#cauterize those wounds
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mari-0w0 · 10 months ago
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Me: "I can fix him! I swear, I can fix him!"
The him in question:
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andromeda3116 · 2 years ago
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listen. listen.
head like a hole is absolutely sexier than closer. don't get me wrong, trent reznor whisper-singing i wanna fuck you like an animal is hot and it definitely does have a sexy beat until it goes on for a full minute and a half too long but the barely-restrained fury of no you can't take that away from me followed by the passionate scream of i'd rather die than give you control followed by the disdainful power of bow down before the one you serve is just. it's sexier! it's just sexier! it just is!
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headstrongblake · 1 year ago
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i’ve never done it, and i’m not entirely sure that i would because that’d be a lot of different wounds to try to account for in more modern settings. HOWEVER, i sit here and scroll through the different dynamics octavia has developed over the years of writing her and i think ; my goodness, what would ya’ll do if i was cruel to octavia & actually kept all the scars that she should have had if the 100 cared about the wounds they gave their characters from the different traumas
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3amfanfiction · 22 days ago
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And We Go again
Simon broke your heart when he left. Is he surprised that you moved on? Why is he showing back up? cw: none, 4k
[Thinking about a Simon Riley who breaks your heart. You’d been together for years when it became too much for him. The constant worry for your safety, the fear that someone would track you through him, it twisted his mind and the only way forward in his thoughts was to cut ties. Cauterize the wounds so the nerves were deadened, no chance of someone finding a sensitive spot.]
He cut ties completely, right from the beginning. No phone calls, no text messages, no contact. He turned into his call sign and was a ghost. Nothing physical remained, only the memories in your mind.
He had the decency to tell you in person. If nothing else he wasn't a coward who hid behind text messages. The argument lasted all night—you trying to convince him you were fine, that nothing was going to happen and him being adamant that his presence was putting you in danger.
He wouldn't listen.
Every point you made had a rebuttal, he had clearly come prepared. But you couldn't help the attempt. Showing your soft underbelly as he cracked you open while extracting himself from your lives. Leaving fissures in your panoply as you tried again and again and please listen to me.
"We were supposed to be forever," your voice broke halfway through, choked by emotion. Sitting in the kitchen, you watched Simon where he stood against the counter, even now trying to put space between the two of you.
"Sometimes—" he swallowed, gaze steady and far too emotionless for someone causing such harm, "sometimes things don't work out like we've planned and we have to adapt and re-strategize. This is one of those times."
"Adapt and re—? I don't want to adapt and re-strategize, Simon!" You turned pleading eyes on him, fighting your tears with a herculean effort, "I want you here with me." You slammed a finger down on the table in emphasis.
Your chest ached. Your heart felt like it was slowly being eaten away with every word from his mouth. Corrosive acid flowing through the veins and corroding the tissue. Slowly eating away until there was nothing left.
"I'm sorry."
he'ssorryhe'ssorryhe'ssorry.
"If you were sorry, you wouldn't be leaving." You could feel yourself losing the fight, against the tears and the breakup both. It wasn't fair. Why did he get to come in and decide you're better off apart? Didn't you get a say?
Not fair not fair not fair. You two had made plans together. You were going to buy a house, maybe get a dog years down the road. None of that was going to happen if he left.
And if he wasn't here anymore, if you didn't have him to lean on, what was going to happen to you?
"I don't know what I'm supposed to do by myself," you broke into a sob, no longer able to hold back. Thick tears ran down your face, "I don't know what to do, I need you, Simon."
Simon walked over and pulled you up out of your seat and into a hug, holding tightly, pressing your face into his chest. You fought it at first before crumpling into him, letting him be strong for the both of you.
One last time.
"You'll be all right. You're tough, you're going to get through this."
It almost made it hurt worse that he was still comforting you, even as he was ripping your heart out. If he was an asshole then at least you would've been able to hate him.
You felt the fabric under your face become sodden with tears as you struggled to bring yourself back under control. It was the work of minutes before you're able to look up at him again, eyes red and swollen but tearless once again.
Seeing his apologetic face above you filled you with annoyance which turned to anger the longer you looked at him.
[At first you were so angry at him. Why? Why did he do this? You were both fine, nothing had happened and nothing was going to, he was just being dramatic. He was hurting the both of you for no reason.]
"No! This is stupid!" you shouted, losing your temper with a frown and a shove, separating yourself from his embrace, ignoring his reaching hands as you take a step back. "You're running because you're scared. The big bad Ghost is scared of something that might happen."
"Sweetheart," he tried, palms faced upward, reaching, tone calm in an attempt at appeasement.
"Don't touch me!" you cried, cutting him off, slapping his hands to the side, "You don't get to act all high and mighty. You're choosing this. You're still stuck in the past, thinking that what happened to your family is going to happen again and it's not!" your voice cracked on the last word, doing nothing but angering you further. You grit your teeth and stuck your chin out, looking to cause hurt equal to what you were feeling, willing to try anything to ease the agony, "You're choosing to end what we have, forever, because you're being a baby. When this whole thing is because you're a little kid who's afraid of the dark, afraid of the past."
"And what if I am?" He finally broke, voice raising to match yours, "I'm allowed to be scared sometimes too! Do you know what it would do to me if you died? If you died because of me?" his face curled into a look of pain so deep it came across as disgust. Needing nothing but the echoes of you being hurt to cause shock waves of agony to ripple across his soul.
"You're not listening to me Simon, I'm not going to die," you tried again, frustrated, knowing it was a futile effort but unable to stop reaching for him, hoping that this time he would reach back.
"Everything around me dies!" he thundered before pulling himself back together, taking a breath to recenter himself. "Everything and everyone. I've watched it in real time, I won't do it again with you." He took a moment to breathe, face evening out, "We're over."
[But he wouldn’t listen, convinced that he had the right of things. He packed up his things and left--leaving you crying at the kitchen table, not looking back.]
He left you in the kitchen, heading towards the back of the house only to quickly return, bags clutched in his hands.
He planned this. He must have if he was already packed and ready to walk out the door. You never had a chance of changing his mind.
"I'm rotten, through and through," he hesitated by the door still looking at you, not wavering for a moment, even when it was painful, "and I'm doing what's best for you. You don't see it right now but you will one day." Looking at you one last time as if to memorialize you in his mind, he turned and walked out the door.
"You're a coward, Simon Riley!" You shouted, waiting until the door was shut before breaking down into gut wrenching sobs, crumpling forward to bury your face in your arms and wail.
[You move on. If he thinks you’re going to pine for him forever he’s mistaken. The best thing you can do for yourself is to try and be happy. Whatever that looks like.]
You made it to the grocery store and the corner bookstore this week. You were angry at the fact that being able to go two places was a milestone. You expected to lose a lot of things when a relationship ended but this was a bitter truth.
Everything reminded you of him and what you'd lost at first. The street corner where he snuck a kiss, the grocery aisle where you squeezed his ass and made him jump three feet in the air, the park that had the pop-up hot chocolate stand you stopped at the day you were caught in the snow.
You hated it.
If it would have been reasonable, you'd have moved. Packed up what you wanted and left the rest. But moving took money and you were down to one income now. You would be staying right where you were and would work through your triggers as they came.
And they weren't shy about making their presence known. You had broken down more times than you cared to count over the weeks since he left, some days not even able to leave the bed. It was horrid and felt like you were trapped in a nightmare.
It wasn't sustainable. You couldn't live the rest of your life having a break down every time you thought you saw Simon in a crowd, every time you caught a whiff of his scent, every time you thought you heard him saying your name. You were miserable and you didn't want to be.
So you set about to change it in any way you could.
[You put in the work. You find out who you are single, who you are when you don’t have Simon’s shadow standing behind you, and what brings a smile to your face.]
You knew what you were working towards, you just didn't know how to get there. How do you heal from a wound that ripped you in two? Your anchor, your person, was gone and you needed to be okay standing, however unsteadily, on your own feet.
It seemed easiest to start with the small things.
You signed up for a painting class. Once a month you sat in a room with a handful of other people and you all painted the same picture. Some months turned out better than others but it did what it needed to, it got you out of the house.
You even made new friends which you weren't expecting.
They encouraged you to continue branching out. Figure out what made you happy. You liked the painting classes, although you're unsure if it's the painting or the people who made it enjoyable.
You tried a book club and a needle-point class but neither were quite what you wanted so you kept searching. Indoor rock climbing, weekend dog walking, ceramics, working on a theater backdrop for the local school—if it was something you could jump into, you tried it. Each class was a page in your book, perhaps not a lot by itself but it slowly told the story of who you were.
It took a while but you started to figure out who you were, the things you enjoyed, what made life a little more.
[You weren’t expecting to fall in love again. She’s wonderful, so it happens quickly.]
You made a friend at the painting classes you still went to, every other week now. She was one of the instructors and you saw her every class.
It was surprising how easily she made you smile.
It didn't take long before she was sitting you up front, closest to her when setting up for the evenings. You began to have inside jokes, knew each others preferences, good-naturedly teased one another.
It frightened you when you realized what this feeling growing inside of you was. You were trying to get over heartbreak, not set yourself up for another round of hurt.
You tried to pull away, telling yourself it was for your own good, it was for protection. But she wouldn't let you. She reached out when you went silent, asked after you if you skipped a painting class. She made sure you knew you were wanted and that your presence was never a burden.
That you were never a burden.
When she asked you out there was only one answer.
[Sweet and kind, she has a steady head on her shoulders and she loves to make you smile. She’ll pepper kisses across your nose and cheeks, tuck her hand into your back pocket to squeeze your butt when you least expect it, and always has your favorite drink at her house.]
You took it slow, which was a struggle with how easy everything was.
Lunches turned to date nights turned to day trips turned to sleepovers.
Things weren’t perfect but they were good.
If you disagreed, you discussed it. No arguments, no hurt feelings, just conversations. And she was so demonstratively affectionate you never had to wonder about her feelings. She showed them in innumerable kisses dusting your face and any skin she could get a hold of. If you were walking she had your fingers threaded together, occasionally bringing your hands up to her mouth for a kiss or a tiny nibble.
You were standing in line at the grocery and she came up behind you, wrapping her arms around your waist and placing her chin on your shoulder to wait, whispering in your ear about these shorts make your ass look perfect, baby before giving it a squeeze. Laughing at your resultant yip and looking innocent when the cashier turned to look at you, as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
[How could you not fall in love with her? When you think the word home her face is what pops into mind. Her laugh is what you hear when you get caught out in the rain, soaked and irritable-it always calms you down, her smell when the annoyances of the day gets to be too great.]
It didn’t surprise you this time when you realized your feelings. It had been a long time coming, slowly growing with each kind word and cheerful moment shared. Now that you could see it was there, you were surprised you hadn’t recognized this wellspring of love before.
Because you did. You loved her. And you weren’t scared of it. It was hard to be scared when you knew she was right there with you.
You realized it after an exhausting day at work. Everything that could go wrong, did. You were short staffed and a delivery which was supposed to be there the night before never showed up so you had to handle it.
It was exhausting and you were tired and wanted to cry.
Your phone lit up with ‘Babe’ on your way home. It was her warm, hi baby, that had your shoulders lowering from your ears. She kept you company the whole way, listening to you about your day and the mishaps you’d had to deal with.
By the time you walked through the door she was putting the finishing touches on one of your favorite comfort meals, the couch was set up with everything you could need and the TV was queued. When she smiled at you, you really did break down with a sob, too overwhelmed at the gesture to hold back.
She let you cry on her shoulder while she rubbed your back.
[So you twine together, tighter and tighter as the months go on, milestones and anniversaries coming and going. Until one day you hear a knock on the door.]
How long had you been together? It felt like forever and not at the same time. You knew it has been long enough that you’d started setting money aside each month. Something that would go towards a ring in the future.
You were cleaning the kitchen while Babe was in the back, having given your pup Cooper a bath and now trying to get him semi-dry before he hopped up on the bed or couch.
You could hear her singing to him as she dried him, a little ditty she made up just for him—Cooper, Cooper, you’re such a trooper, look at that handsome smile, look at that shiny coat, you’ve got so much style, please sir can I get a quote?
Cooper knew his cue and gave the tiniest little boof at the end. You smiled as you pictured the scene, knowing she had given him a kiss between the ears at his participation.
You’d finished wiping the counters when you heard the knock.
[It’s a booming knock, one you haven’t heard for quite a time. You know who it’s going to be before you ever get to the door, your partner returning from the back of the house, making her way towards you.]
It was a knock from fists too large to rap gently and too used to battering down doors, besides. It had been years since you heard that sound and your breath started to pick up as your feet automatically took you to the door, helpless to stop the catastrophe before it began.
You had been doing good! Things were better now than they had been for a long time, why was he showing up at your doorstep? You didn't want him here!
It was like a Pavlovian response. The last time you saw him you had experienced pain your mind shied away from even now. You can’t help but to feel his return was going to bring that pain back too.
You reached the door and pulled it open after only allowing yourself a steadying breath, looking up, up, up at him.
Simon.
[He hadn’t changed much in the time he’d been gone. Although it’s hard to see any new scars when he was covered up like that.]
You had forgotten how big he was. How if you only looked at his mass instead of his eyes it was easy to be intimidated by his size.
But you knew this man. You had seen him cry when his nightmares became too vivid, had rubbed his back as he vomited into the toilet, listened to the most heinous cough first thing in the morning when he was trying to clear his throat. He was undoubtedly just a man, no matter how forbidding.
He looked good at least. He had a healthy weight on him and you couldn’t see any wounds. New scars were still to be determined though.
You wondered if you were allowed to see under his mask any more.
[“Simon,” a sigh, already tired knowing him showing up on your doorstep could be nothing but trouble.]
“It’s been a while,” you said, forcibly calm, staying in the doorway, keeping him outside. You couldn't be hurt if he stayed outside, right?
You wondered what brought him here, now, after all this time. You didn’t separate on good terms—he made sure of that. You weren’t the type of exes to drop by each other’s house or send Christmas cards. Hell, you didn’t even bump into each other in the store.
“I hope I’m not interrupting,” he rumbled
You wondered what he would do if you said, yes, you are interrupting, you’re no longer wanted here. Would he argue? Or would he turn around and leave?
Which did you want?
“What do you need?” you asked instead, avoiding his statement.
[Arms wrap around your waist before he can respond, who's this? and you don't hesitate to share. You have no interest in keeping secrets.]
You startled when she touched you, too focused on Simon to recognize her footsteps coming up the hallway, headed your way. Cooper was probably shut into the bedroom so he wouldn’t dart out the door. As her chin tucked onto your shoulder, she asked, “Who’s this?”
How did you explain Simon? How did you tell the woman you hoped to one day marry about the man you had expected to marry? That guide wasn’t in the latest how-to quiz on the internet surprisingly.
Still, she made it simple for you. She was incredibly easy to talk to, both when you were learning who the other person was and over the course of your relationship. You had had these conversations with her before. On nights when you had woken up crying or weekends when the drinks flowed freely. You had talked about who Simon was to you, what your relationship with him was like, the expectations, and then the eventual end.
So really, all you had to do was introduce them.
“Babe, this is Simon.”
[She offers him a warm cuppa because that's the kind of person she is. You'd like nothing more than to close the door in his face, uninterested in opening yourself back up to the hurt. Your tether to him was a scarred over nub, nothing there to support leftover feelings. He made sure of that.]
You weren’t sure how you all got to the kitchen. It was as if it was instantaneous between one blink and the next. It was utterly your partners doing, though, of that you were positive. And as you cradled the steaming cup of tea in your hands you realized again how thankful you were for her.
But you still didn’t want Simon here. In this sanctuary you’d made, free of his influence. He hadn’t pulled any punches when he ended things and you found yourself unwilling to be back in a situation where he could hurt you again.
You didn’t know what to say to him, how to start a conversation anymore. You used to be able to ask him anything, now you couldn’t even ask if everything was okay.
Seeing him sitting across from you at the table was surreal. You had come to terms with never seeing this again so it was shocking. You felt like you were concussed, your thoughts jumped from one topic to another, never staying on one thought all the way through. You didn’t know how you were going to handle tonight.
Babe must have taken pity on you because she stepped in and took up the conversation, starting with introducing herself. It let you zone out. You were aware of the cadence of tone between the two of them but the individual words felt muffled as though spoken through a thick door.
What was he doing here. You didn’t want to see him.
You didn’t.
Right?
Obviously you were happy he appeared unhurt. Even right after the breakup you hadn’t wished him ill. Did that mean you still cared for him in some capacity? You thought that it might.
You tuned back in as chairs scraped across the floor, the other occupants both standing before heading to the living room, Babe making a detour to grab bedding from the hallway closet before meeting Simon by the couch.
[Why is she offering to let him spend the night? Babe you don't need to do that . . . babe?]
What did you miss? You weren’t paying attention but surely you would’ve heard her offering him a place to stay for the night. She knows she doesn’t have to do this right?
You kept quiet while she made up the couch, still not ready to have a real conversation with Simon and it seemed he felt the same way with how he made sure to keep your partner between the two of you as often as possible.
You decided you didn’t want to be here anymore. You’d reached the end of your rope, unable to play at indifferent any longer. Spinning on a heel you strode for the bedroom, anything to put distance between you and the feelings you felt bubbling up like acid, corroding your throat and causing your nose and eyes to burn. Just like when he left. You knew him showing up was going to cause you pain.
It was eons before she made her way back to the bedroom with you. Watching as she crawled under the covers you asked, “Why is he here? Why did you let him stay?”
“Because he needed it.”
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morning-star-joy · 1 year ago
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bloodshed, crimson clover
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Pairing: Joel x Doctor F!Reader
Summary: You run a small practice in the Boston QZ, willing to treat anybody who needs it. After an encounter where you save the life of Joel Miller, you form an unlikely friendship with one of the most notorious, feared men in the QZ, a reputation you didn't realize existed until you come face to face with it yourself.
Warnings: Angst. Slow build. Mutual pining & tension (unresolved). Ambiguous ending. Game!Joel. Canon-typical violence. Reader captured with mentioned physical harm, Feral Joel with descriptions of torture/murder. Vague descriptions of injury treatments (bullet wound with cauterization, cleaning glass/debris from cuts, burn wound). Reader from California & Joel calls her Cali, Reader calls Joel Texas.
Wordcount: 12.1k
A/N: I've had this idea for a while, started it and it sat in drafts, and suddenly I was hit with inspiration again this past week. Also ty @cupofjoel for letting me scream about them to you and all your support, ily!!
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In his own ways, Joel Miller was a complete gentleman.
A distinctly Southern one, with a show of selective manners from his upbringing before the world went to hell, paired with a charming ruggedness that pulled your attention to him from the very first time he stumbled through your little clinic’s doors.
You were one of the few legitimately licensed Pre-Outbreak medical professionals left in the QZ, and accepted each and every sick and injured person into your tiny practice. It took a long time and care to get a place out of the view of FEDRA’s ever-looming gaze, but even then you risked the possibility of having a target painted on your back if you treated the “wrong” person.
Somebody always owed somebody else within those tall steel walls surrounding the poor semblances of a society that, in your opinion, should have been left in the dust with the rest of the world. In not discerning who you patched up, you put yourself in danger of getting on the wrong side of someone distinctly more powerful, more violent than you.
But through your diligent work over the years, you’d gained enough of a clientele for your hidden practice to remain largely untouched. There were a few instances with graffiti, but even that wasn’t too terrible—immature Fireflies pissed off that you hadn’t accepted their offer to join them, most likely new recruits trying to earn their place in the rebel ranks.
So when the rickety old doors banged open hard enough to nearly tear them off the top hinge one night, you were up on your feet and running to assist the large body that almost fell to the floor with the momentum of how they had burst in.
There was not an ounce of anxiety in your body other than the familiar adrenaline of assess the damage, stop the bleeding, prevent infection and keep them alive as you wrapped your arms around their waist, using all your strength to pull them up and direct them to one of the two old clinic beds in the dingy old room that you sanitized as best you could between patients.
That was the first thing you noticed about Joel Miller, even though you didn’t know him by name or even face yet—he was heavy. Solid muscle underneath blood-stained fabric that you began to pull away from his torso, hardly paying attention to the low timbre of his pained grunts when the cloth stuck gruesomely to the gunshot wound you finally saw once you got the shirt off.
There were no questions in your mind other than how deep was it, was there an exit wound, did it hit anything vital, not caring how he had gotten it, who had given it to him, or why they had as you paced to your instruments, only taking a moment to make sure they were clean before pulling on a pair of gloves you were running dangerously low on, hoping that they wouldn’t get too blood-soaked in the process of keeping this man alive.
Yes, you would do all you could to save him—but you still knew in the back of your mind that two pairs of gloves spent on him would risk no gloves and losing somebody else further down the line.
It wasn’t a thought you wasted the time to entertain now as you quickly got to work. There was nothing to numb the pain of the man who laid back on the clinic bed, teeth gritted and half-delirious from blood loss, not even bothering to try and say anything to you while you saved his life.
You weren’t offended. In some odd way, it was a breath of fresh air.
Most, if not all patients you treated with this kind of wound, were usually tripping over fast anxiety-fueled words trying to explain to you how they had gotten into this situation. You supposed they were hoping you wouldn’t turn them in for whatever they most likely weren’t supposed to be doing, not knowing that the only thing you truly cared about anymore was keeping as many people as you could alive in this godforsaken dystopia.
This man though, he stayed silent. Not trying to assure you of his goodwill, whether he truly had any or not. He only stared up at the dilapidated ceiling, jaw practically wired shut, maybe to keep in the low grunts and groans that rumbled from his chest, exposed from where you had to remove his denim shirt to treat the wound on his torso.
Unfortunately, you did end up having to switch to a new pair of gloves, the bleeding slowing but stubbornly refusing to stop completely. You were reaching for more of your quickly dwindling supply of gauze to keep pressing against the wound when you heard his voice clearly for the first time.
“Cauterize it.”
You looked back at him with your hand outstretched halfway to the gauze, eyes widening at the simple command that fell from the man’s chapped lips in a low drawl that rasped with pain and dehydration.
Blinking, you looked from his face that was still directed towards the ceiling down towards the wound, a frown pulling onto your lips as you glanced back towards him and began to protest, “I don’t—”
“Cauterize. It.” He repeated firmly, jaw still clenched with the words hissed out through gritted teeth.
You stiffened, not particularly enjoying being ordered to make a medical choice in your own clinic, but then his eyes met yours, filled with an intense determination that had your hand pulling back slightly from its path towards a longer process that would've hopefully let the wound heal naturally.
Then there was a slight shift in the unfathomable depth of that gaze, a fracture in walls even more impenetrable than the ones that had surrounded you for almost half a decade, and his cracked lips parted, tongue darting out to wet them in a desperate attempt for hydration before he gave a quiet murmur of, “Please.”
There was the first hint of those selective manners, emphasized with an underlying sense of unspeakable eagerness, and your face set into your own determination, nodding as you set about preparing for a practice that wasn’t your favorite, but was sometimes necessary.
Maybe this man couldn’t afford the time it would take to stop the bleeding completely, sew it up and let the wound heal on its own. Maybe there was something out there, somebody out to get him.
