone. And at least a man such as Adler had the decency to stay. But underneath the solace, there was a hard truth. The realization that he only wanted to make sure that you died. That all loose ends were gone.

You knew as well as he did that death would eventually come. He had aimed for a quick kill, a merciless end to not prolong your suffering. But your fast draw of your pistol from your side as you mirrored his action. Moved just slightly with your unholster as you stared down each other’s gun barrels. But it was enough for him to miss his mark. Only for the shot to hit your chest instead of your head where Adler initially aimed. Now you would suffer, your own doing you supposed. Self-afflicted in a last ditch effort to live. Or rather take him down with you. Together, to the depths of hell. Tit for tat; quid pro quo.

The sound of metal clicking above you of an adjustment of a pistol. You took as much of a stable breath as you could, expecting another gunshot to come. To quicken your death, take you out of your misery like putting down a dog. All to finish what was already started. But no shot rang out, instead the pistol was holstered to his side and buckled around his thigh. You were not worth the waste of another bullet it seemed. You felt his eyes stray from the horizon, down to you. You heard him let out a deep, weary sigh. After your bloodied coughs sent blood droplets onto the ground next to his boots. Your chest heaved and you gasped out aloud for air, like you were being submerged. Head pushed underneath the frothy surface. Drowning in your own blood. Your body had accepted death, but your soul refused to rest; psychosomatic prodromes. A restlessness that couldn’t be overcome.

Fighting still, even in your death throes.

“Sleep, Bell.”

A whisper on the wind, a ghostly graze along your cheek of a feigned loving touch. One last command, one last instruction.

Whether you knew it or not, unconsciously or consciously, you heeded those words. Your eyes fluttered close like butterfly wings as you started to go limp, letting go of it all. The horizon began to fade in your blurring sight. And soon after, you lost all feeling. The cold winds against your skin, the sounds of lapping waves and the taste of brine and blood — they were nothing to you now. Clutched in the cold grip of death. Where a frostbite numbness overcame you like you were plunged in a tub of ice. Doused in freezing water. Senseless and insensible. Capitulated. Your life was beyond you now. Below, where the cliffside stretched down towards the sea. To the ebb and flow of turbulent waters.

Blue. Dark blue.

The color of Adler’s eyes. One of his favorite genres that played on the radio. The complexion of a corpse. The quadrangle that held fifty stars on the national flag. The color of solitude so cold. The expanse of water as it swallowed you whole. Body tossed over the edge, lost to the sea. Paths intertwined now to be untangled for good.

Here, on this heroic day, you dreamed a dream.

In your brain’s oscillations of replayed memories, a last recall of life events just before death.Of a life not merited. Of a life lost to you. One that was never yours to take. You lived a false life in a world that was falser still. Enraptured by the being of your damaged brain. Deluded, deceived. How it comforted you with vivid illusions of the intangible of your own life in the haziness of hoary dreamscapes. Influenced by your capture, shaped by the man you should loathe. But instead who you found comfort in. You only made it easier for them to erase you, for him to manipulate you. The beginning and the end; the end to your beginning.

The ‘what-ifs’ and ‘should-haves’ all but questions gone unanswered. A mirage in a desert, right before reality set in when you looked too close, got too close. The sounds of your children laughing, their arms around your waist. Clinging, attached to the hip. Their cries to you when they had nightmares. And your consolation afterwards. Adler in the doorway. Watching, always watching you. Sharp eyes that found yours. In the gap of the evidence board when you were out of line of sight. He kept you close. Right under his thumb. The feel of Adler next to you, on you, inside you. Flesh to flesh, skin on skin. Lips to yours. Scars shown, souls bared. Fates so intertwined, so interlaced with each other, that neither of you knew where you ended and he began. But such deep ties needed to be severed. For his own good more than yours.

And here, on such a heroic day, the complexity of the mind was incomparable to the simplicity of the heart.

