#tw suture | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

koibitogata · 1 year ago

Text

frustration and anger.

creepypasta/mh x reader in which they get frustrated or angry, or, in BEN's case, are frustrating themselves. word count: 2.1k cw: abuse, descriptions of anger, arguments/quarrelling.

EJ doesn’t often get angry.

in fact, it’s hard to even frustrate him. Even when faced with particularly difficult patients to suture up—ahem, Jeff— he shows no sign of being fazed.

well, perhaps that’s because he’s used to living with Jeff and his reckless, barbaric antics.

but when he does get frustrated, it’s like a gradual intensification.

you like to split his frustration into three phases.

phase 1: EJ starts to seem a little off. Quieter than usual, less responsive, and more distant. Almost as if he’s in his own world, deceptively peaceful.

phase 2: EJ starts to show actual signs of being frustrated. You notice that it is at this point he may start to snap lightly at others, but with you, he tries his best to keep it to a minimum.

phase 3 is the climax before the drop. On occasion, he may raise his voice slightly and openly express irritation. But he always drops, hard and fast.

“I am so sorry, Y/N, I am so sorry,” he whispers, rubbing circles gently on your back. Though he has to bend over quite a bit (he’s a gentle giant at a height of 6’6 or about 2 meters), you find it to be very soothing that his frame envelops the entirety of yours.

oh, but that doesn’t mean he’s incapable of getting angry.

no, the anger you heard in his voice was undeniable as he roared at another member of the household to stay the fuck away from you.

you’d startled at the sheer sound of it, and quickly those trembles descended into violent shaking as you cried—his roar was simply not…human.

you flinched as he picked you up, just as gently as was the anger intense in that dreaded noise he made, a stark contrast in behavior, a jarring change in your body, mind and soul.

but other than that, you knew your darling EJ was back.

he plopped you onto his bed, surrounded by his sweet yet musky scent, nuzzling your neck and your face.

“I’m sorry”s were whispered countless times in your ear that night as you dozed off in the safety of his arms.

jeff

gotta put a trigger warning on this one. you know what to expect, but just in case you don’t, TW: Jeff is literally a murderer with abusive tendencies and anger issues.

at the start of your relationship, Jeff had been…well, to say the least, not the best partner.

he often got mad at you, whether it be keeping him waiting or spilling a cup of water.

yeah. spilling a cup of water.

but you understood why he was the way he was. he just couldn’t help it. but that didn’t mean you were going to stick around for it, no matter how much you loved him.

one day after a particularly huge argument, you found him crying in his room. his sniffles were unmistakable, but you knew you’d have to pretend you hadn’t heard from ten feet away.

turns out, angsty little Jeff here wasn’t completely unaware of himself.

“I’m sorry, Y/N, I’m so sorry,” he had sobbed as quietly as he could. “I know I’m a bad boyfriend, I know, I keep lashing out at you and I’m so sorry.”

your relationship could have very well ended that day if you hadn’t found Jeff crying on the floor.

but even though he’d hurt you so many times, you took him back into your arms.

and so you taught him to manage his anger, though it took you immense effort, energy and bravery.

he’d always help, though, by reminding you it was okay to yell back at him. you chided him lightly for it, saying that it’d just cause a back and forth.

“oh, right. my bad. sorry, doll,” he had said with a sheepish grin.

today, you are proud to boast that you trained your bloodhound boyfriend to be a tame dog. hell, he even does whatever you tell him to now, albeit sometimes reluctantly.

but he understands that if he loves you, he must make sacrifices upon sacrifices. you did that for him.

now it is his turn to sacrifice himself for you.

masky - tim

it’s not really uncommon that Tim gets angry.

but his anger is almost always the quiet kind.

he will “hmph” and huff lightly, a mild kind of anger you both can still joke about, though his face will redden at it.

you can’t help it though, the sass he gives you when he’s lightly frustrated is too good to let slip past.

oh, but when his anger gets loud—

it’s no longer a harmless little nip.

