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charliemwrites · 8 months ago

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Unfamiliar Nobody

You are a witch preparing for winter. Luckily, you have an extra set of hands - if they'd ever help.

Content: Possessive behavior, Semi-Safe/Semi-Sane/Consensual Intimacy, implied (pseudo) cannibalism, Violence and Death, Unhealthy but Happy Relationship

You haven’t been the same since the ritual.

Souls are tricky things, somewhere on that rickety fence between the Seen and Unseen, a bit of practical magic so common that people don’t think much of it.

Souls are like stones or plants. Abundant, but varied. Some are rare and precious, some are beautiful, some are poison. One soul does not weigh the same as another, and the beings that deal in their collection and sale value them differently. Souls aren’t rare and only some of them are powerful.

It’s a narcissistic misconception of humans - even the ones that can perceive beyond the physical world. That a soul is considered precious and coveted and powerful by all things of heaven, hell, and beyond.

Not so.

That said, like a bit of gold or a well-woven blanket, a soul can be commodified. Reshaped and displayed, butchered for parts, sold…

The selling of a soul has its merits, though not many. High risk, high reward sort of gamble. Tempting for clever witches - or desperate ones.

You were neither when you built the summoning circle that night.

You weren’t looking to forge any contracts or make deals beneath that moon. Didn’t expect to invoke any infernal beings or heavenly apparitions with the stars.

Well, best laid plans and all that - not that it had been an especially well laid plan anyway.

Baring your soul that deep into midnight had not yielded the results you intended. Or maybe it had and your expectations were just skewed. Souls are tricky things.

And yours hasn’t been the same since.

You always rouse as the sun begins to set. Late afternoon at the earliest, when most everyone else is finishing their suppers.

You can manage stark daylight, but poorly. It hurts your eyes and prickles your skin. A deep hood and long sleeves does the trick when required, but you don’t make a habit of it if you can help it, if only for the teeth that bury in your throat when you return.

Tend the garden in the dying rays, light the shop candles before night nestles in. Say your blessings, leave your offerings, wriggle out from beneath clingy weight to secure any provisions or materials from the town.

As the temperature cools and the shadows deepen, you settle into your work.

The shop once belonged to an apothecarist. Died in a plague some four decades ago, or so you’ve been told. No one of any skill or natural talent replaced them afterwards. Too frightened, perhaps, of what could be lingering within.

It wasn’t haunted until you (and your shadow) occupied it.

You’ve stocked it up quite nicely now. Herbs and spices, vegetables and fruits, roots and seeds. Thistles hang from the ceiling and bones rattle in the drawers. Mortars and pestles line a wall, weights and measures beneath the counter. Not a single thing labeled or organized, the latter of which disconcerts your… companion.

Fickle is not the word for him, but it’s the one you use.

(And he is a he, at least according to the long, thick cock he crams into you every chance he makes for himself. Though you suppose such trifles as gender are superfluous to nonhumans. A categorical fallacy for your own ease of reference.)

You told him once, that if he did not like the disarray of the shop, he was welcome to rearrange as he saw fit. In response, he left teeth rings around the base of each of your fingers, telling you how easy it would be to bite them off. He didn’t, of course - wouldn’t - but you spent a good portion of that evening updating the inventory logs (sat on that long, thick cock.)

The shop was never reorganized.

Tonight you wake to his tongue, a dark and wicked thing, improbably dexterous, lapping at your thighs.

“Winter comes,” he drawls into your skin. His voice is dredged up from the deepest pit in his chest, scrapes against his throat before nuzzling into your ears.

“I thought so,” you sigh, sleep laden and languorous. “Felt it on the wind yesterday.”

He hums. Or maybe it’s a growl. It’s hard to say when he’s sinking his teeth into the plush of your thigh, though he does it without hurry.

For a creature without definite expiration, there is little need to be hasty.

You click your tongue when he threatens to break skin. His jaw locks like that, just on the verge of taking without being asked. This is his price for greeting the evening with you - or so he claims.

“We’ll have to begin preparations,” you muse to the inky ceiling. “I’ll make a list over tea. You’ll help, won’t you? What kind of winter will it be?”

He relaxes his bite, laps at the iridescent fluid left on your skin. His saliva, or what passes for it in this vaguely human form.

“Long,” he drawls. An unseen thumb rubs circles into your calf. “And frigid.”

You hum, can already see it in your mind. Howling winds and a silent earth. Still and peaceful, little creatures huddled down and hibernating. It was a good, warm, lush summer that promises a sweet, abundant harvest.

“A lot of snow?” you ask, fingers buried in something almost too coarse to be hair.

He unseals his mouth from a fresh, livid mark on your hip. “Da. Snow.”

Your fingertips trail over the gnarled, raised topography of long-healed wounds. Marks that go beyond flesh, wounds of essence. No matter his appearance, he will always be scarred - disfigured, even.

Sometimes you fancy that he was some fearsome fae king or warlord of hell before retiring to become yours.

Sensing the direction of your thoughts, he nips at the meat of your thumb. Draws blood the time. You hook your index finger around a too-sharp canine and shake a bit. He grunts and slides his tongue over the pinprick of blood.

“Any storms?” you ask.

“Two,” he rumbles around your finger. “Maybe three.”

You didn’t used to love winter so. But this will be your third with him. As the climate chills and the nights lengthen, he comes into his patron season. It’s helpful to have a thing of the cold and dark when times are lean and everything (even people) lose their pretty foliage.

“Shall I expect more pelts, then?”

You balked the first time he brought (more) death to your door. Thought him cruel and ruthless. Perhaps he is without you to metamorphose the slaughter into necessity.

Furs for warmth, meat for food, bones for your work. Nothing gone to waste under your care.

“Pelts,” he agrees, “skins, down.”

You trace your thumb over the bridge of his crooked nose, press between his brows when he tries to tilt his head into the warm apex of your thighs. He bares his teeth against your wrist but cannot defy you.

“Tea for that drop of blood,” you bargain.

He sighs deep and vexed. “Mistress.”

Before slithering from your blankets, though, he buries his nose against your pubic mound and takes a deep, noisy inhale.

“Nikto!”

A village girl comes a little after the sun has fully set.

You finished your tea (and bread, for the price of a wet, filthy kiss) while making a list of preparatory chores. Have started grinding up rosemary to replenish your stock.

Nikto senses her before you do, pthalo eyes flicking up. She hesitates at the closed door, poised to knock, then decides against it and simply pushes in.

You pretend as if you’ve just glanced up from your mortar, an easy smile at your visitor.

“Good evening,” you call.

“E-evening,” she replies, lingering in the door.

While you’ve taken measures to keep the air of the shopfront clean and light, it’s something of a fruitless endeavor when Nikto’s made his den here. (Or more accurately, in the room behind the shopfront, where you dwell.)