Or somebody he had to protect, to get home to.
That last thought is what urged you not stop even when the man grabbed the edge of the bed in a large hand, fingers curling so tight around it that you marveled if the rickety old metal would actually break under the strength of that grip. It's what spurred you to keep going even through the sharp shouts of pain muffled around the clean, rolled up washcloth you had gotten him to bite down on through the procedure.
Once the wound was forcibly closed by the red-hot metal of your sterile knife the best you could manage, you found your eyes drawn back to the man’s face, tracing the strength of his features as they relaxed a fraction from relief once the onslaught of pain from the procedure finished.
When you began the process of disinfecting the closed wound, his face had grown so blank that you worried he was on the verge of passing out, but he surprised you by placing his palms flat against the bed, pushing himself up with a loud grunt the moment you were done treating him.
“Sir—”
Any protests towards his movements you were about to make were cut short as he swung his feet over the side of the bed, placing his boots on the ground, heavy-footed and nearly collapsing when he pushed himself up and strode forward anyway, powering through the weakness you would much prefer he would sit in before trying to leave.
“Sir, I really don’t think—”
But he was shaking his head towards your attempts to get him to rest, fingers fumbling with the buttons of where blood was beginning to dry on the faded denim of his shirt, managing to get it most the way fastened back up as he took increasingly more steady steps towards the door.
What flabbergasted you the most, though, was the way he turned his head back towards you, gaze meeting yours for the second time as he muttered a gruff, “Thank you.”
The second show of those bizarre Southern gentlemanly manners, and you still didn’t have a name for him yet.
And then he was gone.
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Time passed, and you allowed the mysterious man with the dark gaze and deep drawl to fade into a memory.
Like with all your patients, you spared just enough thought in the days following his treatment to hope he was alive, even though you knew that any hope to ever get confirmation of survival was fruitless. There was no way to know how much longer somebody survived if you managed to save them.
Other than making that wish of wellbeing for yet another soul, you moved on with your life.
So when the door opened one afternoon weeks later, in much worse wear now than it ever had been from the time that patient had charged through it, you were surprised to see the very same man who was the cause of it standing in your doorway when you looked up.
When you saw him, you paused halfway in rising from your squeaky old rolling stool, remembering his face even from the way his head was turned to the side, observing how the top of the door was nearly coming off its rusty hinges before turning to find you.
With a nod, he stepped further into the room, surprising you with how carefully he shut the door behind him, a direct juxtaposition to his whirlwind entrance and exit when you had treated his gunshot wound.
“Doctor,” he greeted in that same low drawl—Southern, maybe Texas, you thought somewhere in the back of your mind—as you finally rose fully from your seat, returning his nod and automatically moving towards your sparse supplies.
“Take a seat,” you said more kindly than firmly over your shoulder, not in a haste to stop him from bleeding out on your floors this time as he seemed to be relatively fine.
“Sorry?”
You paused, glancing from one of the few pairs of gloves that remained back over your shoulder to see the man staring at you with a slight furrow in his brow, a pinch of confusion on an already severe face that pronounced deep lines of age.
He didn’t seem that old—in fact, you guessed he was perhaps around your age. But then, you supposed you were both old considering the world you had survived in, and even so, there was a haunted look to the man’s intensity that spoke of his longer years, one you weren’t even sure he knew that he exuded as his presence seemed to take up the entire room and all your attention.
“Your wound,” you answered simply, gesturing towards where you remembered the gunshot you had treated to be on his torso, and he followed your gaze to look down at himself, the deep lines on his forehead relaxing a bit when you clarified, “You’re here to have it checked on, no?”
“Uh—no,” he replied, giving a slight shake of his head, his head lifting so his eyes could meet yours again. “‘M healing just fine, ma’am.”
There were the manners you had recognized the first time, more distinct this time, and they drew you a step closer towards the man, your body turning away from your small tray of supplies to face him fully for the first time.
“Oh,” you said softly, head tilting as your own brows furrowed, confused as to what had brought him back to your clinic when he had seemed so desperate to get in, get treated as quickly as possible, and get out the last time. “What brings you back, then?”
There was another flicker of something across his face, some emotion you couldn’t name before he shifted the backpack you just now realized he was wearing off of one shoulder. It slipped to his side, where he balanced it on his hip, drawing your attention to how his broad chest and large arms narrowed down to his waist as he began to rifle through it, the quick flare of some feeling in your stomach shifting to trepidation at his actions.
Oddly enough, you didn’t get blaring warning signals of danger from this man. And besides, if he was trying to rob or kill you, he was going about it in a very odd way.
“Here.” His voice was gruff as he pulled something out of his pack, and you blinked rapidly, eyes widening at the same moment your jaw dropped at the sight of what he was holding out to you.
Supplies.
Medical supplies.
Gloves and bandages and—
“Jesus Christ, is that a stethoscope?” you gasped out, reaching forward to take the items before you could stop yourself, too thrilled by the notion of getting your hands on a crucial medical tool that had eluded you for years.
“That it would be,” the man replied, but you weren’t looking at him anymore, instead unrolling the worn leather pouch to see that there was, indeed, a stethoscope inside—one that had seen better days but, oh, the ways you were going to be able to properly diagnose more patients now because of this was—
You finally paused, back stiffening as you looked back up at the stranger who had so easily handed something this precious to you, a sense of unease finally curling uncomfortably in your gut as you took a step back.
“What do you want?” you asked quietly, uncertain as to the terms of whatever arrangement was happening, even as you were now holding the items close to your chest after rolling the stethoscope back up. Unwilling to give them back, even as you were suddenly daunted by the prospect of what he might want in exchange.
He watched you shift, eyes dropping to where you were nearly hugging the supplies to yourself now, and for a moment you worried he was about to try and take them back before his lips parted and he surprised you yet again by mumbling, “To thank you.”
You blinked, taken aback by the shockingly simple sentiment. The desire to repay kindness with more kindness, despite the kind of world you both lived in.
Despite the fact that just one glance at this man—with his hard muscles and intimidating presence, the grim set of his face and the way his muscles tensed not just with the anticipation of something going wrong at any moment, but almost an eagerness that it would happen, that there would be an outlet for that tension ready to snap—would give one the impression that there wasn’t an ounce of kindness in his body.
“That’s…it?” you ask slowly, still wary, hardly able to believe that there were no strings attached. You weren’t a pessimist, but being an optimist wasn’t exactly an option either, not anymore.
But he just nodded, shifting back on the balls of his feet, hands raising with palms turned out towards you, as if to show he had nothing to take, nothing else to give other than this.
“I repay my debts, ma’am,” he uttered with a deadly seriousness in that low drawl, and this time you definitely settled on Texas as being the origin of such a smooth accent.
“Oh,” you said softly, nodding at the explanation, because now this made more sense. Kindness was a rarity, nearly nonexistent, and it wasn’t what he was showing here.
All he wanted was to repay a debt, one that you weren’t even aware existed.
Though you certainly weren’t one to complain when this was the payment. 
Clutching the medical supplies tight to your chest, you reel at how saving this man from an untimely death may have just saved even more lives down the line.
You’re opening your mouth to thank him for his own thanks, but then he’s gone once again, leaving the same way he came in, with more tempered control and less chaotic storm than the first time.
You still don’t have a name.
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You settle on calling him Texas.
Not that you say it to his face, or that you even see his face.
More time passes now than those few weeks in between your first two meetings with the Southern stranger. One month goes by, then two, and you once again resign him to the confines of your memories, even though the image of him is much more adamant on breaking out since the second visit.
Second and last, you reminded yourself as you disposed of a used pair of gloves after seeing off a patient, seeing his face flash in your mind’s eye as the cause of why you were able to save this life. Why you could save yet another life after this.
And it wasn’t just the gloves, but everything he had given you. There was still quite a bit of the stash left, as you were used to knowing how to make supplies last for as long as possible, dividing them and deducing who needed what the most as you saw to patients throughout your days.
You were thankful for him. Even if this was his way of settling a debt, washing his hands of you and moving on with his life, you still felt immense gratitude. 
You also felt unbearable curiosity.
Every now and then, you found yourself wondering how he had gotten the supplies, and that much at that. Surely by no legal means, and none of your business at all, but you still couldn't help but wonder.
And so with the gunshot wound he had first stumbled into your life with, you tried to paint a picture of Texas in your head.
When your hands were idle, you created stories in your mind of the life he’d led that brought him from home—or where you imagined his home to be, if you were even remotely correct in dubbing him Texas—to here. 
It was an embarrassing pastime, really, and you had no business entertaining anything more than a passing thought of gratitude about him. But still, you imagined.
Sometimes that imagination was of an exciting life for him, one of travel to far places that you never got to go, pretending that this was a man who had lived through better times and had many tales to tell of them. Tales to tell you, if you were being particularly delusional.
Other times, you pictured him with a life much more humble. Born and raised in the Lone Star State, probably proud to be. A family man who yelled at football, loved barbeques and beers with buddies, working a simple 9-5 until the world went to shit.
You liked that imaginary version of him. You liked thinking that Texas wasn’t too different from you, just trying to get by in the old world and the new.
So used to him staying inside of your mind, you were surprised the next time you actually saw him again.
In hindsight, you supposed you shouldn’t have been. With the scars you had seen just on his torso when you were treating his gunshot wound, you doubted this man lived an easy life now, no matter what it had been before.
It was late, well into curfew hours, but your tiny apartment was just a few streets away from your humble clinic, and you knew the best methods to get back and forth without being seen. You liked to stay as late as you could most nights, just in case somebody needed tending to at the odd hours when nobody else would be able to help.
Your eyes were growing heavy, a few persistent yawns you failed to fight off your body’s way of letting you know you were definitely pushing it, but you held on for a little longer.
And you’d be forever grateful you did, when he was the one needing tending to that night.
The loud, metallic creak of those loose hinges pulled your attention up from where you were staring absentmindedly at your small desk, and you were jumping from your stool the moment you saw him.
There was no stumbling this time, but you saw the streaks of red well, cuts across his face and arms, worn flannel shredded around the skin embedded with glass that glinted in the low, fluorescent light of your lamp that lit up the confined quarters.
“Sit,” you were saying before anything else, and you swore you heard a quiet chuckle under a pained breath as Texas moved to sink down onto a clinic bed.
“Good evening to you too,” he mumbled, and you glanced up at the unexpected humor, unsure if it was for your expense or benefit.
Nevertheless, your eyes narrowed slightly, and his mouth snapped shut then. He settled back as you pulled your tray with you, a neat array of the dwindling supplies from what he had given you waiting underneath your fingertips before you pulled on some gloves and began.
Much like the first time, the ruined shirt was removed so you could work, but the lack of the looming threat of immediate death and ample time to wonder about the man between his visits left you now with eyes that wanted to wander. 
You hoped Texas couldn’t see each time your gaze flickered across his broad chest in the low light of the lamp, observing the way it illuminated his scarred skin before quickly moving your careful attention back to picking glass and debris from the series of cuts across his body, doing your best to stop more scars from finding a home there.
“Gotta stop meeting me like this, Texas,” you find the words slipping from your lips as you focused on your work, your mind not even catching up to what you had said, too focused on your work until he spoke.
“Texas?”
You pause, feeling a surge of embarrassment at what you let slip, only used to him existing inside your thoughts and not in front of you, warm flesh beneath your hands, the heat of him radiating even through the latex gloves. 
Your fingers flexed from where you were bracing yourself against the center of his chest, swallowing thickly when you suddenly noticed the steady beat of his heart underneath your palm. You refocused your attention on picking another shard of broken glass from just below his collarbone, trying to gather your thoughts enough for a somewhat reasonable answer.
“I just—” You bit your cheek, struggling with what to say, a sigh held deep in your lungs before you exhaled it slowly and mumbled, “You are from Texas, aren’t you?”
Your gaze shifted up to his neck, gently cleaning the dirt from a scrape there, your new focus of attention leaving you with a perfect view of the twitch of his lips from the corner of your eye.
“Guilty.” You can feel the rumble of his voice in his chest as he mumbles the word, and you quickly lift your hand from it, not realizing that your touch had lingered there even when you had moved away from that area of his body. “Just surprised you picked up on it, s’all.”
A little smile turned up on your lips; part pleased that you had gotten it right, part embarrassed that you had even thought of it, thought of him, that much.
Quiet fell between you and Texas for a while, as you made sure the cuts on his neck were clean before finally moving up to his face.
Your eyes met with his for the first time since he had sat down that night, and it was also the first time you noticed their color.
All that time he had plagued your mind, and you realized you hadn’t even really seen the color of his eyes. You had settled on brown, but sitting closer now, you saw the green surrounding the warmer color, creating a stunning hazel that was all you could see for a moment before your gaze snapped away, the heat of embarrassment filling you again as you pulled your focus back to his cuts.
You hesitated then, one hand hovering in the air before gently gripping his chin between a thumb and forefinger, tilting his face to different angles as you treated it, a remarkably easy task when he hardly winced with each piece of glass removed, seemingly unbothered by the pain.
Once again, you were sucked into the familiarity of the focus that came with your work, and it was Texas that broke it this time, your brain taking a moment to register what he had said.
“California.”
You paused, tweezers hovering over his cheekbone, eyes meeting that hazel again to see he was watching you, and you wondered just how long he had been doing so—the whole time? Why did you hope he was?
“How’d you know?”
Texas shrugged one shoulder, and you once again forced your attention back to your work, trying to ignore the weight of his gaze on your face now that you knew it was there.
“Lucky guess,” he said in that low timbre, and you laughed softly, shaking your head as you pulled the last shard of glass from a cut above his eyebrow, eyes lingering on a scar near his temple before dropping the glass into your tin of medical waste, full of all the once painful remnants of whatever had brought him back to you tonight.
You felt like an awful person, being glad that it had brought him back to you.
Once all the cuts were properly taken care of, you leaned back with a sigh, snapping the gloves off your hands and dropping them into the rest of the medical waste. By some old habit, you patted Texas on the knee before standing, wheeling your tray away with you as you declared him free to go once again.
“It was the accent,” he says, and you pause, looking back over your shoulder as he pushes himself to his feet, and you’re reminded once again of how big the man is when he’s not sitting still while you treat him. “Your accent gave it away. Sure as hell don’t sound East Coast.”
Another laugh left your lips, curling up into a smile as you shake your head and look back towards your remaining medical supplies. Dangerously low again after tonight, but in this moment now, you found yourself not caring just yet.
“Guilty,” you repeated his own affirmation from earlier, and one glance back showed the corner of his lips turning up into a small smirk that had much larger consequences on your heart, racing now at the sight of amusement on his stoic face before you quickly looked away again.
“Long way from home, Cali,” he says slowly, and your heart skips a goddamn beat now at that drawled nickname, as if he wasn’t doing enough already. 
“Same as you, huh?” you try to sound casual as you kept your gaze focused on shifting through your supplies, reorganizing them just to keep your mind busy, even as it marveled at how he hadn’t left already,
“Not nearly as much as you.” 
At the continued conversation, you finally turn, seeing him bent over at the waist and rifling through the beat-up backpack full of duct-taped holes that he had brought in with him.
You see the gun tucked into the back of the waistband of his jeans then, a sight that wasn’t surprising given the injuries he’d come to you with, but your brows still furrow, mind continuing to create different stories to solve the mystery of him before he straightens up and turns back to you. 
He holds out a bundle of bandages and gloves to you, and you try to hold back your excitement at the offering as much as you can, as thrilled by the promise they offered for your work as you were by the idea that he’d already had the supplies ready this time.
The idea that he’d been holding onto them for you.
Delusional, an inner voice chides you, but you smile down at the supplies anyway, rubbing a thumb across the box of gloves and sighing quietly as your mind brings forth a time long gone where you never would have thought twice about the availability of what was once such a common thing.
“It’s funny, isn’t it?” you say slowly, pondering how you had recognized his accent, attributed him to a long gone place, as he did you. “How even after all this time, we still remember those little things about a world that doesn’t exist anymore.”
He’s not looking at you anymore when you glance back up. The stoicism you had come to associate with him from just a few meetings was back, and you get the sense you had taken the rare offer of a conversation too far.
You thank him for the supplies, and he nods almost absentmindedly, seemingly half paying attention to you before he moves back towards the door, and you turn back to begin to organize your new supplies, eager to restock your workspace.
The only thing that stops you is—
“What’s your name, Cali?”
Your head lifts, body half-turning around to stare at him in shock. 
Nobody has asked for your name in years. 
It’s been so long since you’ve said it out loud that the syllables assigned to you at birth feel foreign in your mouth. It taunts you with a time long past, like a bad taste you have to spit out, and when you do, he repeats it back.
The way he says it is…different. He sounds it out just the same as you, but it sounds less wrong leaving his lips. He says it slowly, as if tasting each letter on his tongue, memorizing it before giving a nod and turning to leave.
“Wait.”
He does. 
For some reason, he stops when you tell him to, facing the door that he himself was the sole cause of its state hanging off its hinges, something he stares purposefully at when you ask for his own name.
Texas doesn’t look back as his voice wraps around the sounds of his own name, distaste similar to yours when you gave him your own dripping from his mouth as it curves around his syllables.
You start to say it back. The name, his name, Joel leaving your lips quietly, but he’s already back out the door before you can even sound out the M of his last name.
It leaves your lips anyway, his name echoing alone in your clinic, clutching the medical supplies tight to your chest.
Somewhere buried deep in your thoughts, you ponder over the idea that, just from the sheer intensity that radiated from the man the few times you had met him, Joel Miller memorizing somebody’s name feels like irrefutable danger, like you’re in for a very short life span. It’s a feeling you ignore, an instinct you try to forget about as you recall no hostility in his eyes, the hazel sharp as shrapnel you once cleaned from his body with none of the lethality when he repeated your name back to you.
Somewhere, buried even deeper, your heart races instead at the thought that he intends to say it again.
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Joel leaves, but he always comes back. 
It’s never a social call. The world’s gone to shit; you don’t have the time, and you’re sure Joel doesn’t have the patience.
He shows up in your doorway when he’s injured, and leaves you with enough medical supplies to keep you going until the next time he comes along. At its core, it's a business transaction. He’s just continuing to repay a debt to you so he doesn’t owe you anything. There’s nothing fundamentally personal about it.
That doesn’t stop you from looking forward to those visits. You never know when Joel’s going to show up next, and it does more than keep you on your toes; it holds you in anticipation, keeping those daydreams in the forefront in your mind rather than the back whenever you have time to yourself now.
Because each time he comes through, he leaves you with another snapshot of himself. Another glimpse into the lives he lived once and lives now—usually the former rather than the latter, much to your surprise.
You hold every reveal of the aloof man close; purely off-hand, inconsequential things, like a love for going to the movies now rendered nonexistent, or the time he and his brother rode motorcycles cross country. Those things don’t matter anymore, but you like hearing about them. You like knowing those things about him, fitting the real pieces of him in with your imaginary ones to solve a puzzle that only existed inside your head. It fuels your imagination, spurs on your delusion.
You’re not actually sure if he realizes how much you know about him at this point, while simultaneously knowing nearly nothing about him at all. The important things, like why he keeps showing up with all those injuries, remain unknown.
Joel brings it up, just once, off-hand as you’re wrapping up his shoulder in a spot where you could tell a bullet had grazed him.
“You don’t ask.”
Your hands had paused, eyes lifting from your work to his face, glancing over his side profile before his head turned and he was looking down at you from inches away.
He was waiting for an answer, but your mind was having trouble keeping up with what he had even said, too startled by the swirling of brown and green in his eyes when they were right there. A color as warm and solid as the earth beneath your feet, grounding you to him, pulling you in with that same undeniable magnetism he had first stumbled into your life with.
His facial hair had gotten longer, dark whiskers of hair framing cracked lips, a split down the top one that you had carefully cleaned earlier. You hadn't even thought twice about it when dabbing it clean, but now you couldn’t see anything else, not until—
“Cali?”
You blinked, head snapping up as your back went ramrod straight, and you quickly turned back to where your hands had frozen mid-bandage.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“About what?” you forced the words from your lips, trying not to think about how they ached to have his own pressed to them, split lip and all molding firmly and then gently against yours—
Oh god, no, what were you thinking?
“About any of it,” Joel grumbled, waving a large hand towards his face with a vague gesture, seeming to think you had just been observing his injuries even with the way you’re now staring at thick fingers, long veins, prominent and begging to be traced—
No! Stop!
“You don’t have a policy of asking your patients questions?” he asked, arching a thick brow down at you, and you curse the way your stomach flips at the sight.
“Believe it or not, I actually have a strong one not to,” you finally answered with his shoulder now wrapped firmly, fingers grazing against the gauze before you pushed your stool away from him, gloves snapping off your hands and ignoring the ache to touch him without them. “You do what you have to in order to survive. My job is to make sure you keep surviving. Not to ask questions.”
Joel hummed, and you felt the weight of his gaze on you up until he handed you a new bundle of supplies and left again.
Sometimes, you wonder if he’s picked up anything about you in turn, the way you’ve locked away every small fragment you've learned of him. You wonder if he even cares to listen during those rare moments where you might let something about yourself, past or present, slip.
You dare to dream that he does.
Foolish. 
You can almost say with certainty that Joel doesn’t realize the things about himself that you’ve picked up on. Like the movies thing—it had been revealed through slurred words at your last-ditch effort to distract him by asking him questions through a particularly painful procedure, and he had rambled in delirium about popcorn and previews for no more than half a minute before promptly passing out beneath your moving hands.
It had caused bubbling panic in the moment, but when the moment had passed and he had awoken with embarrassment about not being able to tolerate the pain, it seemed all recollection of what he had shared had disappeared.
Or maybe he was just embarrassed about that too.
You would surely never admit that the thought of the large, intimidating man even experiencing an emotion as mundane as embarrassment only endeared you to him more.
And the motorcycle trip—well, that hadn’t even been Joel’s choice in revealing.
A few years into gaining your most returning patient—“we have to get your picture on the wall,” you had jested to him about simultaneously having the best (can somehow survive a plethora of injuries) and worst (has a penchant to keep getting them) luck at one point, much to his silent judgment at your attempted joke—he had entered the clinic the same way he did upon that first meeting, and you winced at the way the door banged against the wall in the same place it'd once left a dent during that first visit from him.
A sharp disapproval at treating your humble place of work like this was on the tip of your tongue, before you saw that Joel wasn’t alone, nor was he the one currently injured.
Any questions other than those pertinent for your new patient’s survival were rapidly dismissed from crowding your fast-moving mind, the same way as always. You helped Joel set the man down, hardly even realizing he was talking, that they were both talking, until after you had snapped on your gloves and assessed the burn wound on the back of the man's forearm.
“It worked out, didn’t it?”
“Hardly,” Joel bit back, voice rough with a harsh disapproval bordering on anger, the sound of which made the hairs raise on the back of your neck as you busied yourself getting cool compresses ready. “It was goddamn stupid, is what it was. Nearly got yourself killed.”
“But it worked.”