it’s been directed everywhere. everywhere, his teammates, the table, the card game he’s losing a bit too embarrassingly to Toby who’s being an unbearable little ass about it.

but never you.

okay, it was one time.

but Tim decided it was one time too many. (as he should)

he’d raised his voice at you, more so out of frustration rather than anger.

and you flinched.

and oh, how that little flinch broke his heart.

he shut up immediately, gathering you into his arms, whispering “oh, I’m so sorry, darling”, and “you’re okay, you’re okay”.

he never did it again. ever.

now, when you both get angry at each other, it always devolves into stupid little giggles and kicking.

hoodie - brian

Brian doesn’t really get angry, nor does he get frustrated.

normally, at least.

something shines in his eyes when he is defied, a shadow of a grin, a curl of the lip—

you spend a couple days investigating this, defying him little by little.

“Y/N, could you pass me the water?” “No.” and you’d say it with a cheeky smile on your face to match this strange expression on his.

it evolved into much greater things, “Y/N, come over here for a bit.” “Nope!”

“Y/N, help me up.” “Nope!”

your gleeful defiance doesn’t have a complete zero effect, either. with each silly little “nope”, the glint in his eyes grows brighter. and you know that the cup you’ve slowly been filling the past few days is about to overflow.

it’s one fateful day that you happily defy him once again, and—

oh. something’s grabbing at your jaw, and your lover’s face is so close to yours.

he smiles so gently at you, so purely. but his grip on your jaw says otherwise.

firm like iron, reprimanding, but not harmful or venomous. you know he isn’t going to hurt you, but oh, he isn’t letting you go either.

“Y/N,” he says calmly. “You’ve been a little more uncooperative than usual.”

the shiver it sends down your spine isn’t one of fear. excitement, rather.

he lets you go, but guides you to the bed. “Sit,” he commands.

so you do. what else are you to do when your lover commands you so well?

“Good girl.”

so you never say no to him again, not when it comes to harmless favors.

Brian does not get angry or frustrated…at least, not like the normal person does.

toby

Toby becomes a very bitter cynic when upset, spitting sarcasm wherever he goes.

his BPD only makes it worse. his relationship with Tim is already strained as it is, with the latter trying his best (as much as a man with anger issues can), and his relationship with Brian being almost entirely carried by the older man.

and his relationship with you, oh his sweet vogel, his darling dove— he doesn’t know what to think of it. some days he lets loose around you, tickling you and blowing raspberries against your cheeks, and others he’s withdrawn, curled up into a ball in his bed, and so you dive in with him, nuzzling him against his sheets long overdue for a change.

but if it’s neither of those, he’s lashing out. sometimes you can’t even look at him when he walks into the room bringing dark clouds over the atmosphere. that’s when you know you can’t look up at him.

and when you make the mistake of looking up, your smile meets a scowl.

“what are you looking at.” he’ll spit, and then storm off, as if he can’t stand your eyes on him.

and it’s true, your eyes gaze at him with such gentleness, he can’t bring himself to stare back sometimes. especially when he’s in a bad mood, because he breaks inside as he sees his own eyes burn the love in your eyes, reducing them to ashes of fear.

“vogel,” he’d whisper at night, lying next to you in your bed. “i’m sorry.”

he apologizes so much and so often you no longer make a big deal out of it, but this time, his soft whisper is laced with such heavy guilt, your arms move before your mind thinks, pulling him into a soft embrace.

oh, but this bad mood is nothing compared to his jealousy.

Jeff gets close to you? Jeff is suddenly on the ground, blood leaking from his head and EJ hurriedly dragging the former away, admonishing him about not messing with Toby’s precious human.

