#and now she has to hear it tied down to a gurney?!

[needsmoreknives]

this really does place a big obstacle in the way of the "Osha joins Qimir and Mae teams up with Sol" theory though. If I was Mae and Sol was narrating this shit to me I would pick up a brick and not stop smashing till he stopped twitching. the moment homegirls hands are free Sol better dodge

[nanasdumbworld]

Lovefool (pt.2)

Miguel O'Hara x Venom! f!reader

Summary ; The alien who took Miguel's best friend body, falls in love with him.

Warnings ; Unrequited love, mention of blood, implied injuries. Pure angst.

A/N ; i decided to keep female pronouns for venom!reader :)

Miguel had been looking for (Y/N) for hours. He couldn't find her anywhere, not even Lyla could.

He had sent Peter, Gwen, Hobie, Pavitr, Miles, and Jessica to search for her in different universes. He had a feeling she was in danger, she wouldn't just disappear like that.

"Lyla, send more backup" He said without taking his eyes off the screen. The drone that he had sent to (Y/N)'s earth, traveled through each of the many streets of New York.

The drone detected (Y/N)'s mask near an abandoned warehouse, but there was no trace of her. Miguel felt a strange pressure on his chest. The drone entered the building and when scanning the place inside, it found different blood stains, on the walls, on the furniture, and on some broken windows.

"Take a blood test and bring it back" The drone obeyed and took the test to his office, at the same time, the spidermen and spiderwomen from the search arrived.

Peter walked over to Miguel and put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm so sorry, buddy. We didn't find anything" he said with a sad expression. Everyone was quite worried about (Y/N). They all felt a bit guilty that they couldn't find anything.

"Keep looking" he blurted out without facing the team behind him. Peter came down from the platform and barred the group from leaving Miguel's office. The blood test was ready, everything indicated that was her blood and there was a lot of blood in the place. The pressure in the chest that Miguel felt grew stronger, he really feared for her well-being, just thinking that she could be dead ate him up inside. He was really pissed, he blamed himself for not paying enough attention to her, he blamed himself for not taking care of her as he should.

A noise alerted him. He quickly went out to the lobby, he saw a strange creature fighting with Hobie and Miles. Seeing that the two boys are at a disadvantage, he intervened. Just one hit was enough to knock out the creature. Everyone present, including Miguel, surrounded it. In his view, the thing was a hideous yellow and red alien. Pavitr touched it with his finger to verify that it was really knocked out, receiving a light slap from Miguel.

"Take that thing to the lab, now"

-➳♥

Slowly opened her eyes. A white light blinded her eyes, causing her to narrow them. She tried to move, but realized she was strapped to a gurney.

"Where am i?" She could barely speak. At the moment of standing up, she broke all the ties and her head hit a ceiling lamp, letting out a small "ouch". The person who was making sure she didn't escape, pointed a stun gun at her. "Don't you dare move or I'll shoot you" the alien laughed.

"Woah, easy, man. I'm not going to hurt you" She stretched out her long arms, trying to calm him down.

The man spoke through his watch to his boss. Still pointing at her. "Miguel, this thing has already woken up"

"This thing? I have a name in case you didn't know-" a voice interrupted her.

"Go back to your stretcher, now." A masked man in a blue spandex with red details appeared in front of her. His talons freaked her out.

"Calm down, you too, Dark Garfield. I only came to talk to one person, I come in peace" Upon hearing the nickname, Miguel rolled his eyes. "Who do you wish to speak to, creature?" he approached her, facing her, while his mask faded, revealing an intimidating Miguel O'Hara. They were almost the same height, he only beats her by a few inches. Although she physically couldn't blush, she felt her "cheeks" burning. For some reason that man made her feel nervous.

"I want to talk to you. Who are you, what is this place, and why does my host has you in her memories?"

taglist: @lostaudfound @I3Iaze @coeircedpup @syd-vixious @vodoo-heart @scaraza @cicithemess2000 @levisbebe

[rapono-writes-stuff]

Subconscious Vendetta

Concept inspired by a dream, where Krueger attacks Quentin in the waking world, but only he can see Krueger. Others mistake his attacks as Quentin doing them to himself.

WARNING: MENTION OF SELF HARM

-----

Limping down the road, blood dripping down his face and into his clothes, Quentin pushed onward. He needed to get back home, get his mom, anyone, to help him.

How could he still see him, let alone still be hurt by him, if he was awake?

Quentin ran down the alleyway, headed homeward, wounds still fresh and laughter still echoing in the distance.

The streets and buildings didn’t warp or change, every detail exactly as he remembered it in the waking world, seemingly too perfect.

This couldn’t be a dream, it felt real, way too real. The way his wounds throbbed and the cool wind licked at his face and cuts, just seemed way too intricate and intense to be just a dream.

And yet, the silhouette of Freddy could clearly be seen behind him.

<i>What the hell was going on?</i>

He wasn’t far from home though, thankfully, only about a block or two away. Home might not mean safety in this situation, but maybe he could find a weapon, or someone to snap him out of this insanity.

So Quentin kept on hobbling/moving(?), his pace swift and steady despite the pain. He wasn’t about to let a fee cuts slow him down.

His hand clutched his cross, as he made a quiet prayer that he’d make it out alive. With uncanny timing, Freddy let out a haunting laugh, almost as if he had heard what Quentin said.

(…)

“Have, have you been cutting yourself?”

“Wha- mom no! It’s Krueger, he’s trying to kill me!”

“Krueger is long dead sweetie, now show me your wrists.”

Reluctantly, he pulled up his sleeves, already knowing how she would react.

To be fair, they were in better condition that he had expected. The skin had already resealed, leaving only angry red marks behind, but still, they had undoubtedly been cuts.

But it was still enough, more than enough, to make her assume the worst.

Tears spilled from her eyes as she saw markings, believing what she saw proving her theory true. She held one of his arms, her fingers tracing the markings as she wept.

“Oh my baby, my poor, poor baby.”

(…)

Blood bubbling out his nose and mouth, oozing down his chin and trickling down his neck, finally soaking into his shirt.

He could see him, getting closer, a malicious grin visible on his malformed face. He needed to get away! He was going to catch up to him!

Quentin began to squirm wildly, still tied down to the gurney, thrashing and screaming.

“LET ME GO! PLEASE, PLEASE LET ME GO! HE'S COMING! HE’S GOING TO KILL ME! PLEASE! PLEASE!”

But his cries of desperation were wasted away, ignored and assumed to be the delusions of a mad man. He heard schizophrenia mentioned.

But he knew he wasn’t crazy, why else would he be bleeding?

…(gag him?)

Freddy stood beside him, with a smug, shit-eating grin plastered over his face.

“Aw, look at poor little Quentin. Tied up like a Christmas gift, and by the ones who are supposed to protect him.” He laughed, clearly enjoying the show. (lick Quentin?)

Carefully and painfully slowly, Freddy dragged his claws across his chest. Quentin moaned in pain, completely unable to get away, forced to watch the blades slice open his skin with ease.

He screamed, but no one could hear him, the sound muffled by his (muzzle?)

(…)

His tongue licked at his wounds, digging into them, coating them in the dream demon’s saliva. He recoiled as best he could, but he already knew he couldn’t stop him.

(…)

Through the haze of pain, he heard it, and by the look on Freddy’s face, he knew he hadn’t misheard.

“We need to use a sedative.”

<i>Oh no. Oh no no no no.</i> If they injected that in him then he'd-

In a fit of desperation, he squirmed and tried to plea, but alas, it was useless. He was tied down and gagged, unable to fight back, and unable to escape.

He was going to die.

There was no way out, no waking up just in the nick of time. It was over, Freddy had won.

With that horrid realization sucking the last drops of hope out of him, he stop struggling, he stopped trying to scream. As the needle entered his arm, Quentin gave up and cried.

He was still crying when he entered the dreamworld. A ball of despair, curled up in a trembling (lump???), hands covering his wet face. There was no use in running, no use in fighting back. It was over.

He didn’t even have to look to know that Freddy was looming over him, smug bastard finally glad there was no escape.

All he could muster was a whimper as he felt the cold metal kiss his skin.

[songmingisthighs]

[21.57] mafia!wooyoung × reader

⇀ nothing's as concerning as wooyoung's 180° change, it's all or nothing for him. And you ? You just became his everything.

⇁ tw : violence, mafia life

⇁ part. 1 / 2 / 3

⇁ disclaimer : the author does not support any and all criminal/illegal acts. the narrative written in this story is purely fiction out of the author's imagination. the things written here does not portray real mafia life nor is the author aware of how the mafia life is like. the author is a hermit loser.

Five days went by and you still haven't regained consciousness and Wooyoung had not left your side for even one second.

Neglecting not only his duties but also his own well-being. He wouldn't leave you for a single second, afraid that if he does, someone might come in and finished you off. So he had San be on standby in the guest room, taking his place for when he needs to shower or go for a bathroom break. Said man even attempted to spoon-feed Wooyoung when he found out that his friend had denied the food his house staff brought to him, to which Wooyoung finally gave in and feed himself after San tied him up in his chair and threaten to feed him mother bird style.

When Yeosang came back in the day after you were first found, Wooyoung almost stab one of the nurses when he tried to take you to get checked.

"Seriously? I brought my machines and staff here and literally, within the first 2 minutes here, there are no signs of gratitude and you almost injured one of my staffs? Are you freaking high again?" Yeosang nagged after pulling the petrified nurse to the side.

Honestly, Wooyoung felt bad for scaring the man, but he had to hold onto you no matter what. You have to be within his peripheral vision because the last time he (stupidly) let (drove; shove) you out of his sight (turned all cctvs off which then directly caused you to get kidnapped), he almost didn't get the chance to regret what he did (and said) to you.

But Wooyoung wasn't gonna let other people know that he has remorse. Heck no.

He's the Jung family head mafia and there isn't anyone allowed to know how he's actually like.

Except you.

Right after you wake up.

So instead of letting Yeosang's staffs take you away, Wooyoung swooped you in his deceptively strong arms and put you on the gurney.

Once he's sure that you're secured, he looked at Yeosang and his staffs with narrowed eyes, "no offense, man, but I don't trust any of them," Wooyoung then look to his men who's stationed by his door, "get their details and do thorough background checks on them," he said before pushing the gurney down, forcing Yeosang to personally help him.

He made sure that his men were stationed at every entrance, ran background checks on every staff that entered his place, heck even put out a curfew for everyone including his visiting friends.

"Dude, you gotta get out of here, you look like a zombie," San said as he entered the room, walking towards Wooyoung who had moved his desk closer to the bed where you lied motionless. He slightly cringed when he saw the needles that poked through the skin of your hand.

Without looking up from his work, Wooyoung sighed and shook his head, "she could wake up any second, I wanna be here when she does" he muttered, eyes flitting to your form on the bed for a second.

San approached his friend, leaning both hands on the table, "Wooyoung, you missed 3 important meetings, 2 briefings, and you haven't delegated workloads other than security details for your own place, the organization will be in shambles soon," he said sternly.

Hearing facts behind his words irked Wooyoung, he knew about the current vulnerability in his organization because he's only been taking care of you since you came back to him. He didn't want to be reminded of his previous neglect.

He was about to tell San off when suddenly a voice chimed in.

"You should go do your job, Wooyoung," you called, coughing a little from scratchy throat.

It took him some time to fully realize that you had woken up after five days. He immediately run to your side and help you sit up, ordering San to get you a glass of water.

Once your throat had been soothed by the water, Wooyoung held your hand in his, kissing the back side of it multiple times to express how glad he is, "thank God you woke up, I-I don't know what I'd do if you don't," he choked, feeling tears start to brim on his eyes.

You initially didn't pull away from his touch nor his affection, maybe it's the fact that you had just woken up, maybe you think you're hallucinating, because the Jung Wooyoung you knew would never talk to you or treat you like this.

Though it hurts, you pulled your hand away from his grip, cringing a bit, "F-funny you say that, last time we spoke you said you wanted me dead," you muttered bitterly at him.

Sensing that this is a personal conversation, San slipped away before hearing anything else.

Wooyoung stared at you with sad eyes, "No, baby, I would never," he reached forward, trying to take your hand in his once again. But you scooted further into the bed, your eyes started watering, "liar," you choked out, "you said you've been planning my assassination since the beginning and you wanted to go through with it,"

"I-I did, didn't I? I can't deny I've said that to you, but please, losing you was the hardest thing that ever happened to me-"

"Well what about me!?" You exclaimed, cutting him off, surprising him at the tone you used.

By now tears had streamed down your face, your hands were clutching the blanket on your lap tightly as you began sobbing, "f-for a year, I've been nothing but understanding to you and your actions, I've done nothing but try to stay out of your way, all I asked in return was to be treated like a human being, but you couldn't even do that now, could you ? I even had to get kidnapped by whoever's after you for you to finally give half a fuck about me," you were choking the words out, your raw emotion evident with the way you speak.

Wooyoung never once seen this side of you, the side that is so raw and vulnerable. Sure, he'd occassionally hear your soft sobs through the en suite bathroom or came across your quivering figure in the gardens. But never once did you bore yourself to him like this.

Despite knowing that you might push him away, Wooyoung climbed into bed as quick as he can and enveloped you tightly in his arms.

At first you tried pushing him off with all your strength, not wanting to be comforted by him. But he held on, he knew his way around people's movement so using his knowledge against you was an easy feat.

It took you a while, you still struggled for a bit but you eventually gave in, letting his arms wrap around you and tucking your head under his chin. By now you had somehow situated between his legs, him carefully minding the IV on your right hand as he pulled you in deeper (as if it's possible).

"I know that I don't deserve it, heck, I deserve nothing from you after putting you in hell like that, but I sincerely apopogize and I will do anything and everything I can in order to gain your trust and maybe..." he pulled back slightly and tilt your chin up so he can meet your gaze, "...we can go forth and build a relationship?"

Stranger things had happened in your life but this, by far, is the strangest. Never in a million years would you ever thought that you'd be able to see the great Jung Wooyoung blush like a high school girl. It's honestly cute.

But not as cute as when he bit his lips to prevent his mouth from tearing due to the large grin that bloomed on his face once you gave him a nod, agreeing to him after leaving him nervous for a solid 5 minutes.

[kellykidd]

I’m Ready - Kelly Severide x fem!Reader

Summary: When reader gets attacked by her ex-husband, she decides to the next step with Kelly.

Read on Ao3

Words: 1.3k

Warnings: Physical Abuse, victim!reader, comfort, angsty with a happy ending, mentions of blood, injuries, hospitals

Tagging: @sylviebrettisaswiftie (Click here to join my taglist)

Blood. Dripping down your arms and face. He had just left after attacking you, again. Your ex-husband, Brice, was upset after you left him for the firefighter who saved you five years ago. He wanted to get back at you, but no woman would take him. Coming out of your haze after the attack, you saw Sylvie and Gabby rushing into your office, jump bag in hand.

“Hey, hey, are you with me?” Gabby asked you, shining the pen light in your eyes.

You couldn’t answer, you were so filled with shame.

“Let’s hook her up to the monitor, control the bleeding and let’s get her transported,” Sylvie replied.

“Kelly,” You managed to mutter.

“He’s on his way. Chief Boden is bringing him,” Sylvie told you.

Her words seemed to calm you down as Sylvie and her partner worked on your wounds. Your boyfriend rushed into your office. He grabbed your hand and sat beside you.

“Hey, how is she?” Kelly asked Gabby.

“Bleeding pretty heavily when we got here, it seems to be under control,” she replied, taking your BP one more time.

“Dawson, let’s move her.”

“I’m coming with you,” Kelly argued.

“Help us get her up,” Gabby told him.

They put you in the stairchair and brought you down to the awaiting ambulance out front. Kelly held your hand the entire time, something Brice would’ve never even thought about doing back when you were married.

Your paramedics transferred you from your stairchair to the gurney. Gabby hopped in the drivers seat and Sylvie hopped in the back with you and Kelly.

“He hit-. Brice-,” you sputtered.

“I know, I know,” Kelly assured you, “he won’t be bothering you anymore.”

“We’re here,” Gabby called from the front.

Gabby and Sylvie unloaded you and took you into the ED at Med.

“Kelly, you can let her go. We got her,” Sylvie told your boyfriend.

Kelly continued holding your hand as you were brought in.

“It’s going to be okay,” he whispered in your ear.

You looked across the ED and saw Brice in the bay across from you.

“Kelly,” you winced, pointing in Brice’s direction.

Kelly let go of your hand on the gurney and they wheeled you into the trauma bay.

You could see Kelly going towards Brice’s gurney.

“Hey, don’t you go messing with her again. And if I see you even thinking about her, I will hunt you down and kick your ass, injuries be dammed,” Kelly yelled.

The only reason you could hear the threat was because your man yelled it. You were sure even the coma patients could hear him. Kelly started walking back to your trauma room and sat down beside you.

A nurse came up beside you and patted your hand.

“Hi, I’m April. We are going to get your stitched up and we’ll get you on your way,” the nurse beside you assured.

“Ok. Could you check on my friend? Kelly Severide? Firefighter, he was the one yelling earlier?” You asked.

“Yes, Kelly and I go way back.”

A doctor came by and stitched up your wounds. Just when she was finishing up, you heard a loud beeping sound. It was coming from Brice’s bay. Doctors and nurses started rushing over to help him.

Tears started to fill your eyes.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” Kelly asked, stroking your hair.

“Nothing, nothing,” you wiped the tears away from your eyes.

Kelly left your side for a moment and you could see him talking to that nurse, April, from before. You heard the Doctors and Nurses leaving Brice’s bay. You could see his head covered by a sheet.

Kelly walked back in the room later, followed by a man in a grey coat.

“I’m Doctor Charles,” the man told you.

Kelly walked over and planted a kiss on your forehead. The one that reminded you of breakfasts in bed and lazy Sunday afternoons.

“I’m going to head out, pick some stuff up for you from our apartment and I’ll be back,” Kelly told you.

You nodded and watched as he left your room.

“I’m the Head of Psychiatry here,” Doctor Charles continued, “your boyfriend, the lieutenant, told me that you’ve had a pretty difficult day. He was wondering if we could talk.”

You sat there, still, playing with your hair. Twisting it around your finger, the one thing that calms you in a time of stress.

“Could you maybe tell me about Brice?” he asked.

You wiped the tears streaming down your face.

“Brice is-, well, was, my ex-husband. We were together 3 years and had even gotten married when I met Kelly. There was a connection with Kelly that I just didn’t feel with Brice,” you told him.

“What happened when you left Brice?”

“Kelly and I started dating as soon as my divorce was final. The night after Kelly and I had our first date was the first time he attacked me. He punched and kicked and slapped me. He said he would stop if I came back to him.”

“Why didn’t you go back to him?”

“I didn’t love him. I love Kelly and I would do anything to be with him.”

Doctor Charles left your room. You were just sitting there, basking in the events of earlier. The fact that you had let him do it again haunted you. In your mind, it was all our fault. You should know not to tell him where you are.

Doctor Charles came back into your room and sat down beside you.

“I have some news for you,” he told you.

You just sat there silently, looking at the remains of your pantsuit in a bag on the floor.

“Your ex-husband, Brice, has passed away in our ED tonight,” he continued.

You started to cry.

Kelly came into your room. He sat beside you on your bed and wrapped you in a hug.

“Brice died,” you whimpered.

Kelly rubbed your back. As the tears dropped down your face, he whispered “It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”

Your team of doctors and nurses admitted you to the ward. Your boyfriend, of course, followed you up.

“Do you want me to sleep here tonight?” Kelly asked, tucking in your blankets.

“It’s up to you,” you replied, half asleep yourself.

Kelly pulled up the chair to beside your bed. He sat down and tilted his head back to sleep.

“Hey Kelly?” you asked.

“Yeah?” He replied.

“I’m ready.”

“Ready for what?”

“For us to get married.”

Kelly’s head popped up to look at you.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

Kelly pulled a box out of his pocket. He popped it open and it was an engagement ring.

“You’ve been carrying it around all this time?” you asked.

“Of course, I knew it’d work out,” he replied.

You and Kelly kissed, Kelly putting the ring on your finger afterwards.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

—

After being out of the hospital for a few weeks and stuck at home, you desperately wanted to go out. You were off the painkillers now so you talked Kelly into taking you out to Molly’s.

“Are you sure?” Kelly asked, as you were getting ready to head to Molly’s.

“Yes. I got my jersey on and I’m gonna go watch the Blackhawks game at Molly’s and have a drink,” you replied.

Arriving at Molly’s was like coming home. It was were you and Kelly went for your first date, where Kelly originally proposed and where you watched your favourite hockey team win the cup.

You opened the door and were greeted by the loud cheering and applause by the family of Firehouse 51.

“What’s all this for?” You asked, surprised.

“We’ll, it’s part your engagement party and part getting this loose cannon tied down,” Herrmann laughed, patting Kelly on the shoulder.

“Beers on me,” Kelly called, “because I’m the luckiest man in the world.”