Still, she only wavers another moment, finding nothing immediately alarming or perilous. She can’t see him lounging on the back counter like a lazy cat.

“Have you need of something?” you ask.

Your easy, friendly tone loosens her shoulders, coaxes her from the doorway.

“I’m here for something for my grandmother?” she says.

You tilt your head. “Anna?”

She blinks. “How did you know?”

Because Nikto grumbled it just now.

“You have her eyes,” you lie. “I have her medication just over here. One moment.”

You turn away to collect the little parcels that make up Anna’s bi-weekly order. Brews for her tea, ointment for her joints. You’ll mix extra as the chill sets in, fewer trips while seeing her through the harsh season.

“Usually Alexei comes to collect these things,” you say.

She rocks back and forth on her heels, a more curious eye trailing over your wares now.

“Mama and I have come to take care of nana. She’s getting older, you know. And this town has better prospects than our old village.”

You hum in agreement, neatly bundling all the items in a cloth and tieing a length of twine to secure it.

“Uncle Alexei is away with papa to finish sorting matters back there.”

“So you and your mother have come ahead, then,” you summarize.

“Mhmm!”

“Well, Anna is lucky to have you. She speaks fondly of you and your mother,” you say.

The girl lights up, cheeks rosy with pride. You slide her grandmother’s order across the counter.

“Anything else?” you ask.

“No, thank you!” she replies, dropping coins into your palm.

You glance at them (overpaid as usual, oh Anna) and sigh fondly.

“Hold on,” you call, “here.”

You pass her a little jar sealed in wax. She accepts it with a bemused smile.

“What is it?”

“For travel sores, when your father and Alexei return.”

She absolutely beams. Any apprehension she had when entering your shop is long melted away.

“Thank you, Miss!” she chirps, waving, and sweeps out the door.

Niko pounces in an instant, arms so tight around your waist that you don’t even stumble from the force.

“What’s gotten into you this time?” you ask.

“You were thinking of those men,” he grumbles. You’d call it childish if he wasn’t damn near mauling your neck.

“They’re well-paying customers,” you scoff, “and more good will is never remiss.”

He snarls, but moves on quickly. “You were so kind to that little girl. She had stars in her eyes.”

You hum in question, surprised.

“Makes me think of you with little ones. Younger ones.” He’s near rambling, drool soaking into the collar of your dress. “My brood. Clinging to your skirts and your hips. Getting sticky hands in the beeswax.”

You huff out a startled laugh. “You’re thinking of babies?”

He moans into your ear, pressed tight to your back. Broad palms knead at your lower abdomen.

“Little voices calling ‘mama’. They would all adore you, want to be just like you. Mother is god in the hearts of children.”

“All?” you repeat, twisting to stare owlishly. “How many is ‘all’?”

“As many as you will let me breed into you.”

Another laugh escapes you, a bit bewildered. He’s never spoken like this before, never seemed interested at all by the women (or their husbands) that come to the shop to ease their pregnancies or births.

“You couldn’t stand to share my attention,” you scoff. Which is to say nothing of it even being a possibility. You’re not sure that you and he could produce viable offspring.

He pauses, nose in your hair, considering.

Finally, he grunts, “Maybe.”

You’d thought so.

It’s not just the change in your natural sleep rhythms. You crave the iron of raw meat and inhale deep the burn of black smoke. Sometimes, you’re too preoccupied with the spill of ink on parchment, or the length and depth of shadows.

Subtle things, perhaps. A change beneath the skin, in the dark parts of your eyes.

You used to ask your questions in the sun, and look for the answers in the bloom of flowers or swirls of clouds. Now you whisper into abyssal shadows and they whisper back with a man’s rasp.

Not everyone can see it, the unusual glint in your eyes or the sharp edge to your smile. For those that do, it’s something of an open secret - that you provide more than helpful tonic and tinctures for common ailments.

A serum against pregnancy. A syrup for unkind spouses. Cut cords for bad friends and bent coins for poor business partners.

Tonight it’s the smith’s daughter. She’s just come into adulthood this past spring. A crown of youth on her brow, vitality draped around her shoulders. Darkened, this eve, by deals made with her as the currency. You see it beneath the sweep of her skirt, a chain of her father’s own making, a key in the hand of the mayor’s son. It drags her step in your doorway, rattling along the wood floors.

“Irina,” you greet.

She doesn’t admit it right away, demuring to purchase her father’s usual burn salve. You don’t pry, instead taking your time to spoon the thick, cloudy mixture into a small jar.

“You’ve…”

You tilt your head to show your attention, expression open. She clears her throat, smooths her skirt, tries again.

“My father designs to wed me to Boris.”

She blurts it like the words escaped between the gaps in her teeth, looks shocked in their wake You flick Nikto a reproachful glance.

“Is that so?” you reply mildly, as neutral as you can manage.

“I don’t want to,” she whispers, as though it is a shameful secret. But there is little shame to be found in your presence, and when your expression only reflects polite interest, she repeats herself, stronger. “I don’t want to. Boris is a coward and his father is…”

Mean. Lascivious. A bastard with a heavy hand and wine for blood, kind only to coin.

You don’t make her say it all aloud, you’ve heard it just fine.

“Is it an ear you’re after?” you ask. “I’ll listen.”

You do not offer more. It is something she must request of her own will. For your sake as much as hers.

It only takes another breath for her to gather the courage.

“Would you help me?”

“I would.”

You don’t jump as Nikto pours himself over your shoulders, teeth already scraping the nape of your neck. He’s hard and insistent against your spine, where scars of his teeth have begun to blossom. You sense that you’ll have a new notch for the collection soon, already feel slick and achy with the promise of his maw.

“What will it cost?” Irina asks, fidgety.

Your cunt three times over. Your blood on my tongue. Your juices down my throat.

“That will depend on our solution,” you say over Nikto’s sibilant entreaties.

Irina’s brow furrows. “Not coin?”

“Maybe coin,” you correct. “Do you want any of these three men dead?”

She startles, pales. Nikto groans in your ear, hips jerking hard, cock catching on the laces of your corset. Irina mistakes the sound for your shop settling, eyes flicking nervously around as if either of you will be caught.

“N-no!” she answers. “No, that’s too - I just want papa to change his mind. O-or for Boris to… to wed someone else. Is that wicked of me?”

You shake your head, soften your smile to ease her conscience. Once upon a time, you stood on the other side of the counter like she is now.

“Then coin won’t be necessary. I have a different price.”

Her shoulders lower, just a bit, curiosity where she should be wary. Coin is a paltry payment in comparison to things a creature like you could request instead.

“What is it?”

“Scrap from your father’s forge, as much as you can manage, and whatever Boris gave you for your hand. Bring them to me tomorrow night.”