Tim comforts you about Toby’s outbursts? suddenly he’s against the wall, Toby growling and spitting in his face. if he can’t be there for you, then no one else gets to be there for you either. though, he knows this is selfish.

if he could help it, he’d let you go to whomever you wanted for comfort. but oh, his heart aches so.

and his jealousy is nothing compared to how angry he gets at himself, bashing the walls of the manor, crying out at night, because he can’t be there for you like a normal boyfriend.

he doesn’t know this, but you’re in a corner too, muffled sobs, tears, nose dripping and all.

so at night, you crawl back into bed before he notices you, and lie awake till he comes back.

as his breathing settles and his snoring begins, you hug him just a little bit tighter, your sweet vogel with broken wings.

ben

you have to admit, BEN is really, really freaky.

in the way he plays his games, the way he treats his archnemesis Jeff, in bed—oops.

but particularly, in the way he seems to have an endless tolerance for things that would usually upset someone.

he just. fucking giggles.

“aww, my sweet Y/N is so cute when she’s mad~”

context: he pissed you off and you’re currently in the middle of admonishing him with your whole heart and soul.

conversely, you’re the one who gets mad right back at him.

within the hour, he presents you with a tiktok with two cats that says: me when i’m venting and all my bf does is make jokes

he cackles to the ends of the earth and proceeds to make even more jokes

frankly, when the topic of frustration comes up with BEN’s name in the same sentence, you pretty much just think of him being the frustrating asshole in the relationship.

“BEN, give me my fucking phone back.”

he’s dangling it over your head, using the fact that he’s a floating apparition that can somehow interact with physical objects to his advantage.

once, you got so frustrated at him that you cried.

thankfully, he had the decency to pause, panic, and reflect on his actions.

“oh.” five seconds passed and your crying didn’t get better (what did he expect?). he repeated himself. “oh.”

“actually say something, you idiot!” you sobbed. and this is what snapped BEN into action. (you can’t believe you actually had to tell him to comfort you.)

“oh.” then he realized he’d just been saying “oh” like a broken record. “um.”

so he wraps you up in a blanket like a burrito, and holds you close to his chest.

“i’m sorry.”

“promise not to do it again?” you look up at him with your best puppy eyes.

“…i can’t promise.” you can tell he’s holding back a cheeky grin.

you whine and hit him lightly.

but you know very well that he loves you; this frustration merely comes with him as a package.

3K notes · View notes

kiss-theggoat · 1 year ago

Note

Gonna need a part two where the slashers realize their s/o is alive >:’(

Slashers Fix You Up

Slashers Included: Thomas Hewitt, Billy Loomis, Stu Macher, Asa Emory, Michael Meyers, The Sinclair Brothers

TW: Violence and Gore

Thomas Hewitt:

The wound to your stomach was deep. It tore through deep tissue and muscle, but lucky for you, Thomas knew exactly what to do.

Not only had he been stabbed like that, but he’d become really good at sewing and stitching up human skin.

You woke up, feeling groggy, but immediately recognized the basement you were in. You laid on Tommy’s workbench, shirt off and torso numb.

When you looked down you saw Thomas hunched over you, huge hands trying hard to delicately sew you up, fingers covered in your blood.

You whispered to him, and you could’ve sworn you saw his heart skipped a beat. He jumped up, immediately grabbing the side of your face with relief written all over his face, eyes wide and breath heavy. He wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he lost you.

Billy Loomis:

Nothing when like it was supposed to that night. Sydney got away, Stu stabbed him too hard, and the worst of all…he stood above you, watching your blood pool on the hardwood of Stu’s living room.

He bent down, putting pressure on your wound while looking around the room, taking deep breaths and trying to think rationally…he needed to get you out of here. He quickly lifted you, trying to ignore your pained groans. He hated seeing you like this.

The moment he got your arm around his shoulders and your feet on the ground, he heard them…sirens. He was conflicted. Relief washed over him. He knew you’d be getting help soon but…if he didn’t run…Syd would tell them everything. He’d go to jail, be found guilty for murder.

In that moment, he didn’t care. He helped you limp towards the front door, pushing it open. You’d lost too much blood…you didn’t even realize that Billy was sacrificing himself to save your life.

Stu Macher:

Stu watched his entire world fall apart when Billy stabbed you. He watched you fall, holding your gushing stomach, blood seeping from between your fingers.

He rushed to your side, hands covering your wound as he laid you back onto the ground.