“Tommy—”
��Lighten up, big brother,” this Tommy said while you checked his pulse and lifted his arm above his chest, and now you understood the energy filling up the entire space of the room.
There was a blood bond between the bickering men, tested by the fraying of nerves and something deeper, some unnamable tension that came from something you didn’t know, maybe wouldn’t even understand. Some after effect of the transition into this world you now lived in, something that was none of your business.
Even then, the way Tommy’s body was constantly shifting and Joel hovering over your shoulder as they kept arguing while you tried to treat the burn is what made you finally snap.
“Hey!”
The clear echo of your voice layered over the argument, and instantly broke it, both men turning down to see your narrowed gaze shifting between the two of them.
“You need to sit still because I’m not fond of breaking burn blisters, and you won’t be either,” you ordered sternly, not wavering under the attention of the man finally focused on you for the first time since coming in, before you whipped around to Joel still hovering behind you. “And you!”
For a moment, you found a bit of humor in the utterly stupefied look on the man’s face that matched that of his brother’s, before you stood from your stool so you were chest to chest with Joel.
“You need to stop breathing down my goddamn neck and let me work,” you said firmly, pointing towards the far wall, the order clear in your eyes without even having to say it at this point.
You knew Joel saw it, and to his credit all you saw was his jaw ticking, a brief flare to his nostrils before he spun on his heel, marching towards the wall to lean against it heavily. His arms crossed across his broad chest while he watched you sit and go back to cooling Tommy’s burn.
Order was regained in your clinic, and you smiled a little to yourself at having established it, before Tommy shifted forward slightly towards you and muttered conspiratorially, but not at all quietly, “No wonder you got even this hardass to like you.”
A tremor briefly overtook your fingers with the shock of the unexpected words before you flexed them, willing your grip to steady before renewing your focus on his burn injury as Joel snarled from his spot you had assigned him against the wall, “Shut the fuck up, Tommy.”
Your gaze snaps up, making sure Joel hadn’t moved, eyes narrowing when you saw he had pushed off the wall just slightly. When he notices your look, he shifts backwards, back hitting the wall again as his glare shifts off to the side, towards the loose hinges on the door now in even worse condition thanks to both Miller brothers.
There’s a chuckle from Tommy, more bristling from Joel, and the illusive taunt of hope wound tight in your chest, but nobody says anything else until you’re sending them off with the rest of your low supply of lotion that would be adequate for burn treatment, along with instructions on how to take care of the now loosely bandaged burn.
Tommy nods, thanking you when Joel snaps at him to show some manners. The younger brother leaves with a pointed look towards your door and an offhand, not unkind comment on getting it fixed, followed up quickly by an offer of doing the work himself to pay back your kindness. 
Not a debt, but kindness, the exact verbiage he used himself in a Southern drawl a bit lighter, more intentionally charming than Joel’s rough allure.
Joel is still irritated, more than you’ve ever seen, but he still nods at you with a mumble of “thanks, Cali,” before following his brother as the younger man is saying “so that’s Cali!”
There's a hard smack to Tommy's shoulder to direct him away, Joel's reprimanding tone saying things you couldn’t hear before they disappear around a corner.
It was then that you decided you liked Tommy.
You like him even more when he stops by a couple weeks later to actually fix the door like he mentioned, filling your head with stories about his older brother you could have only ever dreamed of.
Because of Tommy you have reasons to giggle into your pillow that night at the thought of the two born and raised Texas boys racing across the country on motorcycles, smiling stupidly against the coarse fabric at the image of a younger Joel Miller with wind in his hair and a carefree smile on his face.
You’d only ever seen tiny twitches of those lips into halfway smirks, and so you dreamed of a time where they weren’t chapped from the smog of QZ air or split from punches to the face, but soft and pink and curling up into a real smile.
You dreamed of making him smile again.
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Sometimes it takes a while for a visit from Joel.
Weeks turn into months in-between those short moments where you see his face for quick patch-ups and restocks of supplies.
Once there was about a year that passed without so much of a glimpse of him, and you had tried to settle yourself into the likely idea that he may have finally gotten himself hurt so bad he couldn’t even stumble into your clinic, when he proved your hidden, greatest fear wrong by turning up again.
He had limped through the door without a word, letting in a cold burst of snow laden air with him before it shut. A sigh of relief was exhaled from your lips, dry and chapped from the harsh winter months, and you hurried to him, slinging his arm over your shoulder as you helped him through the room to sit.
Peeling the blood caked jeans from his legs with a mumbled apology of the chill permeating your clinic this time of year, you barely got out one word out after of, “You—”
“Gotta stop meeting you like this, I know,” Joel sighed, avoiding your gaze as you settled on your stool with a familiar squeak of the old furniture, pulling on a pair of gloves you had set aside specifically for him months ago, ensuring that you’d have at least one left for him in the hopes that he could still make it back to you in one piece someday.
Even if that meant one less for someone down the line, potentially sacrificing a life for the uncertain possibility of saving somebody else.
It was unlike you.
Selfish, the inner voice of reason chides you again, as it always speaks in his presence.
And as always, you ignore it.
Your eyes flickered up from critically observing the stab wound haphazardly sewn above his knee—his own work, no doubt, and you were surprised at your frustration that he hadn’t come to you instead. You figured it must have not been an option, some reason having kept him from you, but you still fixed him with a hard look that the surly man actually shifted under, wary under the weight of your scrutiny, for whatever that was worth.
Shaking your head, you turned back to set about the process of thoroughly cleaning the wound, checking for any sign of infection and treating his body properly, because somebody had to do it if he wasn’t going to.
It wasn’t like he was reckless. Despite your visits with the man being few and far between—if they could even really be called visits in the first place—you had caught enough of a glimpse of who he was to know he was far from irrational. He wouldn’t have made it this far if he was.
Joel Miller could keep himself alive, of this you had no doubt.
But the repercussions that came with his survival, infection of the body or wounds that went deeper than that of flesh or blood, were things that you learned he merely shouldered as a consequence.
A burden you would lessen, even if all it meant was making sure one wound out of many wouldn’t fester, if he came to you with it.
It wasn’t until this one was treated and redressed, and he was pulling his pants back on while you stared down at the gloves on your hands—a pair that he had given you, that you had saved to save him, now speckled with his blood, a reminder that he was still alive but maybe just barely—and the words you had actually wanted to say when he came in, the ones that you had held back when he interrupted you, echoed through your mind again.
You scared me.
They aren’t spoken, not with words. Instead, your hand pats his knee again after his jeans are zipped up, fingers brushing against where his properly tended wound is now hidden beneath the heavy fabric.
The touch lingers, for just a second, before you’re up and moving away.
To your surprise, Joel follows.
He rifles through his backpack, and you notice a few new holes, more spots where there’s recently applied duct tape. You absentmindedly wonder why he sticks with this one. If he’s able to find and trade other sorts of goods, couldn’t he get a new backpack?
Thanks is given by reflex when he gives you the supplies, even though you know with this trade, you’re even once again. He doesn’t expect your gratitude, maybe doesn’t even want it, but there’s a sure cause for it this time as you shift through the pile to observe the weight of what you felt sitting unassuming at the bottom, but couldn't discern until you saw it.
Gloves.
Not thin latex, but heavy fabric, fitting in the palm of your freezing hand.
Not medical, but practical, even as the promise of warmth had now become a luxury.
Not for patients, but for you.
Joel had gotten this for you.
When you look back up at him, eyes wide with shock, he’s already explaining it away with a dismissive wave of his hand and gruff drawl, “Gotta keep those fingers in proper working condition, right?”
Your brow furrows then, more gratitude trapped inside your mouth as you notice something again that had lingered in your mind since he had shown up that night, something you couldn’t ignore anymore.
That this Joel in front of you now was different.
Joel had never been a beacon of warmth, but he’s never been colder.
He won’t meet your eye, doesn’t even seem bothered by his lack of ability to keep eye contact now. He’s rigid and tense, something pent-up deep inside of him, worse than ever before, and that’s when you know that whatever had happened since you saw him last had taken another piece of whatever he was. Another part of whoever you dreamed about once existing, gone.
“Hey,” you mumble, and he glances back at you, surely seeing the way your brows are knitted above eyes that put your concern on full display, just judging by the way he stiffened.
He waves another dismissive hand, looks away with arms crossed over his chest in a way that you’d seen before. It was like he was physically containing whatever emotions he was experiencing to his own body, holding them in with the flex of his muscles through his beat up winter jacket. A silent show of his strength, trying to protect himself with it, even if it couldn't stop whatever it was he was feeling.
You expect him to leave then, but his weather and time worn boots are glued to the ground, unmoving.
Eventually, he speaks, and the two words with the flat affect shake you to your core.
“Tommy’s gone.”
Fear blankets your body and sets every nerve on fire, pain flashing across your features as Joel sees it and quickly shakes his head, adding simply, nearly without emotion, “Left.”
The daunting grief at the possible death of the younger Miller brother fades, even as an emptiness remains when you softly say, “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
Silence fills the space, and tension with it, setting you on edge with Joel in a way you’d never felt with him before.
“Fireflies,” he finally supplies, and you nod, looking down to the winter gloves you still held tight in your grasp, even as you set the rest of your new stock down.
So that was what had happened. The last thread holding the brothers together had snapped, and Tommy had left, taking a part of Joel with him. Maybe the last part of him, of who he had once been.
No wonder the man before you was even more hardened than you had ever seen him before.
“I see,” you whisper, and neither of you says anything more after that.
Not until you look back up at his face, refocus on the familiar features, noticing a few new lines of age in the year that had passed since last seeing him, some white whiskers in the edges of his beard, and—
Your hand is reaching out before you can stop to think, gripping his chin between thumb and forefinger, tilting his face down towards you in a way similar to when you’d treated him in the past.
Maybe by reflex from those moments, he lets you do it, even as the sharp clarity of his hazel eyes meet yours in confusion.
“What’s this?” you ask, fingers hovering over the new red line of scarring across the bridge of his nose, tracing the length of it without touch.
His eyes flash, not with anger, but with an emotion you don’t recognize. He tries to pull away, but your grip tightens, keeping him in place as you wait for an answer.
“Nothin’,” he mumbles, your eyes narrowing at the evasive answer, the way his gaze shifts away.
“Texas, this isn’t—”
Joel’s hand finds yours then, thick fingers wrapping around your smaller ones to pull them away from where you were still holding his chin, and the warmth of his skin seeping into yours hits you with a jolt as you only then realize this was touch.
Skin on skin, the very thing you had been aching for, dreaming of, for years. Those thoughts of him that kept you going on lonely days and cold nights, longing for something you could never have, an impossible reality now on the edge of your fingertips as he enveloped them in a rough palm, in his touch.
Touch.
Touch you had instigated, without the barrier of medical gloves between you. Without the clear lines that defined all you were to each other—doctor and patient, business transactions, a debt repaid again and again. Lines that now blurred when he didn’t drop your hand right away.
Blurring further, obscuring your vision in a rose-tinted blush when his grip tightened, and your breath caught in your throat at the feeling of him holding on to you.
“‘Ts fine,” Joel assures quietly, your fingers finally slipping from his, the clear hazel of those eyes you had spent a year waiting and hoping to see again, not meeting yours even once.
He hasn’t looked at you even once.
Just like that, you snap from a slow motion daze back to true reality. Your fantasies hit the ground hard, leaving you shattered with the empty aches of your heart forever unfulfilled in the dark crevices of your mind.
But even then, you can’t look away. 
Again, you hear the admission aching to be revealed, slipping from the back of your mind to the forefront on waves of anxiety and need that grew larger, more disastrous, crashing through all your thoughts as you watched him looking away, but not leaving.
You scared me.
The words fill your mouth, waiting to be spoken.
But they aren’t.
Even though you wanted to tell him how his absence had filled you with fear, terror that only abates whenever he’s with you until he inevitably leaves again, you don’t dare to say it. Not when he doesn’t even look at you, even though you can’t bring yourself to look away.
The only thing you do say is an assurance that you’d make it home safe when he tells you to before he’s finally gone again.
It’s the first time that you notice that each time he leaves you with a new piece of himself, he takes a piece of you with him.
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“You’re scaring my patients, Texas.”
“Good.”
“Joel.”
It’s been like this since Tommy left.
Joel visits you now when he’s nothing less than the perfect picture of health.
At first, he brings you things—the usual, necessary items that keep your unsanctioned practice running. You thank him each time, albeit with puzzled looks when there’s no visible harm on his body, confusion that only furthers when he lingers.
Eventually, he drops by without anything at all. Nothing in hand, sometimes no backpack in tow, but always with that gun tucked into the back of his waistband.
For a while, you think nothing of it. You’re glad that he’s showing his face, that you’re not glancing up with baited breath each time your door creaks open, hoping for just a glimpse of the man to assure you that he was alright.
Joel lets you see often enough now that he’s still in one piece, and for a while, you’re foolish enough to think that it’s purely for the benefit of your peace of mind.
Then one day, when he’s walking out, a patient is walking in—a younger man you’ve seen more than once, treating wounds similar to those that Joel’s had, though not quite as severe.
What is severe is the look Joel instantly shoots at him as they pass by each other, your heart sinking when the injured man scurries towards the available clinic bed while the door shuts.
You try to push it out of your mind, try to ignore the way your patient keeps watching the closed door with baited breath, until he breathes out with certain trepidation, “That’s Joel Miller.”
Pausing in the middle of splinting his broken finger, your brow furrows, glancing up at the nervous scrunching of his face as you reply slowly, “Yes, it is.”
His gaze finally shifts from the door towards you, then back again quickly, like he’s afraid the mentioned man will burst through the moment he’s not looking.
“You—” A gulp, and then the shaky question of, “You know him, don’t you?”
You finish bandaging his injury, gently placing his hand back in his lap and replying honestly, even with your uncertainty lingering at his tone, ��Of course I do.”
He doesn’t say anything more until he’s leaving, glancing back at you warily, seeming to struggle over what he wants to say before settling for, “He’s…he’s got a reputation, you know. Lots of folks are scared of that Joel Miller.”
With a nervous wringing of your hands behind your back, and a calm smile on your face, you assure him, “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Of course, you don’t know that Joel’s been waiting.
There’s no way to be aware that he’s been in the alley next to the clinic the entire time you treated your patient, no way to know that he trails the man the moment he leaves the safety of your building.
You’ll never know that the man you treated isn’t so good either. Or that he’s not nearly as bad as Joel.
Somebody always owed somebody else, after all. You knew it well, knew that Joel paid you back for this very reason.
But you didn’t know what happened when you owed him.
Or what happened when he went to collect.
And Joel ensured you were never getting anywhere near it. 
A sentiment made clear with another broken finger for the lackey of a rival smuggler late on a payment that had sought you out for the last time that day, along with a painful promise made that he and his buddies would never step foot in your clinic again.
There was no way for you to know what happened that day, but you noticed the shift afterwards.
The way Joel takes up residence along the wall of your clinic and doesn’t leave when patients come in. How he watches them, the mere weight of his sole attention setting them on edge.
You tell them it’s fine, shoot him a glare that tells him to back off. And maybe it works for a little, but not for long.
You assure yourself that it’s fine. A reputation means nothing, and you know Joel Miller, don’t you? Or you know all that matters. And you know that there’s nothing to be afraid of.
Until there is.
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You’re gone.
It’s the first time since meeting you that Joel stops by the clinic, and you’re not there.
Well into the morning, and you’re not sitting there at your little makeshift desk. At this time, you should be half-rising from your stool he’s been meaning to find a replacement for just at the sound of the door opening.
You're always ready to spring into action, to save a life or make one better. Like you’ve done for him, time and time again.
It’s also the first time since before Tommy left that the door is swinging off its hinges again, and that’s when Joel knows.
You’re gone.
He doesn’t need to see the ransacked clinic, but he looks anyway. Searches frantically through the overturned furniture, your well-organized stock of supplies now a mess, some missing because he knows how much you have of everything, he silently keeps track along with you so he knows what to pick up when he and Tess go on runs.
There’s a panic settling in his gut, a burning ache crawling its way up his throat, and his hands twitch with the need to do something, to make somebody hurt, make them pay, make them talk to bring you back.
Back to the work that is your pride and joy, the four walls that have been your safety for years, a safety you’ve only ever extended to others, one you offered to him.
Joel needs to bring you back to him.
No time is wasted when he gets back to Tess. She knows you by now, having visited the clinic herself with or without Joel, for injuries or for chats. He’s noticed his partner always smiling after, the two of you forming a kinship that warms what fragments remain of his heart like so little else can.
Tess is taking charge in a way that’s familiar, and Joel is grateful for that. He doesn’t know what he’d do if left to his own devices right now, uncertain who’d wind up dead in the streets if let loose to find you on his own terms.
But he takes solace in knowing that Tess will let him do what he does best when it's time.
And when it is time, when they’ve cornered the last person who’s had your name leave their lips, the bone of their arm shatters underneath a brutal stomp and twist of Joel’s heavy boot after a series of ruthless hits that have left them begging for mercy on the ground.
But it gets them what they need—a location, information on a deal gone south for a specific kind of medicine that these smugglers had a monopoly on, medicine you most likely needed to save one patient, and deemed it a risk worth taking just for that.
Smugglers that Joel had very specifically warned to stay the fuck away from you.
The whimpering man under his boot gets a bullet to the head for not heeding his warning, for taking you from him, and they’re on their way without another word.
Fear burns so hot that it singes his veins, making him move faster, hit harder when they get to the warehouse. Red is all he sees and it’s all he feels, running through his fingers as he pulls triggers and chokes windpipes before twisting, snapping. Blood, hot and metallic, staining his skin in splatters up to his forearms as he moves from one to the next.
Joel has lost too much to make it quick, and the thought of losing you too only adds to his rage, making his preemptive vengeance all the more deadly. He lays waste to them all, sparing not a soul of his brutality. 
His shiv sinks into a neck, and he leaves it there for too long before pulling it out, leaving a streak of evidence of another life he’s stolen across his face as he turns, more than ready for the next one.
Movement catches the corner of his eye, and he’s lifting his gun towards where he sees legs pushing against the ground, a body scuttling away into a corner out of his sight, cowering behind a tower of boxes.
Joel’s finger is already on the trigger before he sees the shoes peeking out behind the cardboard, the tips of well-worn sneakers that he knows well, having seen them turn and move quickly around one tiny room for years.
Relief doesn’t rush to him yet, not until he’s rounded the boxes, not until he really sees you.
There’s an angry purple bruise forming along your jaw, and fury burns hotter, seeping through the edges of sweet relief that you’re okay, although injured.
You whimper, and his heart breaks, reaching out a hand towards you to help you up, to bring you back to him.
At the movement, you press your back against the wall, cowering away even further as your eyes fix onto his face.
Joel’s brow furrows, anger and relief both ebbing away slowly, and he says your name, holding his palm out further for you to take.
You whimper again.
Eyes wide and clouded with fear, lip quivering as you shrink away from the hand that he had stained with blood again and again to find you, to bring you back.
Above where your back is pressed to the wall, there is a line of windows. They offer a view to the first floor of the warehouse, now littered with bodies he had left, a clear trail of evidence of his path of destruction from the moment he had entered the building.
And that’s when Joel realizes you’re afraid of him.
The worst part is, he’s not surprised, not even in the slightest.
On the contrary, he thinks some part of him had been waiting for this. Waiting for you to finally open your eyes and see him for what he is.
Someone like you, who has spent her whole life patching up the kind of wounds he inflicts, who saves lives and gives while all he does is takes and takes, by his own choice or some kind of curse—of course you’re afraid.
Joel’s bloodstained fingers twitch, remembering the softness of your own the one and only time he had held them that cold winter night. His hand hovers in the air halfway to you, yearning to comfort a hand that heals with one that only knows how to kill.
But then you flinch at the twitch of his fingers, having witnessed their deadliness, and he pulls back.
When Tess arrives a moment later, you turn to her, allowing the other woman to pull you to your feet. You lean heavily on her as she helps you leave, takes you back, but not to him.
Because Joel knows now with certainty that it's a distance that was never meant to be closed.
He knows it's for the better.
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Weeks turn into months once again.
Joel doesn’t come back.
As time passes, you reflect on the man you’d known, and the one everybody else knew. You compare the image of those half-smirks that you always hoped would turn into a smile to the face splattered with blood as he ruthlessly murdered any man in his path.
You feel like a fool. For more reason than one, but mostly because you knew.
You had seen the signs of just who Joel Miller was from the first time you met him, signs that you had ignored every time they lit up right in front of your face, blaring signals that you replaced with the naïve images you had created in your mind’s eye. Fantasies of a man that may have existed once, long ago, but not anymore.
It wasn’t the killing that bothered you. You knew what people had to do to survive, and you had always known just from his injuries that this was an indisputable truth heavily ingrained in Joel’s life, no matter who you imagined him to be before.
No, it wasn’t the killing that scared you, but the slaughter. 
What you were afraid of was his lack of mercy. His lethality. His intent to make them suffer.
After days of being held at the whims of dangerous men, only to discover that the only man you had come to consider a safe space in years was just as, if not more dangerous than them…
It rattled you.
Changed you.
Left a scar that even you didn’t know how to heal.
In the days that followed, you were glad that Joel kept his distance. You needed time to recover, to process what you had gone through, what you’d seen.
After a few weeks passed, you found yourself staring at the door, waiting once again for him to come back. Waiting to talk to him for once, to say the words that had plagued your mind once again. Even if they had shifted, they still rang true.
You scared me.
Because he did.
Joel Miller himself scared you, and you didn’t want him to.
Because you knew, you knew, that he’d done it for you. He'd done it to save you.
He’d saved you the same way you saved him, in the only way that he knew how.
Maybe it was senseless. Maybe it was wrong, and horrible, and unforgivable.
But he had done it for you.
So you wait for Joel to come back.
Months fade into years; one, and then two, then five and still counting.
Joel Miller never comes back.
At some point, you hear that he’s gone. Left the QZ completely with Tess at his side and never looked back.
You hope that they made it, wherever they were going.
You hope that he doesn’t think of you the way that you think of him. The image of him plaguing your mind every night, broken memories of everything you had memorized about him constantly shifting through your mind, a lonely ache filling in your heart that you knew was your own fault.
He had bloodied his knuckles for you, and you had turned away.
God, you hated yourself for turning away.
You missed him, with every breath, with every moment the door of your clinic opened and you glanced up with the automatic reflex of hoping it was him, even though he was long gone.
You know it's for the better.
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Joel is not supposed to be here.
Any form of radio communication is strictly forbidden. He knows this well, knows that if he’s found here, he could be risking everything, even if his brother is married to the woman who keeps Jackson up and running smoothly.
But he’s here anyway, hands trembling with the cold and something else, something that settles deeper into his bones as he holds the microphone in hand.
Waiting.
It’s his second time up here in a week, and though he’d been lucky enough to not be caught the first time, he wasn’t an optimist.
You’re a cynic, a voice echoes in the back of his head, and his eyes flutter shut with the image of you that never seemed to quite leave him, even with the years that have gone by.
But you’re not, his own voice, younger, replies to you in his memories.