[slowpoke-fics]

The Good Doctor

Fandom: The Walking Dead

Pairing: Negan x Reader

Summary: You're the doctor in Alexandria and Negan comes on a supply trip, taking something that doesn't belong to him

Warnings: depression, death, mentions of off self, gets a little triggering, I know I'm missing some, Negan is off character, nothing is exactly right in this, it's writing for writings sake

A/N: This is my first fic in years please forgive me for mistakes, it's just me in this operation, probably gonna be a whole series, here is part two!

May 20th

Negan's trucks roll into Alexandria again, loudly pushing past the gate and up to the medical center. Your insides start to rumble at the nervousness you have to see the ruthless man who knows no bounds. You reluctantly step outside and wait for him at your door, not doing well at hiding your displeasure of the loss of supplies.

When Negan and his men get out of their loading trucks, Negan shoots you his oh so dangerous smile before directing his men to their collections, keeping two of his men with him, he finally approaches you. "Well good fuckin' morning Dr. Y/L/N," he holds the door open for you, "after you, doll."

You moved past him, smiling at him, and walked to the stockpile of medication you had collected yourself helping Daryl on runs. "Please, only take what you are owed." Negan's men glared at you viciously, "We will take whatever we damn well please." Negan turned to face his men, "Now, we have a peaceful agreement here with the nice fuckin' doctor, get the supplies n lets go." You smiled at him, "Thank you for keeping your end of the bargain." Negan nodded, "I may be a fuckin' prick, but I am a man of my fuckin' word, ain't that all that fuckin' matters nowadays?" You nodded, waiting in silence for the men to complete their tasks.

After the men went through the supplies that laid before them, they pulled Negan to the side, obviously keeping their conversation private, one of them turning to you and flashing you a gut wrenching smile, you leaned on the gurney, waiting for the problem. Negan turned to you, scratching his chin, laughing lightly, "See doc, my men seem to really think that you've tried to short us this week," your eyes went wide, remembering what happened to the last person that tried to short Negan and his group, "I know you wouldn't fuckin' do that so can you just clear this shit up for us."

Scanning over the pages in front of you, "No," you cleared your throat, "I'm not short, its all documented here," you handed Negan the clipboard. As he scans over it, looking at your logs for every pill that comes in and out of this faux medical center, every date and name, the two men he placed with him rips your bag from your shoulders, dumping it out on the table, displaying the contents. Negan glances up, taking in the items on the table; a knife, a ripped up pack of spearmint bubble gum, a few pens, a small first aid kit, a few hair ties, stray items and a small leather bound notebook.

Negan slams the clipboard down, smiling at you, "I'll be damned she's fuckin' right boys, pack it up, it's all in the goddamned charts." You let out a breath of relief, a little worried to be Negan's next lesson. One of the men came close to you, pushing you backwards toward the gurney, "Don't test me bitch," backing away while still staring at you, he picked up your knife and waved it at you, "mine now, doll." The nickname reverberated evil inside you, at least when Negan did it, it felt at least flattering, but this man dripped poison from his words. At that though, Negan perked up, "Come on, shithead we've got things to do." You panicked, "No!" They all turned to you, "You cannot have my fucking knife," you backed up a little when the man stared you down, "please, it means a lot to me." The man started to say something, obviously furious you would even try ordering him, but Negan stopped him, taking the knife and handing it to you. The man he took the knife from grumbled and picked up your pack of gum, "Fuck you, keep your knife bitch, I'll take something sweet." Flashing you his smile, Negan was gone.

As you watched his trucks leave Alexandria, you finally returned to your work, cleaning up the mess his hooligans had made. Straightening the bottles, subtracting inventory, picking up your bag and sighing at the small amount of happiness you had as you realized that was the last pack of gum that you could find in a 50 mile radius. As you were putting away everything on the table, you started to move frantically looking for your notebook, under the table, around the table, even been looking all over the room. You couldn't find it. Your coping mechanism for the world moving at a pace that you just couldn't handle. A sense of dread washed over you as you realized, Negan.

He just couldn't help himself, just has to know what makes the good doctor fuckin' tick. Now, he just happens to have an all access pass to your thoughts in the zombie apocalypse. Humming to himself and relaxing into his seat, he peeled the book back at the marker for your most recent entry, picked a random nearby page and began reading.

April 23rd

celebrating yet another round of people. at some point I hit my limit, just can't keep meeting and greeting. feels pointless, I never see half of them, and when I do they normally die in my clinic. is this what it's become? death after death? mercy after mercy?

April 30th

every time someone dies in my clinic and I slide a knife through their skull it just reminds me this is how it will end for us all. we'll all just be the walking dead in the end. when's my turn? when do I get to finally stop running this rat race and throw in my damn towel? everyone else gets to say goodbye seems fair

Goddamn, Negan thought to himself, there's an entry here for every fuckin' day. He readjusted, taking in where they were at and how long he had to read for now, planning to figure out how you worked. No shame in wanting the pretty doctor.

May 4th

so fucking stupid, absolutely incompetent, couldn't even find antibiotics. couldn't find any gauze or even disinfectant. what a waste of gas, we're beginning to pick clean every building, car and trash can in a 50 mile radius. how long do we have left with the saviors breathing down our neck

May 12th

found some supplies, couldn't find enough, not enough, people treat the medicine like it's never ending but I just can't keep up there's nothing left, there has to be something that I can do, has to be something out there for me to find, it can't just be all gone, I'm not thinking of something, there is something out there I just have to be fucking smart enough to find it

May 15th

risk is worth the reward, I finally found some more antibiotics, and hit the fucking jackpot, found some chewing gum, melted Twix for Judith, and a knife for henry after I lost his in that horde, indescribable emotion when I had that first piece of gum that reminded me of how it used to be, when I was surrounded by support and family, gotta make it last

May 16th

henry was carried in by rick and daryl. henry was conscious, talking, don't let me turn, he begged. rick said he fell from a third story window. daryl grabbed alcohol and gauze, rick grabbed the stitch kit while I cut open henrys shirt, glass, at least two dozen pieces, please be manageable. I grabbed the tweezers and pour alcohol on henry's chest, his screams. half an hour in, he's seizing, rick grab buccal midazolam, place it in his mouth, hold him still until it stops, wait for a beat, no beat, cpr, one hundred twenty seconds in, can't let him turn, wait for beat, no beat, knife.

had to be something more.

henry was carried in by rick and daryl. henry was conscious, talking, don't let me turn, he begged. rick said he fell from a third story window. daryl grabbed alcohol and gauze, rick grabbed the stitch kit while I cut open henrys shirt, glass, at least two dozen pieces, please be manageable. I grabbed the tweezers and pour alcohol on henry's chest, his screams. half an hour in, he's seizing, rick grab buccal midazolam, place it in his mouth, hold him still until it stops, wait for a beat, no beat, cpr, one hundred twenty seconds in, can't let him turn, wait for beat, no beat, knife.

Negan shifted uncomfortably, this went on for at least ten pages, questioning every move you made, reliving putting down a good friend of yours, is this how you mourn?

May 17th

This is it. surrounded by death, my turn.

Fuckin' christ, Negan thought, now realizing that the good doctor is too fuckin' hard on herself. Realizing that you had your own horrible demons, and that this world is starting to get to you.

May 19th

Guess not.

Negan felt horrible for taking this, he felt like he had taken a piece of you, just trying to figure out which buttons to press to make you want him like everyone else, he definitely didn't expect this. He had to give it back, had to find a way to make it better, and he just might have a plan.

May 21st

You woke up feeling empty, just going through the motions, getting dressed, brushing out your hair, brush your teeth, quarter of a piece of gum- no. Walk to the clinic, not hungry today. You sat in your chair, clipboard on lap, staring at the door, waiting for your next victim to come through. After about two hours, you hear a few bikes pull into the gate and getting closer. Taking a peak out the window, you see Negan at your clinic doors with a relatively large backpack on, and the same two men he had with him yesterday, and an extra woman who you had never seen before.

Negan walked into your clinic, the woman standing at the door but not stepping in, and you couldn't do anything but get your knife out. "What the fuck are you doing back here?" You pointed the knife at him, not going to let him take anymore of your hard earned supplies. "You raided yesterday and stole from me! The kind of nerve a selfish prick like you-" Negan pulled out your book and an unopened pack of spearmint gum. You lowered your knife, looking at him like a confused puppy, and then jerked the book out of his hand, leaving the gum. "It's a fuckin' peace offering, doll," Negan held out the gum, but you didn't take it, just stared at him. "I don't want it, you don't get to take all of our lessening supplies and steal from me after I've been nothing but honest trying to keep our deal for no violence and then just come offering a pack of gum your henchmen stole from me! I worked for that! I worked for all of this! I was good to your men! I was good to you, Negan!" You started tearing up and turned away from him, mindlessly putting your journal back in your bag, sighing in great relief that it was returned to you.

"Doll, I didn't fuckin' mean to upset you, I didn't fuckin' know what it was-" Negan stepped closer, setting the bag he carried on your table, "it's not the only peace offering, I've got two more." He sat the gum next to the pack and took your place in the chair, spinning around. You emptied the pack, meds, gauze, a Twix bar, and a few cases of extra supplies. You immediately turned to him, eyebrows raised, "What's the fucking catch? Nobody gets anything from you without a catch." Negan smiled, scratching through his beard, that trouble causing smile, "You gotta come back with me." You scoffed, gawked at that. "Are you serious? You want me to come back with you, with the saviors? Why? That's not even possible, I-I'm needed here, I'm the only one whose been studying the medical books, only one that can tell their ass from their end, that's just stupid-" Negan stands and points to the woman at your door. "Cue the next fuckin' offering, Amelia. She knows what she's fuckin' doing, she's a good one and fuckin' despises my fine ass, so I know that your fuckin' people are in good hands. You only gotta come for a week, just a fuckin' week."

You sighed, not sure what to do, but only had seconds to figure it out, "Okay," you moved closer to him, "on two conditions." Negan smiled, turned on by your big balls of courage to demand something from the man who mercilessly beat the shit out of people with a barbed wire bat. "I have today to train her on how to keep things in order while I'm gone, and next week, you leave Alexandria alone, and no taking extra in two weeks, we get to keep our extra supplies for next week." Negan scoffed, unbelievable that you'd demand that, he's gotta run his own group, "Are you fuckin' joking sweetheart?" You laughed, packing up the supplies and giving the bag of supplies back to him, "No, I am not," you pulled back and crossed your arms, "so how bad do you want me, Negan?"

[buckleyirondad]

I'm falling apart (and all I want is to trust you)

Eddie and Christopher's reactions to Buck collapsing in 3x03: The Searchers.

Christopher Diaz Week, Day 4: Eddie & Chris + “You’re the most important person.”

Read on AO3

Eddie attempted to hold his breath, but he couldn’t.

A natural instinct fought against him, forcing him to struggle through quick strangled breaths.

He leaned his head back, scanning Christopher for possible injuries with rapid eyes, and when he couldn’t see anything aside from a few scratches, he drew his son back into his arms, frantically gripping onto him as if he would disappear, without a moment’s notice.

Me and Christopher, we were at the beach.

Eddie screwed up his face as he pressed his forehead against Christopher’s chest, taking a moment to listen to the comforting sound of his heart beating.

He swallowed the rising bile in his throat.

His son had been there, he survived the wave as it came crashing down upon him, and Eddie wasn’t; he would need more than ten fingers to count all the times he wasn’t there for his son, and the longer the list became, the heavier he felt.

 “Dad—” Christopher’s tired voice muttered, “Buck fell over.”

Buck.

When Eddie had set eyes on his best friend, with two bleeding gashes across his face and an injured arm tied up in a makeshift bandage, he was sure he hadn’t felt dread like it since he had seen Shannon laid lifelessly across that street.

There was the initial shock; seeing Buck, bloodied and bruised, the same guy who’d escaped death twice in the shortest space of time, who happened to be on blood thinners, barely standing on his own two feet.

Then, it changed quickly, Eddie’s fatherly instincts canceled out everything else and his mind fixated on Christopher’s absence.

Christopher hiccupped, “Dad.”

Eddie, I just don't know how to say it.

Christopher tangled his legs around Eddie’s middle, tucking his head against his shoulder as he admitted, in the gentlest of whispers, “I want Buck.”

He was looking for Buck.

“Okay.” Eddie scraped his teeth over his lower lip as he swayed up onto his feet, allowing the world around him to come crashing back, “Let’s—”

Buck was down. Still awake, but his eyes were unfocused, staring blankly ahead; his skin was an awful grey, and his breaths were less controlled than Eddie’s erratic ones.

A panicked Hen was perching behind, acting as a human pillow for Buck to fall back on, but that didn’t stop her from ripping a glove off, to press her fingers on his pulse point.

Bobby had his hand pressed firmly against Buck’s shoulder, he was speaking, but Eddie couldn’t hear him.

Chimney charged over, clutching a medkit as he knelt, his hand on Buck’s cheek, trying to gain his attention, but Buck barely flinched at the touch. 

Eddie knew exactly what Buck needed and what the half-asleep kid bundled in his arms did too.

Reassurance.

“Buck—” Eddie breathed as he hurried over, “Hey, Buck—”

Buck lifted his eyes, they widened when he met Eddie’s gaze, “Eddie, I—” He tried to move, but was easily pulled back, “I’m sorry.”

Eddie rushed to reassure, “It’s okay, look…” He got onto one knee, sitting Christopher down, he looped his arms under his son’s, and turned him, so that he was facing Buck, “Look who it is.”

Christopher extended his hand, gently laying it across Buck’s cheek, “Buck.”

Buck choked out a sob, his face leaning into the hold, “Christopher—”

“I couldn’t find you,” Christopher admitted, “So, I just kept swimming.”

Buck attempted a lopsided grin, “So did I.” He scrunched his nose, “Sorry I couldn’t find you.”

“But I found you!” Christopher jumped up, off his dad’s knee, bringing him his arms to gently wrap around Buck, “And you didn’t stop looking.”

Eddie caught Hen’s face, as he crumpled, tears filling her eyes, Bobby and Chimney were the same, turning his faces away.

Christopher leaned back, hand on his chest, “I’m Nemo.” He proclaimed, “And you’re Dory.” He prodded the center of Buck’s chest, “Dad’s Marlin.”

Eddie wiped a hand over his eyes as he smiled.

Buck nodded, his eyelids drooping slightly, “That’s right, buddy.”

“Okay—” Eddie reached out, reluctantly pulling Christopher away, “Uncle Chimney needs to make sure Buck is okay.”

Hen spoke soft, “And I can check you over too Chris—”

“I’m okay,” Christopher hummed, “Buck saved me.”

Hen nodded, tying her arm tighter around Buck’s unstable front, “I bet he did.”

Chimney was busy manhandling Buck, doing all the routine checks, “Your chest doesn’t sound too good, Buckaroo.”

“I’m—” Buck let his head flop against Bobby’s shoulder, “Tired.”

Eddie jumped to his feet, scooping Christopher up with him, facing him away from the chaos.

“I know—” Bobby jostled him, “But you know the drill, kid, stay awake.”  

Buck nodded, “Okay.”

“I’m gonna see if they’ve got a bed for him,” Chimney hurried through the automatic doors, where he collided with Athena, who jumped into action as soon as her eyes found Buck; she followed behind Chimney.

“Pulse is erratic,” Hen muttered, darting her eyes between Eddie and Bobby, “We don’t know how long he was in the water.”

Eddie informed them, “They were at the beach.”

Hen lowered her head, shaking it.

“That’s—” Bobby bit his lip, “That’s impossible.”

Hen squeezed his arm, “They made it out.” She moved her head, turning her attention to Buck, “Hey, you wanna show me those beautiful blue eyes of yours?”

“Sure,” Buck blinked slowly, “But you’re married.”

“Ha.” Hen stroked her fingers through his hair, “In your dreams.”

Buck stammered, “Lost Chris—”

“He’s here, Buck,” Hen told him, pointing up, “He’s okay.”

“No.” Buck was stern, “We were safe, then lost him—”

Bobby looked to Eddie, “It was a natural disaster, son,” He told him, “Not your fault.”

“Wave came back.”

The wave retracted half an hour before sundown, and that was six hours ago, that was how long they spent apart. Could have been worse. That meant they spent six hours together and almost five apart.

“We were on a firetruck,” Buck laughed at the irony of it all, “He fell in, and I jumped—”

Eddie closed his eyes, drawing in a sharp breath as he drew Christopher closer.

Buck didn’t even hesitate to follow.

Eddie wished he didn’t have to listen, but at least Buck was talking.

“Eddie—” Buck winced, “I’m so sorry.”

“Stop.” Eddie ordered, “You did everything right and he’s okay.”

“He’s okay,” Buck relaxed, heavy against Bobby’s side, “He’s okay—” He muttered as his eyes came to a close.

“No.” Hen patted his back, trying to coax him awake, “Buck!”

“Come on, kid,” Bobby turned, hands on Buck’s face, “You’ve gotta stay awake.”

“Don’t wanna.”

“Hey—” Chimney jogged over, panic etched on his face, “We’ve got a bed free, Athena’s making sure nobody claims it.”

Hen spun her head, “We’re gonna need a gurney.”

“No.” Buck winced, “No—”

Hen pressed a hand to his forehead, hissing, “I don’t like—”

“Please—” In his fevered state, Buck moved closer to Bobby, “Please!”

Bobby grabbed at Buck’s loose limbs, tugging him up so that his head was pressing against the older man’s chest, “Hey.”

“Want—” Whatever Buck wanted, he was determined, “Need—”

“What do you need, kid?”

Buck slurred, his breathing slowed, “Important—”

“What’s important?”

“You.”

Eddie could pinpoint the moment that Bobby’s heart shattered.

“I’ve got you, kid,” Bobby tapped his arm, “I’m right here.”

Hen was unable to hide the slight crack in her voice, “We need to get him inside, Bobby.”

“Okay.” Bobby looped his arm under Buck’s back, clutching his fingers around his shoulder, “I’ll take him.”

Chimney’s eyes widened, “You sure?”

“I’m not as old as I look,” Bobby got up onto his feet, one arm under Buck’s back and the other under his knees, gathering his legs, “See.”

Hen gently lifted Buck’s head, letting it sit at an uncomfortable angle against Bobby’s chest.

Buck was a little taller than Bobby, but it worked, for the most part, and Bobby didn’t even flinch.

Chimney gently tapped Bobby’s back, wearing his cautious smile, “Let’s get him inside.”

Bobby and Chimney headed towards the automatic doors, people parted to allow them through.

Hen cleared her throat, “Eddie, I can check Christopher over now.”

“Thank you.”

Christopher held up his head, looking around, “Wanna go with Buck.” He was clear and precise with his demand, “Please.”

Eddie didn’t want to keep them apart, but knew, for now, they had to be.

“You can later.” Hen pressed a hand to Christopher’s back, “When the doctors have checked him over, you’ll be the first one to give him a hug, okay?”

Christopher nodded, “Okay.”

Eddie was quiet, while sitting on the corner of the cot, Christopher on his lap as Hen did her usual checks, asking Christopher a couple of questions, which he answered happily while peppering in the fact that Buck was a superhero.

“He’s good,” Hen assured Eddie, “Really good.”

“Yeah?”

“He’s barely got a scratch on him, and the ones he does have don’t even need bandages,” She told him, “A change of clothes and a good night’s sleep, that’s what this one needs.”

“That’s—”

“I know,” Hen nodded, “Buck really went through the wringer—”

“He spent six hours searching alone,” Eddie scraped his teeth over his lower lip, keeping his voice low, “Bleeding out—”

“Like I said before,” Hen lifted her shoulders, “He’s a golden retriever.”

Eddie snorted a laugh.

“And a fighter.” Hen locked her fingers together, “He did good. Both of them did.” She stood up, “I’ll go and check on him, I’ll report back to you, are you staying?”

“Can’t keep these two apart for too long,” Eddie tied his arm around Christopher’s front, “I won’t do that.”

“Okay.” She nodded, “I’ll see if I can grab some blankets too.” She turned on her heel, heading for the main entrance, quick on her feet.

Christopher shuffled off Eddie’s lap, taking the seat next to him and resting his head on his arm, “Will Buck be okay?”

“He will be,” Eddie said with an uncertain nod, “It’s been a long day.”

“He got hurt looking for me?” Christopher lifted his chin, “Why?”

“He was scared,” Eddie calmed his voice, “You’re a very important person and he loves you.”

He squeaked, “I love him too.”

“It must have been scary, when you couldn’t find him,” Eddie combed a hand through Christopher’s hair, his heart beating at a mile a minute.

“I looked for him, Dad, promise.” Christopher wrapped his hand around Eddie’s, “Like he looked for me.”

“Yeah, and you found him, buddy,” Eddie breathed, “You found each other.”

Christopher straightened his back, searching the crowd, “Is everybody here important?”