Beloathed, behated, betrayed, yet still beloved; dearly in life as in death. Heartbroken, heartsick. Disheartened. A heart that beat against contused ribs. Flames of love buried beneath ash and cinder which laid still your tender heart. But there were no asphodel fields to bury you. No tombs to house your remains. You had no headstone, no eulogy, no mourners to mourn you. No church bells in the distance. Only you, to mourn and grieve for what you never had. You would be the unspoken, the redaction. Another lost and forgotten file in the archives. No one would ever know. You would never be known or remembered. Removed from all historical accounts. Blacked out, scratched out of the records.

To Adler, you were a temporary asset. To Perseus, you were a traitorous rat. And to you? Who were you in the eyes of yourself? You thought you knew once. Even when your memories were but sand grains in the cusp of your palms. Although you felt more ghost than human, watching as the world went on without you. You were nothing but an echo of a heartbeat from a long dead heart. Where life was not for you. Never was for you. Such life was beyond you now. Where the planes of reality and dreams had collided. You were never anything more than what you needed to be. What you needed yourself to believe yourself to be. For such a life, for a family. For Adler by your side, was only conjured by a midst of madness. A madness you had thought another found beautiful. But it only made you a liability. Your brain trauma, your memory loss, your identity crisis; it was the only guarantees you knew about yourself. A byproduct of a supposed life of soldiering and espionage. Self-sacrifice. The same thing that Adler drilled into your head. It had always been for the greater good. He prepared you for this. For your eventual end. So here, it was reaped and sowed.

Here, on this heroic day, there remained only a revered silence.

For a dead dreamer and a sullied dream.

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

A/N:

Critique welcomed and encouraged as long as it is constructive and polite (don't be rude/mean pretty please ◡̈ ).

#call of duty #cod fanfic #cod bocw #cod cold war #bell cod #cod bell #cod x reader #russell adler #black ops cold war #adler x bell #russell adler x reader #russell adler x oc #cod smut #call of duty black ops cold war #ao3 author #ao3 fanfic #ao3 link #completed #oneshot

98 notes · View notes

thatchickwiththecamera · 4 months ago

Text

ROOMMATES | Jesse Cash One Shot

Pairing: Jesse Cash x Reader

Warnings: Contains Smut, 18+ Only

Your studio in the house wasn’t the same as the spare rooms Michael and Noah used or the garage space Jesse converted to write and produce music. Your desk and iMac were set up in one corner, with a small makeshift reading nook in the neighboring one by the window. The other half of the room had a couch flanked by two tall reading lamps on either side with miscellaneous shelves and crates of camera gear along with a few spools of various colored backdrop paper hung neatly on the wall.

You worked as a digital media creator and while you worked in the music industry, your realm of expertise was more in tune with the world of photography, videography, and graphic design as opposed to the actual creation of music like your roommates. You had met the guys through working on a few projects with your friend Orie McGuiness and when he moved out he had vetted you as being the perfect person to take over his portion of the lease.

Living in a house full of creatives was quite the experience. It wasn’t unusual for one of the guys, mainly Noah or Jesse, to randomly pop in unannounced while you were in the middle of a project. Your studio was sort of neutral ground. It was a place where they could take a break from their own work while still being in a creative environment. They’d come in and inquire about whatever project you were currently working on and you’d take the time to get a fresh eyed opinion on the progress you had made.

Noah would sit on the couch and tell you all about the newest anime he was watching, what artists he and Jolly had recently been hired to write for, or whatever new ideas he, Matt, and Davis had come up with for the next tour.

With Jesse you’d end up talking about almost anything and everything. One day you’d have a long discussion about something as simple as pro baseball box scores and your mutual appreciation of the Red Sox. Other days you’d talk about things like why Anthony Green has been in so many rock bands, and why Circa Survive was your favorite over Saosin.