You fish a shirt button from beneath the counter. Prick your thumb on a needle and press the droplet of blood that wells into the smooth surface.

“This is a contract of my services,” you explain as it dries in the open air. Nikto inhales deep and ravenous, tongue flicking over the shell of your ear.

“If you take this, there is no going back. Do you understand?”

Irina hesitates; she’s always been a smart girl. That’s why she knew to come to you.

“What happens if I don’t come back with the payment?”

You flick a glance at Nikto, but he’s too busy toying with the ribbon around your throat. Patience fraying with each beat of your heart.

“Even I don’t know, but I’d rather neither of us find out, yes?”

“Alright. I understand.”

She accepts the bloodied button and drops it into the pocket of her frock.

“Tomorrow,” she promises, and steals out into the night.

Nikto bends you over the counter, heavy body flattening you to the polished wood. It’s unnaturally warm beneath your cheek. You suck in as much air as you can while he paws at the hidden parts in your skirts. He growls to find you wet and willing (always, regardless of what your mouth says) between your thighs.

“Tithe,” he rasps, sinking to his knees.

Massive arms snake around your thighs as he finds his home between them. Buries his nose in the soft crop of curls so that his tongue and lips and teeth can partake in the sweet offerings below.

“All this for a severed tether?” you gasp, hips twitching in a bid to escape the too much, too fast, too good of it all.

His grip does not relent. On the contrary, it only tightens, dragging you down to smother himself in your cunt.

“Yes,” he hisses.

He takes and takes and takes. Sucks your clit until it’s throbbing at the slightest touch. Licks at the rim of your cunt, forcing his tongue deeper and deeper. Impossibly deep, until you feel the tip of it curl against the hard wall of your cervix, the root of it as thick as two of his fingers.

Your knees have long given out, your voice but a weak trill in your throat. It’s only when he hears you sniffling that he wrenches himself away.

“Give me,” he demands, surging up.

Laves that slick, black, inhuman tongue up your jaw, over your cheek. Doubles back to swipe at half-dried tears that dripped down your neck and onto your hands. He makes an obscene sound when the salt mixes with the dried blood on the pad of your thumb.

“I want to eat you,” he snarls, baring his teeth against the tender veins of your wrist.

“Maybe one day,” you pant, “when I’ve passed on. You can have my corpse.”

His eyes snap open, a manic rage burning so hot it feels cold.

“Never,” he snarls, cruel fingers plunging into your tender cunt.

You cry out and grip onto his shoulders, fresh tears sliding down your hot cheeks. There is no mercy in Nikto, not even for you. He strokes and pets your walls relentlessly, abusing all the sensitive places he’s long mapped out. Brutal as the muscles in his arm bunch and jump with the pace and force of it.

“Never,” he repeats. Teeth in your throat but you can still hear his voice. It’s so loud and rough that glass rattles. “Just like this. You stay just like this for me. Mine, all mine. Always. My little witch.”

He makes you cum on his fingers, then jerks his angry cock using your release to ease the way. Spends himself in burning, sticky ropes directly onto your clit. As you drag in ragged breaths, he draws his sigil inside your cunt with your mixed fluids.

The bond has long been formed, there is no need to renew it. Your soul is no more or less his than before. You still shiver with the memory, an echo of the sublime sensation of your soul taking new shape. Making room for something else to lace through it.

“S-someone is coming,” you whimper, weak in every sense.

“Dmitiri,” Nikto answers. You knew who it was, of course, but you don’t think he would abide you saying any other name right now.

“Leave his order on the counter and make sure he pays,” you sigh, limping away in search of water.

Nikto may be a bastard, but he manages to follow your orders most of the time.

Irina returns the next evening with all that you asked. A bucket of metal scraps and shavings. In a little velvet pouch, a simple gold engagement ring.

“The button too,” you request.

Nikto, raven-shaped this evening, swoops in to snatch it from her fingers. She yelps, moon-eyed as he perches on a tall shelf and swallows the button down his scarred gullet.

“Should… should it eat that?” she asks.

You don’t even glance at him. “Too late now, isn’t it?”

She doesn’t look amused so you laugh softly and assure her, “He’ll be alright. He’s done it before.”

You turn away, scooping up the items for the spell.

“Now then, take this pin. Carve your name into one candle, and Boris’s name into the other,” you instruct.

“Which one is which?” she asks, a green candle in one hand.

“Your choice,” you reply simply.

When she’s done as you ask, you tie a piece of twine between the two, about halfway down. Set them on a metal plate facing each other and light first Irina’s, then Boris’s.

“Pull up that stool. Watch the candles burn down to the wick.”

It takes nearly an hour. You keep half an eye on it. Watch the candle meant to represent Boris start to eat at the twine, a slow encroachment towards the midpoint. Only for Irina’s flame to latch onto its end of the tie and scorch through the knot, the remaining length falling away.

Irina gasps softly, glances up to find you already watching. Studiously turns back to observe the remainder of the melt.

In the meantime, you continue forming the other half of your spell. Irina has been too preoccupied to notice the raven’s disappearance. Nikto is behind you again, guiding your hands to carve the woodblock in neat little peels. His fingers are threaded between yours, dripping raw power that you shape with intent. If Irina were to look, it would just seem that the candlelight casts strange shadows down your forearms.

When the candles have burned down to nothing, and Irina turns to you expectantly, you press a finger to your lips.

“Do not speak again until sunrise. When you get home, throw this into the hearth, as deep as you can get it. No trace of it will remain, rest assured.”

You press the carved wooden key into her palm. Her eyes trace the unfamiliar runes in wonder, but she keeps her silence and takes her leave with one final, grateful nod.

It is only just past midnight, but you yawn. The connection between Irina and Boris was not a strong one, but severing the covetous teeth of the mayor’s greed was tedious.

He has a weakness for fair hair and light eyes - both qualities passed down to Irina in lovely spades. Qualities his own wife doesn’t possess, but he would gladly see in his son’s if he had his way.

“Nikto.”

“All for a severed tether,” he purrs.

You tsk at him, shove his face away when he tries to steal a kiss.

“Finish the spell and then you will be rewarded,” you huff, waving him off. “Useless thing.”

He moans softly, eyes burning into you. “Useless,” he agrees, sharp teeth grazing your cheek. “Worthless.”

“Out with you. We’ve not all night,” you chastise.

He sinks slowly into the shadows; his eyes are the last to disappear.

Winter preparations are well under way.

A small mountain of firewood is steadily accumulating in the backyard, stacking higher and wider by the day. You’ve already finished harvesting the last of the garden, drying, preserving, and pickling by the jar. Have knitted half a dozen more shawls and socks with thick wool yarn.

Cough medicines, warming tinctures, lotions and ointments. You’re accumulating your winter remedies along the back wall and in crates beneath the counter, well-stocked for the town and smaller surrounding villages that frequent your shop.