I try not to be, you replied honestly, one of your first discussions when you had begun to settle into each other’s presence. Don’t think I could keep doing this if I was.
Joel’s gaze darts down to the small notepad he had brought with him, the pages where he had written one message only to cross it out, rewrite it, and torn pages of it to throw away in frustration.
In front of him was the one left uncrossed, his eyes scanning the words he could only hope had gotten relayed to you, the message he had left for the black market radio specialist in Boston earlier that week.
Found a nice place that could use a doctor, followed by a date and time for a conversation, not wanting to air Jackson’s location without hearing confirmation from you yourself.
Following that sentence, another one, the last thing he had said: they could use you.
And another, crossed out after, the last thing that he would never say: I could use you.
Joel’s head lifts when the static on the old machine clears, a click resounding through the speakers of the radio, and his heart races with the weight of the microphone in his hands.
It’s lifted halfway to his mouth before he hesitates. Your name hangs heavy in his mouth, syllables he had not sounded out in years, but when he finally says it, it feels…natural. Like not a day has passed since the letters of your name were hanging on his lips, the way he always longed for you to be.
There is a pause, long and heavy, and Joel feels his heart sink with every second that passes.
This was stupid. So incredibly stupid. 
The last time he had seen you, there was fear in your eyes. Fear of him, well-placed at that, and surely he had taken up no voluntary thoughts of yours ever since other than your worst nightmares.
Surely you were—
“...Hey there, Texas.”
When your voice crackles to life through the speaker, Joel sighs, a sound filled with relief and a rush of longing he thought his mind had forgotten, but his body—no, his soul—had not.
And then a whisper, softly in return, with a smile on his lips.
“Howdy, Cali.”
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taglist: @darkroastjoel @thetriumphantpanda @dinsdjrn @cavillscurls @tightjeansjavi @dissentientss @harriedandharassed @ladyfiery47 (tag won't work!)
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amethystwrytes · 1 month ago
Text
Safe. (Part Two)
Pairing: Hwang Hyunjin x Fem. Reader x Lee Minho
Summary: A broke ER Nurse offers up her services to a large crime organization in exchange for much higher pay and benefits that are unconventional, but lucrative. The life proves to be questionable at best, and downright isolating at worst which leaves her feeling unsure, unstable and dangerous. 
Warnings: Explicit language. Explicit depictions of sex (some chapters will be more explicit than others sexually). Violence. Blood. Trauma injuries. (Organized) Crime. Emotional manipulation. Medical inaccuracy galore. Smoking. Past addiction. 18+ Only.
Chapter WC: 6.5k
Read Pt. One Here
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- PART TWO -
When you wake up this time, unlike the previous evening,  you’re on the couch in the living room. You hear whistling and dishes clanking from the kitchen, and the roar of a load of laundry going. You sit up and rub your eyes. You know Hyunjin isn’t feeling well enough to be bustling about your kitchen and Seungmin would never. So, you’re not surprised to see Han Jisung floating around the kitchen, putting things where they don’t go, while he flip flops between whistling and singing random songs. 
The scent of coffee is in the air, and that takes precedence over other thoughts. So you lift your stiff body off the couch to greet him. 
“Where did my best buddy go off to?” you joke dryly as you grab a mug from the cupboard. 
“Oh! Good morning, uh…Seungmin? He and I switched out shifts, I didn’t figure you cared so we didn’t wake you up,” Han explains, tossing a dish towel over his shoulder. 
“Thank you for cleaning,” you look around. He’s cleaned everything from last night, the counters, the floors, the sheet you put over the dining table is in the laundry, along with some bloody towels and clothes. The kitchen and dining area look like a normal house again, and not a surgery center.
“Eh,” he shrugs, pouring himself a refill, “I assumed it was a hard night if you passed out on the couch, just wanted to help. Um…how is he?” Jisung asks. 
“Let’s go see, besides, he needs to eat here in the kitchen, needs to walk around so that wound doesn’t start healing in the wrong position,” you say, then take a big gulp of coffee before setting it down on the counter. 
Hyunjin is awake when you and Jisung walk into the room, he’s got his tongue tucked between his teeth and he’s concentrating hard on an open notebook, a simple #2 pencil seems to be possessed by something as he drags it across the page. For several seconds he doesn’t even seem to notice anyone has walked into the room until Jisung runs into the chest of drawers near the door. 
Like a shot, Hyunjin snaps the notebook closed and his face goes from wild concentration to that cool, unbothered demeanor you’ve grown accustomed to with him. 
“What are you drawing?” you can’t help but wonder. 
“I just like to doodle, it’s nothing,” he says a little too quickly and you get the feeling he doesn’t want you to see his work, fine, you’re not here to argue. 
“Up you go,” you stand by his bed and beckon him with your fingers. “We’re going to go eat at the kitchen table, you need to walk around.” 
“Uh, pardon? Was it not you that sewed my damn side back together last night? Can’t you just bring it in here?” he asks. 
“You have stitches Hyunjin, there are women in hospitals all over the world right now who just had seven layers of their guts sliced open, a literal human being dragged out, and then those guts stitched, cauterized, and stapled back together - and they have to get up and walk as soon as the spinal block wears off - so get your ass up, go sit at the table, and I’ll make you some breakfast,” you instruct, patting the side of his face with a smug smile. 
“You’re kind of mean, you know that?” he half smiles. 
“I know,” you wave as you walk back to the kitchen. 
“Seven fucking layers? I didn't even know there were seven layers…” you hear Jisung whisper as he assists Hyunjin out of bed. 
🗡️🗡️🗡️🗡️🗡️
Later in the afternoon Minho pays another surprise visit. You think he must favor Hyunjin, he’s never been this diligent on checking in. Or, maybe he wants to make good on his promise to make you his when there wasn't a man bleeding out on your table. The thought gives you an unhealthy excitement.
“You’re alive!” Minho grins and gives Hyunjins shoulders a shake. 
“Yes sir,” he nods, “Gonna take more than some bitch ass blade to take me out.” 
“Of course,” Minho smiles, then looks at you, “You did wonderfully love. He looks right as rain.” 
“Well, I’d still like to monitor him for infection, though I do have him started on antibiotics, but yes, I think he’ll be back to normal in a few days,” you report. 
“Good! Then you’ll both join me this coming Saturday evening,” Minho casually goes to the fridge and plucks a water out. 
You and Hyunjin look at each other quizzically. You’ve never been asked to do anything aside from bandaging Minho’s guys. 
“You mean me?” you ask, looking around. Jisung is upstairs taking a nap, so there are no other people in the room. 
“Yes, I mean you,” Minho confirms. “This Saturday I’m hosting a meeting of sorts with some of our associates. Specifically, I want to ensure they’re on our side of things. The intel on your attack leads to Kim Taehyung. I guess those guys that attacked the three of you were planted there by him. I’ve had just about enough of the Kim organization pushing back lately, after we’ve been so generous in letting them live and operate around the gun sales - but the attack on the three of you last night - in addition to him selling to our clients, that was the last straw,” he explains. “I plan to obliterate their ops, and make sure Kim Taehyung never sees another daylight.” 
You shift uncomfortably in your seat, you have no idea who Minho is talking about but the visions of all the ways this Kim Taehyung is going to pay for what he’s done is overwhelmingly gruesome. 
“Anyway,” Minho clears his throat, “Saturday at the Casino, I’ll make sure our business partners and associates are all on the same page, if not then I’ll assume they’re enemies now, but in order to keep the tension down I’d like it to be casual - which is where you come in darling,” Minho looks at you. 
“I don’t understand…you need first aid on site or?” 
Minho laughs, “No love, I want you there as my date, so to speak, I’ve told the others to bring their wives, mistresses, whomever - it’s a party, and I want to keep it light, I’ll look less uptight if I’ve got something to occasionally hold my attention,” he smiles, then looks at Hyunjin, “I’m sure Kim will have some of his guys planted around the casino and I want them to see you there Hwang. I know they targeted you because of your reputation as my best, and they need to know it was barely a scratch.” 
Hyunjin nods, “Of course.” 
“Good, then it’s settled.” 
You say nothing, still too stunned to speak. You don’t really want to go to his Casino. You don’t want to be seen as his…anything. You feel like you’re being debuted as something you never agreed to, and you’re also sure if you bring it up he’ll brush it off as nothing, that you’re reading too much into his invitation or worse, he’ll be livid for your insubordination. You don’t like this, you didn’t agree to dates, or public appearances. When Minho approached you in the hospital parking lot that morning all those months ago, the parameters were clear: He’ll pay you and keep you supplied with medical necessities if you tend to he and his men. Period. 
And yet. On the other hand, you can’t quite explain the flicker of giddiness in your stomach at the thought of having a night out with him. It’s exciting and yet simultaneously makes you hate yourself. 
This is your fault. You never should’ve fallen for that face, that misleading smile that conceals the evil within, that makes you think he’s harmless. He’s not, and you climbed into bed with him literally and figuratively, you’ve done this to yourself. You know you’re in too deep even as he looks at you now from across the room and motions up the stairs with his eyes, the excitement pools immediately between your legs and you get up and lead the way, not caring your house is occupied with two other people, not caring about Saturdays Casino night, only caring about feeling good. You’re in too deep, and you don’t think you can pull yourself out.
🗡️🗡️🗡️🗡️🗡️
“So, about Saturday,” you say, pulling the sheets up under your arms, concealing your nudity. 
“Hm?” Minho is just out of the shower, he wraps a towel around his waist and sits back down on the bed, picking his phone up to check it. 
“I’m just a little concerned…” you trail off, not sure what to say or how to say it. 
“If you’re worried about what to wear, don't be,” he says casually without looking up from his phone, “I’ll send Christopher over with dress options and accessories that afternoon for you to choose from.” 
“That’s not really what I’m worried about, but that’s nice of you,” you say. 
“Then what?” he finally looks over at you. 
“It’s just…It’s just that surely there’s someone else you’d rather have with you than me, I’m just for emergencies you know? Medical emergencies,” you clarify. 
He laughs dryly, “You said you felt lonely here, that you’re not sure how to act normal when you’re not with us, so I figured I’d take you out into our world, that way you don’t have to worry about how to act or not act. It’ll be fun, you’ll get to dress up, have drinks, eat delicious food, and play some games if you’d like. Why are you concerned?” he looks genuinely confused and closing in on irritated. 
“People are going to think we’re together,” you blurt, “I mean Seungmin already - ugh, it doesn’t matter, but I just want us both to be clear about things, about this,” you gesture towards the bed. 
“I see…” Minho says tightly, “So, you don’t want to be seen with me, is that what I’m getting from this?” 
“It’s not that! I mean if you want to whittle it down, completely ignoring all context and nuance then fine, but what I’m actually saying is that I’m just a nurse, when we made this arrangement you never said anything about going to Casinos or being on your arm to keep things casual amongst your associates. You told me that you’d pay me to take care of any injuries your guys get and that’s the position I accepted. Then we started fucking each other, and now we’re going to be playing a couple at your Casino and that’s…a lot,” you explain. 
“Right,” Minho looks half amused, half pissed as he gets off the bed and starts dressing himself. You watch in silence as he flits around the room without a word and you grow increasingly nervous. It’s as if the very temperature in the room has dropped. 
“Can you say something, please? It’s not my intention to hurt you-,”
“I don’t know what you want me to say. Me coming up here and fucking you a couple times a week is perfectly fine, but suddenly I ask you to do me a favor - which is just to spend an evening out with me at a fucking Casino for God’s sake - and that’s the line you draw? That’s too much?” he looks at you, and you’ve never seen him look that way before, not at you. It chills you. 
“I just-,” 
“Stop talking,” he sighs, “You’re prettier when you don’t talk.” 
Your eyes widen at his words. 
“What? This is what you expect of me, correct? The big, bad, wolf? Fine. So here’s how it works now - I tell you where to be and when to be there, and you’re there. I enjoy fucking you, very much, but at the end of the day you can just be my employee. Now, back in the hospital I’m sure that comes with boundaries and scopes of responsibilities but here, all it comes with is: I tell you what to do and you do it. There is no HR complaint box, there’s you getting in the car I’ll send for you Saturday, and smiling and pretending like you’re having the time of your life while I assess the people in attendance to see if I’m going to allow them to live and operate their organizations peacefully in this city, or if I’m going to have a very bloody few months on my hands.” 
You shake under the covers, fight the tears that are burning your eyeballs. 
“Do you understand? Have I made myself unclear in any way?” he asks. 
You shake your head. 
“Words please,” he stares into you. 
“Yes. I understand,” you answer, hoping he doesn’t see the way your chin wobbles. 
“Good. Then from now on we don’t have to flirt around what we are or aren’t, since that’s so fucking important to you suddenly. You’ll  know exactly where you stand,” he heads towards the door, “Oh, and before you get any bright ideas about running back to your miserable life at the hospital, try to remember you don’t walk away from this life. You don’t walk away from me. There’s not a hospital on this planet that will hire a nurse who sells controlled drugs out of her house.” 
“I don’t sell-,”
“Oh don’t you?” he slowly walks back over and leans down close, “Because the cops on my payroll who will turn this house upside down if I ask them to, will write a report that says differently - think of the pharmacy you’ve got going on down there, my goodness. Jail time won’t suit you Kitten, so be a good girl,” he grabs your chin and kisses you hard on the lips. 
You watch in absolute horror as he opens the door and steps out, your face hot and wet with tears, jaw clenched so tight in fear that you feel like your teeth might break. 
“See you soon baby.” 
🗡️🗡️🗡️🗡️🗡️
“___?” 
You hear Hyunjins voice softly call through the closed bedroom door before he gently opens it. 
“What are you doing in here?” you demand, not bothering to roll over to look at him. 
The room is dark, you’ve laid in the same spot, naked, all day. Your pillow is damp with the tears you’ve shed between cat naps. You’ve no idea what time it actually is but his wound needs to be cleaned and the dressings changed. He’s probably also not had any more medication, and you’ve no idea what his vitals look like but you imagine he’s still dehydrated and weak from all that blood he lost. 
“I haven’t seen you all day, I just…I wanted to make sure you were alright I guess,” he says, and you can hear his uneven steps hobbling towards the armchair in the corner of your room. 
“You shouldn’t have walked up the steps, you’ll put too much stress on the wound,” you say flatly, though you can’t seem to find it within you to care. 
“I’m turning this light on,” he says. 
“Don’t! I’m not dressed,” you say, your chest flooding with shame and humiliation, a fresh batch of tears start flowing. 
“Hey,” he stands up again and you hear him grunt, “Are you okay?” 
“I’m fine,” you sob, which only makes more tears because how pathetic is it to say I’m fine when you’re clearly not? “Just go back downstairs - I’ll be there in a minute okay? Please Hyunjin…” 
“Okay,” he says softly, “but if you’re not down there within the hour I’m coming back up here and annoying the shit out of you until you get up and eat something.” 
“Fine.” 
When you come down into the kitchen you say nothing to the two men who sit at the table. Jisung still seems to be on duty and is enamored with some game that’s too loud on his phone. Hyunjin on the other hand, you can feel staring at you as you make your way to the fridge and grab a yogurt. 
You eat it standing over the sink, your back towards the men. 
“What have you had to eat or drink today?” you ask Hyunjin as you toss the spoon into the sink, the half eaten yogurt into the garbage. 
“I’ve eaten, and I’ve been drinking the gatorade and water back and forth. I’m fine,” he says with an emphasis that implies he knows you are not fine. 
“Good, let’s go to your room and take a look at that wound, I’ll get your vitals too for good measure, then I’m going to bed,” you tell him. 
At this Jisung looks up from his phone, “Haven’t you been asleep all day?”
“Well, considering I didn’t really sleep last night, and honestly the fact that you people keep me from sleeping most nights, I figured I’d fucking play catch up Jisung. Is that okay with you?” you snap. 
“Yeah, jeez,” he huffs, “Sounds like you need it.” 
🗡️🗡️🗡️🗡️🗡️
“Ouch,” Hyunjin winces as you peel the bandage off his stitches. 
“The wound looks good, it’s a little sticky but that’s normal. Tomorrow we can have you leave the bandage off, let the air get to it,” you say. 
“What happened?” 
“You got stabbed in a fight,” you answer as if you don’t know what he’s really asking. 
“When Lee left and you didn’t come back down I figured you were just taking some time, and then an hour passed and I thought you were just napping or something, but then the whole day went by and I thought he…” Hyunjin trails off. 
“Killed me?” you finish for him, hyper focusing on carefully opening the clean bandages. 
“I mean…I know that doesn’t make any sense, but yeah, kind of,” he nods. 
“Well, I’m not dead,” you say. 
“I can see that. Did he… do something else…” he trails off again and his dark eyes meet yours for a split second before he looks back down. 
You know what he’s implying and it makes you feel sick. You’ve never done anything nonconsensual with Minho, but that was before his fucking second personality showed up. 
“The only thing that happened in that room was me being made painfully aware of what I’ve really gotten myself into Hyunjin.” 
“What have you gotten yourself into?”
You sigh, your fingers faltering over his skin as new tears make their way down your cheek, “You know. You know exactly,” you sniff. 
Hyunjin takes the pad of his thumb and wipes some of the tears away. 
“Seeing you cry kills me,” he says softly, “When we first started bringing the guys here, I thought you were this tough, bitchy Nurse Ratched type, you’d tell us all what to do, what to get, make us tell you what happened like fifty billion times. Then I realized what you were really doing.” 
You sniff and wipe your tears with the back of your hand, “What are you talking about?” 
“You make us do all those things, you talk us through everything so we won’t freak out. You’re tough, I’m not saying you aren’t,” he laughs, “but you’re sweet to us, to every patient you’ve ever had probably. Like last night when Felix and Bin were freaking, and you asked them about the knife and what happened and made them part of it so they had something to do - that was intentional.” 
“You heard all that?” you wonder. 
“Well yeah, some crazy nurse had her finger in my guts, I wasn’t taking a snooze,” he smiles. 
You laugh through your snot and tears and he smiles. 
“I guess my point is that I don’t know what Lee said to you upstairs, but I do know what you’ve gotten into because I’m in it too, in the thick of it. I’ve killed people ___, but you, you heal them. So if there’s even a shred of goodness in any of this, it’s you. You are the good, and I don’t want you to forget that.” 
You smile and look up at him, “Why are you being so nice, hm? I think the entire time I’ve worked for Lee you and I have spoken maybe three times in passing.” 
Hyunjins smile falters a little as he looks down at you, “Just because you’re always too busy to notice me doesn’t mean I don’t notice you,” he tucks a piece of hair behind your ear then clears his throat, “And I’m not being nice, I’m being honest. Okay? Forget whatever Lee said to you, we all get chewed out from time to time when he’s in a bad mood but that’s just part of the business. I’ve got your back, okay?” 
You nod, and because you need the extra confirmation you look at him, “Promise?” 
“I promise.” 
You tape his new bandage on and squeeze his hand, “Thank you Hyunjin.” 
🗡️🗡️🗡️🗡️🗡️
You sleep all night, it’s the first night in a long time that you’ve slept well. Surprisingly. Minhos words haunted you. He had been like a light switch going from light to dark. You had known from the get go that Minho was dangerous, you weren’t that naive, but he’d never made you feel like you were in danger. Well, that certainly was no longer the case. Maybe you slept so well because now there’s no confusion, no guessing about where things stand. He’d said that you weren’t his prisoner, and maybe you weren’t locked up or chained, but in every way that matters you are most definitely his prisoner. 
When you walk down stairs you’re disappointed that Jisung is gone, you owe him an apology for snapping at him. Instead Seungmin is back, making a mess in your kitchen and not caring to clean it. 
“Are you really necessary?” you groan, smacking his arm and shooing him from the kitchen. 
“Meaning?” he frowns. 
“Is the security detail necessary? I mean, nothing has happened this entire time and I’m getting tired of you all tracking your shit all over my house,” you gripe as you pour yourself some coffee. 
“It’s not your house, is it?” Seungmin sneers, sitting down at the table with the breakfast he helped himself to.
“You’re a dick, you know that?” you smile as you sit across from him. 
“And you-,”
“Shut the fuck up!” Hyunjin whines sleepily as he walks into the kitchen from the guest room. He’s getting around better. His hobble from yesterday has turned into a minor limp today.
“Minho says he’s been texting you with no response,” Seungmin chastises Hyunjin before his butt hits the chair at the table. 
“My phone’s in the room,” he whines, bracing himself to stand back up. 
“I’ll get it,” you say. 
You see the phone on the bedside table and walk over to it, Hyunjin has left the notebook he’d been sketching in yesterday on the bed, wide open. You feel bad for peeking, considering he didn’t seem like he wanted anyone to see his drawings, but you can’t stop yourself from looking down at the page. 
To your surprise, he’s drawn you. You pick up the book and stare at the lines. It’s good, really good actually, and you start flipping through the pages. Most of them are of you. Standing over the dining room table, sitting on the side of his bed, smiling, sad…he’s drawn you at least ten ways and all of them make you feel so…seen. If anyone ever asked you to describe yourself, you’d never be this kind. Never this beautiful. Never this vulnerable. Is this how he sees you? 
“Like them?” Hyunjin asks from the doorway and you drop the notebook back onto the bed. 
“I’m sorry,” you say, “I should’ve asked to look.” 
“It’s okay,” he shrugs, “It’s not that I’m violently opposed to people looking. I mean, Jisung brought it to me yesterday while you were sleeping and I know he snuck a peek. It’s just…” he trails off. 
“Personal?” 
“Yeah.” 
“May I?” you pick the book back up slowly and he nods, limping to the chair nearby and sitting down. 
“These are so good Hyunjin, truly,” you tell him as you flip through more images. 
Hyunjin seems to have drawn everyone around him to perfection. They could be black and white photographs. There’s Seungmin, whose grumpy, distanced demeanor is so well captured you giggle. Felix's angelic, ethereal face with every freckle included. Changbin’s thoughtful expression that he always wears, like he’s constantly planning his next steps. Jisungs sweet smile. Even Minho, whose eyes are just as dark and wild on the page as they are in real life. Then there’s pages of you, more than the others and you feel your face heat. 
“You draw me a lot,” you state quietly. 
“Yeah.” 
“Why?” 
“Like I said sweetheart, just because you’re always too busy to notice me doesn’t mean I don’t notice you. I like drawing you, it relaxes me,” he chuckles. “The lines of your profile, the way your hair falls in your face when you’re working, the expression you wear when you're worried about us,” he looks at you, “I love watching you. You’re so beautiful.”  
“I didn’t realize…” you say softly, suddenly at a loss for words, as you place the book gently back on the bed. 
Hyunjin licks his lips and shrugs, “That’s understandable, I mean, Lee demands most of your attention since you’ve been around, and when he’s not here you’re usually elbow deep in blood so I just keep my distance.” 
At the mention of Minho you’re reminded of the reality of your situation and you take a breath, picking up Hyunjins phone as you originally intended. You walk it over and gently hand it to him, his fingers envelop yours for a moment and he looks up at you wantingly. You remove your hand from his as gently as you can and lay it on his shoulder giving it a squeeze. 