If it was too hot to sit outside, Jesse liked to come in and commandeer your reading corner, claiming that your window had the best natural lighting in the house. Which had also led to a portion of your bookcase being overrun with books Jesse had finished and insisted that you should read next.

There were many nights where you’d both end up in your studio reading. It was one of your favorite routines that had developed since you had moved in two years prior. Either one of you would be in the chair in the corner and the other would be on the couch, or sometimes, you’d both end up curled up on opposite ends of the couch under the two reading lamps with whatever books you had become engrossed in that week.

Around six thirty, you heard the door to the studio open. Right on time.

You looked over from where you sat on the couch to see Jesse walk in with the latest Stephen King novel he was reading wedged under his arm. You slipped your bookmark between the pages of your new Sarah J. Maas bestseller and moved the pile of pillows next to you. He kicked off his shoes and settled into the other end of the couch. You shared a smile before the both of you slipped into a comfortable silence.

About an hour or so had passed before Jesse reached down and grabbed one of the discarded throw pillows and tossed it toward you. You set your book down and watched as he laid his head against the pillow now propped up against the side of your lap and kicked his feet out, resting them against the opposite end of the couch. Once he was comfortable, he reopened his book and continued reading. You smiled to yourself before resting your arm against the top of the pillow and returning to your own book.

As you got lost in the pages of the fantasy book, your fingers began absentmindedly fiddling with the mess of curls that peaked over the top of the pillow. Jesse hadn’t cut his hair since the start of the year and the brown coils he usually hid under his favorite black ball cap had grown long and wild over the last six months.

You found yourself drawn into the rhythm of reading, the soft hum of the air conditioning providing a soothing background noise. Jesse’s presence beside you was comforting, his warmth seeping into your side where he leaned against you..

Lost in the world of your book, you almost didn’t notice when Jesse shifted beside you, stretching out his legs a bit more. You looked up instinctively, meeting his eyes briefly before he glanced back down at his book, a small smile playing on his lips.

"Hey, do you ever wonder if there’s more out there?" Jesse's voice broke the silence, his question unexpected but not entirely out of place given the late-night contemplative mood.

You considered his question, choosing your words carefully.

"More in what way?"

He hesitated, as if searching for the right way to phrase his thoughts.

"I mean... more than like what we're doing now. More than just work and routines. Like... possibilities we haven’t explored."

The air between you felt charged, the weight of his words hanging in the small space of your studio. You could feel your heart race a little faster, a mixture of excitement and nervousness bubbling up inside you. But before you could respond, the door to the studio swung open abruptly, startling both of you.

Noah stood there, grinning mischievously.

"Hey, sorry to interrupt... but I need Jesse’s help with something. You guys are reading together again, huh? Cute."

Jesse shot Noah a playful glare, but you could see the slight flush in his cheeks as he quickly straightened up, removing himself from the cozy position against you.

"Yeah, I'll be there in a sec," he replied, gathering his book and pushing himself off the couch.

"We'll talk more later," he added with a meaningful look before following Noah out of the room.

Left alone in the wake of their departure, you let out a sigh of mixed emotions. It seemed every time the atmosphere between you and Jesse began to hint at something more, it was swiftly interrupted or diverted. The unresolved tension lingered in the air like an unfinished melody, leaving you wondering what could have been said if only there had been a few more moments of silence.

With a shake of your head, you returned to your book, though your mind kept wandering back to Jesse’s question and the unspoken connection between you.

—

A few days passed and you hadn’t seen Jesse much. He was busy fine tuning the last few guitar riffs and lyric ideas he had in preparation for when he met with the rest of the ERRA boys to track their new album the next week.

It was a little after two in the afternoon when you emerged from your studio and shuffled your way downstairs to the kitchen. You hadn’t planned on working as long as you had that morning, but you had found yourself locked in on your most recent project and had lost track of time. You hadn’t realized how late it was until your stomach started growling from lack of food.