Thus far, Nikto has brought you two pelts, and promised two more before the season truly sets in. A new pillow has also been added to your nest bed, a puffy, heavy thing of feathered down and cotton.

You like it so much that you bounce on Nikto’s cock until morning when he brings it to you, spitting into his mouth whenever he opens it in supplication. You drop lavender buds into the casing and breathe it deep as he lays you down after daybreak. It makes an excellent throne for your pelvis when you’re too worn (or over-pleasured) to hold yourself up any longer.

Still, as promising as your preparations are, you need items unavailable even in town. The journey to the nearest city is one day's (or night’s) walk there, and another back. Well worth the trouble.

Nikto has no particular affection for any dwelling, so long as it’s yours. He’s just as eager to travel as you are.

Before nightfall, you drop off any orders expected in your absence, and receive well wishes from your customers. No one asks why you are traveling alone at night. No one warns you that it would be too dangerous.

Nikto accompanies you along the well-trod road, a hooded figure more likely to be mistaken for the grim reaper than your familiar. He’s human enough if you don’t look at him for too long. A tall man thick with muscle, broad-shouldered, built for labor. Likely malformed beneath the scarf hiding his features below those blue eyes - or perhaps just shy.

Just don’t try to peer into the depths of that hood, or ponder that mysterious scarf for too long. The moon acts as a strange prism, waters down the light into eerie refractions. One might start to imagine sharp teeth peeking through ripped lips. Or glimpse poorly sewn hills of flesh, nothing but dark, empty space between the seams.

Luckily, there are no travelers on the road this late into the night. Any errant gaze is that of night creatures, and those know well to avoid the shadow at your side - and you by extension.

The trip into the city is no great adventure, but you weren’t looking for one. Nikto, you sense, is something almost like disappointed. You arrive in the small hours of the morning, just as the earliest risers have begun their day.

The innkeeper seems surprised by such an early (or late) guest, but is happy enough to welcome you in. Bread has yet to be bought from the baker, but there’s stew that’s been simmering overnight. It’s warm and hearty and thick. You eat two bowls with a cup of peach wine, pay for food and board for the next two days, and retire to the second story of rooms.

The bed is not nearly as comfortable as yours. The blankets are thin and woven, though they are layered enough to be warm. The mattress and pillow are both straw - comfortable by most standards, but a poor substitute for your cotton and wool and furs and down.

You make due on Nikto’s rumbling chest (prideful that you miss what he has so diligently provided) and let yourself drift into slumber.

At midday, you wake. City merchants aren’t accustomed to your odd hours, and you don’t want anything to be out of stock - you’re not the only one that’s made the journey for winter.

Luckily, it’s an overcast day and the sun isn’t too obnoxious when you venture out. You get a sweet bun from the bakery to tide your hunger while you shop. Follow Nikto’s whispering for directions, or to pick the best items of any selection. Spoil yourself a bit on honey from abroad and a new grimoire.

Return to the inn at the brightest part of the day for a nap. Rouse again in the late afternoon for more exploring and shopping, as well as a drink at one of the alehouses.

You’ve no friends in the city - or anywhere, really, for that matter. But being surrounded by good spirits and bright noise provides an unusual source of energy. There’s a band to watch and strong drink, some gambling that you amuse yourself meddling in from afar.

There are eyes on you, but there always are in such a busy place. You tend to attract very few gazes, but the ones you do will return time and time again, musing at the lone figure by the wall. None are brave enough to approach - especially not when it grows dark enough for Nikto to reveal himself.

Even he is in unusual form, telling you stories of a bygone time. A time when perhaps he was more finite than he is now. He uses names you’ve heard before, in passing, and chuckles at exploits more mortal than he deigns to participate in now. You like to hear it, like to provide him with the excess buzzing in your veins.

When the crowd begins to thin, you take your leave. He stays at your side (always too close, nearly underfoot) all the way to the inn, and is waiting in your room when you come up with the meal. He manhandles you into his lap and feeds you with his fingers, pours water into your mouth from his.

You stave him off until your food settles, and then he’s taking you into his lap. Has you twice before you doze off. Wakes you three hours later with his tongue lapping at your swollen folds. Has you twice more before you settle in properly until dawn.

The second day passes in much the same fashion as the first. Your indulgence this time is a pretty, slender knife, a length of ribbon, and a simple burgundy frock. The combination has Nikto salivating by the time you return to your room to rest. Not that there’s much to be had with you splayed out over your new garment, his hands and mouth and cock working you over until a puddle of slick and cum forms beneath your writhing bodies.

You send him to wash the stains in annoyance, and it’s returned seemingly pristine - though he gloats that the scent of your coupling remains. At least to him.

Nasty creature.

“If I get tired, you will be carrying me,” you huff on the road home.

He nuzzles his nose into your temple, a silent assurance that you need only say the word.

Halfway there, a band of highwaymen makes the fatal mistake of trying to ambush the two of you. Aware that anyone coming from the city will be laden with coins or goods, they would be correct if you were anyone else.

You click your tongue, steps never faltering.

“Kill anyone that’s taken an innocent,” you call over your shoulder.

“Mistress,” Nikto churrs into the air, breath so cold it sinks in the chilly air.

An unnatural growl reverberates off the trees. You don’t spare a glance behind you, steps easy and light, crunching over dead leaves and dry twigs.

A hand lands on your shoulder - heavy… and then not. Heat splatters and soaks into your sleeve, dripping down towards your wrist. The severed arm falls with a wet, fleshy thump.

Always so messy.

You tilt your head, veer off the road and follow your intuition until you find a stream. Humming, you shed your clothes and saunter into the gentle current. It’s frigid, only just unfrozen. You sigh, minding your step for slippery rocks as you wade deeper. The water rises past your scratched calves, over bitten thighs, soothes your well-used cunt and the bruises on your hips. Tingles over the silvery flesh of your scarred back until it’s nearly to your breasts.

Only then does the water darken around you.

Nikto’s hand closes around your wrist, draws your arm back until he can lick away the smears of a stranger’s blood.

Feast before the season’s famine.

You moan softly at the drag of his serpentine tongue along your skin. The ball of your shoulder, the curve of your tricep and bicep. Tickling the bend of your elbow… up your forearm… and wrist. Twisting between each digit. You lean into the sturdy pillar of his body until his other arm curls around your waist. You stand with him in the water like that, cradled by shadow and bathed in moonlight.

He is never hasty, but tonight he’s unusually slow. Almost lazy.

Wait, no. Not lazy.

Deliberate.

Each flick of his tongue, scrape of teeth, brush of lips is applied with the same care and reverence afforded to an altar.

You tilt your head to rest against his shoulder, bare your throat. Peer through lidded eyes at the thick fingers twining with yours.