“Just look at me. Don’t worry, keep looking at me.” He refused to let you look at your wound. He didn’t want you to be scared about how hurt you were. He lifted your hands to inspect your wound…he sighed in relief.

“It’s okay baby…the bleeding is slowing down…you’re gonna be okay…”

Asa Emory:

Asa never expected you to fall into one of his traps. He was beating himself up about it, but there was no time. He lifted you onto his operating table, covering your entire body with gauze.

He started slow, sutures and thread in his precise hands. You were covered in deep wounds, caused by rusty nails…he whispered his apologies, holding one hand as he poured antiseptic over you. It burned, it was unbearable…but you trusted him.

He carefully sewed each wound with a single suture, making sure to reassure you and stop the bleeding whenever it happened. It took him hours, but nothing would stop him from fixing you. Fixing your skin, fixing his love.

Michael Meyers:

For the first time in his entire life, he felt guilt. He felt a storm of emotions, but as he stared at your knife wound- the one his dumbass caused…- he knew it wouldn’t kill you. He’d never felt so terrible and so relieved in his life.

He quickly scooped you up, carrying you into the bathroom with shaking fingers. His hands had never shaken before…

He slammed open your medicine cabinet, hard enough to crack the glass, and popped open the first aid kit, sending gauze and band-aids onto the bathroom floor. You’d patched him up plenty of times so it should be easy…right?

Six butterfly bandages, four bandaids, and two complete rolls of gauze later, you felt like you might be suffocated by the first-aid supplies but…he’d tried his best. And, you weren’t bleeding anymore.

Sinclair Brothers:

The blow to the face had broken your eyebrow and sliced your skin, and the fall to the floor left you with a concussion and a sprained wrist. Vincent carried you downstairs gently, knowing he had the supplies to fix you up in his workshop.

All three brothers stayed by your side, and you were never alone over the course of the next week, especially while you were sleeping, until your concussion headache finally went away.

Your face was bruised and swollen and it hurt like nothing else you’d experienced, especially the cut on your eyebrow.

But, every morning when you walked downstairs, you received a kiss on the eyebrow from each Sinclair brother, and they all treated you like you were made of porcelain, even Bo.

#slasher x reader #slashers #horror movies #horror fanfiction #slasher x y/n #thomas hewitt x y/n #thomas hewitt x you #thomas hewitt x reader #billy loomis x y/n #billy loomis x reader #stu macher x reader #stu macher #asa emory #the collector #michael meyers #bo sinclair fanfiction #bo sinclair x reader #vincent sinclair x you #lester sinclair

1K notes · View notes

randomreadingtimewithtsuki · 2 months ago

Note

I SAID I’D BE BACK FOR SECONDS AND NOW I AM!

Another Dr. Stone request if you will~

How do you think the wise generals (+Tsukasa) would react to their partner getting a serous injury or seeing their partner having a near death experience (kinda like Ginro during treasure island where they have to be petrified to be saved maybe?)

😋

Hello! Thank you for coming by again!

I hope this is of liking, please let me know what you think!

TW: Mentions of injury and blood.

Tsuki's note: Children, DO NOT move anyone that has been injured or tht has fainted. Call for help first, then tend to the person ( CPR, Pressure, etc...), but do not move them!! you could complicate their situation.

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

Gen

Poor boy freaked out.

He saw your blood running, pooling around you.

He was dying to know what happened, why you were so terribly hurt.

He didn't really know what to do. Hold you? Hug you? Call someone?

Thankfully Senku thought fast and decided to petrify you to rescue you.

He sternly told Gen the details will have to come later, you saving you came first.

Gen had his heart in his mouth.

He couldn't hold your hand while you were being petrified.

But he could talk to you sweetly.

Well, you couldn't be depetrified yet. It had to take a few days to make sure you were fully healed.

While you were a stone Gen would talk to you daily, very briefly.

He also requested Yuzuriha to make your clothes and already have you dressed.

As soon as you were Revived, he hugged you tightly

Saying over and over again how worried he was and how glad he was to have you back.