“Yeah, everybody is,” He spoke optimistically, of course, knowing that they were more than a few terrible people in the world, but that wasn’t a conversation for now, “But guess what?”

Christopher offered his most adorable grin, “What?”

Eddie pressed his finger against Christopher’s chest, “You’re the most important person.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really…” Eddie scrunched his nose, “To me, Pepa, Abuela, Abuelo, Buck…”

“That’s cool.” Christopher smiled, “You’re important too, Daddy.”

Eddie tucked him closer, “Thank God for you, kid.”

“Hey…” Chimney jogged over, holding a bunch of blankets, he darted his eyes around while he headed over, searching the camp for somebody, “Have you seen Maddie?”

“No,” Eddie shook his head, “Is she on her way?”

“Last I heard, stuck in traffic,” Chimney sighed, “Apparently, Buck phoned her, just before—” He cut himself off, “Here.”

Eddie grasped the blankets, wrapping one around Christopher, “Thanks.”

Christopher celebrated, “Thanks Chimney!”

Chimney smiled, “No problem, kid.”

“How’s Buck doing?” Eddie asked, his knee bouncing.

“He’s doing okay,” Chimney lowered his voice, “They’re letting him rest right now, he’s latched onto Bobby like some sort of octopus.”

Eddie snorted a fond laugh.

“He was a little out of it,” Chimney grinned, “But he made Bobby and Athena cry.”

“Hang on, he made Athena cry?” Eddie held up a hand, “We’re talking about the same Athena, here, right?”

“I know.” Chimney hissed through his teeth, “He basically assumed that everybody would wanna go home, like leave him—”

Eddie smile gradually disappeared; he always had the feeling that Buck was used to being abandoned, and he hated it.

“Said something about his mom and it pushed Athena, a little,” Chimney explained, “He’s sleeping now.”

“Any room for us?” Eddie asked, “I think they need each other.”

“They do.” Chimney spoke in full agreement, “He’s being transferred to First Presbyterian in an hour, should be more room there.”

“Good.”

Christopher yawned, “It’s been a long day, Dad.”

Eddie and Chimney laughed at that.

“Yeah, bud,” Eddie agreed, “It’s been a long day, but you can sleep if you like.”

“Nope.” Christopher sang, “Not until I see Buck.”

Chimney lifted his eyebrows as if to say, ‘we’ll see.’

He was proven wrong as even on the journey to First Presbyterian; Christopher didn’t sleep.

Once they bypassed a couple of rules, they made it into Buck’s room, and Christopher crawled up onto the bed, latching onto Buck’s side, the pair falling asleep instantly.

Eddie relaxed in the seat beside them, crossing his arms, letting himself drift off to sleep.

There was nobody in the world that he trusted, with his son, more than Buck.

[neworleansspecial]

May I ask for Hypothermia from the Eddie Whump Bingo pretty please 🙏 😢 with a sprinkling of touch starved on top with a Lil pining thrown in maybe 🥺 👥

Prompts are open for the Eddie Whump Bingo //

Water rescues are no one's favorite, least of all Eddie's; he didn't have much in the way of big bodies of water growing up, and the expanse of the ocean is still beyond terrifying. Nearly losing Buck and Christopher in the tsunami certainly hadn't helped.

He can't help the apprehension when they pull up on the caverns and tidepools where an adventurous tourist got too cocky and wound up trapped beneath a fallen stalactite that was rattled loose by inexperienced hands grabbing unstable formations for help.

"We have to be fast," Bobby says on the way, "because the tide is coming in."

Fast is usually key, but even more so now as Eddie wades through the rapidly rising water. When he stepped into the gave, Buck behind him, it was nipping at his ankles. It's now up to his calves, and it's fucking cold.

"In the winter, the average temperature of the Pacific Ocean near LA is fifty-eight degrees," Buck says when Eddie visibly shivers. "Cold enough for hypothermia."

Eddie grunts in acknowledgement. He's more focused on getting to their patient, though he keeps the information stored in the back of his head.

"LAFD, call out!"

"Here!"

He follows the voice a few yards deeper in the cave, revealing the culprit: she looks to be in her early twenties, pale face contrasted with the blood on her hands from the stalactite that's embedded itself in one of her legs. She visibly sags in relief at the sight of them.

"Hey there, I'm Eddie, and this is Buck, we're gonna get you out of here. What's your name?"

"Emma," she sniffles.

Buck kneels in the water next to her and pulls the tourniquet from his pack. "Take a deep breath for me, Emma. I'm gonna put this around your leg, and it's gonna hurt, but it's to stop the bleeding, okay?"

When she nods, Buck starts to tie the tourniquet around her upper thigh. She makes a sound at the pain, but otherwise stays remarkably brave throughout the process of it being tied and Eddie taking her vitals.

"She's stable," he reports, "but the water's rising fast, we need to move."

"Copy that."

The water is most of the way to Eddie's hip now, and Emma is just barely keeping her head above water. Buck and Eddie work together to lift her up so they can transport her back to the beach and get her to the ambulance. It's easy to get turned around, but Buck leads the way and they're approaching the mouth of the cave before they know it. However, at that exact moment, the cave gives an ominous creak and a rumble.

Eddie doesn't think. He just shoves Buck and Emma forward, causing them to nearly fall, but preventing the falling rock from crushing either of them. Eddie isn't so lucky. A chunk of the roof of the cave catches his arm bad, and he curses. Before he can move forward, however, the collapse continues, and the light slowly turns to a handful of pinpricks between the rocks and stalagmites and stalactites now blocking his way. Only the light from his headlamp keeps him from being completely in the dark.

Moments later, his radio crackles on his chest. "What happened?"

"There was a collapse of some kind, Cap," Buck replies. "The patient and I are okay, Eddie- Eddie pushed us out of the way."

"I'm okay," Eddie adds. "Banged up my arm, and I'm cold and wet, but I'm fine."

There's silence for a minute after that. Eddie takes note of the water now lapping at his ribs, and the fact that he's freezing. His work gloves are keeping his hands warm for now, but his uniform isn't doing much to protect him from the chill. He realizes his teeth are chattering.

"Hang tight, Eddie, we're gonna dig you out as quickly and safely as we can."

"Copy that, Cap. Be advised, Tide's still coming in from somewhere, and I'm freezing my ass off."

"How high's the water?"

"Up to my ribs, and rising fast. I've got about three feet above my head if I need to tread water."

Bobby pauses, likely to relay this information to the others. "We're gonna get you out. Stay calm and keep your head above water, Eddie."

"Obviously," he mutters to himself.

By the time the water has reached his shoulders, he's struggling to maintain control of his muscles. The shivering seems much more aggressive than it ever has before. He can't remember ever being this cold in his life. However, he can hear voices on the other side of the rocks, and the scrape of tools and rock. They're going to get to him.

Eddie wonders if it'll be in time.

When the water reaches his lips, he's forced to try and start treading water to keep breathing, but that proves to be a real challenge. He tries to let himself float, but as the gentle current spins in the cul de sac the collapse has made, he realizes it could easily carry him right back out to sea.

The solution he comes up with is grabbing onto a sturdy looking stalactite- if there is such a thing- and clinging for dear life while he waits for rescue. Even through his gloves, his hands feel frozen, to the point it kind of hurts. Eddie grits his teeth through the pain and thinks of all the things he's going to do when he gets out of here.

He'll buy Christopher pizza for dinner, and give him ice cream from the gallon in the freezer. He'll call his sisters and remind them he loves them. He'll tell his team how grateful he is to have them in his life. He'll tell Buck he loves him.

These thoughts keep him from succumbing to the weakening grip he has on the stalactite. Just when he's beginning to lose hope, head tilted back to catch the last precious few inches of air, light rushes in and the water quickly recedes. They've broken through the wall.

"Eddie!"

Gloved hands grab onto him and pry him from his perch. He finds himself cradled against a warm chest, which he immediately turns his face into. It smells like Buck's cologne, and even if it didn't, he'd know the feel of Buck's chest, the sound of his heartbeat, anywhere.

"Eddie, can you hear me?" Hen asks.

He manages to nod, but his teeth are still chattering too badly to speak. A thermometer swipes across his brow and he flinches from the press of the metal, but Buck doesn't let go of him. He must be soaking wet, cold, shaking, but Buck doesn't seem to even think of putting him down.

"95.5," Hen says, and a thermal blanket is wrapped around him. Buck tucks the edges around Eddie's body. "We should get him to a hospital, and try to warm him up. Eddie, are you hurt anywhere?"

"He said on the radio that his arm was hurt," Buck says for him.

Chimney eases Eddie's arm out of the blanket and cuts his uniform up the sleeve, revealing what even he can recognize is likely a broken wrist. Hen confirms this verbally, and they get a splint on him as he's brought into the ambulance.

"You can set him on the gurney," Hen advises.

"No," Buck argues, and Eddie can feel the rumble of his voice against his cheek. "I'm not letting go of him. He's cold, and- and I'm warm, that has to help, right?"

No one bothers to make him, so Eddie lets his eyes fall shut. He's safe- Buck has him.

[thatfanficstuff]

Impossible-13

Pairing: Eric Northman x reader

Warnings: Canon typical. Feelings.

A/N: A friendly reminder that I have changed Canon. Amy and Jason weren’t a thing. Therefore they didn’t take Eddie. Which means Lafeyette is not in Eric’s basement. Amongst other things.

***

Sam had already started to come around by the time Sookie knelt over him. He returned with her to check on you and you quickly averted your gaze. There were some things you were perfectly happy not knowing. “Clothes, Sam. Then go to Sook’s and call the cops. See if you can find my phone while you’re there. It should be in the living room somewhere.

He hesitated only a moment before nodding and hurrying off to do as you asked without argument. That was a nice change.

Sookie settled onto the ground beside you and took your hand in hers. “You saved me. Thank you.”

You hummed in acknowledgment not willing to expend the energy it would take to say anything else. Suddenly, you coughed and groaned at the pain that rolled through you with the action. You may be more resilient than the average human, but a bullet in the chest was a bullet in the chest. You could only be thankful that it had apparently missed anything vital. You assumed so anyway since you were still breathing. You kept your breaths shallow to keep your chest from moving too much. God, you hurt.

Sam returned with your phone about the time you heard sirens in the distance. “Thanks,” you said as he slipped it into your hand. You almost immediately dropped it. “Fuck.” There was nothing more frustrating than a body that didn’t work the way it was supposed to. You stretched your fingers and rubbed your hand against your leg trying to wake it up.

When you fumbled with it again, Sookie gently pulled it away from you. “What are you trying to do?”

You cleared your throat and winced. “Missed calls.”

Her eyes went wide as she looked at the screen and you chuckled. You figured. “27. They all say Eric or Pop.”

Before you could tell her to call Eric, your phone rang again. “Answer it. Put it on speaker.”

“Yeah,” you greeted when Sookie had done as you asked. Your voice was tight, pained.

“Y/N?” Eric’s frantic voice washed over you. “Are you all right? What the hell is going on?”

“We’re still a couple of hours from sundown. Someone needs to drive me to you.” You managed to get the words out through the pain. You weren’t certain how long you could keep doing so. It had been a long time since you hurt this bad. Fucking Rene. Drew. Whatever the fuck his name was. Asshole.

“What is her condition, Sookie?” His voice had taken on that hard edge it got when he was worried. Or angry. Probably both at the moment.

“How’d you know I was here?” she asked.

“I can hear you breathing. Answer the question.”

“I-I’m not sure. There’s a lot of blood.” Her voice trembled and Sam wrapped an arm around her.

“And the person responsible?” If this were a different situation, you would have been turned on by that dark, protective note in his voice. No one ever said you didn’t have your issues.

Sookie swallowed and grimaced as she glanced at the asshole’s body. “Dead.”

“You are certain?”

You huffed a laugh at the disappointment that colored his words then groaned in pain. “Fuck you,” you managed to get out and Eric chuckled in response.

Two police cars and an ambulance wailed to a stop on the road in front of the cemetery. “The ambulance is here. Maybe she should just go to the hospital,” Sam piped up.

“No,” you and Eric said in unison.        

The corner of your mouth twitched. At least the two of you agreed on something.

“Company?” he asked.

The other two looked confused so you answered him. “Ballentine.”

“Give me a moment.”

The EMTs knelt beside you as the cops shouted questions. You ignored them all, the edges of your vision going fuzzy. That’s no good. Hurry up, Eric.

You no sooner had the thought then he returned. “I’ll see you soon. And I’ll call your father.” Damn, he must be really worried if he was volunteering to call Roman.

He hung up and one of the EMT’s phones started to ring. After a quick conversation, he knelt down and looked you in the eye. “You’re all taken care of. Let’s get you out of here.”

An excruciating wave of pain swamped you as they lifted you onto the gurney and everything went black.

***

Awareness came slowly. Fingers sweeping strands of hair from your face. A low voice making promises and declarations, though you only understood about half of them. Arms holding you against the chest you leaned on.

“Awaken, mitt allt. You must drink.” Eric’s voice was a comforting buzz in your ear even if you didn’t care for the pleading note it carried.

You grasped onto one of his arms as you shifted to make yourself more comfortable. A hiss accompanied the pain motion brought with it. Eric sighed in relief and some of the tension flowed from his body. He wouldn’t completely relax until you were healed.

He bit into his wrist before holding it to your mouth. You pressed your lips to his skin and sucked the healing liquid into your mouth. At first you were timid, tender but as your body began to stitch back together you held his wrist against your lips. You drank deeply then, eager to rid yourself of the agony you’d been living in since the cemetery. Eric shifted beneath you with a moan and you smirked as you pulled away.

You maintained the grip on his arm and held it against your chest as you nestled your head further into his. The fingers of his free hand ran through your hair as the two of you just relished being in each other’s presence. “Better?” he finally asked, breaking the silence.

“Better,” you agreed.

His hand shifted so his fingers trailed down your spine and back up. “No more helping the riffraff unless I accompany you.”

You sighed but didn’t say anything not really caring to get into an argument at the moment.

“Do you have any idea how close you were to death? How much blood you lost? I could feel you growing weaker with every passing second and there was nothing I could do.” He took a deep breath. “I realize that you may be willing to sacrifice yourself to do what you think is right, but are you willing to sacrifice me? Because if you die, I will as well. My fate has been tied to yours from the moment I met you. As much as I tried to deny it, that is the truth.”

“Fine,” you said after a moment’s thought. “But the same goes for you. No secrets, Eric. Let me help you. What good is having Roman for my father if I can’t use it to our advantage?”

He laughed as you’d wanted him to when you said it. You tilted your head back so you could see his face. His gaze met yours for a brief moment, then he leaned forward and kissed you. You ran your fingers through his hair and held him to you. When you finally separated, he leaned his forehead against yours. “I love you, Y/N.”

“I love you, too.” You tugged on his hair a bit and his brow furrowed. “Can I cut your hair?”

He grinned. “Pam will have my hide, but you may do as you wish.”

***

After you called your father to check in, you and Eric showered together in silence as you washed your blood from one another. Even though his blood had healed you, Eric was still taking care of you as though you needed it. He dried you off with one of the fluffy towels from his warmer before helping you dress in a pair of your sweats and one of his t-shirts. While he poured you a drink and ordered dinner, you changed the sheets on his bed so it would be ready in the morning.

“I could have done that,” he said and you looked up to find him leaning in the doorway.

You shrugged. “I’m just as capable. Get me what I need and I’ll cut your hair while we talk.”

Once the two of you were ready, you started on his hair. It was a few minutes before you started to tell the story of what happened that day. You only paused when the doorbell rang signaling the food was there. You sat it on the counter and went to finish up Eric’s hair. It was pretty good all things considered. And he hated going to a salon.

“And what did our little telepath think about you decapitating your assailant?” It was the first thing he’d said since you’d started talking.

“Pretty sure she was just glad she wasn’t dead at that point, Eric.” You ran your fingers through his hair to make sure everything was even, touching up as needed.

“Don’t be surprised if she distances herself. Humans often have difficulty accepting the necessity of our actions.”

You rolled your eyes. “Seriously? You’re going to talk to me about people distancing themselves?” You took the towel from his neck and dropped it onto the one at your feet. You could clean it up later. You were starving.

He stood and wrapped an arm around your waist to pull you to him. His lips trailed up the line of your neck. “I just don’t want you to be disappointed if it should happen.”

You shrugged. You learned long ago that friendships were fickle things, even if you did save them from psychotic serial killers. “I’ll be fine.” You patted his chest. “Now, let’s eat. I’m so hungry.”

He laughed as he released his hold and followed you to the kitchen. The two of you sat at the table with your plates and you immediately dug in. “There is something we should discuss,” he said once you’d gotten some food into your belly.

You arched a brow and motioned for him to keep talking.

“Sophie-Anne contacted me yesterday to inform me that I would be assisting her in a new money-making endeavor.” He tapped his silverware on the table but didn’t continue.

Your brow furrowed as you realized he was bothered by whatever he had discussed with his queen. What the hell was Sophie-Anne up to now? It was no secret that she was in some serious trouble with the IRS after not paying taxes for years. Even death wasn’t an escape from taxes anymore. “What is it, Eric?”

His eyes darted up from the table to meet your gaze. “I fear what I tell you may be a death sentence for her. Sophie-Anne and I have had our differences, but she’s a decent queen, all things considered.”

“If it’s that serious, you shouldn’t be involved. She’ll hide behind her title and her denials while you pay the price for her scheming.” Vampire politics were messy at the best times and deadly at the worst. If it wasn’t for you, it would be Eric’s word against Sophie’s should something happen. And odds were, they’d accuse Eric of treason for speaking against her and he’d be killed while she got off scot free. It was one of the things you and your father argued about the most.

Eric nodded in acknowledgement of your words and took a deep breath. “She wants me to find someone to deal V for her.”

Holy shit. Eric was right. Sophie-Anne was dead. And it wouldn’t be the Magister delivering the sentence. No, your father would be visiting much sooner than he’d intended.  

[hauntedfalcon]

living in midnight

for day four of Nile Freeman Week: "Nile & Struggle" plus a fantasy AU in which superheroes exist, Nile isn't one of them, and she doesn't let that stop her. 1700 words, rated M for swearing. content warning for wounds and needles because it's Nile's turn for sapphic patching up, as a treat

the title is from Lianne La Havas’s “Midnight”. many thanks to @flightsofwonder for beta reading <3

read on AO3 or below

Nile opens her eyes to see an unfamiliar ceiling. There is an unfamiliar pillow under her head, and she is recumbent on an unfamiliar sofa. Above it is a window, where streetlights reflect in the sinuous trails of raindrops.

Rain. Knives. Three attackers. She fought like hell, might have broken someone’s arm, but they landed one good hit. They left her for dead in an alley. She watched her own blood run into a puddle.

She bolts upright--and hisses when a wave of agony breaks over her, starting in her abdomen and shooting everywhere.

“Please don’t move,” says a softly accented voice. “You’re safe here. I haven’t seen your face.”

Nile collapses back down to the pillow and touches her face, just to be sure. Her mask is still in place. She drops her hand and forces one eye open, blurry with pained tears, to get a look at whoever dragged her in from the alley.

A white woman. Dark shoulder-length hair. Youngish, maybe Nile’s age. Dressed all in black, much like her--not for stealth but for soft goth vibes. Cute, if she’s honest, but this isn’t the fucking singles bar, get it together Freeman.

“I staunched the bleeding,” her rescuer says, “but I was waiting until you were conscious to do the stitches.”

“Do we have to?” Nile groans before she can stop herself.

A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it smile. “I’m afraid so. Would you like some fortitude?” The amateur surgeon holds out a bottle of Everclear.

Ugh. Nile takes the cap off and drinks deep, leaving enough in the bottle to sterilize whatever needs to be sterilized. It tastes like ass and lingers at the back of her throat.

Before the alcohol can set in and obliterate her senses, she says, “Can I borrow your phone?”

The woman hesitates. Very wise of her.

“Listen,” Nile says. “We had two leads come in at the same time. Al-Tayyib took one and I took the other, and mine was a decoy, which means...” She can’t, won’t, say it aloud. She hates how feeble she sounds. “I just have to check in with him. Please.”

The woman hands her a smartphone, unlocked. Nile hits the keycode to make the call anonymous, then dials Joe’s shitty flip phone from memory. He keeps it on silent when he’s on the rounds, and he’ll only answer if he’s safe.

Pick up, she wills him, because if she has to hear his stupid cheerful voicemail greeting now of all times, she’s going to scream right in front of this poor woman who didn’t ask for any of this drama in her life. Pick up, pick up, pick--

“Pronto.”

Nile’s gut tightens (painfully, but that’s not what matters right now) at the sound of another unfamiliar voice. The assassin. Joe walked into a trap.

“Where is he?” she demands, trying to sound hard and not like she’s lying on a stranger’s couch with an open wound.

A gust in the speaker. Is he laughing at her? She strains to hear anything that would give away their location: traffic, a clock tower, machinery, anything. There’s nothing else. No hint of Joe yelling in the background, either.