It’s as if he plunged his hands into a fireplace and didn’t care to dust away the charcoal and ash afterwards. It fades at the forearm into alabaster. In the crease of his elbow, it looks like he has ink for blood. You know from experience that it tastes of almonds and tannins, heavy on the tongue like thick wine.

You let him lay you down on the bank, dry and clean. He pampers you on his cock with slow, languid rolls of his hips. Grinds deep, pulls out only halfway to massage the head into that sweet spot over and over until you’re shuddering apart with a deep, heavy moan. He finishes on your stomach and thighs, drawing symbols into your skin before rubbing it in.

“Nikto,” you croon, thumb drawing a line down the left side of his face. From forehead, over his eye, down to the corner of his mouth where there’s an unnatural split. He lets you scrape your nail against the big canine, amusing yourself on the sharper bicuspid just beside it. “My Nikto.”

He purrs into your chest, drooling down your sternum.

“Who do you belong to?” he asks.

You smile, indulgent.

“I belong to Nobody.”

There is a possibility of a second part. Maybe. If that's something people want.

#cod #my writing #fanfiction #dark fic #reader fic #nikto fic #nikto cod #nikto x reader #witch reader #afab reader #mind the warnings #heavy kink

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enderlovez · 5 months ago

Text

Stay Happy

Spencer Reid x Female BAU Reader WORD COUNT: 5700+

Summary: In the midst of a case, thinking it's safe after they've caught the criminal, you go into the crime scene alone to inspect the place, only to be taken hostage by a second unsub nobody knew about.

Content Warning: kidnapping, blood, stabbing, gunshot wounds, reader being tied up, broadcasting torture, mentions of death, blood again because there's a lot of it, broken bones, sprains, dislocation, speeding, drug usage (reader is drugged by the kidnapper)

────── ꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ──────

You're not even sure how it happened.

One moment, you were simply walking around the crime-scene, scribbling notes down as you stepped around shattered glass and pools of blood, and it was peaceful for the most part — except, of course, for the police sirens blaring in the distance.

Perhaps that's why you felt so safe navigating the abandoned house alone, taking one for the team so they could discuss outside. The criminal had already been caught, so surely there was no reason to worry about something bad happening, right?

Wrong.

You were so extremely wrong. The moment somebody reached out from the shadows of a seemingly empty room, wrapping a hand tightly around your arm and slapping a hand over your mouth, you wished more than anything that you could take your decision back.

Spencer had insisted on going in with you. Practically begged you to take him inside with you, but his words about the possible dangers lying inside fell on deaf ears. They'd caught the bad guy. There was no danger, and he was the brains of the team, so surely they would need him more than you would, right?

Wrong.

Nobody hears your scream for help as it's abruptly cut off by the stranger's hand, nor does anybody realize you've been gone longer than would be necessary as you're being tied up and gagged and thrown into the trunk of a car with no more care than you'd give a piece of scrap metal.

You can do no more than screw up your face and beg for mercy as they jab a needle into your arm, then another into your neck, injecting a kind of colorless liquid directly into your bloodstream.

Your mind runs into overdrive, quickly running through all the possibilities as you would usually do when working on cases — except this time, you're the victim, and you're trying to come up with something — anything — before you lose consciousness.

You don't get very far.

────── ꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ──────

"Reid," Hotch says in a tired voice, not looking away from the paper in front of him, leaning it against the top of the car as he scrawls something down, "will you go in and see what's taking L/N so long? She's been gone almost fifteen minutes, we need her back here now."

Spencer doesn't have to be asked twice for him to make his way towards the crumbling house. Admittedly, he's been counting the seconds since you left, fighting the urge to run in there regardless of everyone's warnings of 'she's a big girl, she can handle herself' and 'she's good at her job, Reid, you need to relax a little'.

He knows you're beyond good at your job, which is why he trusted that you would be okay going in alone... But you typically only take, on average, ten minutes to do a quick search of the house and scratch down anything of importance.

While it might not seem like such a big deal to everyone else, Spencer knows you inside and out, better than anyone else in the world, and he knows that you taking even five minutes longer — especially in such a small house — is definitely a cause for concern.

Glass and debris crunches under his foot as he steps inside the house, flashlight pointed in front of him down the decaying hallway. It's quiet inside, unnervingly so, to the point where a chill runs down his spine. In a house of this size, with everything littering the floor, he should be able to hear your steps as you walk around, but there's nothing, just an ear-splitting silence that he can't seem to shake.

"Y/N?" he calls out hesitantly, pointing the light around in search of you. There isn't a response, not even a hum of acknowledgment from nearby, or a step indicating you've heard something close to you.

Just more of this silence.

He knows something has to be wrong now. Even looking past the fact that you would never ignore anybody, especially not Spencer, he has a horrible wriggling feeling in his gut, a sickening sensation that makes him want to curl into himself and hurl all over the floor.

"Y/N, are you in here?" he tries again, voice slightly louder and tinged with panic as he speeds up his search of the house, stopping dead in his tracks when he sees something sitting on the ground, too clean and white to have been there before, and covered in your delicate handwriting. Spencer's hands shake as he picks it up, eyes scanning over all the things you've written down.

And if he's not already in panic mode now, that changes entirely when he spots the smaller, fresher pool of blood, spreading out on the floor nearby, seeping into the cracks of the withering floorboards.

Without a second thought, he's running outside, notepad gripped in his hand so tightly that the paper crinkles. You're not in there. There's fresh blood on the floor in the same place he found your notepad, discarded.

Everyone turns to look at Spencer as he runs back to the car, lips turning down slightly when they see you're not following behind him.

"Where's Cupcake?" Morgan asks first, eyebrows furrowed as he peers behind the other man in search of you. "Thought you were going in to get her, is she not—"

"We need to get back," Spencer abruptly cuts Morgan off, already making to get in the car. "Y/N's gone. She's not in there, but I found her notes on the floor, next to her blood."

"That place was filled with blood," he tries to push, though the more time you spend in that house, considering you're usually so fast with this part, and without your notes, he's becoming less and less sure. "Maybe she just dropped it and hasn't realized yet?"

"All the blood in there is days old. This, most definitely was not." Something has happened to you — he knows something has happened to you, and every extra second that ticks by, he knows that you're likely slipping further and further away.

It seems that everyone else comes to the same conclusion, as they all immediately jump into action, splitting up and piling into the two cars. They're almost thirty minutes away from the Bureau, and by the time they even get there, who knows what state you could be in?

You could be dead.

Spencer, of course, knows the dangers that come with this job. He himself has been shot and almost killed on multiple occasions, but it never really occurred to him, in all of his 187 IQ glory, that something similar could happen to you.

Emily is on the phone, speaking to someone — telling them to search the area, so it's likely the local police, who were already there before.