After this sweet reunion, it was time to fill in the team with the details of how you ended up busted.

Gen would be very anxious if you had to go somewhere dangerous again.

he would try to convince you to stay, but he wouldn't push it too much, he knows everyone has their own roles on the kingdom of science.

Senku

Senku looked calm. He just looked like it.

When he realized you bought time for him and got hurt in the process, his heart sank.

But he had to deal with the issue at hand.

When he was done with the biggest issue, he went to your aid.

You were bleeding like crazy.

He didn't show it, but he was freaking out.

He knew one option would be to petrify you or try to suture you.

Petrifying was the best option - it had less risk of infections and complications.

So a statue you became.

Before you did become a statue, Senku you reassured you would be fine. After all you did this with Ryusui and Tsukasa so, you would be ok too.

You just needed a couple of days to be sure you would be 100% ok.

He didn't need to request Yuzuriha to make new clothes for you, she already knew what to do.

When you came back, Senku had a glint of relieve and happiness in his eyes.

If you chose to hug him, he would hug you too. If not, then he would just pat your head and say " Welcome back, you idiot".

Senku wouldn't mind if you went back doing dangerous things, but he would double check to see if you are ok.

Ryusui

Ryusui didn't quite notice the exact moment you got hurt - he himself was busy trying not to die too.

As soon as a little bit of safety was regained, he searched for you. Scanned the whole area with his eyes.

When he saw you, badly hurt and bleeding a lot, he panicked.

He dashes towards you, gently placing a hand on your shoulder, but he did not let transpire how worried he was.

He held a serious, yet calm expression and asked Francois to find help for you.

He stayed by your side through the whole decision making of petrifying you.

He agreed it was the option.

Ryusui reassured you would be fine, after all, he was too! Just trust the process and Senku.

He promised to give/do whatever you wanted once you healed up.

As soon as you became a statue again, Ryusui let his bravado down. He was worried sick.

He asked Yuzuriha to make you fancy clothes.

He also came by to see you for the short days you had to stay like that to heal.

Once you were broken free, the first thing you heard was his laugh and his fingers snapping.

He hugged tightly, but gently.

From then onwards he made to keep an eye on you or ask Francois to do so.

Chrome

Another poor boy that would panic a lot.

When he found you hurt, on the floor, he began to cry.

You were trying to tell him you would be ok.

He asked Kohaku to grabs Senku or anyone to help you.

He didn't left your side for anything.

Upon Senku's arrival, it was decided you would be petrified again.

Chrome was mumbling if this was the only way and well, it's not but it is the safest route.

He wanted to hold your hand while you were in the medusa range, but he couldn't.

So he kept loudly saying you would be ok while crying.

Ruri and Yuzuriha fetched you some clothes to dress your statue.

Chrome would talk to you about the days event. And always promise to fill you in again once you started moving.

When you are revived, He hugged you so tightly and so abruptly you fell backwards.

He was crying again, but this time out of relief.

You couldn't help smile at this fool.

After his he became very wary of letting you go on your own to unknown places.

Ukyo

Ukyo saw the moment you were hit.

He immediately ran to you while calling your name.

He didn't waste a second to seek for help.

From the looks of your injury you would probably need to be petrified.

Ukyo stayed by your side the whole time, having a worried, yet calm expression.

He tried his best to reassure you you would be fine.

After you became a statue again, he kindly asked Yuzuriha to make some clothes for you.

He would come by to see you and talk to you a bit.

Counting down out loud how long it would take to have you back.

Once you were revived, he hugged you tightly and gave a big sigh of relief.

He would ask you to be more careful next time and he would make sure to have you in his sight, so he could shoot any danger that could harm you.

Tsukasa

He didn't quite see when you got hurt.

Much like Ryusui, he was also trying to stay alive and Tsukasa is usually in the front lines.

After the danger was gone the first thing he did was look for you.

When he found you hurt, He kneeled next to you, gently helping you up and seeing your wound.

He would pick you up ( if your wound allowed it) and carry you to Senku.