“I will return him to you presently,” says the asshole. Very formal.

“What, after you shank him like your goons did to me?”

“They were instructed not to kill you,” he says in a voice that wouldn’t fog a window in January. “Did you die?”

White-hot rage flares out of her with no place to go. “Where is he, you son of a--” But he has already hung up on her.

Nile resists the urge to growl. If this was her phone she would throw it against the wall. Instead she quickly deletes the record of the outgoing call, and hands the phone back to the woman, who pockets it. “Thank you,” she says tightly.

“I’m sorry to say so,” says the woman as she holds the tip of a curved needle in a candle flame, “but you are in no condition to save anyone right now.”

She blows out a sigh in answer. When she pulls the hem of her shirt up and peels away the medical tape and bandage pad, she discovers that the woman is absolutely right. This isn’t the worst Nile has been hurt and still fought, but it is pretty bad.

And it’s one thing to trash a gang of traffickers while she’s actively bleeding. It’s something totally different to track down a guy who has been three steps ahead of them this whole time, and seems to have removed his sense of morals with an ice cream scoop.

There’s only one thing left to do: say a silent prayer. The way she learned to pray feels insufficiently casual for the circumstances; she wishes she knew more about the format of the rakat. All she remembers is, “God hears the one who praises him,” so she starts on the Lord’s Prayer because praise comes before petition.

In place of, “Give us this day our daily bread,” she substitutes, “Get Joe out of this with his head,” and then she has to hold back a giggle at the rhyme. She must have lost a lot of blood.

The woman wipes the needle down with Everclear. “You know, I met the old Guardian too.”

Nile eyes her carefully. She won’t say Andy’s name in this woman’s presence. She won’t say Joe’s name either, much less her own. She won’t slip no matter how much blood she’s lost or how strong the alcohol is or how fundamentally good and trustworthy this woman seems or how much this is going to hurt. “Not under the same conditions,” she presumes.

“Very similar,” the woman says with another fleeting smile. “I hope she’s well?”

“She’s good,” Nile hastens to reassure her. “She retired.” And she left Nile her nom de guerre and all the weight that went with it.

“I’m glad she made it that long.”

“Probably thanks to you,” Nile says, and she gets a longer smile for it.

Then the needle bites into her skin and Nile whimpers softly and throws an arm over her eyes. She’s hard. She’s tough. This is what she does.

The woman’s gloved hand pinches the wound closed as she stitches. She works quickly, professionally. “I’m really glad you found me,” Nile manages. “I can’t exactly go to a hospital.”

“I think you would be surprised,” the woman says. “You are well loved in this city. People would protect your identity.”

That’s not it. Nile can’t go to hospital because there’s a chance her mom would be on shift, and the only thing worse than keeping her alter ego secret from her mom is the idea that she would find out because Nile came in on a gurney. She can’t do that to her.

A tug, as she ties the thread off, and then a snip of the shears. Nile lifts her head and looks down at a slightly puckered, neatly stitched, no longer bleeding knife wound.

Her laugh sounds brittle, just this side of hysterical. The woman glances at her. “I have work tomorrow,” Nile says weakly.

The woman tapes a fresh bandage over the wound. “Me too.”

No rest for the righteous. “The struggle is real, huh? Sorry for keeping you up late.”

“I will call in if you do,” the woman offers.

But going into the office in the morning might be the soonest opportunity to make sure Joe is okay. Nile pulls her shirt down and zips her bomber jacket over it. “I should go.”

The woman sets one hand on Nile’s arm. “Please stay. You shouldn’t be out alone tonight.”

“They might have been watching when you brought me inside,” Nile warns.

“Then I will need your protection, won’t I?” the woman says without blinking, as if she’s not the one that just saved Nile’s whole life.

Nile cracks an incredulous smile but the woman just gazes at her solemnly.

“Okay,” she says at last. “Okay, I’ll stay. Thank you. And I’m sorry for bleeding on your couch.”

It’s not enough, but the woman just sets about cleaning up her supplies. Nile settles back against the pillow and wills her muscles to unclench.

“May I ask,” the woman asks as she washes her hands, “why you do this? You don’t have superpowers.”

No, and none of the people who do have taken this city under their protection. Flippant, lazy answers parade through Nile’s mind, because she’s not in a charitable mood. Anger issues. No one else is gonna do it. I’m a giant masochist, actually.

But when she opens her mouth, the first thing that comes out is Andy’s answer, from when Nile asked her years ago. “Because there are people worth fighting for.”

Then Joe’s answer: “People who won’t get justice any other way.”

And, finally, one that’s all hers. “I have a responsibility. This is my city”

She’s going to pass out any minute, but beneath her fatigue there’s still a live coal of the feelings that made her put this mask on in the first place. This is her damn city. She spends so much time in the guts of its shitty justice system, and the rest of the time punching assholes, that she sometimes forgets her city is full of ordinary, decent people. Good people. People who will bring someone in from the rain. People like…

“What’s your name?” Nile asks, and then catches herself. “I can’t--give you mine. Sorry. It might be safer if I don’t know yours.”

“Celeste,” says the woman.

Good people like Celeste. How comforting that is.

Her pain is down to an ache instead of a burn, and her eyes drift closed. In the morning, she’ll be out of Celeste’s hair. She’ll shower at her apartment, carefully, and she’ll go into Legal Aid, and Joe will be there, a little banged up but alive. He’ll hug her, quick and tight, and they’ll loiter by the coffee maker and speak in low voices and sort out their next play. And when the work day is over, they’ll go with Andy and Quỳnh down to Booker’s for drinks and darts, and Nile will order a bouquet of flowers sent to Celeste’s apartment in thanks. Everything, for given quantities of everything, will be fine.

Confident in her safety, secure in her purpose, Nile rests.

[iliveiloveiwrite]

Wait For Me // D.M.

Request: hi! can you do a request where draco performed the obliviate curse on his gf before the war, then met her again post war when he became a healer? the storyline is up to you! by the way, i really really like your fics 🥺 - anon

A/N: This request let me explore all the things I love: angst, healer!draco, and redemption. Thank you for trusting me with this request, I love it so much. This was not also on my WIP lost but I had an idea and I ran with it. With some hope, my next few fics will be from that list!!

Warnings: angst, mentions of nightmares and injuries, some anxiety, short words and tempers, swearing. A HAPPY ENDING or at least the start of one.

Word count: 5.2k

1996:

“You know why I have to do this, right?” Draco whispers: worried that if he were to speak any louder his voice would give away how close he is to breaking.

You nod once. A solemn nod that juxtaposes the tears falling freely down your face. How could you be agreeing to this when it made you feel like your heart was being ripped out?

“I’m sorry,” He whispers, arms reaching for you, the urge to touch too strong to resist. “If they used you against me or if you got hurt, I would never forgive myself.”

You hush him; not missing the irony of the situation. To be comforting him when you were going to have a large chunk of your memories taken from you, it was almost laughable.

The final few moments together are spent in silence, wrapped in each other’s arms, getting as much of the other as possible before inevitably having to let go. You bury your face in his chest, almost refusing to let go of him as he unhooks your hands from around his waist.

The time has come; it’s come too soon.

You barely register Draco’s tears mixing with yours as he hauls you in for one last desperate kiss. His forehead remains pressed to yours as he whispers three words.

“Wait for me.”

Then everything goes blank. A flash of white and your life begins anew.

No memories of the last year of your life; no thoughts about the blonde haired teenager that had occupied your mind and stolen your heart.

There’s nothing.

Five years later:

The strong antiseptic smell has your nose crinkling in distaste. The overhead lights buzz as the bright light bounces off the overly clean floor; it makes your head hurt more. You place a tentative hand to the side of your head, frowning further when you feel the large bump growing there. Removing your hand, you sigh, remembering the tears of the pupil that had done this.

Not long after the war, a new decree was issued setting up centres of education for young witches and wizards that showed magical promise. They operated extremely similar to a muggle primary school; however these followed the curriculum created by the Ministry of Magic.

It was in one of these schools that you worked, choosing to train as a teacher after finishing your education.

A rogue ball is what had landed you in the emergency room of the only magical hospital in Britain. It had come out of nowhere; the children playing happily as the weather had improved over the course of the day.

Tapping your foot impatiently off the tiled floor, you had to admit to yourself it had been partly your fault for not seeing the ball before it knocked you on the side of the head and subsequently knocked you to the floor. The child, a young Hugo Ward, had felt terrible – sobs wracking his body as he apologised to you over and over again to the point where you had to reassure him you were fine.

An hour after the accident, it became evident that you were not fine. The dizziness and double vision being symptoms of something worse, your boss had sent you off to St. Mungo’s without room for argument, promising you she would cover your class for the rest of the day.

“(Y/N) (Y/L/N),” calls the triage nurse. A blonde middle aged lady with bright eyes and a kind smile; she points in the direction of exam room two and you flash her a grateful smile.

The hospital bed is uncomfortable as you take a seat on top of the crinkly paper. The pounding in your head had not stopped since you arrived but the dizziness was calming somewhat, and for that, you were thankful. It happens as a flash; a memory washes over you of a large hospital wing, two rows of beds and an elderly lady with fierce determination written over her face.

A single blink and it disappears. The flashes hadn’t happened for a while; the aftermath of a memory charm inflicted upon in your Sixth Year at Hogwarts. It wasn’t known who had done it; they had found you wandering the halls of Hogwarts alone and confused before realising what had happened. You had recovered fairly quickly; the only aftermath being the flashes of what could be memories.

You sigh, sinking further into the gurney as you think of the pile of marking waiting for you at home. Even a sore head couldn’t put off the inevitable.

The Healer doesn’t look up as he enters, pulling the curtain closed behind him, “I’m Healer Malfoy, how can I help you today?”

You sit straighter as you take in the healer. Blonde hair down to the nape of his neck, tied back with what seems to be a leather cord. He hasn’t looked up at you yet, but from your spot, you could tell he was handsome. A strong jaw being home to a distracting mouth. You look away, admiring the rest of him before you could be caught staring at his lips.

Healer Malfoy’s face slackens for a second as his eyes rake over your face. He collects himself after a second, but still, you noticed. He clears his throat, looking down at the chart in his hand. “(Y/N) (Y/L/N)?”

You nod, “That’s me.”

“You hurt your head at work?”

Again, you nod, “Twice over. A pupil threw a ball at my head by accident, but I knocked my head on the playground as I fell.”

Healer Malfoy places your chart on a nearby table, pulling latex gloves out of his pocket as he does so. He smiles at you, but there’s something guarded about the expression on his face that has question after question springing up in your overworked and pained mind.

“Did you lose consciousness?” Healer Malfoy asks routinely, silently gesturing to your head, asking for permission to feel the injury.

“No,” You answer, turning your head for him to feel the bump on the side of your head.

You hear his sharp inhale as he examines the large bump there. As if seeing you hurt physically hurt him too, yet how was that possible? Thinking through your admittedly fragmented memories, you cannot find a whisper of what the blonde haired man could have looked like younger. Something niggled in the back of your mind, a feeling, a hunch. You didn’t know what, but it got stronger every time you met the grey eyes of the handsome Healer Malfoy.

“This is going to sound odd but go with me on it please?” You say, voice lilting into a question at the end. The idea of not giving this man in front of you a choice simply abhorrent to you.

Healer Malfoy smiles: it’s polite and doesn’t reach his eyes. He takes a step back from you, needing the distance but also done with the examination of your injury. “Okay, I’ll go with it,” He states warily.

Your hands clench into fists; overcome with the urge to try and coax a smile out of him. “I don’t know how else to say it. Do we know each other? You feel familiar to me, as if I know you from somewhere.”

Whatever smile was on Healer Malfoy’s face falls the instant the words leave your mouth. His entire demeanour changes – shoulders stiff, hands gripping your chart so tight it could snap in half. Unclenching his jaw, Healer Malfoy grits out, “No. We haven’t met before.”

“Are you sure?” You press, deciding desperately that you needed to know the man standing in front of you.

“Very sure,” He murmurs, scribbling your discharge notes and handing them to you. “I would remember you if we had met before.”

The blank confession leaves you speechless. Blinking in what could only be described as shock, you take the outstretched papers.

“Your prescription is there too. You show no major signs of a concussion, just rest for tonight at least and watch out for anymore footballs,” Healer Malfoy starts, “Should you have any more problems, you know where to find us.”

Taking the dismissal for what it was, you hurriedly grab your bag from the gurney and leave the exam room, taking extra care to hide the dejected look on your face as you pass the handsome healer.

Draco watches you go. You all but sprint out of the hospital, almost desperate in your escape to get away from him and his short words.

The threat has been gone for years; vanquished not too long after the night Draco had taken your memories, after the night that continues to haunt his nightmares.

Draco Malfoy had faced the Dark Lord and lived – he has stared death in its sallow face and was not the first to look away. Yet, Draco was ever more terrified of what you would do should your memories ever return. Your rage was entirely more terrifying than staring into the soulless eyes of the man his parents so blindly followed.

Draco releases a breath as he spies your figure finally leaving the hospital. The released breath does nothing to loosen the tightness in his chest; the tightness that had been there since that fateful night in the astronomy tower.

He’s had this argument with himself countless times, always the same words and the same fight. His own justification for why he did what he did; why he took your memories of your relationship and sent you away. Deep down, Draco knows that he should have communicated better. He knows that he should have sat you down and explained to you his worries and his fears. However, at barely seventeen years old, Draco was just getting used to the idea of love. He knew what was coming; he knew that there were dark times ahead and he was unfortunately aware of how you could be used against him should the time come.

He had a decision to make, so he did. Thinking back on it now, it had almost killed him. He had never experienced a pain like it. Draco had been hit with the Sectumsempra curse and the pain that followed was nothing compared to the pain he felt when erasing your memories.  

Draco turns away from the door. You’ve disappeared around the corner; your head bowed, and shoulders hunched. He has no reason to watch you now. He turns away from the door, wondering whether it was fate that had brought you back into his life after such an absence.

An absence he caused.

-------

You return to work the day after; feeling fine enough to stand in front of your class and deliver your lessons of literacy and maths but also of spellcasting and magical control for infants. You followed your lesson plans to the letter; resolutely refusing to stray from them should they let your mind wander to the handsome healer and his cold words.

The healer continues to play on your mind for the rest of the week: at work, at home. You would go over the brief conversation you had with him; wondering at which point his demeanour changed, that he became closed off and cold. He hadn’t been welcoming from the beginning, but by the end of it he had downright cold. It should have warned you off; it should have been warning enough to keep your distance and to do your best to ensure you never needed to return to the emergency room, yet there was something about him. There was something hidden within his grey eyes, a dark secret ravaging him from the inside out and you felt desperate to know what it was.

-------

As much as you adore your vocation, as much as you love coming into work and greeting the children with a smile, there was something sweet about sending them home to their parents. A sweet relief that loosens the weight on your chest somewhat.

A shock of blonde hair has you turning back to the school gates. Your breath catches in your throat as you recognise the handsome face of the healer that had treated you only a week ago. His face not one you felt like you could forget.

“Healer Malfoy?” You call out, confused at his presence.

He smiles bashfully, “Draco, please.”

“Draco,” You greet. “Do you often make home visits?” You tease, a smile crossing your face.

“Technically, I’m at your place of work so this would be a work visit,” Draco comments, laughing lightly, seeming to be in a much better mood than the last time you had met him.

Your smile grows larger at the sound of his laughter. “Okay… do you often make work visits?”

He shakes his head, “No. I do not.”

“Why are you here?”

“Two reasons.”

“And they are.”

“One, and one I thought of just now – I wanted to apologise for my behaviour at the hospital the other day, I was rude, and it was out of line so I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologise for. I doubt that you get asked by many of your patients whether you know them.”

Draco smiles, “You’re right, I don’t, but nevertheless, I shouldn’t have been so rude, and I apologise.”

“Then I accept your apology, only if you accept mine.”

He goes to argue but stops himself at the last possible moment. You meet his gaze head on, watching the emotions pile up there. There’s something lingering in his grey eyes; something deeper as if he has more to apologise for but he isn’t ready to confess to what or why he even needs to say more.

“What was your second reason for being here?” You question, curiosity piqued but also wanting to move the conversation on, unable to look into his grey eyes any long for the fear that your heart may burst out of your chest.

Draco smiles, “I’m picking up my godson.”

“Your godson? Do I know who he is?”

“You might. Tobias Dawsey?”

Recognition flashes across your face as you picture the small brunette in your mind’s eye. “I do know him! I taught him last year,” You all but shout, “He’s your godson?”

Draco nods, “He is. I’ve worked with his mother from my very first day at St. Mungo’s, she asked me to be godfather when she found out she was pregnant with him.”

His words warm your heart; the care he has for his godson obvious in his voice. You go to say more, to try and coax more information out of him. Your need to know him almost choking you with its intensity, but for the life in you, you couldn’t figure out why you needed to know him. You move to speak, but you’re interrupted by the excited crow of a young child.

“Uncle Draco!” Tobias shouts, running up to his uncle on his little legs, his bookbag banging against them with every step.

“Hey kiddo,” Draco greets, picking up the child making grabby arms for him.

“Do you know Miss (Y/L/N)?”

Draco nods. “Miss (Y/L/N) came into work the other week,” He states, thankfully not exaggerating further.

Tobias frowns, turning his attention to you, concerned about his favourite teacher, “Are you okay though?”

You smile at the young brunette, “I’m all better. Your Uncle Draco fixed me up.”

Tobias nods seriously, “He’s the best Healer ever.”

You laugh; the love Tobias has for his godfather so clear within his voice, it only warms your heart further. “I have no doubt in that, Tobias. Off you go anyway, I wouldn’t want to keep you from getting home.”

Tobias and Draco wave at you as they leave the school grounds. The smile on your face doesn’t fade as you watch them walk away, the young boy chattering the ear off his devoted uncle.

Deep down, where you would only admit to yourself and no-one else, you hoped that you would get to see the handsome blonde healer again.

-------

Over the following weeks you spy Draco’s presence more by the school gates. Tobias clearly adores him, sprinting into his uncle’s arms the moment he sees him waiting for him. Crossing your arms across your chest, you comment, “You must be a very devoted godfather to volunteer to pick up Tobias this often.”

Draco shrugs nonchalantly as if the task of reorganising his shifts was nothing of a chore, “I enjoy spending time with him and…”

“And?”

Draco ducks his head, feeling the familiar heat of blush creep up his neck, “I like talking to you.”

He feels like it’s the wrong thing to say. He knows it’s the wrong thing to say. If he had an ounce of human decency within him, he would turn away from you the moment Tobias arrives. He would walk away from you, never to come back into your life again. What he did all those years ago was unforgivable despite having your permission. Draco knows he shouldn’t be back in your life, but now that he had seen you once or twice, he had to see you more.

He felt like an addict. He couldn’t leave you alone. Draco didn’t want to if he was honest with himself especially when you grin at him so widely his heart pounds in his chest.

You duck your head, your hair hiding your face. “I like talking to you too even if it is only at the school gate,” You shyly admit.

“Then we should change that,” Draco stutters out before he backs down. He wants to kick himself; he should turn away from you now and leave you alone for good, but that one selfish part of him that powers his heart tells him to stay put.

If possible, your smile grows larger, “Then we should change that.”

------

The friendship feels so natural once it starts; once the both of you get past the initial awkwardness that seemed to loiter from Draco’s cold words earlier in the year. It started with longer conversations at the school gate, but then he would come with Tobias’ mother and wait for you as Tobias would reluctantly leave with his mother. From there, it grew into a timid friendship that slowly grew more surer of itself as you invited Draco out for food or to museums or to spend the weekend with you, walking around the city when he wasn’t working.

However, as the friendship became more solid, you could not ignore the way your heart sped up with every smile and every laugh. You could not ignore the way your face heated each time he winked at you; a private joke shared between you. It didn’t feel like a passing fancy. It felt like something deeper, as if the feelings had been there before and had been dormant until now. You felt as if you were always meant to feel this way about Draco – the feelings tugging on memories you weren’t even sure were yours. Flashes of blonde hair and the powerful scent of jasmine all tied in with late nights in a tower you could barely recognise. Draco made you feel like the only person in the world; he was supportive and kind and funny. He was everything you could want and more – how could you not fall for him?

There was still the remaining secret though. It haunted him; his eyes clouded over whenever it was on his mind as if he was returning to the very memory itself. He would return shier, unsure of himself as if the friendship he had forged with you was about to implode and leave him shattered once more.

You ask him about it once. The two of you sat on your couch; you introducing Draco the wonders of muggle films and showing him your favourites when you catch him zone out. Your finger reaches out, pokes his cheek. “Where did you just go?” You question, a smile in your voice.

Draco reaches out, grabbing your finger, “Nowhere of importance.”

You frown, pulling your finger out of his grip, “You do that a lot.”

“Do what a lot?”

“Disappear on me. It’s like you have something big to tell me, but you just aren’t ready yet.”