"I thought we caught the bad guy," Morgan comments tightly. "How's we even miss a second unsub?"

"Many reasons," Spencer replies instantly, force of habit. "Our primary unsub sits the profile so well that we've overlooked the possibility of a second offender. If they're working together, the second might deliberately mimic the first's MO or play a background role, making them harder to detect. "

"And what are the stats—"

"Twenty to twenty-five percent of homicides involve multiple offenders, and thirty percent of criminal partnerships have this dynamic. Cognitive bias affects nearly sixty percent of investigators."

"We don't know for sure if this is—"

Morgan is cut off by his phone ringing, so he picks it up without looking at the caller ID and puts it on speaker for everyone to hear. Before he can even greet the person on the other end, Garcia's voice, panicked and out of breath, comes through the speaker.

"Something pretty disturbing has come up here," she rushes out, the clicking of a keyboard vaguely there in the background. "You all need to get back here — now."

────── ꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ──────

You realize three things when you finally come to.

The first, is that you are tied to a chair, ropes so tight that every slight movement has your skin raw and chafing. Your ankles feel cemented to the floor, held down by something heavy. Or maybe that's because the sedative hasn't fully worn off yet.

The second thing you realize, when you force your eyes to open against the drowsiness, is that you have absolutely no idea where you are right now. The plain yellow walls have no defining characteristics, and there are no windows to look outside — chances are, you're in a basement, or a room in a storage facility.

And the third and final thing that comes to your realization, is that there is a camera set up in front of you. One of those home-video cameras, propped up on a tripod, and pointing directly at you, little red light indicating that it's already recording.

Sick bastard.

You tentatively pull against the ropes binding you, face screwing up when they only dig into your already raw skin. Tears prick at your eyes as panic surges through you, realizing you're really stuck here, that you're too weak to even try to do anything about your situation.

I am going to die here.

I am going to—

A door opens somewhere around you, footsteps descending a set of stairs. Definitely in a basement, then, but knowing that doesn't really do much good — there are countless basements, after all.

"You're finally awake," a voice drawls from behind you, clapping a hand on your shoulder. "I was worried I'd already killed you back there, pretty girl."

Already.

He is planning to kill you regardless.

"Please, just... let me go," you beg weakly. Though you can't see him, you just know he's shaking his head, rubbing a hand on your shoulder. You try to turn your head so you can get a good look at him, but a shooting pain sparks down your spine at the movement.

"You know I can't do that," he says simply, the smile evident in his voice as he steps around you to adjust something on the camera, clicking a few buttons and zooming in on you some — trying to get the perfect angle, you quickly realize, to do...

"Why are you recording me?" you ask quietly, squeezing your eyes shut against the pain of talking with such a dry throat. You work with the FBI, you know very well about cases where the suspect has recorded their killings for their own sick pleasure.

You just... never thought you'd be on the other end of it.

"I'm not recording," he says after a beat of silence, looking away from the camera to stand at his full height, his smile somehow widening to show all of his yellowed teeth. You take a moment to memorize his face, but with the drugs still clouding your mind, it's hard.

"Well what are you doing, then, if this recording camera isn't recording me?"

"It's a broadcast," he says simply, stepping back around you and squeezing your shoulder so tight you worry it might break, "to all your little agent friends."

Your blood runs cold, eyes snapping to the camera lens. They're probably watching you right this second, tied up and in immeasurable amounts of pain, yet still interrogating the suspect like you're on the job.

"What are you going to do to me?" The question you least want the answer to, but the most important one.

He doesn't say anything more, remaining behind me for a few more minutes before crouching at my side. "You and your friends got my brother in trouble," he begins, reaching up and caressing your face, so gently you begin to wonder if this is even the same person who threw you in the car. "So let's just stick with this: I'm going to put you in trouble."

That doesn't sound good.

And before you can say anything more, he's standing up again, reeling his hand back behind his head, and punching you in the face with enough force to make all thoughts flurry from your head.

Warm liquid fills your mouth instantly, spilling out through your parted lips. Your head is ringing with a sound that's not really there, vision blurring even though you're not crying — or maybe you are. Your world turns on its axis as your head flops to the side, neck unable to support you due to the shock.

Not broken, though.

Thank God, your neck isn't broken.

"Please," you whimper, but the single word sends a peircing pain straight to your temple, and even the single word is slurred. He has concussed you, it doesn't take a genius to figure that out.

"Sorry, Sweetheart," he murmurs, cupping your cheek with his palm, much like how a lover would — much like how Spencer does. Then, with an unnerving slowness that has you trembling, he pulls a tiny pocket knife out of his pocket, one of those little flower ones you'd get online for fifty cents, and brings it close to your face.

He presses the sharp point of it to the base of your cheekbone, and drags it alone your skin, opening a thin, shallow cut on your cheek, and stopping just before it reaches the corner of your mouth.

You cry out, struggling against your restraints. Shallow as the cut may be, and though you've been through so much worse throughout your career, it hurts like hell, and while you're already in so much pain, so vulnerable and exposed like an open nerve...

To say you're scared is an understatement.

Scared for your life that you're most definitely going to lose if your team can't find you. Scared for your future, and the things you so desperately want to do with it. And scared that you will never see the love of your life again — the very one who is likely watching you right now, through the camera.

"Please don't," you choke out through the tears that are now freely streaming down your face, stinging as they run along the length of the open wound on your face.

He smiles and walks over to a little table you didn't notice before, decorated with a variety of scary looking tools, and with the drowsiness still lingering from the drugs and the concussion you've been given, you can't stop your eyes from rolling back as your consciousness leaves you once again.

────── ꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ──────

Everything hurts when you wake up again, your skin littered in a multitude of cuts and bruises and more injuries you think you've ever had at once. A gun sits on the other side of the room on a little table, loaded. It's your gun, the very one you had holstered to you when he grabbed you in that house. You don't want to know when he's planning to use that, but you're sure it's soon.

The man you've since dubbed 'Belial' is gone for now, leaving you alone in the room with half of a kitchen knife jammed into your right thigh and the camera still pointing right at your face. It's hard to tell exactly how long it's been, but if you have to take a guess, maybe a few days.

During that time he's been continually drugging you, this time not with sedatives, rather with things that'll leave you with lasting conditions. You're not sure what it is, but it doesn't necessarily cause you pain at the time. Only after, when the effects are wearing off, and you're left begging for more.

Right now it's all out of your system, and it hurts. Almost more than the deeper cut he left on your stomach, and the discus sized bruise on the back of your shoulder. Almost more than the knife stuck in your leg, and the busted lip and broken nose and—

You have too many injuries to count. You might just die of infection before he gets the chance to leave a bullet in your brain.