Tsukasa would hold your hand as your injury was being check, surprisingly he wasn't holding too strongly, it was very gentle.

When it was decided it would be best to petrify you, he reassured you would be ok. After he was revived like that too.

He promised he would be next to you when you woke up and he smiled.

Not once Tsukasa showed how worried and angry he was. No, not at you, at himself and whoever laid hands on you.

Once you became a statue, he asked Yuzuriha a favor to make you new clothes.

Tsukasa would come by your statue and smile. He didn't speak much to you, he just did a promise to find who hurt.

Once you are back, he holds you by your shoulders asking how you feel, before hugging you.

After this, he makes sure you are safe or with a team that can keep you safe.

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

Thank you for reading!

#nanami ryusui x reader #tsukasa shishio x reader #ukyo saionji x reader #senku ishigami x reader #chrome x reader #gen asagiri x reader #dr stone #dr stone x reader

195 notes · View notes

ilium-ilia · 2 months ago

Text

In Limbo

simon "ghost" riley x fem!reader | mafia!au | masterlist

Chapter Fourteen: repeat \\ repeat \\ repeat

tw: violence, death, gore, non-con, grief

Suddenly, you are sixteen again.

Your father’s face is printed onto a piece of paper, and he won’t stop staring at you. It’s an old picture. The grain is thick and fuzzy, distorting the features of his appearance worse than a dream. His nose runs into his cheeks, which runs into his jawline—all morphing together until he’s nothing but a blob of flesh. It’s impossible to discern the color of his eyes through the flare. It’s a terrible photograph. Amateur. Your father never liked when people took photos of him. This was the only good one your mother could find before his wake.

Someone soliloquizes on the podium before your father’s body. They speak into a microphone as they rattle off some meaningless eulogy that doesn’t quite reach your ears. The volume of their voice blares through two large sets of speakers, but it’s a waste. There’s not enough people in attendance for it to be of any use. A whisper would suffice. It’s only you, your mother, and a handful of blurry faces you don’t have the energy to attempt to place names to.

All you can do is sit there and look at the memorial bulletin and the fuzzy pictures of your father’s face when it was still warm and full of life.

“Would you like to see him?”

Paper crinkles in your hand and you shake your head. This version of your father—the one held delicately in your grasp—is the only one you want to remember. Tears blur the image where they well and fester in the corner of your eyes. It stings. Bitter needles piercing through your scaleras. You swallow down the grief and look up at your mother as her inflamed eyes stare back at you. They burn as they desperately attempt to hold back her own sorrow from streaking down her face. It is then—that you realize—you have to go up there with her.

For her sake.

A few small steps disrupt the path to where your father lays peacefully in his casket, and each one you climb feels treacherous. The air grows thinner where it gets caught in your nose. It sears your throat as you try to force it into your lungs anyway.

Head propped up on a pillow, the top of your father’s forehead peeps out of the casket as if playing peek-a-boo. He wears a suit, something sleek and mostly black, and it does not fit his personality. Not the rambunctious, cheeky man that raised you. He looks… old. Like he hasn’t been long for this world for quite some time. Eyes closed, hands resting upon one another—he looks like he’s sleeping. Immobile. Peaceful.

But it’s wrong—contorting—incorrect—this is not your father. Not this corpse with his scraped up fingers and tiny sutures attempting to conceal violent compound fractures. The bones aren’t straight. They can’t be set straight. There’s nothing living left to heal. And his lip. Busted. Fat and wide, but not swollen—his face droops because of it. As if he’s melting. As if he’s been rotting all along. Poorly matched makeup stains the sides of his face, a waxy sheen obscuring the entry and exit wound that burrows through his brain. A small hole by his temple. Then, large portions of fractured skull gone and promptly fixed up, erasing the violence that had been wrought upon him no better than scotch tape over a leaky pipe.