You popped a snack plate of leftovers in the microwave to reheat and decided to knock out some of the dishes that were left in the sink from earlier in the day when the guys had made their morning coffee. You were drying Noah’s white ‘Shuh Da Fuh Cup” mug when you heard the sound of the sliding glass door open.

You looked up to see a shirtless Jesse walk in wearing a pair of athletic shorts and sneakers. His curly hair was damp and his upper body glistened with a layer of sweat from working in the backyard all morning under the blazing California sun. Living with three guys, you were very much used to seeing the guys lounge about and walk around the house in various states of undress.

But your eyes couldn’t help but follow his form as he walked through the kitchen. Noticing the details of the familiar tattoos that adorned his stomach, chest and arms as he grabbed a clean glass from the drying rack next to you and filled it with water from the tap.

He leaned back against the island where you were standing and raised the glass to his lips. Adam’s apple bobbing with each gulp. The colors of the flower on his right hand were highlighted as his long fingers wrapped around the glass. Your mind started to drift and you couldn’t help but wonder what that hand might feel like wrapped around your throat.

“Enjoying the view?” He asks.

The sound of his voice snapped you out of your thoughts. You’d been caught and felt a blush start to creep across your face.

Your eyes flicker to his and he smirks at you in amusement before downing the last of the water. The smell of sweat mixed with his body wash filled your nose as he reached around you to place the empty glass in the sink. You could feel the heat radiate off his sun kissed skin.

His face came dangerously close to yours, eyes never breaking contact. You roll your eyes and he sends you a playful wink before making his way out of the kitchen and toward the stairs, presumably up to his room to shower.

You stood there for a moment trying to process what had just happened before you were startled by the sound of the microwave over the stove. With a sigh you retrieved your food and retreated back upstairs to continue working.

As you returned to your studio, the encounter with Jesse in the kitchen replayed in your mind like a scene from a movie. His casual remark about enjoying the view left you flustered, but you couldn’t deny the thrill it sent through you. Jesse had always had a playful, teasing side, but lately, it seemed his interactions with you held a subtle undercurrent that made your heart race.

Back at your desk, you tried to refocus on your work, but your thoughts kept drifting. You found yourself glancing at the doorway, half-expecting Jesse to reappear, yet knowing he was likely downstairs working in his studio by now. The memory of his closeness, the scent of his sweat mixed with the faint trace of his cologne lingered in your memory.

The afternoon sun cast warm hues through the window, illuminating the room in a comforting glow. You tried to lose yourself in editing photos, tweaking colors and compositions, anything to distract you. But every now and then, your mind would wander back to his question from a few days earlier. The one about possibilities unexplored, about more than just the routine of work and friendship.

Hours passed in a blur. The sun dipped lower in the sky, casting long shadows across the room. You glanced at the clock and realized it was nearly time for dinner. With a sigh, you saved your work, shut down your computer, and stretched out your stiff limbs.

In the kitchen, you found Noah already cooking up something, dancing and singing to a song that blasted from the bluetooth speaker on the island. He greeted you with a grin and a teasing comment about being lost in your work again. You chuckled in response, helping him set the table as you exchanged small talk about the day.

Soon, Jesse sauntered in, dressed casually in a worn band tee and joggers. His hair was still a little damp from his earlier shower, curls slightly tamed, and he greeted you with a genuine smile.

You couldn’t help but notice the ease with which he moved around the kitchen, effortlessly sliding into conversations with Noah about the new songs they were working on.

Dinner passed in a haze of laughter and shared stories. It was just you, Jesse, and Noah since Michael was off spending the weekend with his girlfriend. The familiar banter and camaraderie among the three of you was comforting.

After dinner, you cleared the table together, rinsing dishes and stacking them in the dishwasher. Jesse volunteered to dry, and you handed him plates and glasses with a smile, trying to ignore the way your fingers brushed against each other’s.

As you finished up in the kitchen, Noah excused himself to take a call from Matt about one of the band’s upcoming studio sessions. Jesse leaned against the counter, watching you quietly with that thoughtful look that always made your heart skip a beat.