“Don’t look at me like that, okay?” you say softly. 
“Why not?” 
“It makes me want to kiss you,” you say shyly. 
“Would that be so bad?” he half smiles and you screw your eyes shut. 
“I’m not a whore for you all to pass around,” you say stiffly. 
“No, you’re not, is that really the impression you got from everything I just said? That I think you’re the resident whore, here for our pleasure?” he frowns. 
You sigh, “No, I’m sorry I just…” you grab his hand again, “I’m scared of him, Hyunjin. Terrified. I’m scared to do anything that will make him angry.”
“He doesn’t have to know, and I’ll protect you,” he whispers, his fingers tracing lines down your arm, he grabs your hand and kisses the back of it. 
“He knows everything, eventually, and you and I both know he’s the only person you can’t protect me from,” you pull away again and this time leave the room. 
🗡️🗡️🗡️🗡️🗡️
Later that evening you sit in the living room with Seungmin and Hyunjin watching some horror show on Netflix. You’ve not paid a bit of attention to it, though Seungmin is hooked from his favorite recliner. Every few moments you look over to the other side of the sofa and see Hyunjin looking back at you in the darkness, playing with his bottom lip and looking like he wants you so badly it makes your insides clench. You’ve never been so grateful to have Seungmin sitting in your living room, because you’re not entirely sure you wouldn’t crawl over to Hyunjin and take his lips with yours if Seungmin wasn’t there. 
Suddenly your phone rings and movie night comes to a screeching halt. 
“Hello?” 
“Jeongin got shot!” Jisungs voice cries into the speaker and Seungmin and Hyunjin both stiffen up. 
Jeongin is the baby, and the other men treat him like their pet. They love him, from what you’ve observed, and you know your every move is going to be watched like a hawk. 
“Where?” you ask, standing up to flick lights on in the kitchen. 
“At some assholes house, we were there to ask some questions about what happened to Hyunjin and-,”
“Where on his body, Jisung?” 
“Shoulder, in his shoulder,” he answers. 
You breathe a sigh of relief, you can handle a shoulder. 
“We’ll have everything ready, come quickly,” you say, then hang up the phone and get back to work. 
🗡️🗡️🗡️🗡️🗡️
“You’re not to use this arm for several days, you hear me?” you look at Jeongin who looks way too proud to have gotten his first gunshot wound. 
“Yeah, I hear you,” he smiles, a little dopey from the pain pill you gave him. 
“You’re lucky I was able to pry that thing out of you whole,” you remind his smug ass. 
“Mmhmm,” he yawns. 
“Someone drive this kid home so he can sleep,” you laugh. Jisung rushes to Jeongin to help keep him upright.  
“I’ll drive them home,” Seungmin offers. 
“Make sure to remind him not to sleep on that side, and keep his arm in the sling while he’s up and about,” you tell them as Seungmin and Jisung help Jeongin out the door. 
“Thank you sweet princess,” Jeongin grins like a doped up disney character and blows you a kiss from across the room. 
The door shuts and you start cleaning up the mess. It was pretty clean, so not as much blood as there was with Hyunjin just a few days prior. You toss the sheets into the wash, and get rid of the bullet you pulled out of Jeongins shoulder. Everything else goes into a steamer for sanitation. 
“You did good, taking care of the kid,” Hyunjin says walking into the kitchen. In the rush of things you’d almost forgotten he was here, almost forgotten about the suggestive things he’d said to you earlier. Now you’re alone with him. 
“It was an easy one,” you shrug, not turning around, instead you start on some dishes left over from supper. 
“I locked up,” he says, voice getting closer, “checked the perimeter outside, we’re all good.” 
“Thank you,” you slightly turn your face and give him a soft smile. 
“You’re welcome,” he whispers, you can feel him behind you as you splash suds around the sink, you can feel his body heat against your back. 
You turn to face him, drying your hands on the side of your shirt, “What are you doing?” 
“I’ve never had the chance to be alone with you,” he shrugs. 
“We shouldn’t be close like this…” you whisper. 
“Why not? Don’t you feel something here? Because I do, and maybe it’s just the stupid crush I’ve had on you since you started, but it feels deeper than that,” he whispers back, his hand falls gently on the small of your waist, pulling you impossibly close. 
You laugh, resting your head on his shoulder, “I’m so turned around I don’t know what I feel, or what I want, or what to do with myself.” 
“Then let me help you not feel so turned around,” he says, he lifts your chin up with his fingers and brushes his lips over yours softly. 
It starts so slow, so soft it feels like kissing a ghost. His lips roll against yours with more and more pressure, your back pressed against the kitchen cupboards. You let your arms wrap around him, being careful not to hurt him where he may be sore and his hand gets buried in your hair, his thumb tracing gentle lines over your cheek as he anchors you to him. 
His tongue darts out and you meet it with your own, his urgency more palpable now, his body pressed harder against yours. He makes a soft noise into your mouth and you melt, not a moan, but a plea. It’s not until he attempts to lift you up onto the counter that your eyes pop open and you pull away. 
“You’ll hurt yourself,” you remind him breathlessly. 
“I don’t care,” he smiles, pressing himself against you again, capturing your mouth once more. 
You wrap your arms around him again, but then a familiar pounding hits the front door. 
“Minho.”
You both say it simultaneously and leap apart. 
To be safe, Hyunjin picks up his gun from the side table before he opens the door, you’ve come to recognize this as standard protocol with them anytime someone opens a door. You wonder if they do this everywhere, or just at the safe house, it must feel ridiculous to have to open your own door armed. 
“Where is he? Is he alright?” Minho brushes past Hyunjin and comes in, looking for Jeongin, “I came as soon as I saw the text. I was in a meeting.” 
“He was shot in the shoulder, I pulled the bullet out whole, patched him up, gave him something for the pain and sent Jisung and Seungmin to drive him home and get him settled. He’s fine,” you report. 
Minho sighs with relief and nods, “Good, thank you.” 
The room goes silent, the only noise is Hyunjin sitting down on the creaking couch. You’ve got no idea what to say to Minho, the mere sight of him makes your skin crawl, makes you angry, but most of all makes you scared. You ball your fists up in case your fingers start to tremble. 
“I uh, I owe you an apology,” he looks at you, closes some of the distance between you but not close enough to scare, “The things I said yesterday, I think I was a little too harsh with you, I hope you can forgive me Kitten.” 
He touches the side of your cheek gently and you fight every fiber of your body not to recoil, afraid he’ll take it personally and hurt you. 
“Of course,” you manage, though your voice sounds shaky, breathless. So you clear your throat and look at him directly, steeling your nerves, “Forgotten.” 
He smiles and pulls you into him, resting your head snug between his neck and shoulder and you wrap your arms around his waist. Looking beyond into the living room Hyunjin stares at you, your eyes locked in a knowing glance, a sad smile on his face. 
“Good,” Minho says gently, then kisses your cheek. He heads towards the living room to sit with Hyunjin while you finish what you were doing in the kitchen. 
“How are you feeling, then?” he asks. 
“Sore,” Hyunjin shrugs, “Don’t feel much else.” 
“How about I drive you home tonight?” Minho suggests and you drop the plate you were scrubbing into the sink with an annoyingly loud crash. 
“Oh, I…uh,” Hyunjin looks in your direction, “If the doc gives me the go ahead then sure.” 
“Darling? What do you think? I feel like Hyunjin would rest better at home, in his own bed, can you get anything he needs to take with him?” Minho asks. 
“Um, sure,” you nod, not really having a better reason and not good enough at lying to think of anything. “He’s been on antibiotics more than 24 hours and there’s no sign of infection or any other issue. The wound will be sore for several more days but you can treat that with Acetaminophen or Ibuprofen. I’ll get your antibiotics and some clean bandages,” you smile. “Oh, but you will need to come back in about a week so I can remove the stitches.” 
You gather up Hyunjins things, his antibiotics and stuff he’ll need to treat himself at home. You feel robbed of time with him and it makes you feel ridiculous. You know this is probably for the better. Minho was very plain with you in that he’s not your boyfriend, but all the same, something tells you he doesn’t share well. All Hyunjins crush will achieve is both of you dead or at least very fucked up. Besides, you don’t know what you feel, you’ve not had a spare moment in the last few days to slow down and work yourself out - such a thing will probably take a lifetime you think. 
“Here’s a bag of everything,” you hand it to him back in the living room, “I want you to continue the antibiotics twice daily until this bottle is empty. Try to let your stitches air out when you can, but keep a clean bandage on when you sleep, or if anything is going to be rubbing against it. Okay?” 
“Got it doll,” he nods, “I’m going to go grab my stuff, be right back.” You watch as he skulks off to the guest room, leaving you alone with Minho. 
“I really am sorry, ___,” he wraps his arms around you from behind, “I hope you know I’d never harm or hurt you unless I had to.” 
You could pick apart that sentence for a year and still not unpack all the things wrong with what he just said. You want to snap at him, push him off you, but now you know what devil lies under that surface of sticky sweetness. 
“Stop apologizing,” you force a smile, “You’ve been under a lot of stress these last few days, and I shouldn’t have even said the things I said. You’ve been good to me Minho, let’s just put it behind us,” you lie to the best of your ability. 
“I don't deserve you,” he brushes some hair out of your face and kisses you softly. You try not to think about Hyunjins lips on you just moments ago. “Christopher will be here around one or two in the afternoon tomorrow with your dresses, wear something pretty for me, yeah?” 
You nod and smile as Hyunjin walks back into the room, a bag of his personal effects over his shoulder. 
“Thank you for everything ___, I owe you,” he smiles and pats your shoulder as he and Minho make their way out the door. You lock it behind them then turn to face the house you’ve been living in for the last few months. You’re alone again. 
You couldn’t sleep if you wanted to, so you decide to go strip Hyunjins bed and toss the sheets in the wash. When you pick up the pillow to remove the case you see a folded piece of paper underneath. You recognize the sheet from his sketchbook and frantically unfold it. 
It’s a sketch of you, with a note.
This one is my favorite so far. You’re the good in this shit show we’re stuck in, don’t ever forget that beautiful. Love, Hyunjin.
Endnotes:
1. Taglist: @katieraven @linocz @screamobubbles @hpnsfwaddict @simpforleeknaur @the-sweetest-rosie @hyunjinhoexxx @aeri-skzver @mbioooo0000 @seungminindabuilding @moni-logues @shioriyametho - if your @ is in bold then I couldn’t tag you for whatever reason - if you need to adjust settings go do the thang or if I need to do something let me know (I am not technologically competent).
2. Eeek! Part two. I am always so nervous to do multi-chap fics bc I worry people won’t like the direction I’m going and that it will effect my decisions lol also I just typically like working with smaller worlds BUT this fic has thus far been a fun little ride, so I hope you all like it. More to come soon, and as always here’s your virtual smooch😘
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ninibeingdelulu · 5 months ago
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Mimicking his mannerisms ✧
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Plot: You mimic your boyfriend’s mannerisms.
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The first few times you copied the way his brows furrowed into a scowling vee or how he pursed those sculpted lips in a tight, thin line after getting flustered, Cloud didn't seem to take much notice.
Figured you were just being your typical bubbly, mischievous self poking fun.
But when he unleashed a bristling torrent of gravelly curses after mashing his thumb with the Buster Sword's pommel, only for you to parrot the same salty tirade with startling accuracy right down to his gruff intonation? He stopped dead in his tracks, penetrating mako eyes widening a fraction.
Wheeling around, Cloud didn't bother smothering his bemused chuckle at catching you standing there doing your best imitation - brows knit fiercely, plush lips twisted into a scowl even as you tried stifling your own giggles behind your palm.
You simply flashed those doe eyes up at him, the picture of faux innocence.
"Think that's funny, do you?"
Despite the stern words, you could hear the begrudging warmth rumbling in his baritone as Cloud closed the distance between you two. Before you could squirm away, one of those sinewy arms looped low around your waist, reeling your squirming form flush against his chiseled torso.
"Go ahead and laugh it up while you can," he husked against the crown of your hair, sounding almost...proud?
"Reckon you've got me down pat. Just don't go picking up any other bad habits from your dumb boyfriend."
After that, it became your favorite game - randomly spouting off one of Cloud's trademark gruff remarks or emulating his rigid posture and flinty-eyed glower out of nowhere.
Each time, you'd be rewarded with a lopsided smirk and a shake of that spiky blond head accompanied by a fond eyeroll.
That unbreakable composure he ordinarily maintains only seems to genuinely fracture whenever you mimic the few exceedingly rare glimpses of vulnerability Cloud permits to slip past his sky-high defenses.
So the first time you caught him in the shower fresh from another night terror, haunted mako-infused gaze glassy and dull...and decided to parrot the hollowed-out, deadened murmurs of broken fragments like "don't...wake...not real..." barely above a whimper?
You swear you saw his heroic facade shatter for an instant.
In a blink, Cloud closed the distance between you two, stout fingers cupping your jaw with surprising tenderness. Peering down at you with those luminous eyes swimming in sorrow and self-recrimination, he rasped your name with tangible pain lacing every syllable.
"Fuck, don't...don't ever do that again." Just like that, any lingering threads of mirth dissipated entirely.
"Please?"
He exhaled shakily, thumb caressing your cheekbone.
After snagging a searing yet chaste kiss, Cloud tugged you into the circle of his embrace, chin nestled atop your crown.
"You wanna mimic your dumb jackass mercenary? Fine, copy the stupid stuff. But not..." Another tremor wracked his powerful frame. "Not that. Not the darkest parts of this mess inside me. Those can stay buried."
Burrowing closer into his soothing warmth, you simply nodded wordlessly against the broad expanse of his chest.
Because as adept as you've become at perfectly emulating every facet of Cloud Strife, you know better than to pry deeper into the darkest recesses of his haunted psyche.
Some wounds are better off left unexhumed and undisturbed - cauterized with unspoken tenderness.
So you vowed to keep the mimicry lighthearted and silly, restoring those flashes of pure contentment and boyish grins his mercenary persona suppresses as penance for more sins than any one man should bear.
Those rare, fleeting slivers of joy were more than worth playfully shouldering his brooding stoicism, after all - if only to remind both of you that indomitable heroes can find refuge in simple delights, too.
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therealmylesmorales · 1 month ago
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Saw domestic headcanons for lara and thought it would be a good idea to ask for more lmao
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⭒ If heart eyes were a person, it would be Lara whenever she looked at you. She loves the sound of your voice, and will often be seen with a small smile whenever you’re rambling
⭒ She’s totally listening to you whenever she’s like this blah blah blah, proper name, place name, backstory stuff
⭒ Lara doesn’t realize it, but she has a very intimidating and intense presence (we remember that one scene in Shadow Tomb Raider). So when people dare to flirt with you, they don’t stay long. They squirm under her piercing gaze.
⭒ Lara is far from insecure, she trusts you and your relationship. But, it’s other people that she doesn’t trust. If they won’t respect your relationship, they don’t deserve her kindness.
⭒ I would say the only thing Lara WOULD be a little insecure of would be her scars from her adventures; that cauterize wound, bullet scars, that time that jaguar clawed her back— she doesn’t like to reminisce about them.
⭒ However comma, when she feels your fingers lightly rub on her back, innocently tracing over those scars, she can’t help but get fully absorbed in your touch.
⭒ Along with your soft hands and your quiet heartbeat, Lara always manages to fall asleep in your arms.
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cherryblossom-enthusiast · 7 months ago
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Retribution (The Kidxf!Reader) - Monkey Man
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A/N: I said I was writing it and it has been done lol If you haven’t watched this film yet, please do! I indulged and wrote a small fic about it lol (Don't mind the abyssmal pacing of this, I barely edited and added anything) I hope you all enjoy it and can someone please indulge me more by writing more fics about this man!? Dev Patel absolutely killed it! Put him in a rom-com! I tried to write the hijra with as much care as possible. Please let me know if there’s something I can be more educated on in terms of this!
Synopsis: A mysterious man arrives at the temple you call home and makes quite an impression.
Warnings/ Tags: Angst. Fluff. Allusions to sex work. Descriptions of violence and blood. Coarse language. Kissing.
Word Count: 3.2K
Masterlist
The cheers of those around you interrupt the hanging of your laundry.
Peeking through the shoulders and the shadows, you sneak a glance at the subject of commotion, and it doesn’t surprise you.
The way he moves is equal parts graceful and aggressive. His punches are meticulously messy, a choreographed war drum thrumming to the beat of his own heart. This man is far removed from who you remember gazing upon a few days ago. His eyes were lost, sunken, like a child looking for guidance or divine judgement for all that’s led him to this point.
This was not that man.
This man was vengeance personified.
And through him, you felt hope.
You knew nothing about him. Alpha was able to garner all of your help, quietly and quickly instructing to pull the man out of the river. You were there when they cauterized his wounds. His screams were pure agony, making you cringe, and somehow you felt that his pain went deeper than physicality.
He walked like a ghost when he first came, aimlessly walking, like trying to just bump into something that would give him an answer.
Now, it seems he walks with purpose.
He throws his last punch and receives a mighty applause. The crowd recognizes the show’s over for the time being and they disperse as he keeps heaving, staring at the bag like he wants to hit it more. Like he never wants to stop.
You pick up a basket and walk over to him. Whether to strike up a proper conversation or feeling annoyed at the dirtied shirt on the ground you had just washed, you don’t exactly know. But something about him is magnetic, pulling you in, just like the first time you saw him that night, all bloody and bruised.
You nod at his white shirt. “I’ll take that.”
He breaks from his spell and turns to look at you.
His heaving slows, his breaths getting deeper by the second. For what you think is a few minutes, he just stares are you, and you at him, both of you taking each other in. You realize his physique really is something to awe over, but more importantly, that his eyes are far gentler than what you thought possible.
You tilt your head. “The shirt?”
He bends and picks up the white cloth, simply extending it to you as he continues to stare. You gesture for him to drop it into the basket. With an amused scoff, you start to turn away. “I’d appreciate it if you hung the next shirt you tore off on a wall.”
“Your name?”
His voice surprises you. You’ve only heard him speak a few times before. He sounds rough, and scratchy, like he doesn’t use his voice often.
You introduce yourself and after a few moments, he repeats your name back to you. Slowly, quietly, as if he’s scared of offending you in any way. Listening to it fall from his lips is like listening to dripping honey and you’d be lying to yourself if you said it didn’t make heat crawl up your neck.
To save face, you again start to walk away from him. “Widen your stance.” You advise, not waiting to hear a reply.
- - - - - - - - - - -
Several days pass until you have another full conversation.
You’re caught up with mundane chores. He’s caught up with punching that bag and doing god knows what else when he’s not at the temple.
Though there was that one time you almost slip and he catches you effortlessly by the waist and it definitely made your stomach flutter.
You smile the first time you depart to wash laundry and see his shirt hanging over a nearby wall.
He’s getting better. His posture looks strong, immovable. Sometimes you think with all that’s happened to him, that he must be invincible. Surely, no one can lose that much blood and still maintain their sanity.
But then you see his movements wain by the end of his exercise and it’s like something powerful overcomes him as he loses all finesse and he punches that rice-filled bag for all its worth with no rhyme or reason. You sense his frustration as he suddenly stops and puts his hand on his hips, breathing erratically.
You approach him cautiously. Pulling out a bottle of water from your laundry basket, you offer it to him. “Consider taking a break?”
He’s slow to take the bottle from you but he does so anyway. After almost draining the whole thing, he splashes the rest of the water over his head. Only as he shakes the droplets off his curly locks does he try to return it to you.
“An actual break.” You reiterate, stuffing the bottle of water back into your basket. “Your drummer needs one too. He might have built up his callouses, but he should eat something.”
The man turns to look where your eyes are directed and though you don’t have a clear view of his face, you can tell from the way that his eyebrows ease that he feels a sense of guilt. The drummer simply raises his palm and stands. “Take some time to clear your head, I’ll be here whenever you have.” He leaves the courtyard until it’s just the two of you left.
The weather is oddly cool today. There’s smoke and a mugginess that’s expected from being close to the heart of the city, but if you were to look around, it’d almost seem like you were transported decades into the past. The temple acts like a sanctuary, shielding you all from the outside world’s noise and it does a good job.
You walk towards a small wooden bench off to the far side and take a seat. You set your basket down and pat the space next to you. “Come,” You beckon “I’d appreciate some company while I fold all of these white shirts I’ve had to add to my load.”’
Something like embarrassment flashes on his face as he follows your command and sits right next to you. His posture is stiff like he wants to make an impression. It’s obvious your newfound companion doesn’t like to talk, or more accurately, isn’t very good at starting small conversation.
“I’m sorry for the bother.”
He has a tone of bashfulness, unable to turn in your direction. Your smile widens as you continue to fold “I didn’t say it was bothersome.” You refute. “In fact, I’d rather say I don’t mind you taking your shirt off.”
You try to make direct eye contact then, but he swallows thickly and doesn’t meet your eyes. It makes you giggle, but you decide to pull back on the joke, not wanting him to take offence or cause him more uneasiness. “Besides, each shirt is a testament to how much work you’ve put into bettering your skills here.”
That gets him to scoff and drop his head in disbelief “I’m still not where I need to be.”
“No,” you reply earnestly “but you will be.”
This earns you another bout of silence.
 For a while, you both just enjoy each other’s quiet company. He stares blankly ahead and you give him the time to examine whatever it is he’s battling through in his own thoughts.
Eventually, he sighs and inclines his head towards the sky. “How long have you lived here?”
“Ever since I could remember.”  You answer honestly. “Alpha says they opened the door and there I was, miraculously alive, left laying on a dirty blanket.”
“You’ve been here ever since?” He carefully asks.
“I’ve never lived anywhere else if that’s what you’re asking.” You pass an unfolded shirt to him and to your surprise he starts to fold it with no question. Bitter memories start to glaze your view. “And for someone as uneducated as me, there’s only a few jobs out there that I’d be considered for as a woman.”
A knowing silence passes through you both at the statement. Yatana was unforgiving. A real dog-eat-dog society with no time or need for those who couldn’t stomach it or keep up. Truth be told, most of the time you couldn’t. Very often would a prostitute or child be pounding on your doors for help or asylum. Hungry, beaten, thrown away like a speck of dust not worth anyone’s time.
“Doesn’t it make you angry?”
You’re unphased by the question. “Of course it does.”
And you mean it. There are days when you scream at the sky or dunk your head slightly longer underwater to try and get away from it all, try to release it in some way.
Eyes still trained to the sky; he confesses “Because that’s all I feel. Anger and pain, and I can’t-“ he struggles to finish his words. “I can’t-‘
“I know.”
That makes him look back down and finally turn in your direction. He patiently expects you to explain.
 You swallow thickly but continue to talk anyway. “To feel helpless, like you can’t do anything no matter how hard you try.” Gritting your teeth, you realize your hands have stopped folding. “But it doesn’t matter, because there are people who need me more strongly than the pain I feel.”
He considers your words thoughtfully and waits for you to speak once more. “Amidst all this chaos, this temple stands. People need me here. Children, mothers, the beautiful hijra who gave me a home, and when they leave this place with the tiniest glimpse of hope on their faces, then I know I’ve done my job. I don’t fight as well as the hijra here, I don’t expect to get much better, but I want them to know that they have refuge with me.”