Draco feels certain his heart stops in his chest. He tries to laugh but it comes out strangled; choked by the worry creeping up from his gut. Draco opens his mouth to reply but you beat him to it. “I’m not saying you have to tell me what it is now,” You start, “I just want you to know that I’ll be here when you’re ready.”

Draco closes his eyes, rests his head against the back of your couch. You had so graciously opened your home to him, opened your life and offered friendship to him, and he felt awful. As he should, he thinks to himself. He had taken memories of importance from you, and here you sat, unaware of the crime and sitting with the criminal himself.

It felt like there was a countdown ticking over his head. It felt like he only had a certain amount of time until he had to come clean and he had to tell you about that night in the astronomy tower.

Yet for all that was in him, for all that created his moral compass, he couldn’t bring himself to tell you and ruin whatever was blossoming between the two of you. Draco supposes he is a coward. He probably is, he tells himself, but he cannot bring himself to care about his cowardice when you smile at him like he holds the sun and stars for you.

Does he regret that night? With everything within him. Would he do it again knowing the outcome? Of course he would. He would sacrifice himself  and his happiness a thousand times over to ensure your safety.

---------

Draco tells himself he’ll confess the next time he sees you which is both all too soon and not soon enough. His love for you had never faded; he hadn’t been the one to forget the short relationship you had. The intensity that accompanied teenage love and infatuation had never left the forefront of his mind. After all, how could they? Now that you were back in his life, he felt the teenager again – utterly drawn to you and unwilling to let you go.

He confesses late on a Tuesday night. The shift at St. Mungo’s had been long and arduous, but he got through it with the single thought of you. He knew that at the end of it, he would get to knock on your door. He only hoped that you wouldn’t turn him away once you found out the truth. Your hatred of him could never rival the hatred he feels for himself, but he finds himself hoping for your forgiveness.

“I have to tell you something,” Draco states, plain and simple.

You chew on the inside of your cheek before answering, “You can tell me anything.”

“You had a memory charm used on you in Sixth Year, didn’t you?”

“How did you know that?” You demand. Despite the friendship grown between the both of you, you hadn’t told him that. You had given him bits and pieces, alluded to the fact that there were gaps in your memories, but you hadn’t told him the truth. Just like he hadn’t told you what made him disappear inside his mind like he so often does.

“I took your memories. It was me.” Draco confesses, his voice clear in the quiet room.

“What?” You shout, anger shooting through you.

“I took your memories. I used a memory charm on you in the middle of Sixth Year when things started to take a turn for the worst.”

“What gave you the right?” You cry, tears building out of upset and anger.

“You did,” Draco states plainly, “You didn’t want to at first, but you came round to my way of thinking when you saw how bad things were getting at home.”

“Why would I agree to that?”

“Because once upon a time, you were in love with me.”

You shake your head, pacing back and forth in your living room, trying to get to grips with the piles of information only just dumped on you. Draco watches you pace; his grey eyes following each step intently as you work through everything in your head.

Worry shines bright in his eyes when you stop pacing. He goes to take a step towards you, but you step back. The small space between you feels like a great chasm, a gaping void that Draco is desperate to fill, to patch up.

“Tell me everything,” You state before adding on, “Please.”

Draco releases a shuddering breath before starting: “We were friends through school. I don’t remember how the friendship started, but it did and for years we were really good, close friends. Then along the way, the friendship changed. We fell in love, or whatever it is at sixteen/seventeen years old. We had less than a year together when things started to change; when whisperings of the Dark Lord’s return were strengthened by continued attacks on the Ministry.

“You argued with me for hours,” Draco pauses, laughing as he remembers what you clearly couldn’t, “I had never seen you so angry or so stubborn. You were adamant, you didn’t want to but then you went quiet and I knew you saw what I had seen. You agreed after a minutes silence; told me yes even though it broke the both of us to do so.

Draco’s grey eyes are lined with unshed tears as he murmurs, “I couldn’t let them have you. My family was working with the darkest wizard there had ever been in the last century, if he had gotten a whiff of what you meant to me, you would be used in ways that not even I could imagine. My aunt would have taken great pleasure in ensuring that you would be a bargaining chip for me to fulfil whatever mission they handed me. That was something I couldn’t allow.

“It broke me to do it. To watch your eyes go blank as the memories of what we shared disappeared. Selfishly, I asked you to wait for me, not knowing that they would be tied to you afterwards. I just… I couldn’t let you go. As a teenager and an adult. There’s no real excuse for what I did, but know it was out of love for you that I did it.”

Draco falls silent. His heavy words adding to the growing tension in the room. Draco’s mind runs a thousand miles a minute; his eyes don’t leave you as he watches you work through every emotion coursing through your body. He sees the anger, the sadness, the frustration, but he also sees the relief at having an answer for those gaps that you had only recently confessed to him.

You break the loaded silence, “I forgot the relationship, but on some level I don’t think I ever forgot you.”

“What?” Draco asks, the air rushing out of him in one fell swoop.

A smile creeps across your face; relishing somewhat at having caught him off-guard. “I have glimpses of what I always assumed was a past life. The memories were always fuzzy around the edges, but they were clear enough for me to catch glimpses of blonde hair or to spy the pattern of a ring much like the one on your signet ring.”

Draco remains silent; he doesn’t dare talk; he doesn’t dare breathe. Nothing prepares him for your next words.

“I waited for you… like you asked.”

Those words. Those foolish words that he had absolutely no right to whisper to you. Draco had been so overwhelmed in that moment, yet he couldn’t ignore the small kernel of hope that despite the strength of the memory charm, a part of you would remember him and would wait for him.

But you had.

You had waited for him. You barely knew who he was, but you had waited for him, hoping that one day he would cross your path.

“Fuck,” Draco whispers, running a hand through his growing hair, starting to pace the length of your living room.

“When I woke after my memories had been taken, I clearly didn’t remember a single thing, but I had the echoes of three words ringing in my ears. A beg, a plea of someone – a boy asking for me to wait for them. I didn’t know completely who I was waiting for, I didn’t know it was you until I saw you at the hospital that first time and then again so soon after leaving. My memories haven’t returned, and I doubt they will, but I just know that it was you who I was waiting for.”

Draco falls silent, letting your words fall over him and sink into his skin, settling deep within his bones.

Years. It had been years since that night in the astronomy tower where he took your memories. It had been years since he felt the longing and love; there had been no-one lese and there would be no-one else. For Draco, there was only ever you… and you had waited.

You had waited for him.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Draco repeats, hands continuing to run through his hair in frustration as he paces the room. He faces you; grey eyes wild with emotion, “How are you not angry with me?”

“I am angry with you! I’m furious with you, Draco! You took my memories, but if you say I agreed to it, I’m just as angry with myself for allowing myself to forget you.”

“What do we do?” He asks, a hand running down his face as he tries to figure out the next step.

“Forgiveness,” You state simply, “We try to move on.”

Draco’s hands drop limply at his side as he gasps, “Forgiveness?”

“What happened after you erased my memories, Draco?”

“There was a war. I was on the wrong side,” is all he says. He isn’t ready to go into too much detail. That’s another story for another day.

“Was that what you were trying to protect me from? The wrong side?”

Draco nods wordlessly. He saw things going south so quickly but his parents hadn’t. They pushed and they pushed; inducting him into the same pureblood fanaticism they relished.  “How can you even think of forgiving me? I took your memories. I stole them from you, and you won’t ever get them back,” He argues, wanting to know whether you truly understood what you were doing by forgiving him.

“Let me ask you something, Draco.”

“What?”

“Do you plan on leaving again?”

He shakes his head immediately. He doesn’t think he could leave you even if he tried.

You shrug your shoulders, “That’s how I can think of forgiving you.”

“I don’t understand,” He whispers; his own self-hatred confused by your words.

“The wizarding war was about to descend into war. We were confused, scared teenagers who didn’t see another option. You asked my permission, Draco, and I granted it clearly.”

“But-”

You cut him off, “No buts. I said yes. I gave permission and we cannot change the past, Draco but we can control our future. It’s going to require work on both sides, but you can tell me about what I’m missing and at the same time we can forge something new.”

“What do you mean?”

You smile shyly, taking that all important step towards him, “Make some new memories with me, Draco.”

*****

General (HP) taglist: @chaotic-fae-queen @theweasleysredhair @harrypotter289 @kalimagik @heloisedaphnebrightmore @nebulablakemurphy @figlia--della--luna @idont-knowrn @liilyevanss @big-galaxy-chaos @black-lake-confessions @annasofiaearlobe @imboredandneedalife @levylovegood @mytreec @haphazardhufflepuff @teheharrypotter @chaoticgirl04 @accio-rogers @starlightweasley @dreaming-about-fanfictions @lestersglitterglue @msmimimerton @obx-beach @izzytheninja @slytherinprincess03 @bbeauttyybbx @breadqueen95 @acciotwinz @kashishwrites @slytherinsunrise @kylosleftbuttcheek @remmyswritings @they-write-once-in-a-blue-moon @ria-rests-here @superbturtlemakerathlete @inglourious-imagines @ithilwen-lionheart @now-its-time-for-a-breakdown @ilovejjmaybank

Draco Malfoy taglist: @the--queen-of-hell @obxmxybxnk @obx-beach @sycathorn-slush @dracomalfoyswifey​ @kashishwrites​ @justmesadgirl​ @detroitobsessed​ @reaganwonders​ @just-a-belgian-girl​ @aspiringsloth20​ @lahoete​ @minty-malfoy​ @fallinallinmendes​ @ravenclawbitch426​ @ochrythum​ @beiahadid​ @gryffindors-weasley​

[pathsofoak]

The Cold Half WIP excerpt

Okay. Ridiculously long excerpt that is technically just an entire chapter (and a long one at that). I've got some context at first under the cut, beware for a torture mention (nothing is shown, it is implied to have happened earlier) as well as a reference to deaths (again, nothing major, no one is named).

This thing is 4000 words.... Like I said it's long.

But I liked this scene (ehh, two technically) so I wanted to share. It's kind of Minho having mixed feelings about hating Teresa, because it's valid, but also it hurts him more than it helps him sometimes.

So context first. Teresa, Brenda, Chuck, Newt, Gally, Frypan, and Minho are all stuck at WCKD. They have been there for about two to three months at the time of this chapter, and WCKD has been suspiciously humane so far (not important in this chapter, but just as an explanation as to why they move around so freely).

In the chapter before this, Minho is forced to watch Teresa undergo the same procedure he went through in the Death Cure movie. WCKD makes them go through it (the fake Maze, not the watching. That is a one-time thing) every week, but erases any memory before they wake up (like I said, suspiciously humane. As far as they remember they just fell asleep).

Teresa then had to watch a video of Minho watching her, and discovered he actually yelled for it to stop. (This happens the chapter before this one, which is from her POV, but that one is a lot... angstier)

Anyway it's 4000 words here goes

Minho kept moving the potatoes on his plate from one side to another. Frypan and Gally were just as tired as usual after a long run. That’s what they had started calling it. Long runs. Harvest sounded wrong that was what it was, but Minho never liked the name. WCKD had a lot of useless euphemisms for it. Extraction. Procedure. Just a little test.

His first time—back before they came for him, doctor Paige had come for him personally. They had put him in a cell all alone, but he could hear all the other kids that hadn’t enjoyed the same luck as the other kids on the train complain and yell, and sniffle and cry.

She had come for him followed by a gurney and a syringe Minho had made close acquaintance with more than once up to that point. You are the best we have now, Minho. I do hope you’ll understand. This procedure is a last resort, we didn’t think we’d need it.

He remembered every little bit of it. From the moment he woke up in there to the moment he woke up tied to a table with that woman sitting by his side drinking a shucking cup of tea. A fake apology here and there, she hoped they wouldn’t have to do it again, but it worked. It showed promising results.

“You okay there?” Gally sat down again after taking seconds. They let them do that after the long run only. All of them, not just the lucky four. “Minho?”

Yeah. The silence around him told him he forgot to say that out loud. “I’m all right.”

“I’m just tired, all right?” They still hadn’t brought her back. As far as he knew, except for him, they had done nothing different. They put her to sleep at the same time as Frypan and Gally, and she had woken up at the same time too.

“Did you… did you remember?” Frypan asked. “Is that it? You’re the last person to be worried about Teresa, so that’s not it.”

They had sedated him to keep up appearances. A month or two ago he might have told them. He glanced at Newt. He was having a good day. For the first time since they had gotten there, he had come with to the common room that morning. His face had color in it, his limp wasn’t worse than before he got sick.

WCKD said he didn’t have to keep his little secret forever. It wasn’t that big a thing anyway. It only concerned Teresa and him. He knew he couldn’t save Newt, but he believed WCKD when they told him they could make his end bearable. No voices and visions, no clawing his friends’ heads off. If Thomas’s blood could cure Brenda, it could do that.

For as long as WCKD let it.

He didn’t think it would bother him much. Or, should bother him much. Seeing her writhe and scream wasn’t exactly how he’d pictured revenge. Which he had pictured. She’d get off easy, he was done with all the death. It wouldn’t be fun, but it would have ended. He wasn’t that cruel. So did the long run. It ended unconscious, on a table with a weird mask that had a dozen wires coming out of it to take the nasty memories away.

It shouldn’t bother him. Even if he didn’t hate her, she didn’t remember.

“All right,” Newt said. “There is something wrong with you.”

The med-wing’s door opened down the hall. Footsteps came in, several pairs. They ended at their bedroom. They stopped there for a while, until the med-wing doors opened and closed again.

Chuck got up, but Minho put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and forced him back down. “She’ll be tired. She’s been in there for a while.”

“Like I said.” Newt moved his plate aside and leaned forward to look Minho in the eyes. “There is something wrong with you.”

“I’m trying to be nice for the time being,” Minho said with a shrug. It wasn’t all a lie. He still wanted to punch her in the face, but if they really were to spend the rest of their lives with WCKD, as everyone but Gally seemed to have accepted as the truth so far, riling himself up each time wouldn’t help.

If today hadn’t been a trick, he was prepared to call a truce. She started the fight. It shouldn’t be his move, but if WCKD kept her for an entire afternoon and a good part of the evening she wouldn’t have much left to make the move herself.

She hadn’t stepped out of line so far, and the cries. The screaming. That couldn’t be faked. That was real. Either she had some messed-up kind of determination to the point of torturing herself, or WCKD really banished her to the other side of the story for good.

He meant what he screamed at them. He knew they did it to all of them, but seeing it like that, whether she would remember or not, it did something to him. Like it was somehow worse now he saw it, almost all of it, in person. If it had been Gally or Frypan he would have tore up the room. WCKD should count their blessings. Though, that could just be the reason they picked Teresa for him to watch.

She’s a kid. They are all kids, she’s just a kid. He would repeat it from now on. They could do whatever they wanted, he had no way of stopping them. But until that statement wasn’t true for any of them anymore, he would repeat it. He would shove and rub it in their faces, he would spit it out at every soulless piece of klunk that worked in there.

Not necessarily for her, he hadn’t come that far. He might. One day.

“I’ll go check on her.” He got up and shoved his still half-full plate through the same hole he got it from without bothering to throw the leftovers in the trash chute first. A thank you. If they wanted him to eat, they shouldn’t show him things that made him want to puke his guts out once for seeing it and a second time for the realization he felt bad seeing it. Not to forget the third time just now, when he realized he felt bad over feeling bad over seeing another teen tortured.

Brenda blocked the way. “Are you sure?”

“I won’t lay a finger on her.” He put her hand on her arm to move it out of his way. “That would hurt me more than her anyway.”

She moved, but only because of Newt’s nod he wasn’t meant to notice.

He didn’t know what he expected when he turned into the room they all shared, but it wasn’t what he found.

Teresa sat in her bunk with her knees up to her chest, pillow tucked in between. She held her head in her arms, which she rested on the tops of her knees. He breathing went ragged and hitched.

She cried. The kind where you try to keep it quiet, but all that means is you end up with constricted sob after sob you almost choke on. She looked up. Her eyes were all red and a shiny coat of tears covered her cheeks.

“I—I know you’re pissed, and you probably got all kind of feelings or whatever,” she said, half out breath. “But I’m tired, okay?” Her eyes moved up and down. She studied him. He had gotten used to that look, not even from her. It was different this time, though. It was like she told him without saying a word.

“What did they do to you?” He sat down in Gally’s bunk. “After the long run, I mean.”

She took a few deep breaths, and made the correct assumption that he wasn’t about to leave.

“They made you watch me.”

He nodded, though it wasn’t entirely true. If he had had a choice he might have said yes, if he hadn’t known what he would see beforehand.

She swallowed a few times, trying to calm herself. “I’m not… I’m going to bother you with…” She sighed. “I don’t hate you. Any of you, I never have. We grew up together, you guys were like brothers to me.”

Minho scoffed softly and shook his head. “If you remember all that…”

“Exactly. I remember all that.” She put her pillow away. “All the good things, and I promise you there was more of it than you think. WCKD didn’t start out terrible. Not compared to what it’s become. We played together, we had fun together, and I—” She shook her head and sniffed.

As she looked him dead in the eyes she said, “I watched the same thing you watched happen to me happen to you. And I pushed every thought except for the patterns we’d record out of my head.” She half-smiled, though it didn’t seem too happy. “I don’t even dislike you. You hate me more than anyone else and you still…”

So this was how guilt looked at its peak.

“You watched me?” He wasn’t sure if he meant that afternoon or earlier. If he meant the former it would be rhetorical question anyway.

“You, once. Thomas twice. I couldn’t turn it off anymore after that.” She looked down. “They recorded you, watching me. They played the entire thing. Start to finish.”

Minho rubbed his chest. So she’d seen him. She’d seen him trash and yell for her. “It’s not forgiveness.” He could have picked a better moment to rub that in. He still shared a room with her.

“I don’t think they picked us because we were smarter.” She pushed herself into the back corner of her bunk. “Paige always said it was, the teachers always said it was, but that was just part of it. Thomas and I are no smarter than you are. Not as much as they said, anyway.” She pulled her lips into a thin line as she bit the bottom one of them. She gazed up. “We’re just gullible. I can solve any puzzle you put in front of me, but for the life of me I can’t tell wrong from right. Thomas couldn’t either, until it hurt too much.”

Gullible wasn’t a word he ever associated with her. Thomas, sure. Once or twice. He noticed when you kept a secret from him, but it didn’t matter whether or not you told him the truth when you shared said secret. He would believe it if you didn’t give him a reason not to.

Her first response to meeting a bunch of strange shanks had been to throw every solid thing she could find at them.

“The two of us actually grew up thinking we were special.” She stood up, but the way she clutched the top of her bunk told him she shouldn’t move an inch more than that. She stared at the image covering their back wall as if gazing out a window. “It shouldn’t even feel so bad, I don’t remember a thing.”

“It’s called a conscience,” Minho said. “How’s it feel having one?”

“I’m serious.”

“Me too.”

She turned around. “It’s not having a conscience, is the guilt. I had a conscience before, I just didn’t know to trust it.”

Newt knocked on the doorway. “Are you two in one piece?”

They both nodded.

Newt looked at Teresa, then Minho, then Teresa again. “All right. Something is off with you—” he pointed at Minho—“and you,” he told Teresa, “you and I have a deal.”

Minho frowned. “What deal?”

“No secrets. From my side, at least.” She looked at Minho. “No one in there told me to keep it to myself, so…”

He nodded.

Teresa explained it all to Newt. Nothing including all the details, just the simplest yet uttermost factual report of what she remembered of that afternoon.

He didn’t have to, but Minho filled in his part. Every bit of it.

“You bloody shanks need to stop putting yourself on the line for me,” Newt said.

“You said do what they say, I did what they said.”

Newt nodded, still standing in the doorway. “Just for the sake of having one less thing to worry about, can we agree to a truce here? If anything this proves she’s on our side, so—”

“I’ll back off if she quits being a doormat. And I want to know why I’m more important than Gally and Frypan.”

Teresa nodded to the first one, but the second she had something to say about. “If they knew why your immune system fights the Flare more efficiently than theirs, we would have found the cure long before the Maze Trials. That’s not something we’ll ever find an explanation for. Thomas, as far as they know, was a coincidence.”

“As far as they know?” Newt asked.

“I had an hypothesis, but I’m pretty sure it’s already been proved wrong.” She wiped her face off with her sleeve. “Do you guys mind if I sleep now? I’ll talk in the morning, it’s just been a lot.”

Minho got up. He didn’t have a hard time believing that. If she watched the whole thing, they started it right after she woke up, considering the time it took for her to come back. Minho was tired from just half an hour’s worth of sleep. He refused to call it sedation or anesthesia. This one, he didn’t mind a euphemism for.

Newt looked at him as he stepped into the hall. “The cat’s out of the bag. I told them not to ask, but if they do, just tell them, yeah? I’ll take the fall.”

WCKD wouldn’t let that happen, but if Newt told the others not to ask about it they wouldn’t.