Though your hope isn't yet entirely gone — over the last while, you've been slowly but surely wiggling your wrists, stretching the rope and allowing yourself a little bit of leeway.

The indomitable human spirit, Spencer would have commented to calm you down, if he was with you right now, before spouting off some facts about why the human body stays fighting for so long. The thought of him brings a tiny smile to your face, but it's short-lived as something happens.

As you're twisting your wrists around, using your own blood as lubricant, a strange little sound from behind you, so quiet you wouldn't have heard it if you weren't so on-guard lately, followed by the sudden and immense release of pressure from your wrists as blood flow is restored.

Your hands are free from their restraints, you only fully realize when you bring them up in front of your face, eyes flicking between your own two hands and the camera. An exhausted laugh bubbled up in your chest, and luckily, you're able to keep it down as you lean around the knife sticking out of your leg and undo the knots around them.

Standing up on shaky legs, you take an even shakier breath, one hand wrapped around the hilt of the knife to keep it in place and the other pressing against your stomach.

Your gun is across the room.

You could probably grab it, if you can manage to get over there.

Smiling into the camera and making a vague gun symbol with your fingers, you shift out of frame, slowly limping across the room towards the little table where your glock 22 is sitting, along with the holster.

Almost there...

Your hand is reaching out towards the gun when a deafening sound echoes off the walls, and an excruciating pain shoots through the left side of your hip. You know that sound, and you know the feeling just as well — you've been shot once, but it was in your leg, and all of the doctors were able to repair the damage perfectly fine.

This time you're not so lucky.

In an instant you drop to the floor, the blade of the knife shoving itself the rest of the way into your leg as you hit the concrete. The tripod holding the camera topples over as the man rushes across the room towards you. It doesn't break, and just to your luck, the way it falls has it angled in a way where all of you is on show to anyone watching.

────── ꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ──────

You're entirely correct in thinking Spencer is watching everything, chest tightening and nausea rolling in his gut with every little pain inflicted upon you. He's seen things during his time in this job — mutilated bodies and such, things many others would deem so much worse than what you're going through — but in his mind, this is most definitely the worst thing he's ever been forced to witness.

Still, he can't seem to make himself take his eyes off you for more than thirty seconds at a time.

Nobody has tried to make him leave Penelope's office, despite the fact that everybody has access to the video footage, nor has anybody reprimanded him for being so distracted.

"How long is it going to take you to track him down?" Spencer demands, his knee bobbing up and down and his bottom lip trapped between his teeth. Garcia glances at him before looking back to her work, typing furiously on her keyboard.

"I'm trying my best, Spencer," she says back, calmly despite the frustration and worry burning inside her. "He's using a masked signal, I think. There's no way for me to easily get their location."

The man nods. He understands that Penelope's trying her very best, especially with him sitting right there, but as he looks back at your bruised and bleeding body, he can't help being more irritable than usual. Not as the man — Avery Kane, they were able to identify him as — stuck another needle into your arm and injected you with God knows what.

"We have to go out and find her," Spencer decides after a beat of silence, his lip now bleeding from how hard he was biting it. "They can't be that far, realistically, if he was trying to avoid being pulled over. At most thirteen minutes away from the crime scene."

"Spencer, you of all people know that probably won't work," Garcia answers back, eyes never straying from the screen. "There's nothing to go off of in the video, and she definitely won't know where she is."

Spencer makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat as Kane drives the sharp end of a kitchen knife into your thigh, pushing it in an inch before pulling it back out. "You heard him, Garcia — he's going to kill her. She'll be dead by the time we find her at this point."

The thought has her grimacing. She knows that he isn't just saying things — these are surely real statistics. You will be dead by the time they find you.

Spencer stands up and starts pacing the room, arms crossed tightly over his chest, mind reeling like a fishing line. They have to be missing something, otherwise they would have found you by now.

Garcia's gasp draws his attention, and he finds her staring at the screen with you on it. He rushes back and practically falls back into the chair, watching as you manage to free your bloodied hands from their restraints, smiling and making a pistol symbol with your hands as you shuffle out of frame.

Your gun is in the room.

A sense of half-relief washes over Spencer, and Garcia's shoulders relax ever-so-slightly — at least, that's until they hear the painfully familiar bang of a gun going off. Not your gun, but the one belonging to the man now standing in frame.

Everything happens in a rush. Kane rushing forward and knocking over the camera. Said camera being focused on you on the floor, knife sticking fully into your leg, pool of blood spreading out around you. Avery huffs and drops the gun on the ground, too far for you to reach, and walks out of the room muttering to himself.

Within seconds Garcia is frantically speaking to who Spencer can only assume is Hotch, and he is pulling the video feed up on his phone before rushing out of the room. His heart is nearly beating out of his chest, stomach in his throat and tears pricking at his eyes.

You can't die — not yet. Not for a very long time, after you've lived a very happy life together, not until he's gone. You're the most wonderful thing that's ever happened to him, he can't possibly live without you by his side.

And then, as if his guardian angel was leaning over his shoulder, listening to his silent prayers, Penelope starts yelling out about how she's got the coordinates, and she's forwarding them to everyone.

Spencer looks down at the video feed again, watches as you roll onto your back and cry, pressing your trembling hand to the wound on your hip, murmuring pleas about how you don't want to die —you're not ready. Your body is already weak from being beaten and cut for three days straight, nobody is sure how you'll handle being shot.

The odds aren't looking good.

There's a less than ten percent chance you'll survive this, and that's if they can get there in the next two minutes, with the wounds you've acquired. Spencer tells the team as much, as they speed down the road at three times the speed limit, lights blaring on top of the car to signal an emergency.

You make a little sound, barely audible through the video, so Spencer turns up the volume as far as it'll go. "Sleep, my love, the stars are dim, the night is soft, and the world is thin," he hears you choke out.

"What's she doing," Morgan asks from beside Spencer, peering over his shoulder and cringing at your bloody form. "Is she... singing?"

"It's the song her mom wrote for her when she was a child," Spencer replies in a broken voice. "She was so scared of the dark, and her mother wanted to make the night seem a little less scary. She sang it to her when she was in the hospital."

"Rest your head, and close your eyes, where dreams are sweet, and time is kind," you continue in a hushed voice, voice shaking from the effort of staying alive. You have to keep living. "The winds may call, the shadows dance, but here you're safe, inside my hands. Though I must go, I'll stay with you, in every breath, in all you do."

"She's not dying, Reid," Morgan says softly. "We won't let her. She can't get away from us that easily."

It was his attempt to lighten the mood, but it only earned him a quiet scolding from Hotch.

"Sleep, my love, the night will weep, but I'll be with you, in your sleep," you continue quietly, voice getting softer and softer with each word as you slowly bleed out on the floor. "And when you wake, the world will shine, a piece of me will always be mine."