You pass him an unfolded sari and for the rest of the time you are sitting together, you both fold quietly, basking in the sun and each other’s presence.
He continues to train harder after that. Each step is quick, each punch as sharp as a bullet. When he isn’t training, he’s watching. The news, the protests, the speeches, like he’s reassuring himself, learning the best way to approach.
 It’s obvious everyone here, including you is taken with this stranger. Though, you don’t really know if you could even call him that anymore.
It’s like he seeks you out. It doesn’t matter if it’s simply sitting together for dinner or him deliberately waiting for you to walk through the courtyard with your basket under your arm. Both of your eyes are trained on each other with an eager sheen.
Maybe it’s fear or maybe it's an understanding that your pairing would most likely never work out in the end. Either way, whatever it is, it disappoints you because you so badly want to believe he wants you the same way.
The mood becomes slightly flirtatious and you catch sight of a boyish grin here or there, especially when he’s surrounded by the hijra.
But anytime you think he might ask you something, or just when you’re on the cusp of telling him your interest, something stops you in your tracks, holding you back.
A recollection plays in your head of last night.
It’s just him and the drummer again today. You wait near a dark window before you pass so as to not to disturb his concentration.
He has a beat to the way he fights, a brutal rhythm, and it astounds you every time you watch him. If this is how he looks punching a bag, you wonder how he’d look fighting against others. You find the thought oddly attractive, and it makes you flush.
For all his skill in the ring, it seems that’s where all his artistry in footwork stops. Surrounded by laughing and beaming faces, with the sound of softer drumming in the air, everyone takes a turn dancing. No one cared about how sloppy anyone was. You sure weren’t the best dancer amongst the hijras, but this seemed unsubstantial when you were all drunk on each other’s company.
The children present that evening and you form a small circle. You’re swinging your arms around when you notice your mystery man with a smile of his own. It knocks the air out of your lungs. It’s one that gives him crinkles around his eyes and all at once he doesn’t look like a hardened killer, but someone you’d see on a billboard or a magazine cover.
You crook your finger at him, inviting him into your little dance number. He tries to politely decline, his once beaming face turning something sheepish, but Alpha bumps him shoulder to shoulder, and soon the rest of them urge and tease him to dance along. When he gets to the center begrudgingly, it’s already too late for him to back out. Two children start to pull him until he lands directly opposite of you.
The circle of your intertwined hands spins, it twirls here and there, and when you all raise your hands to shrink the circle, you land face-to-face with the most fascinating man you’ve ever seen. It lasts all of five seconds, but everything around you dims as you look at this man’s face illuminated by firelight.
His eyes are his most emotive feature and they always seem to twinkle. Right then, they almost looked like jewels from the way they glossed over.
You pick up on the way those eyes slowly dipped down towards your lips and suddenly you wonder if he’s thinking about the same things you are. If he really does want you the same way you do.
But before you can tumble into that path of thought, cheers and hoots pull you out of the little bubble of enchantment you’d created. You turn to reject the idea of it all, but when you glance back at the man in front of you, your breath catches.
He continues to stare intently at your visage, not minding or caring about the extra attention one bit.
And then a scream erupts in your ears.
Seeing him punch the bag until rice grains stick to his chest reminds you of what he’s capable of.
When he shares a nod with the drummer, you know that he’s finally achieved what he came here at the temple to do.
Dropping your basket, you immediately rush indoors, following the cries of the hijra around you. Lakshmi lays in the center of the temple room floor, blood dripping from them like a fountain. You crouch and gently put their head on your knees as the weeps continue all around you.
They explain that they put a notice on the door, Shakti’s men, and all you can see is an unbridled tint of red starting to form. Your heart is pounding, Lakshmi is struggling to fight for air, and in front of this statue, an indescribable wave of pain crashes into you.
It’s loud, far too loud. With your thoughts, the cries, the blood staining your shirt.
Your one hand on the floor clenches into a fist. You try to remind yourself that you can be better, that there must be something more to all of this than just pray, than to just keep taking what they serve like impotent little ants. The hopelessness starts to creep in, slowly etching itself into your thoughts.
But before it can take hold, you distinguish a face in the shadows. It’s observing as everything around you starts to crumble and in that moment you try to push all that anger onto him as you directly glare into his soul.
And when you see him break open the donation box much later during the humid night, you know you’ve put your faith into the right person.
He tries to leave as silently as he came, but you meet him at the entrance. He holds a crude, dirty children’s bag and you can only assume that’s where he’s keeping the money.
He tries to explain, but you start to approach him which stops his needless rambling. In an act of boldness, you grab his hand in yours and flip it to look clearly at his scars. If he’s uncomfortable, he doesn’t show it. He doesn’t even flinch.
“Alpha was right.” You agree. “You do have the hands of a warrior”
You enclose his hand between yours, putting it up against your lips. “I wonder how such gentle hands fight with such ferocity.”
He starts to twitch and as you loosen your grip, expecting him to pull back, he instead cups the side of your face and despite his scarred calloused hands, his touch is pure velvet. His thumb brushes the tears you didn’t notice were starting to fall freely down your cheek.
Please, you pray. Whatever it takes.
“Fight for me.” You croak thickly. “Fight for all of us.”
He clenches his jaw. “I promise you.”
You pull him towards you by grasping his neck and your lips meet in the middle. The kiss is like him. Equal parts sweet as it is harsh. His lips were warm and soft, but the urgency in the way you both kissed each other was anything but. You bury your hand into his hair and feel his curls unmake themselves even further. His smell of soap and sage infiltrates your senses.
It was a dizzying feeling. It’s what you felt while you were dancing exploded ten-fold. It was the culmination of tension and grief exploding into something technicolour. As your noses bump against each other, you think you want to draw more of this kindness from this man.
Your breathing quickens and he groans into your mouth. It’s almost like you two are fighting. With each other, against each other, for each other. Exploring this hungry need has only made you more insatiable.  
And that becomes particularly dangerous, especially when you know he has a job to do.
Reluctantly you pull back. His eyes stay closed and you press your foreheads together, listening to the crackles of the torches around you. “Your emotions are strong.” You quietly whisper. “But do not let them control you. Let them guide you.”
He blinks his eyes open, full of clarity.
Letting each other go hesitantly, you take one last look at him and he at you. “Come back to me,” you say with all the confidence you can muster.
You can tell you’re both skeptical about your claim, but he nods his head anyway. He walks around you and you don’t turn to look at him leave for fear of wanting to hold him back. You hear the creak of the door, but before he can take another step away from you, you mumble “Give them Hell.”
There’s a slight pause before you start to hear the crunching of the ground beneath him, each step lighter than the last until you can no longer hear him creeping into the night.
Please, you pray. Whatever it takes.
- - - - - -
When you see the money-filled bag hanging on the statue the next day, it’s attached with a note.
His presence overflows through your every pore.
Alpha looks at you with a determined expression on their face, as do the other hijra around them.
It seems they don’t just want repayment, they want a reckoning.
They want retribution.
- - - - - -
A/N: Please let me know what you think by leaving a note, comment, or reblog! Or we can just geek out about Monkey Man lol I definitely won’t be opposed to that lol
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sara-scribbles · 7 months ago
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Melting the Dragon King's Heart (Part 3)
Fandom: Twisted Wonderland Malleus Draconia/F!Reader Summary: After falling down some stairs, you wake up in the body of a villain from one of Idia's cheesy romance books. Destined to die a fiery death, you have to figure out a way to change your fate. Word Count: 7,661 Notes: Hey all, sorry for being off the grid for so long! I've been busy and haven't had much time to do anything besides study. But we're finally at the end! I hope everyone enjoyed the story! It was a lot of fun to try my hand at writing this. Malleus is a fun character to write for.
I might have some more isekai/regression/reincarnation stories for Leona and Jamil. It's something I've been thinking about but haven't fully committed. Let me know if these ideas sound interesting and you'd like me to write on them.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Warnings: Physical abuse, emotional abuse, attempted murder, actual murder, death
Despite being in the library often, it’s always a little daunting when you first step in. There are plenty of staff to help, but shelves upon shelves of texts are still a bit much. A lot of the texts near the back are quite old. A lot of them have to be handled with care or they might just fall apart.
After asking for books on enchanted weapons, with a strange look from the librarian, you sit down and try your best to go through as much as possible. After a few hours of no success, you feel a headache coming on. Leaning back, you let out a deep, tired breath. There are plenty of enchanted weapons, some real and some just legend, but there’s nothing about the specific weapon you’re looking for.
In the story, the dagger is described as being crimson with an obsidian handle. It was originally a sword blessed by a group of fairies to take down a corrupted dragon. However, once the blade had been dipped in the ancient dragon’s blood, the blessing turned into a curse. Somehow the sword was broken but enough remained to create a dagger. 
Any cut made by the blade could not be healed. No magic, no potion, no artifact could stop the bleeding. The wounded person would bleed to death. If the person was lucky, they could die in a matter of seconds. Those not so lucky would have an agonizingly slow death. Even if they were to cauterize the wound, the bleeding would continue. It would only stop once the wounded died.
“Very grim,” you mutter under your breath. For such a light hearted novel, the curse of the blade was surprising. However, it’s never used since the main protagonist is able to get it.
“Your highness, is everything alright?” the royal librarian.
Sitting up straight, you clear your throat. “I don’t think I’ll be able to find what I’m looking for. Could you put these back?” You close the book with a thump.
“Of course. Is there anything else you need?”
“No, thank you.” Deciding to head back to your office, you leave the library. By now you know how to navigate your way through the castle. 
Your feet move on autopilot as your mind wanders. There must be something you can do. The only other thing you can think of is returning home to see if they’ve found the cursed dagger. Of course this would require you to figure out the relative time frame of when Yūki meets Malleus to when it's found. However, you’re unsure if following the story timeline would even be helpful with how different everything is now.
Arriving back at your office, you eye the stack of documents still left for your review. Plopping down onto the chair unceremoniously, you rub your eyes. Instead of doing the work on your desk, you find the previous book you had been reading. You never thought books about laws would be interesting, but Briar Valley has some strange laws that make reading about them fascinating.
As you flip to the bookmark, you note with some irony that the next chapter is on divorce. Perhaps when your plan had been to divorce Malleus, this would have been helpful. Though, still curious, you decide to read it. Everything about Briar Valley’s laws are complicated, though maybe not as complicated as the Queendom of Roses. There are separate laws for fae, humans, and fae-human issues.
You skip to the section on fae-human divorce since that would apply to you. “ ‘Depending on whether the parties have participated in the soul ceremony, divorce can be rather difficult though not impossible.’ What’s a soul ceremony?”
Before you can continue, Diablo knocks on the door. “Your grace, lunch is being served.” You quickly close the book before following him.
---
You’re silently reading in bed while Malleus goes through some documents. The times he used to come to your room to “hold your hand” has extended to almost every night. Instead of holding your hand, you both comfortably sit in your bed either talking or reading.
Malleus still returns to his room once it’s time for bed. You almost asked him if he wanted to stay the previous night, but you lost your nerves. There’s something very different from just reading in bed to actually sleeping next to him. You wouldn’t mind sharing a bed with him, but it’s almost been an entire year of marriage and you haven’t once slept in the same bed, so you’re unsure about how to bring it up.
Malleus shuffles his papers with a deep sigh. Glancing over at him, he rubs the bridge of his nose while muttering to himself. “Something wrong?” you ask.
He sets the papers aside on the bedside table. “Nothing really. Just that grandmother will be visiting soon. And she’s already placed certain…demands on me.”
Your eyes nearly pop out of your head. “She is?!” You had only met her a handful of times. Yet, in those few formal visits, all you can recall is how intimidating both in magic and overall presence she is.
Chuckling, the fae reaches out and squeezes your hand. “No need to worry, my heart. I’ll take care of all the preparations.”
Book forgotten, you turn to him. “What did she ask for?”
“She wants her favorite room overlooking the gardens. She, of course, expects to have dinner with both of us. And a few other things about her daily walks around Briar Valley that I’m sure Diablo can take care of,” he answers, ticking off each one on his fingers.
Fiddling with the sheets, you ask, “Is there anything I can do?”
“Hmm… She didn’t say anything in her letters. But I’m sure she’ll let you know if she wants anything.” His gaze flickers over to the book in your lap.
“I should do something for her. Since it’s been awhile, maybe I can get her some flowers. Or maybe plan an outing? Do you think she’d want to have tea in the gardens? Or maybe…” As you ramble, Malleus takes the book from your lap.
He nods occasionally while he skims the page. His lips press together in a thin line. Brows furrowing, his eyes narrow. You pause when you finally notice he’s not listening. “Malleus?”
Turning away from the book, he asks in a serious tone, “Did I do something wrong?”
Blinking owlishly, you cycle back to the conversation. Yet, nothing comes to mind about what he is referring to. “What are you talking about?”
He gestures to the book. “You’re reading about divorce in regards to fae-human relationships. Did I do something wrong to make you consider divorce?” Though his tone is even, the stormy look in his eyes say otherwise. There’s a flash of lighting outside the window.
Ignoring the sudden change in weather, you shake your head. “I’m not planning to divorce you, Malleus.”
His shoulders relax and his gaze clears. “I see…”
Taking the book away from him, you set it aside. “I’ll tell you the truth. I may have considered divorce at the start of our marriage because I didn’t want you to be unhappy.” ‘I also didn’t want to die’ you add silently. “But I realized that it would be unfair to ask for divorce based on a few months together. And it would be selfish of me to not consider your own feelings.”
“If you aren’t happy here, I’d be fine with a divorce,” he says, his voice strained. “I want you to be happy.”
Leaning against his shoulder, you hum in agreement. “I am happy. And you’re happy too, right?”
“Of course,” he responds without missing a beat.
“Then there’s nothing to worry about.” Except the fact your parents possibly have a weapon that could kill him.
He wraps his arm around your middle, dragging you closer to his side so your head rests against his chest. He leans back against the pillows. You can hear the steady beating of his heart. A comfortable silence falls and you're almost lulled to sleep. The thought of sharing a room pops into your head once more.
“Hey, do you want to share a room?” you inquire, deciding to throw caution to the wind.
Malleus straightens up, which startles your comfortable position. “You wish to share a room?” His eyes are wide.
Sitting up, you find yourself picking at the sheets again. “Well, you basically come here every night, so that would be the most logical thing to do. And we are married, so it wouldn’t be strange if we decided to sleep in the same room.”
Shuffling out of bed, Malleus puts on his dragon slippers. “I will let Diablo know at once to prepare the master bedroom,” he says hurriedly. 
“M-Mallues?” He has already gathered his papers and is about to head out before he stops halfway.
He walks back over to you. With a large grin, he leans down and kisses the top of your head. “I almost forgot, my heart. Good night.” Eyes twinkling, he leaves without another word.
Your mouth hangs open for a bit before you snap it closed with a click.
---
In less than a day, your new bedroom is ready. Diablo has your things moved in while you're working. The old butler seems at ease and comments how Malleus is in a wonderful mood. Everyone you pass by smiles brightly at you. You’re almost embarrassed at the fact that it seems everyone knows why he’s in a good mood. But, it’s honestly adorable.
There is a nervous feeling that settles in your stomach as you think about the logistics of sharing a room. For one, you have to share a bathroom, which isn’t much of an issue considering how massive the bathrooms are. The only thing you’re concerned about is possibly being walked in on while changing. It isn’t like you haven’t seen another naked person, but you’re self conscious about the scars on your back.
No one, besides your parents and the few people who treated you on occasion when you were unable to, knows about the scars. They’re all thin and straight, but there are so many. They crisscross from the top of your back to the small of your back. Some are very old while others are only about a year old. 
You recall the faces of the few doctors who had seen the scars. Looks of shock and pity aren’t uncommon. One, you recall vividly, did not react at all, but you could see the way her hands shook. Yet, none dared to ask where the marks came from nor did they ever say anything to your parents. They valued their lives far more.
How could you blame them?
Shaking your head to clear out the bad thoughts, you decide you’ll figure out what to do when the time comes. For now, you have to decide what to do with two unexpected visitors. 
There had been a commotion at the palace gates that Diablo had come to you about this morning. When you heard what happened, you immediately went to meet them. Now in the drawing room, Yūki sits across from you looking sheepish. Grim happily munches on the food offered by Diablo.
“I didn’t expect to see you so soon,” you start. It’s true since Yūki and Grim are not supposed to come for another two months. It’s just another indication that the story is completely different.
Yūki sighs. “Grim kept nagging about wanting to visit. When he wants to do something, he typically won’t change his mind. I’m sorry for dropping in unannounced.”
You wave off their apology. “It’s fine. I just wanted to be able to prepare for your visit more. Diablo can prepare a guest room. It’s a little busy here because Malleus’s grandmother is visiting soon.” you explain.
“Should we leave? I don’t want to be intruding…” Grim doesn’t seem bothered as he downs a cup of tea. Diablo pours him a refill without missing a beat.
“No, it’s fine. She’s not supposed to be here for another month. So, how are your travels?” you ask, changing the subject.
They seem to relax a bit. “It’s great! We went to visit the Scalding Sands before coming here. We even got to ride a magic carpet!” Their eyes light up as they talk about their newest adventure.
You wonder how they felt in the original novel when they had to stay in Briar Valley at the end. The author didn’t mention much about what happened except that Yūki went on to rule alongside Malleus. It was implied that they never left Briar Valley. Could someone who loved traveling so much really be happy staying in one place?
At some point in the conversation Malleus comes in. He pauses when his gaze lands on Yūki. You watch as he regards them curiously. Yet, it’s only a brief pause before he turns to you to ask you a few questions about a document. He leaves right after without a second look.
A part of you is a little disappointed at the underwhelming moment of their first meeting. However, another part is happy that there isn’t some kind of instant connection between the two. You’re selfish.
“He’s scary,” Grim mutters once Malleus is gone.
“Grim!” Yūki looks at you apologetically.
“What?! I’m just telling the truth! The magic rolling off of him is intense!” The cat waves his paws around. “It’s suffocating! You might not be able to feel it henchhuman, but I can tell!”
“It’s alright. Malleus can seem rather intimidating, but he really isn’t. I promise he’s a gentle, kind soul,” you assure them with a laugh.
Yūki relaxes once more. “He obviously loves you very much,” they state while chewing on a macaron. You face warms. “He only has eyes for you,” they continue “and it seems the feelings are mutual…” A single eyebrow goes up.
Trying to hide your embarrassment, you take a long sip of tea. Clearing your throat, you can’t meet their amused eyes. “Well…yes, they are,” you say in a soft tone. You can’t lie about your feelings. “He has a good heart. We started off rocky, but we’re in a good place now.”
Yūki and Grim both glance at each other. You realize you’re probably smiling like a fool and quickly school your features as best as you can. You steer the conversation to a different topic.
Later, Diablo shows them to the guest room and you head back to your office. There’s still paperwork you need to finish. On your desk is some mail with many of them being letters from other foreign dignitaries. However, one letter causes your blood to run cold. You know that sharp but elegant script as you know the scars on your back.
Rarely have your parents sent letters. Slipping the letter opener under the envelope, you’re almost tempted to burn the letter without looking. But the fact that they sent a letter must mean something important. It’s only a single sheet with only three sentences. You blink a few times before setting down the paper. The page blurs as you feel your chest pounding and a distant, high pitched noise fills your ears.
Dearest child,
Your mother has passed. Come home so our country may mourn her. The funeral will be tomorrow.
Father
Before you can fully realize anything, the door to your office opens. Malleus steps inside with a concerned look in his gaze while holding a piece of paper. Breaking out of your daze, you zero in on the paper in his hand. It’s the same sharp writing. There’s nowhere to hide.
“My heart, I am so sorry,” he says, gently setting down the letter. You can see that your father wrote more to him in the letter. “Are you okay?”
He reaches out but pauses when he notices the look in your eyes. There’s a long pause before you find your voice. “I’m fine. Thank you…” You carefully take your own letter and fold it back into the envelope. “I should prepare to return…” you whisper.
Malleus gently takes your hand in his. “Take all the time you need. I know the mourning process can take time.”
Your heart aches at his kindness. But how can you tell him that you don’t want to go back? That you’re terrified of returning to a place that only holds bad memories? Malleus lost his parents, so he’s no stranger to loss. But you hold no sympathy for the woman who called herself your mother.
“I’ll inform Diablo. Finish up what you need here.” He presses a kiss to your forehead before leaving to find the old butler.
You stand there for a moment. Your heavy breathing is the only sound that you can hear. You stumble your way out of the study. As everything fades in the background, childhood memories come back. Memories of a younger version huddling on the bed, knees draw close to her chest. Always shaking but never crying because it would only lead to further punishment.
A voice calls out as you stumble and fall forward. You hit the ground face first but you don’t register the impact. A hand comes into your lines of vision and you instinctively jerk away.
“Don’t…” you cry out weakly.
Suddenly Yūki’s face appeared into your field of vision. They say something but you don’t really hear. They move away for a bit and return with some water. They press the cup into your hands. They place a gentle hand on your back while rubbing slow circles. Your hands shake as you stare into the cup. As your breathing slows down, the pressure in your chest lessens. After a little longer, you take a slow sip.
“Your highness?” Yūki hesitantly calls to you in a soft tone.
Swallowing, you look around. Somehow, you stumbled your way to Yūki’s guestroom. “I…I’m sorry for barging in on you…” you apologize.
Yūki offers their hand and guides you to a chair. Setting the cup on the table, you sag back into the chair. “Just take your time,” they say, taking a seat as well.
Glancing around, you note that Grim isn’t anywhere to be seen. As if reading your mind, Yūki adds, “Grim went to grab a snack from the kitchen. He probably won’t be back for a while.”
You fiddle with your hands trying to find the words. You’re sure Yūki isn’t the type to gossip, so whatever you tell them would be safe. But should you be dumping your personal problems on someone who you’ve only met a few times?
“I don’t want to burden you with my personal problems…but would you be willing to listen?” The weight of everything has always been there, but you had ignored it. But with the arrival of the letter, you can’t ignore it anymore. Perhaps hearing the advice of someone from the outside would help.
Nodding, Yūki offers an encouraging smile. So you tell them everything. Well almost everything. You tell them about the past, your parents’ plan to take over Briar Valley using your unique magic, the fact that you’ve been lying to Malleus from the beginning, that they may have the one weapon that could kill Malleus. Every word out of your mouth feels like a release. Yūki listens without saying a word and keeping their facial expression straight.
Finally, you finish and it feels like you’ve been speaking for hours. Your throat feels dry, but the weight has been lessened. You wait for Yūki to respond. It’s a lot of information to be telling someone in one sitting.
Clearing their throat, their brows draw together. “Well…sorry but fuck that’s a lot!”
Your eyebrows go up as you stare at each other. Then, you start laughing. You both burst into laughter. It’s the first time you’ve ever heard Yūki say something like that. Wiping away stray tears, you shake your head with a smile.