“And…” Newt said more quietly as Teresa tucked herself in. “You’re not wrong to be pissed. I know I can make it feel like you are, but I’m just trying to keep the peace where I can.”

WCKD picked them up early that morning, maybe that was why Newt had so much more energy left by dinnertime. “She’s a puppet. Or… was a puppet. She feels plenty bad about it. Truce. For now. No promises on friends.”

“You’re the one who brought that up.” Newt sat down in his own bunk. “Tell the others to be quiet? I’d like to build up some reserves.”

Minho flipped the light switch. They could only do that once a day. It meant their sun set sooner, but it wouldn’t come up again until the next morning. He would have to tell Chuck to keep his puzzles in the common room.

He left the door ajar.

Gally and Frypan waited for him in the hall, curious looks on their faces.

“I didn’t kill her,” Minho sneered. “Quit trying to make me feel like the thought of doing it makes me a bad person.”

Gally shrugged as Minho passed him toward the common room. “I mean… out of the three of us I came closest, so I’m not here to judge. It’s temporary anyway.”

He still had his mind on escape. Minho on the other hand, had a growing list of frustrations that sentiment would become a part of very soon. Ironic, since out of the three of them he would have been the first to suggest it if he hadn’t known better.

Chuck and Brenda sat bent over a game of checkers, too deep in thought to notice him. Chuck was smiling. He couldn’t see Brenda’s face, but she chuckled.

Gally patted his shoulder on his way to the couch.

Frypan still stood in the hall. “Newt said not to ask, but—”

“Then don’t,” Minho said. “Because he said to answer if you did and I really don’t want to.”

Frypan nodded toward the cafeteria.

Minho didn’t want to ruin the mood in the common room, and because of his display of displeasure his stomach kept nagging him. He picked a banana off their daily fruit tray and sat down across Frypan. “Gally’s still optimistic,” he said to avoid the other topic.

“I’m starting to think they messed with his head,” Frypan replied. “Sorry,” he followed. “Not funny.” He stared through the walls toward their bedroom with a glare Minho hadn’t seen from him before.

“It’s like he wants us to six year olds who still believe in shucking Christmas,” Frypan said. “I mean I get it, Brenda doesn’t know half of what they’re capable of, and I’m guessing Chuck doesn’t always pick up on it either, but he shouldn’t be trying to trick us.”

Minho thought of his night after that first time. After he woke up, doctor Paige told him to sleep it off and sent him back to holding. He didn’t sleep. He didn’t close his eyes for one second, because as long as he could see the bunk across his he would know he wasn’t there.

Minho had no one. They had him alone in there, probably so the sight of him wouldn’t scare the others. “He kept saying this place is our Glade. Of we fight each other inside, we won’t survive outside.” Minho was the last one not to be on neutral terms with her. She could save his life and he’d still never be anywhere close to good terms, but maybe Newt had a point somewhere.

She wasn’t a danger or an enemy anymore. Just a reminder of one.

“He wants us to make peace with being here.” Minho peeled his banana, but he still wasn’t that hungry. “Before he dies, I guess.”

WCKD helped. Maybe it was the tiniest hint of revenge he’d inflicted by waiting those few minutes before he called out, even if it did nothing. Maybe it was the way the doctors talked to them opposed to what he was used to. He could name a list of other things, but it didn’t matter which one it was.

“WCKD’s kept their promises,” Frypan said as if he’d read Minho’s mind, likely to avoid discussing Newt’s inevitable end. “None of it ever happens in here either. I know it’s because they have something to gain, or because they have something to lose if they hurt us more than they think they have to, but…” He didn’t finish his sentence. He swallowed and shifted positions. “If it stays this way, and I know it sounds weird and wrong and all kinds of messed up, but do you think we could be happy in here? Or okay, at least?”

Frypan pressed a bowl into his hands and sat down next to him, watching over the crackling fire. “You better eat that before someone notices. You never eat much when the Box comes up.”

Minho sat on the side of the log he’d claimed as his spot for the night. Newt showed the Greenie around. A confused shank, maybe a bit too curious for his own good considering his little show at the doors.

“Thanks.” Frypan didn’t come to him for the food.

“I know you guys don’t talk about the maps, so we don’t get too worried and all, but… not because I don’t trust you can do it…”

He couldn’t. That was the secret lying under that tarp. Every corner, every sequence, nothing had an exit.

“Do you think we can stay here?” Frypan asked. “If we had to, do you think we could just end the running and stay in the Glade forever? No more names, no more graves. Do you think we could stay?”

That was Newt’s goal, wasn’t it? Newt knew the past weeks the only thing that had kept Minho from throwing Teresa across a room just once had been how much Newt needed her, and Janson’s growing list of threats. The only reason he kept pressing it was because he must also have thought Minho would lose his mind with anger over time.

“If they keep this up,” Minho considered. “It’s not like we have choice other than accepting it. If there is no more Maze, no more dying, and we never remember…” He didn’t want it to be an option. He knew in order to be happy anywhere he shared a room with six other people he had to be able to get on with them at least a bit.

Frypan interrupted his thoughts. “And Thomas. From their side I get they keep him separate, but that’s what a common room is for, isn’t it?”

Time. Thomas would take time. Blake said it would, so they wouldn’t never see Thomas again. He didn’t think Blake was a woman of her word, but she made it clear enough that sooner or later she needed their cooperation for something WCKD wouldn’t care about if they refused. She couldn’t afford to lie.

“Maybe,” he answered. “But it’ll be a while after Newt’s gone.”

They all swirled around that topic, but when push came to shove they all said it. Newt would die. Maybe if he kept repeating it, that tiny bit of him that hoped he wouldn’t would die out. It would hurt less that way.

It wouldn’t be long before Newt would try to prepare them for that too. If he wasn’t doing it already.

“I don’t like how he’s all grown up all of a sudden,” Frypan said. “And I know it’s not the Flare, it’s like he’s a different person even when they’re pumping him full of that stuff.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to die feeling like a kid.” That wasn’t it and Minho knew. Newt lost his sneer when things got dire. He lost his sneer in the Maze that day. He made jokes, sure, but nothing but kind ones. The type that lifted everyone’s spirits instead of making fun of someone else—though, those jokes could easily do the same except for the one on the wrong end of it.

Minho realized something, in that moment. “I guess fear makes you older the same way it made Chuck younger for a while.” Chuck wanted safety after the Maze, so he clung to Justin in a way he never did to a soul in the Maze—Alby included. Newt wanted peace of mind.

As long as they had conflict among each other he could never be sure he had it.

“I… I saw something happen to Teresa.” He looked for a reaction from Frypan, but he couldn’t read him. “I don’t want to forgive her. I’ve banished—I’ve killed people for less than she did. But it just…” He took a breath. Since when did he get emotional like that? Since always, but not in front of someone. He was Keeper of the Runners. He ate nightmares for breakfast. Considering he woke up with them more often than not.

“Well forgiving her only helps her so put that out of your head if you don’t want to,” Frypan said. “Honestly? Just let it be. There were plenty of people in the Maze we didn’t particularly get along with but we were okay to each other. I know it’s not the same, but it’s possible. You don’t have give a shit about her. I don’t.”

“I hate her but what I saw—I don’t even care what kind of past she has with it, I don’t want to be burning everywhere all the time but if I convince myself to forgive her for what she’s done it’s like I’m smearing klunk over our wall and their graves.”

“Believe it or not, as it turns out I do. Not… as a friend but… I just don’t want to see people hurt anymore.”

“Do you trust she won’t turn to WCKD?”

“After today? I think so.”

“Then, you have no reason to be scared of her.”

“I didn’t say—”

Frypan stole the banana Minho still hadn’t eaten from. “It’s something Vince once said while we were looking for you. Hate is fear mixed with anger. You don’t want to stop being angry, so then stop being scared. Being angry with someone is a lot easier than hating them.”

Maybe. “When did you get wise?”

“Like you said. Being scared makes you look older sometimes.”

[genevievemd]

Love You Home (2/5)

Chapter 2: Fear

A/N: How are we feeling after chapter one? Ready for more pain? Cause this is just more pain. But I do gift you the joy of Ethan x Harper friendship, also some fatherly love from Naveen. And a nice cameo of Dr. Tanaka and Bryce.

Also let me know if you catch the Grey’s Anatomy easter egg, an ode to Mark and Lexie that I managed to sneak in there - rather painfully, it may be slightly ooc but it was just too good to pass up. It also ties into the flashback that happens next chapter. (Which is how i justified it being ooc lol)

Buckle up, fam jam. Grab your tissues and emotional support items. She’s a long one. 

Pairing: Ethan x MC (Genevieve McClure)

It isn’t fair, to be in this position again. Standing behind a closed door, watching through a tiny window as his colleagues rush to save Genevieve’s life. 

Ethan did this a year ago - in a different hallway, on a different floor, with a different assailant. But the feeling was the same. The hands of fear squeezing his throat until there’s no air left in his lungs. 

It’s excruciating. Being on the outside, watching and praying that she won’t be ripped away from him. That his entire world won’t crumble in the next five minutes. 

He takes a breath and looks through the window again. Naveen is there now, his mentor’s eyes wide with terror at the sight before him. Even from this distance, Ethan can still see her covered in blood.

“Do you think she’ll be okay?” a small voice breaks Ethan out of his fog. He forgot Sienna was with him, that she was the one to pull him out of the ER and into the hallway. 

“I, uh… I don’t know.” 

“What happened?” Dr. Varma’s voice comes from behind them, standing there with the rest of Genevieve’s friends. They all look as terrified as he feels, all love Gen just as much as he does and it’s a small comfort knowing he’s not alone in his fear. 

But they’re all staring at him, as if he has the answers and he doesn’t, not this time. All he has now is a crippling, gnawing anxiety blocking out any rational thought he could have. Sienna must see his inability to answer Jackie’s question, quickly stepping in the tell them what’s happened. 

At least last year he could still think straight, last year he was able to stay focused on finding a way to save her life. But not now. He’s too in love with her now to do anything but think about the dreadful notion that Genevieve could very well die on him. Before he has the chance to propose, before he can profess his love and commitment in front of all their family and friends, before he can watch her belly grow and they bring a new life into the world, before they buy a house with a yard for their kids to play in, before he can witness her surpass him as one of the greatest diagnosticians in the country. 

He’s never wanted anything in his life more than a life with Genevieve. 

Ethan’s about to look through the window again when the doors fly open and Naveen steps in front of them. His face is full of sorrow and fear, another reminder that Gen is so overwhelmingly loved by everyone in the hospital. 

Naveen looks at them for a long moment, meeting Ethan’s eyes quickly before turning to the group of residents. “You’re no good to Dr. McClure or your patients just standing here. Dr. Greene and Dr. Trinh, I need you to take over Genevieve’s patients. Dr. Varma, run up to the diagnostics office, tell Mirani and Mendoza what’s going on, that they’re going to have to handle the transfer patient from Hartford Hospital on their own, and to not page Dr. Ramsey under any circumstances. If they have a problem they can page me. After that I want you all to get back to work. We’ll let you let you know if anything changes.”

It’s rare that Banerji uses a commanding voice, so rare that it takes Gen’s friends all but one second to straighten up and leave. Bounding down the halls and away from him and Naveen. 

Ethan takes a breath, trying to steady his shaking hands before he looks at his friend. “She was going home to grab her dress. She forgot it by the front door this morning. I shouldn’t have let her leave...If she didn’t, if I was with her -” He can’t bring himself to continue, to hear his voice crack with emotion for another second. 

This isn’t who he is. He doesn’t get emotional, doesn’t get lost in feelings and things that are out of his control. But Genevieve has always brought out a different side of him. Even now, when she’s probably half dead and lost to him forever, her influence is just as strong as ever. 

“You can’t think like that. You couldn’t have known, no one could have known.” 

“The paramedic said she didn’t even make it to the car. She was right outside.” 

“Genevieve is strong, she made it through before and she’ll do it again.”

Ethan nods, keeping his gaze focused solely on the grey linoleum. He wants to believe that, believe that she’ll come back to him, that this isn’t the end. But it’s proving harder by the second, the longer he waits for answers the more difficult it is to believe she’ll survive. 

His fingers reach into the pocket of his white coat, gripping the ring box tightly in his hand. “I should’ve asked her already. I’ve had the ring for weeks. I shouldn’t have waited.” 

“You wanted it to be perfect. And it will be. Once she’s recovered and -”

“I can’t lose her, Naveen.”

“You won’t.” Naveen pats him on the shoulder, but it does nothing to sooth the ache in Ethan’s heart. “Come on, let’s get out of the hallway and go sit in the waiting room. I’ll stay with you.” 

He doesn’t want to move, he wants to stay where he is. He can see her from here. But he concedes, letting Naveen lead him into the waiting room. 

They sit for what feels like hours, Ethan’s gaze never leaving the direction of the emergency room. In reality he knows its only been minutes because Harper quickly emerges with Bryce and a few nurses wheeling Gen in with them. She’s saying something to him about internal bleeding and a punctured lung, but the rest gets lost in the deafening pounding in his ears. He’s can’t focus on anything but Genevieve, somehow looking smaller than normal against the red stained  sheets draped across the gurney. 

“Did you hear me?”

“What?” Rather reluctantly Ethan tears his eyes away from Genevieve to see Harper now standing in front of him. Her brows are knit together in concern, he’s not entirely sure if its concern for Gen or for himself. “No…”

“Go say goodbye, just in case.”

Ethan nods wordlessly, running over to Gen’s side. She’s still unconscious, face pale and almost lifeless. He can feel the air leave his lungs again as he takes her in. She’s battered and bruised, her gorgeous blonde hair caked with blood. There’s a gash on her forehead, just below her hairline, dark and red. 

He tentatively brings his hand to her cheek, fingers lingering on her skin. She’s almost cold to the touch, like her warmth has been sucked out of her. Her ever radiant sunshine eclipsed by the hands of death.

Ethan can feel the unfamiliar burning behind his eyes, the tears rushing back, as he holds her face in his hands. “Don’t you dare die on that table, Rookie. Do you hear me? You fight like hell and come back to me.” He knows they’re all watching him, he can feel their eyes on his back as he looks down at the woman he loves. Ethan lowers his voice to nothing more than a whisper, ensuring that only Genevieve can hear him. “Remember the house with the yard and the two kids...that I want to marry you. Don’t give up. Come back to me, Genevieve. Please, we’re meant to be.” 

Ethan stares at her for another moment, trying to commit every feature of her face to memory. 

Just in case. 

He takes a breath and leans down, gently placing his lips to Genevieve’s forehead. He’s not sure if she can hear him, if she even knows he’s there. But a small part of him is screaming that she can, that she knows. That she’ll hear his pleas and come back to him. “I love you, Gen. I love you. I love you.”  

“We have to take her now, Ethan.” Harper brings her hand to his shoulder, gently pulling him away from Genevieve. 

She gives him a small smile, a nod of determination before she, Bryce and the nurses disappear behind the doors to the OR hallways.

Ethan turns back to Naveen, pinching the bridge of his nose as he sits in the chair beside him. The fear is coming back, rising up from the pit of his stomach. He falls forward, resting his head in his hands. He lets out a ragged sigh as Naveen runs a comforting hand down his back. 

“Dr. Banerji?”

They look up to see a bewildered intern, standing awkwardly in front of them. 

“What is it?”

“They, uh, they told me to come find you and tell you that they just brought in the guy that attacked Dr. McClure. He’s in the ER with the police.”

Ethan feels the anger consume him, his veins erupt with a fury unlike anything he’s felt before. His feet move before he realizes what he’s doing, burning a path towards the ER. 

“Ethan, where are you going?” 

He can hear Naveen call after him, his foot fall a mere second behind Ethan’s. But he ignores him, pushing the doors of the emergency room open. 

“Where is he?” He all but barks at an unsuspecting nurse, the rage he feels fueled even more by the confused look on her face.

“Who?” 

“Who the fuck do you think I’m talking about?” 

“Ethan, leave it be. Let the staff and the police handle this.” Naveen reaches for him, grabbing his arm like his father would as a child - trying to keep him out of trouble, keep Ethan from making a mistake. 

He swivels his head, taking in every trauma bay and every patient that’s admitted until he finds his target. They’ve put him in the same bay that the paramedics used for Gen and it like adding kerosene to the fire burning him from the inside out. 

Ethan makes to the trauma team in record time, bounding across the still crowded ER in seconds. He’s not entirely sure what he’s about to do - punch him, wring his neck, drive a scalpel though his heart. Anything is better than letting the man who put Genevieve at deaths door breath for another second. 

“Woah, Woah, Woah.” Tanaka flies in front of him, grabbing Ethan’s fist before it can make contact. “Ramsey, he’s high. He’s hallucinating. He has no idea what he did. Back off.” 

“Back off!? Genevieve’s in surgery, she could die because of him.”

“And punching him in the face won’t change anything.” Tanaka stares him down, matching Ethan’s fury. “Get out of here and focus on your girl.”

“He’s right, son.” Naveen is behind him again, with another fatherly hand on Ethan’s arm. “Let Tanaka treat him. He’s covered in her blood, he’s not going anywhere. Focus on Genevieve and let the police handle this. Go.” 

Ethan looks between Naveen and Tanaka before turning away, loudly knocking over a tray of supplies before he walks out of the ER. 

————

4 months ago...

He can hear her laugh from halfway down the hall. That singsong in her voice so recognizable, he’s certain he could easily pick it out in a crowded room.

Ethan lets curiosity get the best of him, following the sound until he finds her. She’s in her elderly patients room, the one they rounded on that morning. Her back is to the door, looking down at the chart in her hand.

“Does he work in the hospital?”

“You’re really not gonna let this go are you, Mrs. St Clair?”

 “No.” Lottie smiles brightly at Genevieve, her eyes gleaming with mirth. “It’s that criminally handsome attending from this morning, Dr. Ramsey, isn’t it?”

Ethan smiles to himself as he sees Gen look up quickly, her head tilting ever so slightly. “How did you know?” 

“I saw the way he looked at you. It was the same way my Edward used to look at me.”

He can’t see Genevieve’s face but he know’s she smiling. The small one that starts at the corners of her mouth, the one where she has to look away to keep from blushing. 

“Do you love him?”

“Yes, very much.” She looks back down at the chart in her hands, “How long were you and your husband married?”

“Almost 55 years when he passed.”

“Wow.”

Lottie smiles mischievously again, “Indulge an old woman for a moment would you?”

Gen laughs, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Sure.”

“How long have you two been together?”

“He’d probably tell you one year, but I say it’s closer to two. There was a lot of back and forth at the beginning, but I still count it as being together. There was no one else for me.”

“Would you marry him? If he asked?”

His breath catches at the question and it startles him for a moment why he desperately needs to know the answer. 

“In a heartbeat.”

“Does he know that?”

“I think so. But he’s said in the past that he wasn’t sold on the idea of marriage. Which I’m okay with. As long as I have him, I don’t need a ring.”

Lottie hums, “You know, when Edward and I first started dating, he said the same thing. Then one year later he got down on one knee. I teased him for years about it and he would always say ‘Lottie, when you meet the love of your life, everything changes.’” 

Ethan smiles, walking away before Gen can realize that he was listening. He’s not ready to hear a weeks worth of teasing about how he was absolutely eaves-dropping when he’s always so quick to call out others for doing the same. 

He walks back to the diagnostics office, fully intending to focus back on the team’s case and ignore beating of his heart. It hits him, as he steps back into the glass-walled room, that if he believed in such things as fate and destiny, it would so clearly show that Genevieve’s the one. The love of his life. His future. 

He wants everything with her. All the things he’d always deemed trivial or foolish. Things he never thought were in the cards for him. Ethan wants them, with her. More than he’s ever wanted anything. 

————

It’s hours before he sees her again, once she’s out of surgery and safely in a patient room. The halls are dark, night falling quickly over Boston. Ethan looks down at his watch as he makes to Genevieve’s room. 

Right now, they should be sitting in his box at the opera house. Listening to the final beats of the music as he prepares to get down on one knee. Right now he should be proposing instead of walking into her dimly lit hospital room and seeing her hooked up to machines.  

Ethan slowly walks over to her bedside. She’s breathing on her own, which is a good sign, the gash on her forehead stitched up. The blood is gone from her face as well, her porcelain skin no longer hidden beneath splotches of red. 

“Christ, Gen…”

He takes her hand in his, thumb running across her now bruised knuckles. A small desperate laugh leaving his lips as he realizes they’re defense wounds. His vivacious and fierce love did her best to fight off her attacker. But her fingers feel like ice, cold and frail. Gen’s hands are always cold, something he teases her frequently for, but this feels different. It feels deathly. 

The thought of her still being so close to death sends another wave of trepidation over him. 

There’s a knock on the door and Ethan turns to see Harper with the scalpel jockey behind her. “She made it through surgery. It was touch and go, but -“ She stops suddenly, no doubt seeing the anguish written all over his face. “Ethan,” 

He clears his throat, doing his best to swallow back the tears that are once again burning him from the inside out. “Thank you.” 