They come to a forceful stop outside the house, ambulance already there in preparation for whatever happens and three police cars stationed outside the house.

"This man is armed," Hotch comments matter-of-factly, glancing around at everyone. "Morgan, you go in with the police to detain the guy — Reid and Prentiss, you run in immediately after with the paramedics..."

You've stopped singing, the only indicator that you're still breathing, and your unmoving. Eerily still with your eyes closed and a the tiniest smile on your face. You must hear all the commotion outside. Spencer slips his phone into his pocket, though he doesn't want to take his eyes off you, and nods.

So does Avery Kane, it seems, as he runs out through the front door and attempts to make a run for it. Someone tackles him, and just as Hotch said, Emily and Spencer are immediately running into the house with the paramedics hot on their tails, searching desperately for the basement.

"Y/N!" Spencer yells out, opening every door until they finally find one that leads down a set of stairs — where they immediately find you attempting to crawl across the floor towards them, hand clutched to your gunshot wound, movements sloppy as you continue to bleed.

He doesn't get a chance to touch you, or talk to you, as you're placed onto a stretcher and rushed back outside, or as he sits with you in the ambulance while everyone works to suppress the bleeding and keep you alive. You're all that's on his mind as he and the team sit in the waiting room of the hospital while you're in surgery.

Survival rates for gunshot wounds to the hip vary based on a lot of factors, but generally speaking, if the bullet didn't hit anything vital, there's about an eighty to ninety percent chance you'll survive... but that isn't taking into account that it very much might've hit something important, and it's not taking into account your already sustained injuries.

Everyone else seems to realize this, too, but they don't comment on it. Nor do they say anything when a nurse comes out and tells them the surgery was a success, and Spencer actually cries from relief. They don't push it when he asks if they can stay behind while he goes in and sits with you, just until you wake up.

That's not to say they leave the waiting room, though, except for Hotch, who says he has a lot of work to do. Everyone knows he's always had a bit of a soft spot for you, so this upset him more than any regular kidnapping case.

────── ꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ──────

The feeling of someone holding your hand is the first thing that comes to your attention, their thumb rubbing gentle circles onto the back of it. You already know who it is without opening your eyes, but you open them anyway, wincing at the bright white fluorescent lights shining down into my eyes.

Spencer's forehead leans against the edge of the bed, his breathing even as he sleeps.

He hates hospitals, is the first thing that comes to mind when you look at him, the way his mop of brown hair falls down either side of head, like a curtain hiding his lovely face.

You can barely remember what happened to you, why you're in the hospital — only that you were in more pain than the human body should be able to comprehend, and that you're still in pain now — but the sight of him sleeping so peacefully in a place he hates so much has every thought eddying from your head.

You carefully reach your other hand across your body and run your injured fingers through his hair, gently scratching his scalp as he begins to stir from his slumber. You almost feel a little bad waking him up, but you just couldn't resist the opportunity.

He's just far too cute for you to not want to touch him.

When his hazel eyes meet yours, you're suddenly filled with a sense of worry. They're red-rimmed, like he's been crying — a lot, and there are heavy bags under his eyes, due to lack of sleep.

Jeez, am I really that terribly injured?

"You're awake," he murmurs quietly, bringing your hand to his mouth and pressing a gently kiss to the back of it.

"You know," you start off with a teasing tone in your voice, "your hands are dirtier than your mouth. You're more likely to get sick from touching my hand than you are if you were to kiss me on the lips."

He hums in agreement, a smile on his lips, though it doesn't quite meet his eyes, the way it normally does when you start talking nerdy to him. "How could I forget?" he whispers, leaning forward and leaving a delicate kiss on your lips. He doesn't let go of your hand, continuing his ministrations of rubbing circles.

"So, what's the damage?" you ask when he's fully seated again, both of his hands holding your one to his mouth. "What happened to end me up in the hospital?"

His eyebrows furrow. He looks puzzled, and silver lines his eyes, tears building up and begging to be dropped.

"You don't... remember?" he asks softly. You shake your head and look down at yourself — you've never been in worse shape, casts and bandages littering almost every inch of skin.

A sob builds up in his chest, and he can't stop it from escaping against your hand. You frown and use your free hand to wipe the tears from his cheek, caressing it as you run your thumb along the skin under his eye.

"Are you okay, Spence?" you ask quietly, worriedly, like him crying is the worst thing in the world. In your mind, it actually is.

He laughs bitterly, but nonetheless leans into your touch. "You almost died, Y/N, and you're still looking after me?" he asks, sniffing. "You're too soft for this world, my sweet girl. I'm alright, you don't need to worry about me. Just glad you're alive is all."

You smile and gently pinch his cheek. "So, are you going to tell me what happened? Or at least, the injuries I sustained?"

He nods dejectedly and leans further forward. "You had three fractured ribs, a cracked sternum and a cracked scapula. Three broken phalanges, a broken nose. Dislocated mandible, left shoulder and both your wrists. Sprained ankle," he stops for a moment, simply watching you absorb the information he's feeding you.

You don't seem too worried, but he can see the confusion and panic in your eyes.

"Is... that all?" you ask hesitantly, as if you don't really want to know, and Spencer has half the mind to not tell you. But it's your body, and you're the one in the hospital, so you deserve to know regardless.

"Those are only the breaks, you're all bruised and cut up, like a piece of meat," he says, at least bringing a slight smile to your face with his 'joke'. "You sustained a full-length stab wound from a kitchen knife, a grade two concussion, and a gunshot wound on your hip. It's a miracle you're even alive."

Your mouth hangs open with a goldfish. "No kidding," you breathe, squeezing his hand, your eyebrows furrowed. He can't help but remove one hand from yours to smooth out the little crease, lingering as you leaned your cheek against his hand.

"What are you thinking?" he asks, in a voice so quiet, you can barely even hear it.

You're silent for a second, nuzzling your face against him despite the ache in your neck. "I'm wondering how I possibly could have gotten all these injuries, and I'm thinking that I'm glad you're here with me. And that I love you so much, and I'm glad you love me enough to stay with me in a hospital, even though you're a germaphobe."

He leans forward and leaves a kiss on your taped-up nose. "I love you, too. Do you want me to tell you what happened?"

You think for a second, the crease between your brows making a reappearance, but you ultimately shake your head — slightly, because you have a raging headache and more movement will only make it worse. "This seems bad, so... I'm not so sure I wanna know."

Spencer nods and leans back, getting to his feet. "There are some people who wanna see you, if you're up for it?" he suggests gently, watching as a smile makes its way onto your lips.

"I think I'd like that very much."

Spencer knows you'll need to know at some point, but right now, while you seem relatively happy, he won't tell you about how you were kidnapped and drugged with ketamine and heroin, or how your torture was broadcasted to everyone at the BAU.

For now, he'll let you stay happy.

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