"So," he finally said, breaking the silence, "did you get much done today?"

You nodded, a nervous energy tingling in your fingertips. "Yeah, I made good progress. How about you? Productive day in the backyard this morning?"

Jesse chuckled, setting down the dish towel and stepping closer to you. "Yeah, it was alright. Hot as hell out there, though."

You laughed softly, feeling the proximity between you like a magnetic pull. "I can imagine."

He hesitated for a moment, his gaze dropping to the floor before lifting to meet yours again.

“Listen, about earlier... in the kitchen."

Your heart skipped a beat, anticipation and uncertainty swirling in your chest.

"Yeah?"

He took a deep breath, his expression earnest yet guarded.

"I just... I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable or anything. I was just teasing."

You shook your head, smiling softly.

"It’s okay, Jesse. I know."

There was a pause, his eyes searched yours, as if trying to decipher something hidden beneath the surface. You held your breath, waiting for him to say something more.

But before either of you could speak, the sound of footsteps echoed down the stairs, signaling Noah’s return. The moment shattered and Jesse stepped back, running a hand through his curls.

Noah announced he was headed out for the evening. He had to go to their friend Davis’ house to work on finalizing the designs for the next few merch drops and some visual ideas for the band’s upcoming tour.

With Noah's departure, the house suddenly felt quieter. You and Jesse exchanged a glance, a flicker of something unspoken passing between you before you turned back to finish drying the last few dishes.

"I should probably go and finish up the track I’m working on," Jesse finally broke the silence, his tone casual but his eyes lingering on you.

"Yeah, I've got a few things to wrap up myself," you replied, trying to keep your voice steady despite the nerves dancing in your stomach.

As you moved toward the stairs, a sudden loud rumble of thunder startled you. You glanced out the window to see dark clouds rolling in, blotting out the remnants of daylight. The distant flash of lightning illuminated the room, casting eerie shadows across the walls.

"Looks like we're in for a storm," Jesse remarked, his voice low.

"Yeah, seems like it," you agreed, feeling the tension in the air thicken with the impending storm.

You retreated to your studio upstairs while Jesse headed to the garage. The sound of rain started as a soft patter against the window, gradually building into a steady downpour. You tried to focus on your work, the glow of your computer screen casting a faint light across the dim room.

Minutes turned into hours as the storm raged outside, the occasional flash of lightning and rumble of thunder punctuating the night. The power flickered once, twice, before finally plunging the house into darkness. The sudden quiet was almost deafening, the absence of the hum of appliances and electronics leaving you acutely aware of the sound of your own breathing.

You sat back in your chair, momentarily stunned by the abrupt darkness. You reached for your phone, activating its flashlight to navigate your way downstairs.

As you made your way downstairs the light from your phone cast eerie shadows against the record plaques and framed tour posters hung along the wall. The power outage seemed to have affected the entire neighborhood, plunging everything on the block into darkness.

Navigating carefully through the hallway, you headed towards the kitchen where you knew there were candles stored for situations like this. As you rounded the corner, you nearly collided with Jesse, who seemed to be on the same mission.

"Shit! Sorry!" he exclaimed, steadying you with a gentle hand on your arm. "Didn't mean to scare you."

"It's okay," you replied, heart still racing from the unexpected encounter. "Just looking for some candles."

"Yeah, same here," Jesse said, his voice low. "I think they're in one of these..."

Together, you searched through various drawers, finally locating a cabinet of miscellaneous colored and scented candles. He lit a few and placed them strategically around the kitchen, casting a soft, flickering light that danced across his features.

You struggled to reach where the emergency lantern sat on the top shelf in the kitchen cabinet and had to resort to climbing up on the counter to grab it. You felt a hand ghost your lower back steading your movements as you lowered yourself to a sitting position on the counter top, legs dangling over the side. You handed the lantern off to Jesse.