Harper turns to the resident behind her, “Lahela, go update your friends.”

“Sure thing.” He disappears quickly, running down the hall. 

“She’s going to be fine.” Harper gives him a small smile, walking fully into the room. “You picked a strong one.”

Ethan lets out a wry laugh, she isn’t wrong. Genevieve’s determination and strength are one of the many things he loves about her. 

“Naveen told me you were planning on proposing tonight.”

“Has he told the entire hospital?” Ethan rolls his eyes with a deep sigh, he had explicitly told Naveen to keep his plans to himself. 

“Probably, but we’ve all made sure not to let it slip in front of Genevieve. I have to say, I never thought you were the marrying type.”

“Neither did I, but Gen is -” Ethan sits in the chair next to Genevieve’s bed, running a hand down his face. “She’s the love of my life, Harper.” He falls back against the chair, no longer able to hold back the tears that have been just under the surface all day. 

“I know.” Harper moves to sit on the arm of the chair, a gentle hand on his shoulder.  “The hardest part is over. As long as she makes it through the night, I expect a full recovery.” 

Ethan closes his eyes for the briefest of moments, taking a deep breath to settle himself. “I have to call her parents.” 

“We can have a nurse do it.”

“No, it should be me.” He moves to stand, with every intention of getting up and out of the room but he feels frozen. His eyes falling back onto Genevieve. 

Ethan closes his eyes again, reaching down to a place he hasn’t been to in a long time. A place where he can hide his emotions and focus, where his walls are sky high and protective. A place that Genevieve had long since demolished. 

“Take a second, Ethan.”

He shakes his head, leaving the room without a second glance. “I’m fine.” 

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

a/n: how are we feeling after that? lol you still have a whole chapter and a half of angst after this before we get to the fluff. And just know, I am delighting in your pain, its bringing me joy lmao - Sara <3

tag list: 

@queencarb, @overwhelminglyaquarius, @me-and-my-choices, @schnitzelbutterfingers, @crazy-loca-blog, @a-crepusculo, @drakewalkerfantasy, @ohchoices, @adrex04, @udishaman, @drariellevalentine, @custaroonie, @archxxronrookie, @terrm9, @maurine07, @openheartthot, @gryffindordaughterofathena, @aworldoffandoms, @caseyvalentineramsey, @dulceghernandez, @elwetritsche75, @emotionalswift2, @thegreentwin, @starrystarrytrouble, @utterlyinevitable, @angela8754, @fireycookie

LMK if you want to be added or removed from the list :)

[cameroncreative]

Lost But Not Forgotten

Cross Posted on my Ao3 if you want to read it there instead!

Title: Lost But Not Forgotten

Word Count: 2658 words

Summary: What if Eri got hit with the quirk erasing bullets?

Izuku quickly rushed the little girl in his arms to the closest ambulance. He gently laid her on the gurney. “Thank you, sir. We can take it from here.” They went to remove him from the ambulance but failed.

“I’m not leaving her. She is at a high risk of being targeted again, and I need to get to the hospital as well. It would be logical to let me ride with you and solve both of those issues at once.” He made sure to a level head and give a logical explanation to stay with Eri.

“Okay sir, but we don’t have another gurney for you.” She told him as a last-ditch effort to get him to leave and seek help himself.

“That’s fine. Please focus on Eri, I’ve dealt with worse. I just need some gauze to help stop the bleeding, and I’ll be fine until we get to the hospital.” Izuku sat in the corner of the ambulance to make sure he stayed out of the way as they helped patch up Eri.

----

Izuku uses little bursts of One For All to avoid the spikes shooting out of the ground. Eri clung to his back like a koala, as well as secured with Mirio’s cape. Her quirk rewinding the injuries just as fast as they happened.

Looking around she noticed one of the men start to sit up. He looked around and spotted the gun from earlier. Izuku landed the finishing punch to overhaul, as the other guy loaded the gun with the other red bullet. Izuku untied the cape from around her and placed her on the ground to check for any injuries. He still had his back to the man and hadn’t noticed that he had woken up.

Eri saw him go to pull the trigger and tried to move her hero out of the way. To try and save the person who was able to save her. She heard Izuku scream before she felt the sharp burn in her arm where the bright red bullet embedded its self.

Mirio quickly knocked out Nemoto and place cuffs on him, but the damage was already done. Eraserhead did the same to Overhaul. Izuku picked up Eri into his arms and ran to the ambulances. If tiny sparks of green lighting buzzed around his legs, no one noticed.

----

As soon as they got to the hospital they rushed Eri off to remove the bullet and heal any injures that needed healing quirks to fix. One of them directed Izuku to a nurse who helped patch up his remaining injuries. He had cuts and hairline fractures in both of his legs. Recovery girl was on her way and would be able to fix him up quickly as long as he laid there and didn’t aggravate or worsen his injures before she arrived.

Every time a nurse or doctor came in he asked about Eri.

How is she?

Was the surgery successful?

Can I see her?

Did she make it?

None of them had any answers for him. Finally, Aizawa showed up. Eri was to be put in his care after she recovered since he could help control her quirk, but something he said made Aizawa stop before leaving, “But she doesn’t have her quirk right now?”

“What?”

“She got hit by one of the red bullets. The ones they said permanently erases someone’s quirk. The only thing is that we know the bullets were made with her blood and quirk, so I’m not sure how she’ll react to it. Maybe-”

“Why wasn’t I informed of this before now?”

“Well, I wanted to make sure she didn’t lose too much blood. Especially since Kai and yakuza were already taking her blood to make the bullets. So I quickly got her to an ambulance. I’m sorry I didn’t inform anyone, but I’m not sorry about trying to save her.” Aizawa sighed.

“You did the right thing, Problem child. Recovery Girl arrived and she's helping some of the more critical patients, as well as Eri. Don’t move until she gets here. If I learn anything before then I’ll let you know.” Aizawa left to wherever Eri was, as Izuku laid back into the bed. Even as the adrenaline wore off his thoughts never slowed.

Is she okay?

Did she lose her quirk?

Will the bullet affect her differently since it was made from her blood?

Why did she try and save me, when I was supposed to be the one saving her?

Will I ever get to see her again?

----

Thankfully everything worked out. Eri did lose her quirk, but there doesn’t seem to have any other backlash from the bullet except a small starburst shaped on her arm. She was really happy when she learned that she was able to match her hero with their scars.

Aizawa and Yamada sill adopted her. Hitoshi and her are adorable playing with the cats. Plus, Aizawa emotionally adopted Izuku as well as being Hitoshi’s boyfriend. Izuku and Eri have become unofficial siblings.

Recently though, Eri’s been really tired and even passed out once while they were playing. They brought her to a good friend of Recovery Girls’s whose quirk is that she’s able to touch a person and see their entire medical history from surgeries to the paper cut you got at eight years old.

Eri’s body had been using her quirk to undo the damage Overhaul did when she was with him. Someone can only be taken apart and put back together so many times. Now that she doesn’t have her quirk her body is failing. “Is there any way to reverse it?” Izuku asked at the same time Aizawa asked, “How much longer does she have?”

“Aizawa! You can’t, no no no. There has to be a way to fix this!” Izuku plead. The doctor looked at him sadly.

“The damage isn’t something even Recovery Girl’s quirk can heal. Image having a scar that was heal and reopened constantly. Her quirk was able to go back before the scar was even there and remove it. But we can’t heal the scar once it’s healed. Based on how fast this happened and how long she was in his care, she probably has about one to two months left. Even then she will probably be in excruciating pain if she lived longer than that.” Izuku just sat down and held Eri who had fallen asleep earlier and cried.

One to two months.

Excruciating pain.

Can’t be healed.

‘I can’t lose her. She just started to warm up to us. I was supposed to save her! I’ll do my best to protect you. Make every day the best you’ve ever had. I promise. We’re lucky the league of villains already killed Overhaul or we might have had a repeat of the stain incident.’

The next month and a half passed way quicker than anyone wanted.

Picnics in the park.

Ice cream after school.

Movie nights with all of them cuddled together.

Makeover night with class 1A.

The spring festavatle.

Eri smiling.

More doctor visits.

Nightmares and screams.

Pain…

----

They woke up to the loud screams coming from Eri’s room. They all rushed to see what happened. Izuku reached her first and quickly woke her up from the nightmare. As soon as she was awake she grabbed onto Izuku like her world depended on it. Aizawa, Yamada, and Hitoshi were quick to join the hug.

Aizawa started to hum her favorite lullaby to help her get back to sleep as Izuku gently rocked her in his arms. As the song came to a close, the hiccupping sobs had stopped and her breathing slowed. The rest of them took and breath and relaxed. Crisis averted.

Izuku looked back to the sister he promised to protect. She looked so peaceful, almost too peaceful. She wasn’t moving. He quickly moved his hand under her nose to check if she was breathing.

Nothing.

He jumped up with her in his arms. And placed her on the floor. “Get Recovery Girl! She stopped breathing!” He faintly heard Hitoshi yell at Aizawa, but couldn’t focus on what they were saying as he made sure her airway was open and started chest compressions.

1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . 4 . . . 5 . . . 6 . . . 7 . . . 8 . . . 9 . . . 10 . . . 11 . . . 12 . . . 13 . . . 14 . . . 15 . . . 16 . . . 17 . . . 18 . . . 19 . . . 20 . . . 21 . . . 22 . . . 23 . . . 24 . . . 25 . . . 26 . . . 27 . . . 2- he felt himself be pulled away from Eri as recovery Girl quickly attached the patches of the AED on her body and yelled “Clear!” as they charged up and shocked her lifless body, but ti was no use.

It was too late, She was gone and they could all feel it. Even though Recovery Girl whispered it after the second shock, it was heard loud and clear in the room.

Time of Death, 2:33 am

You could hear the tump of a body hitting the ground as Izuku fell to the ground by Hitoshi’s feet. Hitoshi sat down next to him and held him as they both cried over the loss of their sister.

Even though Aizawa and Yamada, and even Hitoshi a bit, had accepted that she didn’t have that much longer with them, Izuku still was trying to find a way to heal her. Izuku took her death the hardestest. He still wanted to believe that he could save her. He couldn’t accept that this was the end for her.

All Might showed up and help Recovery Girl bring Eri’s body to the infirmary until she could be buried. The rest of the Erasermic family ended up in the living room. Crying and holding each other until they passed out from exhaustion.

The next day they were nowhere to be found. Midnight and Nezu took over their classes. No one but All might, Recovery Girl, and Nezu knew what happened last night. The remaining members of the Erasermic family ended up at the Midoriya house in the morning for some much-needed food and comfort.

----

Inko was sitting on the crunch reading a book when she heard a knock at the door.

Did Mitsuki decide to come over?

Did Izuku need something?

Is Izuku okay?

She opened to door only to see a green blur capture her in a hug. She panicked until she notices the familiar dark green bird’s nest buried in her shoulder. Looking back to the open door she noticed the other three standing there as well. “Shota, Hizashi, Hitoshi, please come in.” Her son hesitantly let go and was immediately latched onto Hitoshi’s side. Even when Izuku was young he was always comforted by physical touch. This was made worse as he started school, and the bullying started. He distanced himself from her so she wouldn’t worry about the cuts and burns that started to litter his body.

Of course, she noticed, but she hoped he would come to her about it. Instead, he became touch starved and now craves physical effect, but only trusts certain people to touch him. Hitoshi lifted his boyfriend up and carried him to his room. As soon as he laid Izuku on the bed and cuddled close to him, Inko laid the weighted blanket over them.

Five minutes later Izuku stood up and came back with a white and red unicorn plush. He placed it between them when Hitoshi realized that it was Eri’s weighted and scented plush that she left here. The smell of candy apples started to fill the room as Izuku grabbed his hand placed it over the unicorn. He quickly caught on to what Izuku wanted and intertwined his hand with Izuku’s and rested it on the plush like they used to do when they cuddled with Eri on nights her nightmares got really bad.

“Would you two like some tea or coffee?” Inko asked the two gentlemen cuddled on the couch as she walked back into the living room. Yamada spoke up.

“Just a black coffee for Sho, and earl grey tea for me, thank you.”

Inko placed the kettle on the stove. Both men joined her in the kitchen. “So I noticed Izuku is extra cuddly today. Did something happen to him? Is that why you’re here?” She made sure to be blunt and straight to the point like she knew Aizawa preferred.

“Early this morning Eri passed.” Inko dropped the teaspoon she was holding for the tea. “Izuku’s not taking it too well.” Inko went over and engulfed both men in a hug. The tree of them had gotten closer. Aizawa had emotionally adopted Izuku, Inko emotionally adopted Hitoshi and Eri.

“H-how, how-” She took a breath before continuing, “How did she pass?” she asked gently.

“We went to comfort her after a nightmare. As she fell back to sleep her breathing stopped. We got Recovery Girl as Izuku started CPR, but it was too late.” Hizashi informed her.