“Sorry for dumping all that on you. I think I just needed to tell someone.” You sigh. “I’ve been holding that in for so long, but it feels good to at least tell someone.”
They wave off your apology. “You’d be surprised how many of my friends I had to play therapist for. It’s nothing new.”
Despite the reassurance, you can see the slight sag in their shoulders. “Still, you shouldn’t have to if you don’t want to. I’m being a hypocrite since I just did the same thing, but I want you to know it’s okay to just turn away if something becomes too much. You don’t have to fix everyone’s problems.”
Looking away, Yūki chuckles softly. “You’re the first person to tell me that… Thank you.”
You want to tell them that you know about the things they have to go through in the story. But don’t because Yūki isn’t a character in Idia’s book. Despite starting out in what you understood to be a story, you’ve come to realize that the people you’ve interacted with are not characters. They’re people with their own emotions and wills.
Breathing in deeply, you flex your hands. “I’m going to tell Malleus everything. I think it’s time he knew the truth, and he can decide for himself what he wants to do.”
“That’s probably for the best. Lying usually ends up biting you in the ass later on.” You both laugh. “He clearly adores you. So, you just need to trust in him to understand.”
“Right.” You offer Yūki a wide smile. “Thank you.”
“Anytime.”
---
After a lively dinner thanks to Grim’s antics, you’re getting ready for bed. Malleus is already tucked in reading. Though you plan to tell him everything, you can’t help but move slowly. You had prepared a speech, but now you can’t remember a word.
Standing in the doorway of the bathroom, you regard Malleus. His shoulders are relaxed and his facial expression is almost serene. The stress from hosting his grandmother has all but disappeared. Your heart swells with affection for him. You want to live the rest of your life with him in peace and warmth. And the only way that it can happen is if you tell him the truth. Together you can figure out a way to take care of your parents.
Feeling your gaze, Malleus looks up. “My heart?” His head tilts to the side.
Taking a deep breath, you square your shoulders. “Malleus, I need to tell you something.”
He closes the book, giving you his full attention. “Why don’t you come here and we can talk?”
Hesitating, you shake your head. “I want to stand. What I’m going to tell you will be a lot.” He nods.
As you tell him everything about your life and your parents’ plans, he doesn’t react at all. You pour out all your feelings and thoughts. As the words leave your mouth, you feel even lighter. A sense of relief washes over you as you finish. You wait in agonizing silence as Malleus remains quiet. His gaze is distant as he takes in everything.
Finally, he looks at you. He doesn’t say a word as he holds his arms out to you. Tears prick the corner of your eyes as you walk over to the bed. Climbing in the bed, he wraps his arms around your form and pulls you close to him.
You bury your face in his chest. You can only mutter apologizes as he holds your tight. He doesn’t say anything as you quietly sob. After what feels like an eternity, you seem to run out of tears. Your eyes are sore and puffy.
He kisses the top of your head. “Thank you for telling me the truth. It must have been difficult,” he mumbles. “We’ll figure this out together.”
Ear pressed against his chest, you listen to the steady rhythm of his heart. “I wanted to tell you sooner, but I was too scared,” you admit. “I was afraid you’d hate me.”
“I could never hate you.” He gently wipes away the tears that have stained your cheeks. “However, I am upset. Very much so.”
His green eyes glow dangerously as he glances out the window. Dark clouds roll in and lightning strikes. “Should I go there myself?” he muses.
“Malleus…” Placing a hand against his cheek, you turn his head so he looks at you. “Don’t do anything rash. My father is to blame not the people of my country. You can’t just go in and wipe out the country.”
Frowning, he looks thoughtful before he smiles sharply. “How about I just kill him, my heart. Or I can give you the honor of doing that.”
Leaning against his chest, you shake your head. “He might have that weapon…”
“I’ll squish before he even has a chance to think about using it.”
“This would be considered a criminal act.”
“What your parents did to you and planned to do with me are criminal acts. I’m only ending this before it can lead to something worse.”
“I don’t know if I can do it.”
“Then I’ll do it for you.”
Letting out a deep sigh, you smile to yourself as you tighten your hold on Malleus. “Let’s talk about what to do tomorrow. But thank you for offering to help despite everything.”
“Of course. I would do anything for you.” 
---
The next day you wake up feeling at peace. Malleus knows the truth and he still cares about you. You don’t have to go back to that place. Stretching, Malleus tightens his hold around your waste. 
You still can’t believe that someone as regal as Malleus likes to cuddle. Most mornings you spend a few minutes trying to get out of his hold. He can be rather clingy first thing in the morning. It’s cute.
“We need to get up,” you say, trying to worm your way out of his hold. He hums before releasing you.
Malleus sits up as you find your slippers. You can feel his stare and quickly look up. He’s frowning with his brows pinched together. “What’s wrong?”
“Your scars…I didn’t realize…”
Right, you usually hide them long before he can see them. But last night’s confession had taken a lot out of both of you. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it, Malleus.”
Eyes narrowing, he shakes his head. “I need to talk to Lilia about what we should do.” He pauses, his brow smooths as he regards you. “Can I tell him everything you told me?”
You hesitate for a second but agree. “Yes. You trust Lilia, so I’ll trust him too.” If you’re going to do this without blowing up an entire country, you’ll need help. And Lilia seems rather level-headed under all the teasing.
Malleus leans over to peck you on the cheek. “I’ll see him now. Let me know if you need anything.”
“I’m going to head to my office once I check up on Yūki and Grim.” You feel your mouth stretch into a goofy grin as he pulls away. You’re pretty sure the butterflies in your stomach when he kisses you will never go away.
Once you’re clean and dressed, you make your way to the guest room. Yūki and Grim are already out, though the feline looks half asleep. “Morning, you two.”
Yūki gives a short wave before a yawn overtakes them. They quickly cover their mouth. “Mornin’....”
“It’s too early to be up!” Grim grumbles.
You chuckle as he yawns. “I’m sure the cooks have prepared something tasty for breakfast.”
That perks him up. “What are we standing here for?! Let's go!” He rushes ahead as Yūki follows at a slower pace.
“So… is everything okay?” They give you a sideways glance.
“Yeah. He took it well.” You give a small nod. “Thank you for listening yesterday.”
“Of course.” They offer a reassuring smile. “I was also thinking about what you said yesterday…about not needing to fix everyone’s problems…”
“Yes?”
Chewing on their lower lip, they’re silent as you near the dining room. They relax a bit when Grim turns around to beckon for them to hurry up. “You’re right. I don’t need to fix everyone’s problems. I need to learn when to take a step back and say no. I’m going to work on that. I just wanted to let you know.”
“It might take a bit of practice, but it’s good you’re taking your own feelings and well-being into consideration.” Patting them on the back, you two share a look before they’re pulled away by Grim’s shouting.
A flash near the window catches your eye and your blood runs cold. “Your majesty?” Diablo calls to you, worry etched on his wizened face. He looks out but doesn’t react. “Is something the matter?”
“D-did you see him?” you ask, your hands curl into fists.
He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I did not see anything. Should I have the guards take a look?”
You pause. You don’t want to cause a scene if it’s nothing. But you also wouldn’t put it past your father to show up uninvited to drag you home. “Yes, have someone take a look. If they find Duke Wynters, please send him away.”
Without further explanation, Diablo leaves. You let out a deep breath. It could just be your own fears playing tricks on you. Joining Grim and Yūki for breakfast, you try your best to forget about it.
However, after breakfast Diablo reports that the guards did not find anyone. Not even a trace of magic. Despite that, you’re still on edge as you head to your office. Hand hovering over the door knob, the hairs on the back of your neck prickle. Grasping the handle, you throw open the door to your study with a bang.
There’s no one inside. Everything is in its usual place. You let out another deep breath and shake your head. Taking a seat, you take the nearest stack of papers to start work. You throw the stack across the room as if burned.
The letter that you had burned flutters to the floor. You jump up. “Diab-!”
A cold hand clamps down on your arm. “Don’t.” Duke Wynter’s grip is strong despite his age. Old memories hold you in place as fear settles in.
“You know, I was so disappointed when you didn’t come home for your own mother’s funeral. Tsk…” His voice is calm, but you know better.
“H-how did you-” You hate that your voice shakes.
“Get in here? There are things magic artifacts can do that can even trick a mighty dragon.” He snorts. “Now, we’re going home. And I’m sure your dear husband will follow.” He bares his teeth in a ruthless smile.
Duke Wynters pulls a small pocket mirror from his breast pocket. He tosses it out and it expands into a full length mirror. A disembodied face stares back at you. “Take us back home, Mirror,” he orders.
“As you command,” the mirror murmurs. The surface of the mirror ripples and slowly changes until it shows the image of the manor. Gripping your arm tightly, he drags you toward it.
You don’t want to go, but fear grips your body. So, you let your panic swell along with your magic. The room becomes so cold you can see your own breath. Your vision blurs as Duke Wynters screams and something explodes.
Then everything goes black.
---
Malleus sends the doors of the study flying off. The entire study has been destroyed. The windows have been blown out and a thick layer of ice coats everything. His breath comes out in small puffs of fog.
He shouts your name. The frozen chandelier shakes.
Lilia places a hand on his arm. “They’re gone. Most likely back to his home. We need to leave now if we want to catch up to them.”
Turning to Sebek and Silver, Lilia gives them both a hard look. “Malleus and I will go after the queen. You both stay here and make sure everything is okay.”
They both give him a salute. “Please take care, father,” Silver says, forgoing the formalities.
“Stay safe, your majesty!” Sebek bows deeply to Malleus.
The two fae give one last nod before they vanish.
Standing at the entrance to your home, it’s oddly quiet and deserted. Dark, gloomy clouds loom threateningly in the distance. For a brief moment Malleus wishes he could have seen you during your childhood. But that thought quickly fades as he remembers the scars that criss-cross your back. Bitterness fills his mouth and anger boils to the surface.
The front gate is locked, but he simply blows it away with a snap of his fingers. Placing a hand on his shoulder, Lilia gives Malleus a reassuring squeeze. “Everything is going to be okay. But…maybe we shouldn’t destroy everything.”
There’s a beat of silence before Malleus calms himself, though his fists remain clenched. “Let’s head inside.”
They enter the home but there’s still not a soul to be found. There’s an eeriness to the dead silence. Passing rooms, there’s evidence of the occupants hastily leaving. The two fae follow the strong presence of magic. They enter an outdoor courtyard though it looks like it’s seen better days.
There in the middle sits a figure slumped over. Malleus’s eyes widen as he rushes over calling your name. However, he’s stopped by another voice. “I’m so glad you could come, your majesty.” Duke Wynters stands on a balcony that overlooks the courtyard. Malleus notes he seems to favor his left side. Small flecks of ice cling to his tattered coat sleeve.
Clenching his teeth, his hands itch to burn him without thought. But the smug look on the man’s face makes him cautious. He has something up his sleeve if he can confidently speak down to two powerful fae.
“Let her go,” he orders. “And I will make your death a merciful one.”
The duke cackles. He gestures to the still slumped over figure. “Unfortunately, I cannot give you my dear daughter unless you’re willing to make a deal.”
His eyes burn with disgust. “Or I could just kill you right now.”
“You could. But then you’d also be killing her.” Duke Wynters raises both hands and starts moving his fingers. Now, Malleus can see what’s going on. Thin strings of magic are connected to each of the duke’s fingers. And they’re attached to you.
Your body suddenly moves. You jerkily raise your head and stand up. You're holding a dagger in one hand. Like a puppet, you mechanically point the blade at him. The strange crimson metal gleams under the low light. However, Malleus can see the pain and panic in your eyes. Despite your body being controlled, you’re fully conscious of what’s going on.
The duke continues, “You see, my unique magic allows me to control a person’s body like a marionette. However, my life and their life are connected until I end the magic. I believe you’re a smart one, you understand what I’m saying.” He grins sharply.
“What do you want?” Malleus finally asks.
The man chuckles. “All you need to do is to take her place. Call off your man and promise no harm shall come to me. In return, I’ll release your beloved.”
“How can I guarantee that once I die, you’ll keep your word?”
“Malleus I don-” Lilia is cut off with a look.
The duke sighs. “Honestly, you should have more faith in your father-in-law. But I will make a magic oath with you.”
Malleus doesn’t hesitate. “I accept.”
A wide, crazed grin forms on the duke’s face. “I knew you’d make the smart choice!”
“Malleus!” Lilia protests. “Don’t do this!”
“What choice do I have, Lilia?” Tears are streaming down your face. “If I don’t do this, she’ll die. And if she’s gone, I…I might as well be dead.”
The older fae can’t find any words. Of course he wants the queen back. But if Briar Valley loses their king, he’s not sure what will happen. However, Lilia can’t think of a way out of this. If what the duke told them of his unique magic is true, then they can’t kill him without killing you. And even if it might not be true, Malleus isn’t the type to take that sort of gamble. Not with you on the line.
Duke Wynters sighs. “This could have all been avoided if my dear stupid child had followed the plan. Instead she goes and falls in love with you.” Clucking his tongue, he shakes his head with feigned sadness. “That blade she’s holding is special. We spent so much time and resources looking for something that could kill such a powerful creature like you. The blade is cursed so that no wound made with it can be healed with magic or potions.”
Suddenly you start to jerkily walk toward Malleus while wielding the blade. The fear in your eyes shines brightly as you hold the blade inches from where his heart is. Your hand shakes.
Malleus meets your gaze. He had vowed to never make you unhappy, but it seems he’s unable to keep that promise.  Reaching out, he cups your face and brushes away the tears. “Do not worry, my heart, everything will be okay.” Pressing a kiss to your forehead, he can feel the blade’s point press into him. He closes his eyes.
“NO!” The shout that breaks through the tense silence chills him to the bone. Eyes opening, he only briefly sees you smiling through your tears with the blade plunged deep into your chest. You crumble to the ground.
The duke lets out a horrified scream that turns into a choke gurgle. He clutches at his chest as he loses his balance. He falls forward and plummets from the balcony. His body hits the ground with a sickening crunch.
However, Malleus is preoccupied with the blood that seeps from your body. Holding you close to him, he attempts to use magic on the wound. He ignores the blood that soaks into his clothes. But the blade only seems to absorb it. He mutters an apology as he pulls the blade out and attempts to heal the wound. Still nothing happens.
His voice cracks, “Lilia, what do I do?!” For the first time, Malleus is powerless.
Lilia shakes his head. “I don’t know…”
Your eyes flutter open. You attempt to touch him but you have no energy, so your hand falls uselessly aside. Malleus cradles your body. “Don’t leave me! Please!”
Your eyes glaze over. “No!” Malleus screams your name, but you don’t move. Dark clouds block out the sky and the wind howls outside as green lightning flashes.
A loud, mournful roar shakes the very earth.
---
You wake to bright fluorescent lights and the sound of a steady beeping noise. There’s also the familiar music of Idia’s favorite idol game playing. Turning your head to the sound, you spot Idia sitting in a chair with his eyes glued to his phone. It’s strange seeing him. Your head feels like mush as you try to gather your thoughts. Your heart throbs painfully for a moment before the feeling fades.
“Idia?” you call him.
He looks up from his screen, eyes widening. “You’re finally awake!”
Trying to piece together the last thing you remember, you ask, “What’s going on?”
“You fell down the stairs to the subway.” He pauses his game. “The doctors said you might be confused. Do you still remember everything?”
Sitting up, you glance at the clock on the wall with a slow nod. “How long was I out?”
“About a day.”
Touching the back of your head, you wince. “Are you sure? I swear it feels like I’ve been asleep for a long time.”
“Yup. You left me a message yesterday. By the way, it’s not a cringe book! Only noobs like you would think that,” he scoffs.
“Book?” Your head feels like a jumbled mess.
He rummages through his backpack before pulling out a familiar book. “The one I lent you. ‘Melting the Dragon King’s Heart’ is a heartfelt strangers-to-friends-to-lovers royal romance! It has everything you could ask for! Evil queen, hot dragon fae, spunky protagonist and a talking cat!”
You take the book from him. Frowning, you stare at the cover. The dragon king looks like a generic dark haired man. Yet, it looks wrong. “Are you sure he always looked like this?”
“What’s wrong with the way Malford looks?” You can see the annoyance in his face.
“Malford? Are you sure that’s his name?” You point to the cover. “I swear he looked different…”
Idia shrugs. “The dragon king is Malford Drago. He’s always looked like that. Yeesh! I know you didn’t like the story but at least pay attention to the main leads.”
When trying to remember, your head throbs painfully. Letting out a deep sigh, you fall back into the pillow. “Maybe I did hit my head harder than I thought…”
Glancing at the time, India starts packing up. “Visiting hours are almost over. I’ll let the nurses know you’re awake and come back tomorrow. Do you want me to bring anything for you?”
“I’m good. Thanks, Idia.” Smiling briefly, you close your eyes as you suddenly feel tired. Even as you drift off again, you feel like something’s missing.
---
A month after your fall down the subway stairs, you’re darting across the street. Dodging cars and people, you shout into the phone pressed to your ear. “I’ll be there in a few hours, Idia! I promise! I just forgot to grab some food.”
“I have food,” he grumbles. You can hear battle music in the background. 
“You have cavity-inducing candy! I need real food!” You skillfully weave your way through the people. “The raid can wait, my stomach can’t. I’ll text you when I’m heading over.” You end the call before Idia can argue further.
Despite going back to your usual routine, something feels off. The doctor had reassured you that you might feel a bit confused, but that you would be fine. You feel like something is missing. When you’re sleeping, you have such vivid dreams. Yet, when you wake up, you can’t recall anything and there’s a painful throbbing in your chest. When you checked with your doctor, they just passed it off as part of your body’s response to the accident. You tried your best to ignore it since then.
Pausing, you realize you’re standing near the subway. The same place where you fell because you weren’t paying attention. Tucking your phone into your pocket, you carefully descend down the stairs. You’re only halfway down when someone bumps into you.
“Hey!” The perpetrator rushes down without looking back.
Grumbling under your breath, you take a step. But your foot misses. You briefly wonder what Idia will say when he finds out you're in the hospital again. However, the fall never comes because the person coming up the stairs reaches out to save you.
Pressed against them, you meet familiar green eyes. They’re wide with surprise. “Are you okay?” Something about the voice sends a spark through your body. You know that voice.
Righting yourself, you frantically nod. “Y-yes! Thank you!”
He smiles. “Of course.” He pauses, brows furrowing. “You’re the one from before.”
“Huh?” You’re pretty sure you’ve never met despite the strange feeling.
He nods. “Yes, I remember. You fell down the stairs a few weeks ago. I tried to catch you but unfortunately didn't make it. I’m glad to see you’re okay, though.”
So he was the voice that called to you when you fell. “I…thank you for catching me this time. I should be more careful.”
When he smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkle. “Maybe keep both eyes forward. Wouldn’t want you to get hurt again.”
“…” You don’t know what else to say. He’s breathtakingly beautiful and even more so when he smiles. His sharp green eyes are warm when they meet your gaze. You’re usually not the type to fall for a pretty face, but you can’t deny the instant attraction.
He seems to take your silence as the end of the conversation. “It’s nice to see you again. I hope you stay safe.” He nods before heading upstairs.
You stand there on the step frozen. The further he gets, the more your heart aches. Why? Touching your chest, you bite the inside of your cheek. Taking a deep breath, you rush back up. Looking around frantically, you see him already halfway down the street.
“W-wait!” you shout. Phone pressed to his ear, he turns with a slight frown, but his expression softens when he sees you.
You rush across the street, nearly getting hit by a car. They honk loudly while yelling unintelligible out the window. Ignoring them, you rush to him. Trying to calm your erratic heart, you take a deep breath.
“Let me call you back, Lilia,” you hear him say into the phone before ending the call and tucking the phone into his pocket. “Are you okay?” he asks, a single eyebrow raised.
You nod. “I-I wanted to ask if you’d like to grab a drink with me if you’re not busy. To thank you for saving me.” Yes, that sounds like a valid excuse. And it's not like Idia expects you anytime soon.
He tilts his head to the side. “You don’t have to.”
“I want to.” You swallow nervously. “If you want to, that is…”
He regards you silently before agreeing. “I’d love to.”
Beaming, you hold out your hand. “Great. I’m (Y/N).”
When he takes your hand to shake, butterflies fill your stomach. He eyes your clasped hands with interest. “I’m Malleus,” he replies.
You stand there like an idiot still holding his hand. But he doesn’t seem to want to let go either. Your heart feels full and for the first time since the accident, the pain is no longer there.
Tag list: @candlewitch-cryptic, @whatstheoccasion, @nimko, @yo4sblog, @mc-cos-charm, @mochiclouds, @41sh4, @unloadingdata, @noctifer-cynoct, @rincommittedarsin, @liesatemyocean , @mavix
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greyskyflowers · 1 year ago
Text
I want a really specific Luffy/Sanji/Zoro fic where it's focused on how Zoro is probably not able to be numbed or knocked out.
I want to do a post at some point about how Nami, Usopp and Zoro are the humans of the crew. The ones without devilfruits, no genetic stuff, and completely human.
You can absolutely argue that Zoro has whatever the fuck is going on with the demon stuff but until that's clearly discussed I'm going with the human thing.
Back to Luffy/Sanji/Zoro.
I'm really sold on the idea that Zoro burns through numbing and pain medications like it's nothing.
He can be knocked out or made completely numb but it requires a unreal amount of medication, enough that the amount is usually unavailable or risks overdosing him and making him very sick.
So, how many times has Chopper had to dig out shrapnel and bullets while Zoro was completely aware and felt everything?
Or stitched him up while Zoro held the skin together for him?
How many times has Chopper had to rebreak bones that had healed wrong if they were separated for a period of time and Zoro didn't set it right?
How about cauterizing wounds?
Concussions?
Blood loss?
What it he needed surgery because of a wound, and Chopper had to cut into him without being able to numb him at all?
Oooooof
I fully believe Chopper has had to do some of those. However, when Zoro is too out of it, or it hurts to much to not jerk away or fight back... I think Luffy and Sanji would have to hold him down. The only two with enough strength to get him still enough that Chopper can do what needs to be done without worry.
Robin could be added to that, I think. I like to think Zoro and her have a strong friendship and she's seen enough shit to know sometimes things have to be done even though it sucks.
What sounds does someone make in a situation like that? How much can the human body take?
If he was out of it enough, would he plead with Luffy to let him up? He would absolutely call for Luffy when everything hurts and I'll die on that hill.
It would be a blessing if he passed out but how long would he be passed out? Just long enough for everyone to breathe before he was awake again and struggling?
Is it worse when he's quiet? Awake but so exhausted he can't even try to jerk away?
The rest of the crew hearing everything but knowing better than to go try to help.
Having to act like they can't all hear anything and desperately hoping that Zoro passes out soon.
And Zoro is Zoro. No one really talks about it. They're all aware, of course, but Zoro never brings it up or complains.
He's actually really good at holding still, clenching his jaw and curling his lip back in a pained snarl. Every muscle in his body tense and his back in a rigid arch.
This isn't new to him. He's always burned through this stuff quick but it's definitely gotten worse as he's gotten older and stronger.