"Thanks," you murmured, he lit the lantern and set it beside you on the counter.

“No problem,” he replied, voice husky in the quiet room.

The warm glow illuminated his features, making his eyes sparkle with a mixture of amusement and something deeper. He moved closer and stood between your legs, hands resting against the counter on either side of where you sat, his gaze locking with yours. His eyes scanned your face looking for a sign to stop as he leaned closer. The air between you crackled, the charged atmosphere inside mirroring that of the storm outside.

Your noses brushed against each other, breath intermingling for a moment before the remaining distance between you vanished. The kiss was tentative at first, a soft exploration of lips meeting in the dim candlelight. But as the moment stretched, the intensity between you grew, fueled by the proximity and the emotions that had been simmering beneath the surface for so long.

His lips were warm against yours, a contrast to the cool touch of his fingers on your skin. The kiss deepened, becoming more urgent, both of you had been waiting for the moment, this acknowledgment of the desire that had been building between you.

Time seemed to stand still in that moment, the storm outside forgotten as you melted into each other's embrace. One of his hands ran up your arm and rested against the side of your neck as the other slid around your waist, pulling you closer until there was no space left between your bodies. Your hands found their way into his mess of curls. The scent of his aftershave mingled with the subtle aroma of wax and rain, the mixture of smells enveloping you both.

When you finally broke apart, breathless and flushed, Jesse rested his forehead against yours, his fingers tracing gentle patterns on the exposed skin of your thigh. The silence around you was profound, broken only by the soft crackle of the candles and the distant rumble of thunder.

His eyes darkened as a flash of lightning illuminated his face through the window. His lips connected with yours once more and he lifted you from the counter, your legs wrapping around his waist as he carried you toward the couch in the adjoining living room.

You sat straddling his lap as his hands found their way under your shirt. You lifted your arms and the article was quickly cast aside. His own shirt soon followed. You ran your hands over the tattoos of the chieftess and eagle across his chest and the roaring tiger that covered his stomach. His arm snaked around your back and unhooked the clasp of your bra before throwing the article on the floor.

He rolled you off his lap and positioned you so you were now laying down on the couch. He crawled between your legs and hooked his fingers under the waistband of your shorts. You lifted your hips, allowing him to slide them off along with your underwear.

He stood up and discarded his joggers and briefs before settling back down between your legs. Your hands shot up and covered your face realizing how exposed you now were.

He reached up and softly grabbed your hands and pulled them away from your face.

“Don’t you ever try to hide from me, Darlin.” he said, planting kisses along the backs of each before placing them above your head, securing them in place with his left hand. “I want to see that pretty face as I watch you come undone.”

He planted another tender kiss upon your lips and watched you react as he ghosted his fingers over your core.

You let out a shaky breath as he gently slipped a finger inside and fell into a steady rhythm before adding another. You struggled against his grip as his thumb rubbed against your clit. His movements never stopped even as he started planting kisses across your throat and chest.

He took one of your breasts in his mouth. Your head snapped back against the pillow behind you at the added sensation when he bit the sensitive bud of your nipple before soothing the pain with the pad of his tongue.

With each move his eyes looked up at you, watching as your face contorted with pleasure, letting out shaky breaths and moans from the stimulation. He left a trail of wet kisses down your stomach and he released your hands as he kissed your inner thigh.

“Oh, Fuck!” You gasped, hands quickly finding their way into his curls as his tongue flicked over your clit before biting and sucking on the bundle of nerves.

The pleasure in your voice made his dick twitch and flipped a switch in him. He devoured you like a starved man and it drove you over the edge. You felt the familiar feeling of an orgasm build and tighten like a knot in your stomach. You tried to move your hips to match his movement but he firmly held you in place, leaving you writhing under his grasp.

“Jesse” you whined.