She reached up and kissed both men on their cheeks as she pulled them into another hug. All of them we also touch starved and needed each other.

~~~~

Even once they returned to class, Izuku wasn’t the same. Katsuki has started dropping off a bento box where Izuku and Hitoshi ate after noticing Izuku didn’t want to be in the cafeteria but also didn’t bring lunch usually. Eventually, he started sitting with them at lunch. The three of them became closer. Hitoshi learned of their past, and if he made Katsuki do the macarena around the gym during their next class train session, well that’s totally unrelated.

One day they were studying in Izuku’s room when Izuku began to look for his textbook when he found a piece of candy apple red fabric. He had never given it back to Mirio after the raid since it helped Eri calm down after panic attacks and nightmares.

“-uku, Izuku, DEKU!” HE looked up at his boyfriend’s worried face.

“Zuku, you’re crying. What ha- Is that Miro’s cape?” he nodded slowly as more tears fell onto the fabric.

“I couldn’t save her! I promised I would save her!” He leaned into his chest, the fabric falling in favor of hugging him.

“This isn’t your fault. No one blames you, Zuzu. You rescued her from Overhaul. You are her hero.”

“I rescued her, but he still won! I couldn’t stop her pain. I should have never taken my eyes off of them. I could have stopped the bullet from ever hitting her. She would have still had her quirk. She could have healed. She would have survived!”

“Why are you even still with me Hitoshi? If I had done better your sister would still be here. Kacchan, you as well. You probably think I’m pathetic for not being able to save a single kid. I just don’t get it!” Izuku tried to pull away from them, but they just held him closer.

“Zuku, Izuku look at me.” He raised his head slowly. “First off, she was just as much your sister as mine. Second, you’re the reason I got a little sister in the first place. You did you’re very best, and it’s not your fault. The only people I blame are Overhaul and the rest of the Yakuza who sat back and let him do this. You did something about it. You got her out of that situation. I’m still here because of all of that and more. You are so amazing and you don’t even realize it.” He softly kissed Izuku’s head.

“I know I don’t have the greatest track record for sticking by you-” Hitoshi snorted, “Fine! I’m shit at it, okay! I know, but I’m not going anywhere. We’ll be the wonder duo again, plus this purple emo tagging along, hahaha. But seriously, we’re not going anywhere.”

The next day the three boys didn’t show up to class. When Aizawa went looking for them, he found them cuddled together on the floor. Mirio’s cape is on the ground next to them.

[whump-town]

I Think I’ve Broken Something

Broken Down • Broken Bones • Broken Trust

Aaron Hotchner has seen more than his fair share of missions gone wrong in his time as a field agent and even longer as just human consuming the media. Seeing it is never the same as living it, though. The news can never really grasp the way it feels to stand in the middle of the wreckage as screams of pain and terror fill the air. To hear the rasped coughs of people who think they’re fine but will later die at the hospital from smoke inhalation that has been slowly killing them.

To see bloody stumps of limbs. 

To step into a hot pool of blood. 

Boston had left a permanent scar on his body and his mind. 

The moment that his eyes lock onto the bomb he knows they’re going to die here.

“Cryus!” Hotch screams, voice breaking as Cyrus doesn’t stop in his merciless beating. He just keeps hitting her over and over and-- “Leave her alone, you son of a bitch!” 

Emily curls her legs up to cover her stomach as Hotch’s words allow a moment of reprieve. Cyrus’s dark eyes turn to Hotchner, shaking his head with a smile. “It’s our duty as men, Mr. Hotchner, to remind women of their place in the house of the Lord.” He huffs, “first Timothy 2:11 Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.”

Hotch feels a blind fury building in his chest. Cyrus had better thank his God that they’d chosen to bind his hands with zip ties so tight he can no longer feel his fingers. Cause if he were free now, he’d beat this man to death… without a second thought. “Galatians 2:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Cyrus kicks Emily away from him, her soft noise of pain going unnoticed to him but not to Hotch. He grabs Hotch by his jaw, fingernails digging into his skin. “You think you’re so smart,” Cyrus asks, pulling his gun from his pocket. He tucks it under Hotch’s chin with a smirk, “if you were so smart, you wouldn’t be locked in here with a Fed.” 

Hotch grunts as Cryus whips him with the gun, falling to his side. Just as Cyrus is drawing his foot back to kick him, Emily pulls herself upright. “You didn’t read the bible if you think you’ve got some semblance of control around here,” she says. “They’re moving, Cyrus. They’re leaving you. You’re losing more and more of your church every second you spend in here talking to us.”

Cyrus kicks her, hard. She gasps in pain, not prepared for the feeling of her ribs to snap under the power of the blow. “Hebrews 13:17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. My people wouldn’t do that. You’re both nothing but liars. Liars condemned to death.” He spits on Emily, glancing back at Hotch before collecting himself with a deep breath and slamming the door behind himself. Leaving them. 

“You okay?” Hotch grunts. He kicks himself upright, groaning when his head gives protest to the movement. “Jesus,” he slumps down beside her, using his back to ease himself to a sitting position. 

They have only just been allowed to see one another. The moment Emily had looked at him, those fateful words slipping out of her mouth-- I’m the Federal Agent-- he’d been left upstairs to witness the church work it’s magic while she’d been left down here in the basement, enduring punishment. 

“Been better,” she whispers, honestly. She tries to sit-up and even with him leaning his shoulder towards her, offering her all the help he can, she just falls into his side. While his hands are painfully tied behind his back, hers are free. He doesn’t ask her to untie him though, he just moves closer and silently allows her to lay her head on his shoulder. “You?”

He sighs. He’s exhausted and he’s so pissed but… “I’m hungry,” he says and it makes her chuckle. She pushes her face into his shoulder, grimacing as it jostles her ribs. “You okay,” he asks.

She nods, “just…” She considers lying for only a fraction of a second. To spare him the truth but she’s going to need his help getting out of here so she can’t lie. “I think he broke a rib,” she says, a pang of pain shooting up her side. “Okay, maybe two.”

He’s going to beat himself up over this. “You shouldn’t have told him you were the agent,” he mumbles, head lowered. 

She grunts, “you’re right.”

It takes him by momentary surprise. 

“Next time,” she mumbles, pushing herself upright and away. She grimaces as she shifts her weight and lays her head down on his lap. “Next time, it’s your turn to get the shit kicked out of you. Sound fair?” She doesn’t pay too much attention to if he answers of not. “Now shut up,” she says without any heat. “I’m going to try and take a nap.”

He manages to fall asleep, as well. A nearly fatal mistake.

They wake to the sound of gunfire. 

“Emily,” he grunts, hating how he accidentally jostles her. “Emily you have to wake up!” He keeps moving, rousing her the rest of the way when she sits up but doesn’t move. “Come on,” he instructs, struggling to his feet. “We have to get out of here.” He drops to his knees, a bullet tearing through the window overhead. He hovers over her, using his body to protect her from the glass shattering around them. 

“Stop--” Emily pushes him away from her. Sitting up despite the fire in her lungs. “Let me--” she pulls him around, showing her his bound hands. “Here,” she picks the string apart, watching him slowly flex his sore fingers. “We’re not going to get very far with you running around like this.”

He pulls his hands to his chest, rubbing his agitated skin. “Thank you,” he says but they don’t have the time to go bearing their souls just yet.

She smacks his shoulder, “Let’s get out of here.”

Stumbling, clutched to one another they try to get out of the building. They’re on the steps when the bombs explode.

“Aaron!” Dave is crouched down at his side. The world is spinning and it’s not helping that his frantic search for Emily is coming up short. “Aaron, calm down!” Hotch pushes Dave’s hands away, movements slow, and lacking the proper strength to really move the older man. “Aaron--”

He turns behind him, groaning as the world blacks out for a moment. “Emily,” he grunts, left hand coming up to press to his ringing ear. “I can’t find…”

Dave grabs him by the shoulders, forcing Hotch’s attention on him. “Emily’s fine,” he promises. “I came to find you,” Dave says. “She was worried.”

Hotch blinks owlishly, trying to think past his throbbing head. “Emily’s…”

“Emily’s okay,” Dave repeats. “If you can stand I can take you to her.”

Hotch nods, “I’m okay.” Pushing himself upright, he sways. His stomach trying to heave its complaint. “I’m okay,” he grunts, feeling Dave’s hand settle between his shoulder blade. “I’m okay. I just…” Need some help. When Hotch looks back to Dave, the older man is already standing and offering his hand out.

Practically pulled to his feet, Hotch stumbles a little. His head a cloud of thickness. But his feet move on their own accord and leaning into Dave he makes staggered progress forward. Thes second he sees her, he steps out fo Dave’s hold. “Emily!” 

Her head lifts up. “Hotch!” She pushes herself up off the gurney she’d been laying on, ignoring the medic trying to stop her. She runs straight into his arms, both of them letting out breathless chuckles. “I thought you were dead,” she whispers into his neck.

He shakes his head, “I thought you were dead, too.”

She chuckles, betrayed by the tears in her voice. She cries softly into his chest. “Well,” she says, “don’t do that again, okay?”

He holds her a little closer, “I won’t if you don’t. Deal?”

“Deal.”

[myownworstenemyyy]

All I Wanted - Part 6

a Javier Peña x Reader series

Word count: 4k  (gif by @pedropcl​)

Warnings: FEELS, violence, mentions of blood/cuts/bruises, insinuation of having sexually assaulted someone (like, what?), PAIN, #justhospitalthings, dat angsty angst y’all know I love

S/O: my super lovely Tumblr wife Sarinaaa @captainclod (she writes AMAZING Pedro fics, go check her out - respectfully)

A/N: this is all from Javi’s POV, right after Part 5 (with flashbacks of course) Also, sorry if some of the medical lingo is super technical or completely incorrect - i hope y’all enjoy this one! Thanks for reading 💜 (masterlist in bio)

Part 6 – Feeling Sorry

“Wait - they put her into a coma?” Javier asks Connie incredulously, his hands propped on his hips. He’s been in the waiting room for hours, worrying, hoping, and sometimes even praying - though he only did that once Steve left him alone to interrogate one of your captors.

“Yes, a medically-induced coma. She suffered severe trauma to her brain and chest, Javi. The doctors were able to control the bleeding in her abdomen but all the bruising needs to heal on its own while she sleeps. She–” Connie takes a second to clear the lump that’s formed in her throat, “God, I don’t know how she survived all that,” Connie says softly, a pained expression plaguing her features. 

Javier runs a shaky hand through his hair as he closes his eyes, but all he sees is your bruised and battered body being rushed on a gurney into the emergency room.

“Javi, you can’t come back here - it’s hospital staff and patients only,” Connie tells him quietly but urgently. She places her hands on his chest when he continues to follow the group of people wheeling you into the ER. 

Steve had called Connie - who works as a nurse in the hospital - when they found you in that cabin, informing her of the extent of your wounds, so she could prepare hospital staff for your arrival. She met them at the hospital and Javier felt the tiniest bit of comfort knowing she would be there with you when he couldn’t. 

“Connie,” Javier’s voice cracks when he looks towards her, reluctantly peeling his eyes away from the double doors they rolled you through just minutes before. For the first time in his life, he feels completely and utterly lost. When he’d barged into that room and seen you tied to that chair - seemingly lifeless - his whole world had shattered.  

“I know, Javi. We are going to save her, but you need to stay out here, OK? I’ll come back with any news as soon I know anything,” Connie squeezes his arms in reassurance before rushing through the doors where hopefully - God, did Javi hope with every fabric of his being - the doctors could save you, even if it was only so he could have the chance to tell you-

“Javi?” Connie asks hesitantly when he doesn’t respond. He nods to let her know he’s still listening, though he’s struggling to focus on anything other than the fact that you’re somewhere in this hospital, fighting to stay alive, and in a coma.

“Can I,” Javier clears his throat before he continues, “Can I see her?” he asks quietly. He grabs Connie’s hand with both of his, whether to plead with her to let him see you or for his own comfort, he’s not sure. 

She gnaws on her bottom lip as she looks behind her to the nurses’ station and back at Javier again. “Give me a second,” is all she says before she walks back to the counter and converses with one of the other nurses for several seconds. Javier remains awkwardly standing in the middle of the waiting room, picking at the bandages Connie had insisted on wrapping around his hand and wrist after seeing them bruised and swollen. He releases a shaky breath, feeling about as weary and hopeless as he looks. 

Connie returns saying, “OK, I can take you back there now, but it’s family-only, so…I had to tell them you were her fiancé,” she says with the slightest of smiles before she continues, “I would’ve said ‘husband’ but I didn’t want you to have a stroke,” she tries for a light chuckle and Javi appreciates her attempt at humor, given the grave situation at hand. And though he’d never tell her, he really wouldn’t have minded if she’d told them he was your husband. His stomach flips just thinking about the hypothetical situation, but he quickly shoves that thought aside to dwell on at another time - like when you’re not lying unconscious in a hospital bed.

He nods in response and motions for Connie to lead the way through the double doors of the intensive care unit. The two of them walk silently down a long hall until they come to a stop in front of the very last door on the left. Javier takes a long, deep breath and motions forward before he’s stopped in his tracks when Connie gently grabs his arm, saying, “It’s - she looks pretty banged up, but she’s stable - for now. I just - wanted to warn you, I guess,” Connie’s sentence dies out when she sees the expression on Javi’s face. He looks like a zombie, the bags under his eyes making him look years older than he is and his hair is sticking out in odd places from him running his hands through it constantly. 

Without a word, Javi turns and pushes the door open slowly, thinking he doesn’t want to wake you - but then he remembers you’re in a coma, so the likelihood of you being woken up by a creaky door is basically nonexistent. He takes about four steps into the room until he sees you lying in the hospital bed. 

His heart nearly stops from the sight of your injured body decorated with an assortment of bruises and bandages, lying completely still - save for the subtle up-and-down movement of your chest. It’s that motion alone that has him moving his feet closer to the bed - she’s breathing, she’s alive, he reassures himself as he slides into the chair that rests by your bedside. He immediately reaches for your hand that’s resting on your thigh above the blanket. But then he stops just before making contact, looking to Connie for permission because he doesn’t want to hurt you in your already-fragile state.

Connie nods softly and takes a couple more steps into the room, closing the door behind her. Javi intertwines your fingers in his and the first thing he notices is that your hand is freezing, so he brings his other hand to cover the top of yours, trying to share his warmth with you. “What are - all these machines?” Javi asks, never looking away from your face.

“She has a couple fractured ribs, but the doctors didn’t think she was strong enough to fix them in surgery, so they’re keeping a close eye on her breathing and heart rate in case–” Connie cuts herself off, unsure if she should proceed with Javier already being so shaken.

“Say it,” he turns his head slightly toward her while keeping his hands intertwined with yours. Connie takes a deep breath through her nose and continues, “in case one of the fractured ribs punctures her lungs, and they need to resuscitate and intubate her - so she can breathe.” Connie looks down at her feet, afraid she might start crying from seeing the fear and pain in Javi’s eyes at hearing how perilous the situation is.

He nods his head, feeling desensitized to everything. He hasn’t really felt much of anything these days - ever since he’d discovered you had been captured. But at that moment, it’s as if he’s not really in his body - he feels your hand in his, slowly becoming warmer by the second, but that’s the only part of his body that has any sort of sensation. Every other part of him is just - numb. 

Javier takes in a shaky breath and doesn’t release it until he’s sure the tears welling in his eyes won’t fall - not in front of Connie, at least. “I’ll leave you alone with her, stay as long as you like,” Connie murmurs as she slowly backs away towards the door. 

“Hey, Connie?” Javi calls after her with a little more strength in his voice. He releases your hand and takes a couple steps until he’s standing in front of Connie. She stops and turns, looking at him expectantly, “Yeah?” He looks down into her now-glassy eyes, trying to convey how much he appreciates everything she’s done for you - for him, “Thank you - I don’t know what would’ve happened - what I would’ve done - if you weren’t here.” He takes her by surprise when he pulls her into a strong embrace. 

Connie slowly reaches her arms around him and returns the hug as they stand like that for a few seconds, each trying to find comfort in the other. When Javi releases her and steps back, he watches Connie wipe her cheeks with her sleeve and sniffle. “Of course, Javi. You don’t have to thank me. I care about her too, and - it kinda sorta is my job to care for the sick and injured,” she laughs lightly and sniffles again. 

Javi nods his head with the smallest of smiles and waves to her as she turns to leave the room.

He stands there facing the door for what feels like hours, but really is just a couple minutes. He can’t help but think that if it were anyone else - maybe even Steve - in that hospital bed right now he wouldn’t hesitate to walk through that door and never come back - not even for a visit. He’s always hated hospitals - hated the way he could practically feel Death lurking around in every room - but as he takes a step closer to the door and closes it with a click, he’s never felt more sure of himself - and more determined to keep Death from so much as thinking about entering your room.

Javier walks back to your bedside and sits in the chair, exhaling heavily. He takes your hand again and brings it to his lips as he leans his elbows on the bed, looking up at your sleeping face. 

“You know,” he whispers, “that first day I saw you at the DEA - all smiles and greeting everyone like you’d known them for years - I thought ‘This girl’s not gonna last a week down here’,“ he smiles at the memory, "Then when I actually met you and I tried to mess with you with the whole ‘what’s a girl like you doing in a place like this,’ line and you smirked at me,” he chuckles to himself, “I thought maybe I had a chance at getting you into my bed. But then - you knocked me on my ass when you said, ‘I’m here to catch Pablo fucking Escobar. And you - what are you doing here?’” Javier closes his eyes as he remembers the details perfectly, “And you offered me the sweetest smile I’d ever seen. It was right at that moment that I knew I was in trouble.”

Javi leans back in the chair, your hand still entwined in his, “I knew I had to stay away from you - that I shouldn’t–” he wipes his other hand down his face with a sigh, “I couldn’t risk spending time with you or getting to know you because I knew - I knew I could fall in love with someone like you,” he’s quiet for a minute as he watches you sleep, seemingly lost in his own thoughts when he murmurs, “Guess I never stood a chance, huh?” 

He throws his head back against the chair with a sigh, feeling the weight of the past few days finally taking its toll on him. It’s only a matter of seconds before he falls into a restless sleep.

“Fuck this,” Javi curses as he shoves his door open and jumps out, barely noticing the DEA vehicles driving toward him. 

“Peña, what the fuck are you doing?!” a fellow DEA agent shouts from one of the approaching vehicles, but Javier doesn’t even acknowledge him as he sprints across the dirt road as quick as he can with the heavy weight of weapons and ammunition lining his bulletproof vest.

He barely stops to think as he approaches the front door of the cabin, taking the few stairs two at a time until he reaches the porch. With his back up against the wall, opposite the hinges of the front door, Javier takes a deep breath and closes his eyes for a moment to collect his thoughts. Please, God - whoever’s listening - please let her be alive. Please don’t take her from me. 

Javier opens his eyes to find his partner approaching with a handful of agents following, all with their guns drawn and ready to take down anyone that walks out the front door unannounced. Steve looks his way with a nod - I’ve got your back, brother, he seems to be telling him when he and the group of agents come to a stop on the other side of the door.

Javi nods back and puts his hand on the door knob slowly turning it and, to his surprise, finds it unlocked. Those smug fuckers didn’t even bother locking the door, Javi thinks as he reaches into his vest for the smoke bomb he pocketed there earlier. Pulling the pin out with his teeth at the same time he opens the door, Javier tosses the bomb inside and waits one second, two seconds, then BANG, the bomb goes off just as it’s intended to and Javi swings the door open with his gun drawn.

He hears the voices of two men cursing, no doubt because of the flash of light that went off just before the smoke erupted from the bomb. He scans the open area quickly, looking for the sources of the voices, when suddenly he’s getting tackled from the left side. He hits the ground with an oof! but quickly throws an elbow into the face of his attacker. The smoke clears as the two men get to their feet. Javier faces Serpiente, who now has blood leaking from his nose thanks to Javi’s elbow. 

"¿Viniste a rescatar a tu novia preciosa?” Serpiente mocks, “¡Adelante! Yo ya la probé y - bueno - ella sí es un polvo MUY deliciosa,” he smiles darkly, baring his blood-coated teeth, and Javi reacts instantly, lunging at the other man with vengeful purpose. Serpiente knows it coming and goes to dodge, landing a punch to Javi’s jaw - but Javi recoils quickly, the assault only stoking the flames of his fiery rage. He shoves his foot downward onto Serpiente’s kneecap, sending him crumpling to the ground in pain. Then Javier really lets him have it. 

Grabbing the man by the collar of his shirt, he roughly lifts him to his feet only to pound his fist into the fucker’s face, sending him back to the floor. He continues to pummel Serpiente’s face with his fist, all the while shouting obscenities in two different languages, “MOTHER-” a vicious strike, “-FUCKER,“ another merciless blow, “HIJO DE,” punch to the gut, “PUTA,” Javier slams his fist into the man’s face with a crack. Whether the crack is from Javier’s own hand or the other man’s mangled face, he doesn’t know - and I don’t give a fuck either, he thinks. 

Javier leans into the man’s face, so close their noses bump. "Te voy a matar, cabrón,” he seethes as he clasps his hands around Serpiente’s throat with an iron grip. He’s so blinded by an all-consuming rage that he doesn’t notice Serpiente reach for the blade in his pocket until it’s raised above his head, ready to plunge into Javier’s heart. 

But he doesn’t get the chance to bring the knife down on Javier before a bullet is put between Serpiente’s eyes. Javier snaps his head up and turns around to see Steve, his now-smoking gun aimed at Javier - no, aimed at Serpiente, whose body hits the ground with a dull thud.

Breathing hard from the exertion of the brawl, he struggles to find his bearings until Steve offers him a hand, pulling him upward. “Thanks,” Javier tells his partner, referring to more than just Steve helping him to his feet. Steve nods and tilts his head toward the center of the room. Javier looks around the room and sees another, more hefty-looking, man bleeding from his stomach on the floor across the way, but he couldn’t give two shits about ese cabrón. 

Then he sees you, seated in - no, tied to - a chair in the middle of the space. Javier shoulders passed Steve and doesn’t stop until he’s standing toe-to-toe with you. ¿Dios mio - qué te hicieron? He thinks as he stumbles to his knees in front of you.

Your chest and arms are covered with various cuts and bruises - your shirt having been ripped open, leaving your chest exposed. Your bottom lip is split open and one of your eyes is bruised black. There’s a long gash on the side of your forehead that goes down to your temple and your cheeks are bruised various shades of purple and blue. Javier rests a shaky hand on your knee, “(y/n)? Hey, wake up! C’mon, hermosa, look at me,” he begs, his voice cracking.

When you don’t respond he places his hand on your cheek, careful not to touch the cuts on your face. His heart nearly flies out of his chest when you begin to stir - and even smile. “Please - please open your eyes,” he says your name in a voice that sounds as desperate as he feels.

“Ja-vi,” you croak out when you open your eyes, and he swears he’s never heard a more beautiful sound in his life. Sí, mi amor, soy yo - aquí estoy contigo y nunca te voy a dejar, he thinks, unable to speak because of the emotions overwhelming his senses and gripping his heart like a vice. You’re alive, you’re alive, his brain repeats like a mantra as he stares into your eyes for the first time in what feels like years. 

And when you smile - God, he’s missed that smile - sunbeams burst through his chest. But then the pain-filled expression on your face brings him back to reality and he quickly goes to work untying you from the chair. 

He notices the puddle of blood before he sees the stab wound in your side. The joy and relief he was feeling just moments ago is quickly snuffed out when he looks back to your face and notices for the first time how pale your skin looks compared to the last time he saw you. 

“Javi I–” you start but it quickly turns into a wince of pain, making Javier’s stomach drop. 

“Don’t speak. Save your energy. We’re gonna get you to the hospital,” Javi rushes the words out to prevent you from trying to speak again. It feels as if time is slowing down as he watches your eyelids start to close again. “Tell that ambulance to hurry the fuck up!” Javi shouts to the other agents in the room, his desperate tone instantly putting everyone on edge. No, God, please, he thinks as he cradles your face and looks into your eyes, “Hey, stay awake. You’re gonna be OK, mi amor, I promise,” his eyes frantically search yours for any indication that you’re hearing him. C'mon, hermosa, please - stay with me, but even his thoughts are laced with despair.

Then in a strained voice, “‘Mi - amor’?” you whisper and he nods his head, feeling a small ounce of relief that you’re still responsive. That’s right, mi amor - stay awake, let me see those beautiful eyes, he smiles softly and brushes his thumb over your cheekbone with just a feather of a touch. But his face instantly falls when your eyes close again, mumbling, “m-m - love.” 

“No, no, no. Please, hermosa!” he repeats your name over and over while shaking your shoulders with desperation, but you never open your eyes again. 

Javier wakes with a start, nearly falling out of the chair. His breathing is unsteady and he thinks he’s about to pass out again when suddenly he remembers where he is. He looks up and sees you lying in the hospital bed in the same position as when he first drifted off.

Breathing deeply, he leans his head back against the cushion of the chair and closes his eyes, but he quickly re-opens them because all he sees is your body sagging in that chair, completely lifeless. Fucking dream, he curses to himself as he finds your hand to take in his again. He leans forward and presses a soft kiss to your pale knuckles, which have gone cold again while he was sleeping. 

How long was I out? He looks at the clock mounted on the wall and his eyes nearly bug out of his head, “Six hours?!” It felt like he was out for ten minutes, not six hours. Fuck - I don’t even feel rested after that fucking nightmare.

“Oh, you’re awake,” a quiet voice comes from behind him. A small, older woman with shoulder-length brown hair walks into the room carrying a tray with what looks like a medicine vial and a long needle. If she wasn’t wearing nurse’s scrubs, Javier would’ve grabbed his gun from his holster - the gun he had to give to Steve to take home because they didn’t allow firearms in the hospital rooms. Oh, right, Javier runs a hand down his face, willing himself to wake the fuck up.

“Sorry,” he mutters, not entirely sure why he says it but feeling the need to anyway. “No se preocupe. You must’ve been in a deep sleep. You didn’t even notice when I came in to check her vitals - twice,” the woman explains with a chuckle. He’s surprised she knows english so well, though the nurse has a bit of an accent, but he’s too tired to question any further. She practically skips to the opposite side of the bed and sets down the tray she’s carrying on the bedside table. 

She turns to face Javi suddenly, saying, “You are Javi, right?” He nods his head, assuming Connie must have told the nurses who he was - he wonders if she also told them he was your “fiancè”. The nurse’s face glows with delight at his answer as she goes to work giving you medication. When she’s done, she looks up at Javi again and says, “I think she’s been dreaming about you,” she offers a sweet smile.

Javi furrows his brow in confusion and responds, “What makes you say that?” He sits up, suddenly very interested in what the woman has to say.

She brings her voice down to a whisper and leans forward like she’s sharing the hottest gossip in town, “Well, I was already in the room when they brought her in here and I heard her say - very clearly - ‘My Javi’ just before they put her to sleep,” the woman ends with a smile so wide, even Javier’s cheeks begin to hurt.

My Javi - he looks down at the very woman they’re talking about like he’s just seeing you for the first time. Your breathing is even, heart rate steady, and he swears there’s a bit more color in your cheeks than there was six hours ago.  

My Javi - your hand is warmer now, so much so that you’re the one providing him warmth. He turns your hand over and kisses your palm, then places it against his cheek as he continues to gaze at you with adoration and awe and love.

My Javi - he closes his eyes and imagines you saying those words, the light bouncing perfectly off your skin and the way your eyes smile at him. He could fall asleep just like this and hope to never wake up if it meant being this close to you.

Javier is so lost in thoughts of you, he doesn’t notice the loud beeps of one of the machines until it turns into a low, consistent tone like a - flat line.

His eyes shoot open just in time to see the nurse smash a button on the wall as she shouts, “CODE BLUE! AYUDA!”

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Translations:

Viniste a rescatar a tu novia preciosa? - Did you come to rescue your precious girlfriend?

¡Adelante! Yo ya la probé y, bueno, ella sí es un polvo MUY deliciosa - Go ahead! I’ve already tried/tasted her and, well, she is a VERY delicious fuck.

Hijo de puta - son of a bitch

Te voy a matar, cabrón - I’m going to kill you, motherfucker (loose translation on the last word lol)

Dios mio - qué te hicieron?  - My God, what did they do to you? 

Sí, mi amor, soy yo - Yes, my love, it’s me

Aquí estoy contigo y nunca te voy a dejar - I’m right here with you and I’m never going to leave you

No se preocupe - Don’t worry about it/No worries

Ayuda - Help

****I was going to make the whole exchange between Javier and the nurse be in Spanish, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how “Code Blue” would translate in a Columbian hospital lol so I decided to just leave it in mostly English

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What’d you guys think?? This chapter is probably the one with the most angst throughout, so we’re only going up from here lol i hope you guys enjoyed it, and thank you all SO MUCH for sticking with the series. it means a lot to me 😚💕

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