Luffy and Sanji only have to hold him down for the really bad ones. It's more of a precaution, a comfort of all of them.
They're the only ones to hold him because even blind with pain, Zoro knows them.
Even when his world narrows down to hurthurthurt, he won't fight them the way he would someone else. He trusts them to be strong enough that he can be a little weak if needed. Only a little.
Luffy being cautious and untrusting of anyone other than crew while Zoro recovers and gets his feet back under him.
Possessive and protective in the way all captains are. A extra edge to it because it's Zoro and Zoro is his in a way no one else quite is.
Sanji hovering, always something in his hands because his way of caring is food. The pain usually takes away Zoro's appetite but it's the best way Sanji knows to heal.
Luffy curled around Zoro when he naps on deck or when they go to sleep at night, trying to make sure nothing hurts and reassure them both that Zoro's okay.
Both of them running a critical eyes over Zoro because infection is a whole beast of its own. They want to make sure that if there's even a hint of one, they catch it as soon as possible.
Touching Zoro constantly because if they feel tense muscles they know he's hurting and if he's running a fever they can work on cooling it down.
🌊
The strawhat crew holds a grudge against a few people. Most of them obvious but always at the top is Garp, Blackbeard, Judge, and Mihawk.
Because they don't know exactly what went on while they were all separated for 2 years but they hold Mihawk accountable for Zoro's eye, even if he wasn't the one behind that particular scar.
They know Zoro felt all of it and they weren't there with him. And anyone who is responsible for that kind of pain to one of the crew goes right on the shit list.
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promptsforyourwhumpfic · 11 months ago
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The Grand A-Z List of Whump 1/3
This list contains ~290 items listed A to H
As always, I heavily encourage people to research topics thoroughly when writing as it is important to avoid stereotypes/misinformation. This list's intention is not to glorify/romanticise sensitive topics in any way.
This part one-of-three comprehensive lists of injuries, Illnesses and tropes - including those from the Whumptober 2023 trope vote!
All submissions are listed in italics, and those who wanted to be tagged will be included at the end. If you have any more submissions: please send them via DM/my ask box.
[I-Q] [R-Z] [NSFW List]
List below the cut:
#
"I don't need your help."
"I'm doing this to make you better"
"I'm fine, take care of them!"
“I’m Fine”
"Kill me instead"
"Let me in."
"Look at me."
"Should I know you?"
"Take me instead."
(No) Anaesthetic
A
A Good Ol' Sickfic
Abandoned
Abdominal Pain
Aching Wounds
Acne
Adrenaline Crash
Adrift (in space/at sea)
Agoraphobia
Airsickness
Alien abduction
Allergies
Alopecia
Ambulance Ride
Ambush
Amnesia/memory loss
Amputations
Anaemia
Anesthesia
Angina (Heart condition that causes pain)
Animal Attack/Bite
Ankle Sprain
Anthrax
Anxiety/Anxiety attack(s)
Aphasia
Appendicitis
Arrested
Arthritis
Asking for help
Asphyxiation
Assumed Dead
Asthma/Asthma Attack
Auctions
Autoimmune disease
Avalanches
B
Backache
Bad Caretakers
Bandaged Head
Banished
Barbed Wire
Bear trap
Beaten up by ex-friends
Beaten with blunt object (i.e, bat or pipe)
Beatings
Bedrest
Bedside Vigil/Hospital Vigil
Begging
Betrayed by close friend/team/family
Bites (Animal, Bug, Human….)
Biting
Black Eye
Blackmail
Bleeding Out
Bleeding Through
Bandages
Blindfolded
Blindness (this could be temporary or permanent)
Blisters
Blood Loss
Blood Poisoning
Bloodied Knuckles
Bloodstains/blood trail
Bloody handprints
Bloody nose
Blunt force trauma
Blurred vision
Body modification
Body Sharing
Body Switching
Bounty on their head
Brain Damage
Brainwashing
Breakdowns
Breathless
Bridal Carry
Broken Bones (Ribs, Arm, Leg)
Broken Nose
Broken Promises
Bronchitis
Bruises
Building Collapse
Bullet Removal
Bumpy roads jarring injuries
Buried Alive
Burning Building
Burns/Scalding
Busted kneecap
C
Cancer
Caning
Capgras syndrome/delusion (belief that someone close to/important to the person has been replaced by an imposter)
Capsulitis
Captivity
Captured
Car chases (and maybe a car crash)
Carbon monoxide poisoning
Cardiac Arrest
Caretaker has to “play nice” with whumper.
Caretaker has to hurt whumpee while undercover.
Caretaker sacrificing something dear to them to get something the whumpee needs.
Caretaker turned Whumpee
Caretaker-whumper who's a parental whumper. But their "love" is not real love. Or even right treatment.
Carsickness
Cataracts
Catatonia
Caught in a fire
Caught in an explosion
Cauterization
Cave In
Cavity
Celebrity whump (exploitation in the music/movie industries…)
Chaffing from ropes/handcuffs/shackles
Chained/Shackled
Checking for injuries
CHF - congestive heart failure
Chicken Pox
Chills
Chloroform
Choking
Chronic pain
Claustrophobia
Cleaning wounds alone
Cold/Flu,
Collapsed Lung
Collapsing (into someone’s arms is usually nice, bonus points for cradling their head as they lower the whumpee to the floor)
Collapsing after they win
Collapsing/Fainting/Passing Out
Collars
Coma
Comfort after a nightmare
Common cold
Completely betrayed by their own team
Complications
Concussion
Confusion
Constipation
Constricted Airways
COPD - Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease makes breathing increasingly more difficult.
Corporal Punishment
Corset too tight and won’t unbutton
Coughing
Coughing Up Blood
CPR
Cramps
Crikes (intubation through neck)
Crush injury
Crying
Cuddle pile
Curses
Cuts/Grazes
Cutting off hair (more of an emotional hurt)
Cyanide poisoning
D
Damaged Larynx/Vocal Cords
De-aging
Deathbed Confessions (don’t have to actually die and stay dead, just the threat of dying)
Defeat
Defenestration (throwing out a window)
Dehydration
Deja Vu
Delirium (bonus points for this being drug/ fever induced)
Deluded whumper/thinking they’re helping the whumpee
Dengue Fever
Denial
Depression
Dermatitis
Diabetes (type 1 and 2)
Diarrhea
Diseases ('mystery' diseases are the best kind)
Dislocations
Disorientation
Disowned by Family
Displaced hip
Dissociation
Distress call
Dizziness
Dragged Away
Dream sequence
Driving to the hospital with a whumpee slumped barely-conscious in the seat of the car
Drowning
Drunkenness
E
Ear Infection
Edema (swelling from build up of fluid)
EKG
Electrical Burns
Electrical shock
Electrocution
Emergency field surgery
Emergency Surgery
Emotional angst
Emotional manipulation
Endometriosis
Enemy to Caretaker
Energy Drain
Environmental whump
ER
Execution
Exes reunited with one wanting a relationship and the other just wanting friendship.
Exhaustion
Experimentation
Exposure
Extreme Weather
Eye injury
F
Facing Phobias
Failed Escape
Failure to thrive
Fainting
Fainting (but also fainting aftermath) / Fainting due to lack of sleep, food, or overworking fainting from exhaustion
Falling
Falling for Caretaker/Whumpee/Whumper
Falling Through Ice
Fatigue/Exhaustion
Fever
Fibromyalgia (Chronic Pain)
Field medicine
Fighting (while injured)
Financial difficulty faced + how whumper might take advantage of that + how caretaker handles everything (well/badly)
Finding your loved one dead without explanation but thinking they’re still alive.
Fireman's carry
Flare ups
Flashbacks
Flinching away
Flu
Food Poisoning
Forced to... (Break out, Choose, Hurt, Kneel, Scream, Watch)
Forehead kisses
Forgotten by team
Foul-tasting medicine
Found family
Found unconscious
Fracture (Arm, Hyoid bone etc)
Freezing / cold whump
Friendly Fire
Frostbite
G
Gagged/Muzzled
Gangrene infection
Gaslighting
Gas (noxious, poisonous etc)
Gastritis
Glass (shards, debris etc)
Grief
Gunshot Wound
H
Hair Pulling/Cutting/Matting/Stroking
Hallucinations
Hanahaki
Handcuffs
Handgag
Hard ground
Haunted
Hay Fever
Head injuries/concussion
Head trauma
Headache/Migraine
Heart Palpitations
Heartburn
Heat Exhaustion
Heatstroke
Heavy metal poisoning
Held at gunpoint/knifepoint/weapon point
Hematohidrosis (Sweating blood)
Hemophilia/Hematophilia (Blood unable to clot)
Haemothorax
Hernia
Hidden Illness/Injury/Scar/Medical Issues
Hiding
High Blood Pressure
High Fever (like dangerously high)
High Pain Tolerence
Hit by a car
Home Sickness
Hospital Codes
Hostage Situation
House burnt down
Huddling for Warmth
Human Shield
Human Weapon
Hunger
Hungover
Hunted for Sport
Hurt no comfort
Hyperalgesia,
Hypermobility
Hyperventilating
Hypo/Hyperthermia
Hypo/Hyperthyroidism
Hypoglycemia
Hypotension/ Hypertension
Hypoxia
TAG LIST: Thank you very much to the following people for submitting ideas! (I apologise if some tags did not work, I'm not sure why tumblrs not letting me tag you!)
@I-eat-worlds | @greygullhaven | @letsgowhump | @cyberwhumper @firapolemos05 | @originaldeerhottub | @whumpilicious | @drawing-dinos82 | @carenrose | @stellarinuscronicles | @gottheseasonalblues | @marvelflame2010 | @sowhumpful | @avamcu | @courtneygacha | @lordofthewhumps | @autismmydearwatson | @kuddelmuddell | @the-most-handsome-ginger | @whirls-and-swirls | @painsandconfusion
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twistyfish · 6 months ago
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You gritted your teeth, yanking the needle through your skin and inserting it again. You were too much of a wimp for this. The view of the salmon pink gash on your calf being pulled shut by your own hand was nauseating.
But you had to keep going, before it started bleeding again. Your fingers moved swiftly, navigating the needle through flesh like an oar through water. You wiped your tears awkwardly with your jacket so they wouldn't drip onto the wound as you stitched it.
You wished you had your cauterizing tool.
You sniffled and scrubbed your eyes aggressively with the back of your hand. Shit, you were pathetic for a hunter. But it didn't matter. The hard part hadn't even begun.
How were you going to keep this from Rafayel? That bitch was so perceptive. And you had to protect him, with an injured leg.
A fist pounded against the door. "Hey! Hurry up!"
Speak of the devil.
Rafayel's voice rang out from outside the bathroom. "You constipated or something?"
"No, stupid," you yelled back. You shoved the medical kit in your drawer and and put the gauze in your backpack in case you neededto swap it out.
The moment you opened the door, you saw his face twisted into an irritated expression.
"You're so slooow," he whined. "What if I get attacked while you're crapping? Who's gonna defend me?"
"You're perfectly capable of defending yourself."
"Yeah, but I'm paying you to do it for me."
You mocked him, repeating his words in an annoying tone, after which he proceeded to kick you in the shin. You grabbed his arm and walked him out to the pier.
It was a cool day. The clouds looked like fuzzy, grey dust bunnies floating in the sky. Rafayel wasn't mad about it, though.
"It's really nice out. We should dip our toes in the water," he commented.
"You're right." You took off your shoes and waded in, letting the sea wash over your toes.
Rafayel waded in all the way up to his knees and beckoned you over.
"I'm wearing jeans," you pointed out.
"Roll 'em up," he countered. You sighed and rolled each side up one cuff length, walking in till your ankles were submerged.
"Happy?" you asked.
"No, that's barely- you know what, let me do it." And before you could stop him, he leaned over and used his long ass arms to yank your pant leg up, reopening the wound with the thick, scratchy denim. You yelped and pulled your leg away as he looked at you, flummoxed.
"What the hell is that?" He asked.
"Don't worry about it," you said through gritted teeth, brushing the spots of blood off your messy stitches.
" 'Don't worry' my ass. Those stitches are ugly. Did you do them yourself? What happened?" He sounded uncharacteristically concerned.
"I had a situation," you mumbled.
He sighed. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"It's my job to protect you."
"I'm not talking about your job. I'm talking about the fact that you never let anyone in." He looked solemn. "We're friends. You can come to me when you need help. When, not if. Because everyone needs help sometimes. Even deepspace hunters."
You looked down, embarassed.
He grabbed your chin. "Hey."
"Hmm?"
"I'm here for you."
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am-i-interrupting · 7 months ago
Note
What if... Fallen angel Reader that gets found by Vox after an extermination, Vox using his charming persona on this vulnerable angel so they'd be a source of information... but, as time passes, fallen angel Reader sees Vox as their savior, an unhealthy devotion, death doesn't scare Reader if it helps Vox. Just, devoted servant reader, hopelessly in love. Maybe a secretary after years in Hell by Vox's side?
And Vox saw them as a tool, a fancy toy to break with time but got attached. Vox isn't sure in what way, romantic, platonic, something? Fallen angel Reader is so deeply rooted and intertwined with his life that Vox doesn't want to and actually can't imagine his life without reader.
Yours truly,
🖍
Tumblr media
Angels fell more frequently than people though but it wasn’t always a hell creating event. More often than not, it was someone doing what they thought was right.
You were one of those people.
Wingless and bleeding, Vox found you.
You were delirious with pain and he took advantage of that.
He scooped you up and took you with him to Voxtec, a simple teleport away.
He turned you on your back and cauterized your wounds with an electric spark.
He kept you alive.
He didn’t let you die. He had things to ask.
When you woke, he was in the room typing away at a computer and you could hear a beeping sound of a heart monitor.
“So, I can finally get the age old question answered,” he said before he turned to you with a striking smile. “Did it hurt when you fell from Heaven?”
From that day on, you were wrapped around his finger.
He treated you will but with specific intentions.
He kept you isolated for nearly a year but still showed you the ropes of Hell but with the distance of screens.
He asked you about Heaven. He wanted to know everything. From the daily life to the solider life.
He was obsessed with you and it didn’t take much for anyone to figure out.
It took three years for people to know what Mr. Vox’s newest obsession was when you were appointed his secretary.
He had you close, always.
A hand never left you and people knew you were his.
Somewhere along the way though, those soft touches along your back scars became something he cherished, as he felt your breathing level when you fell asleep on his chest.
The gifts he’d given were no longer just to gain your favor before he had questions or a task to ask you.
They shifted to be something personal and something frequent.
It was when you shared a kiss for the first time, a year into you being his secretary that he realized how fucked he was.
It wasn’t until his last fight with Alastor that he realized how devoted you were.
You didn’t hesitate to jump in when Vox was almost beaten and take on one of the most power overlords in Hell. You’d even successfully managed to fight him back.
Covered in his own and Alastor’s blood he was thankful there wasn’t a scratch on you to reveal the golden liquid of your own.
He took your face in one hand, smearing blood across it, and his other went between your scars.
He realized the fact that you once had wings had nothing to do with how deeply he felt for you.
“I love you,” he said and he meant it even if he felt sick to his stomach at the admission.
He kissed you and this time it felt different.
It wasn’t like that first kiss which was used to manipulate you nor the ones that followed which were secretly savored.
This one was open and honest and raw and real. Why did he feel so guilty about it then?
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psychologicalwarclaire · 3 months ago
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Ninjago Team Medic Headcanons
Wu gave them all basic first aid training, and later taught them some more advanced techniques, but I think everyone has their own specialties.
Kai - Kai treats the serious injuries. He’s the only one who can cauterize wounds, if needed. But other times, he can splint broken or sprained limbs with ease. Kai is the closest thing the ninja have to an official medic. His protectiveness led to many sleepless nights watching videos ranging from treating muscle soreness, to burns, to CPR, to live surgeries. 
Jay - Good at treating injuries during missions, but is prone to… unorthodox methods. If you need something dealt with fast, he is the guy. Accidents in the junkyard and his time on the Misfortune’s Keep taught him how to quickly patch up anything out of almost any material. His methods of sloppy stitches, makeshift bandaging, or increasingly strange ways to prevent infections are temporary solutions, but they’ll keep you alive long enough to get real help. He’s always got fun bandaids stashed somewhere. But in terms of moral support, he’s your guy. Jay is a master of distraction, keeping the others either chuckling or groaning with his jokes while he or someone else works. When he gets very stressed, however, he’ll be dead silent as he treats the wound, looking on with a clenched jaw.
Nya - Nya is the best of everyone at traditional first aid. Before she was a ninja, she did a lot of the patching up after missions, so she’s got lots of experience. Nya is also so good at treating burns that it’s like her second elemental power; back in the day, her inexperienced brother had many blacksmithing accidents in the forge. It’s been established that she can’t access water inside of people’s bodies (cough, water in Jay’s lungs, cough), but if the blood is outside of you… It’s not quite bloodbending, but she can keep her team from bleeding out. She is also helpful during times of rest and recovery, keeping everyone drinking plenty of fluids and threatening them to take it easy. She’s an expert in heatstroke and dehydration because her stupid ninja forget to drink water on a daily basis. 
Cole - Cole’s big hands and strength make it difficult for him to treat delicate injuries like stitching someone up, but if you need a joint popped back into place or a broken bone set, he is absolutely your guy. Most of what Cole provides to his team’s wellbeing is emotional. He gives the best hugs. Kai and Jay utilize his calming presence when dealing with more… tricky wounds. Also: as mud is nature’s sunblock, he’s always happy to provide some to prevent his team from getting burned when they inevitably forget sunblock. 
Lloyd - Lloyd still believes in the magic power of bandages. For himself, and for others. Over the years he’s gotten better at recognizing when to use them and when more serious medical attention is required, but he’d still prefer not to have to deal with his injured team. In a situation where someone gets badly injured, usually Lloyd has many different problems to deal with and the other ninja are happy to take things off his plate instead of making him deal with a downed teammate. When it is up to him, he’s no medical expert by any means, but he’ll try his best. Occasionally, he’ll have to use his powers to combat some sort of magical ailment. 
Zane - Do NOT try and get Zane’s help with an injury. You think his ability to access any and all medical knowledge would be useful? WRONG. The guy sees one of his friends injured and practically shuts down. Dislocated joints? Broken bones? Heck no, he needs to leave the room. Catches a glimpse of blood? He is gone. Poor guy once almost started crying when Lloyd got a bloody nose. The whole situation is a mix of him hating to see his loved ones injured, and also being queasy over blood because he doesn’t have any. All those body parts that he doesn’t have are GROSS. The only thing he’s able to help with is diagnosing illnesses and occasionally pointing out concussions. Even then, it gets out of hand (“You have a mild cough? MY SOURCES SAY YOU HAVE FIVE DAYS TO LIVE.”) After treatment, however, he’s always ready to provide an instant ice pack and physical therapy. 
Pixal - Pixal is eager to help. Do not let her help. Her solution to almost everything-- whether it be a skinned knee or fractured wrist-- is amputation. She has spent years building so many backup prosthetics and just wants to be useful (“please let me implement my prosthetics, Kai, please! Lloyd would look so good with a robot arm!’). She knows hundreds of different options but she feels more comfortable working on machines, so what’s her solution? Cut it off, install a machine. That she can work with. Luckily, the ninja deal with both of the nindroids by having Zane keep her away, successfully distracting both of them from bloody situations. 
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crashlanding-skywalker · 2 months ago
Text
[Fox babysitting the 501st]
Kickback: How old do you think I am?
Striker: Kickback, age doesnt matter.
Striker: You can die at any time.
——————
Tag: I’m not an idiot, I just lack all common sense.
Tag: Like, I can build an entire flying ship with complex circuitry.
Tag: But you can bet that I’ll be doing the Tide Pod challenge.
——————
Ringo: Without ugly, there would be no beauty in this world.
Attie: Thank you for your sacrifice, Contrail.
——————
Nax: I know it's sad but death is a natural part of life and by the time I finish this sentence, a hundred people will have died in Lothal.
Matchstick, visibly distressed: WHY DID YOU STOP TALKING-
——————
Fox, playing with Ridge: Axe, where are you going?
Axe: To seek the company of the only one around here who's got any sense.
Ridge: And who's that?
Axe: Myself, Rid.
——————
Hil: You know, not every problem can be solved with a knife.
Echo: I know, that's why I always carry two.
——————
Jinx: Hi :).
The 501st:
Jinx: Everyone's bones are wet.
Fox: Why would you say that?
Jinx: Nobody was saying hi back :(.
——————
Fox: You're a loose cannon.
Echo: No, I'm not. Am i a cannon? probably yeah, but a loose cannon? Is that what you think of me, Fox?
Kix: I think you play by your own rules.
Jesse: No way, he thinks rules were made to be broken.
Fox: And those are all attributes of a loose cannon.
Echo: No, I'm just a reckless renegade.
Echo, pointing at Fives: He's the loose cannon.
Fives: *smashes a chair*
——————
Fox: Why can’t y'all just get along?
Vaughn: Because most of us are assholes, Commander.
——————
Echo, holding a knife: Imagine stabbing someone with this knife.
Kix: It would instantly cauterize the wound which means the person wouldn't bleed, so it's not very useful.
Fives: If you want information it is.
Attie: Why would you STAB a person when you can have TOAST?
——————
Echo: We should normalize not loving family members.
Dogma: You can just say “I hate my dumb fuck uncle” or whatever.
Dogma: Talk like a normal person.
——————
Kano: Remember what I told you.
Contrail: Don’t be a cunt.
——————
Attie: I think I should be allowed on ghost hunter tv shows.
Swoop: I think that would be dangerous for the ghosts.
——————
Hawk, to Dogma: ARE YOU
Jesse: Fucking.
Hawk: KIDDING ME?! YOU
Jesse: Fucking.
Hawk: IDIOT!
(silence)
Appo: What was that?
Jesse: Fox banned Hawk from swearing, so I’m helping him out.
——————
Swoop: I'm sorry. Please talk to me.
S. Fox:
Swoop: Hello? World's most amazing person?? Sweet pea? Precious cinnamon roll that's too good for this world, too pure?
S. Fox: 'Sorry' doesn't bring back my fucking froot loops.
—————— Tucker: "you should be at the club" Tucker: I can't go to the club, I'll be in there saying shit like "perchance" and "thrice"
——————
Boomer: I think I should be allowed on ghost hunter tv shows.
Swoop: I think that would be dangerous for the ghosts.
——————
Echo: Bet you can’t eat 15 crayons.
Fives: Bet you I can!
Fox sipping caff while checking to make sure Rex and Cody are still on speed dial, and goes back to reading the paper:
——————
Fox, entering the kitchen:
Fox, sees Hardcase: What are you doing?
Hardcase: Oh, I was just gonna light this chicken on fire to see if it turns into a phoenix.
Fox: It's 3 am...
Hardcase: *puppy eyes*
Fox, sighs: We can try it later
——————
Fox: Is anyone d-
Kix: Depressed?
Dogma: Drained?
Voca: Dumb?
Fives: Disliked?
Fox: -done with their work...
Fox, calling Rex: What is wrong with you kids...
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