His name sounded like a prayer on your lips as you grew closer to your climax, and he was there to worship you with his whole being. The knot snapped and your hands tightened their grip through his now tangled curls. But he didn’t stop, continuing his physical praises as the orgasm washed over you like a flood.

You let out a whimper from the absence as he made his way back up your body and planted another searing kiss against your lips.You wrapped your arms around his neck pulling him deeper into the kiss.

“Fuck, this is better than I dreamed.” he said with a sigh before kissing you again.

He pulled back, letting out a gasp as he felt your hand reach down between the two of you and grab hold of his cock. You watched as he shut his eyes and let out a shaky breath as your thumb swiped away a bead of precum from the tip. His breathing became sporadic as you worked your way over the sensitive member.

He had enough of your teasing. You gripped his arms, nail leaving indentations against the tattooed skin as he gently slid the head into your entrance, pausing for a moment to allow you to adjust before sinking the rest of the way. He wrapped your legs around his hips and pressed his forehead against yours, eyes locked, as he thrusts faster, harder, deeper.

You moved your hips to match his thrusts as you both chased your highs together. Your eyes flutter closed as you feel that familiar pressure begin to build once more.

“Look at me, darlin,” he commanded. “Look at me when I’m fucking you.”

Your eyes snap back open, his words making your eyes almost roll back in added pleasure. His pupils were blown with ecstasy making his light brown eyes almost appear black in the candlelight. He picks up his pace with a grunt. You pull him close, wrapping your arms around his middle, snaking a hand up through his hair, giving a gentle tug as his hips snap into you.

“Fuck, Jess.” you cry. “I’m so close…”

“Doing so good for me, darlin.” he praises through gritted teeth.

You moan against his mouth as he slots his lips against yours in another deep kiss.

White flashes line the edges of your vision as you cry out in pleasure. Jesse buries his face in your neck as he fucks you through your orgasm, his breath shaking as chases his own not long after.

As your breathing finally returns to normal, he stands up and pads over to the kitchen, taking his added warmth with him. The cool air in the house washes over you despite the storm also knocking out the A/C. He returns a moment later with a clean damp washcloth for the both of you.

He disappears upstairs for a moment before returning dressed in a pair of his briefs like how he usually sleeps with a folded up white t-shirt in his hand.

He motions for you to raise your arm and slips the oversized shirt over your head. It's his favorite shirt with a map of Alabama record stores on the front.

“Damn, you look good in my shirt.” he states, pulling you up from the couch and kissing your forehead. You wrap your arms around his middle as he holds you close.

A mischievous smile then slides across his face. He bends down and wraps his arms around your thighs, throwing you over his shoulder.

“Goddammit, Jesse!” you exclaim, hitting his lower back with your fists.

His hand smacked your bare ass peeking out from under the shirt as he carried you up the stairs and into his room. He threw you onto his unmade bed before climbing on after you, pullig you flush against him, and tossing the discarded comforter over your bodies.

He wrapped his arms around you and nuzzled his face into your hair. You happily laid like this for a few moments, both of your energy spent from the activities downstairs.

“Hey, Jess?” you ask.

“Hmm?” he replies, voice muffled by his face pressed against your neck.

“You ever wonder if there’s more out there?” You ask, referring back to your unfinished conversation from the other night.

You felt him smile.

“I used to.” He replied.

“What changed?” You asked, turning now to face him.

“I met you.” He replied simply, before pulling him toward you and wrapping his arms around you.

You rested your head against his chest and snuggled into him further.

He continued, “Everything I need is right here.”

You lay like this wrapped up in each other’s embrace for the next hour or so before the lull of the moment is broken by the sound of the front door and Noah’s familiar voice breaking through the silence after he stumbles upon the pieces of clothing you had left behind.

“I fucking knew it!”

#author: thatchickwiththecamera #jesse cash #erra #erra band #jesse cash fanfiction #jesse cash x reader #jesse cash smut #jesse cash fanfic #jesse cash one shot #jesse cash oneshot

96 notes · View notes