This cordolium is too thick to swallow. Too blisteringly violent to go down easy—too sharp. You stare at him because it’s all you can do. Stare, and think about how those fingers had once taught you how to play cat’s cradle. How those lips used to curl with mirth as he held you tightly. Now, he is ruined. Broken apart and shoved back together for a hasty goodbye. He was alive, and now he is not, and he lies here in front of you as if trying to convince you otherwise.

There is a desperate attempt in trying to remember him how he was when he was still full of vigor with that shine in his eyes, but you can’t. It’s just him. Him, with crooked fingers and deep lacerations and this suit he would never be caught dead in—this version of him replaces all the others that you had grown to love.

His death ruins him—ruins you—and you fear with this anguish inside of you, it’ll kill you, too.

Just as you feel yourself start to slip through the floor—down into the depths your father is soon to be buried in—a hand grounds you. It’s soft. Gentle as a feather as it rests on your shoulder. You blink, and you are back in this building with this corpse and these strangers.

“I’m sorry for your loss. Truly.”

A voice speaks with a Russian lilt, and it has you turning your head only to be met by the face of a stranger. You’re unsurprised; there are very few people you recognize in this place. Murky eyes look at you the way everyone else has since your father’s passing—with pity. His hand falls from your shoulder as he glances at the body. The stranger does not flinch despite the proof of violence strewn before him.

“It’s hard, losing a parent,” he continues. “You will have to be stronger. Smarter. But you seem like an intelligent girl. One that knows how to stay out of trouble.”

Something buzzes at the base of your skull. An incessant insect that traverses through your brain, leaving holes in its wake. It devours everything but the neurons that allow you to fear.

“Who are you?” It’s meant to be a gentle question. One in curiosity; a polite excuse to learn about this strange man. Instead, it bites.

Still, the man does not flinch.

His full attention returns to you with a courteous smile and an outstretched hand. He does not answer your question until you take it, and his fingers are ice cold as they wrap around yours.

“Vladimir. A friend of your father.” A gentle buzz irritates his pockets as his phone goes off, and he releases your hand in favor of glancing at the screen. You watch him with a dull face as he smiles at you. “I’m afraid I can’t stay long. I hope you are able to find peace. My thoughts are with you, friend.”

This man—Vladimir—excuses himself, but you do not respond to his farewell. You’re tired of saying goodbye. You watch him leave, phone pressed against his ear as he escapes the building and vanishes into the bitter December air.

Despite the well wishes bestowed upon you and your mother, peace doesn’t come easy for either of you. Each day is full of tears and wordless meals while your nights are plagued with bad dreams and a bed that doesn’t feel comfortable with your father’s absence in that empty home. Any attempt to quell this throe is met with vicious backlash. Movies offer no comfort without his aimless commentary. Delicious meals taste bland without his assistance. The walls are cold without his laughter.

You are a shell. A husk void of all the feelings that make life worth living.

Against your mother’s wishes, you return to school. She tells you to stay home. She begs for you to not put too much pressure on yourself, but you rot in that place. In that house. Maggots fester in your skin the same as they do in your father’s, except you waste away in the comfort of your bed instead of a casket—

—you cannot stand yourself. You cannot stand the fact that you draw breath while he does not.

Your teachers attempt to tell you that you are allowed to take a longer bereavement period. All of them had come to the same conclusion of exempting your end of term exams in favor of your mental health. Their concern falls on deaf ears as you continue to participate with glassy eyes and mindless doodles in the corner of your notes. They offer you resources. Counselors and books on healing. You speak to no one and read nothing.

It’s difficult to explain how terrified you are of facing the truth. So, you don’t. You continue to participate through your exams, and on the last day of term, you are given a bouquet. Stunning sympathy flowers clump together with red ribbon, complete with a card signed by most of your classmates and teachers. Their handwriting is beautiful. Elegant swirling letters dance across the paper in some well meaning note, yet your eyes can’t focus on it. Just like everything else, your mind filters it until it’s out of reach.

You walk home. It’s grueling in the frigid weather, and you’ve forgotten your tights to wear underneath your skirt. Or, maybe you did it on purpose. To feel something, even if it’s pain. Bare skin tightens and freezes against the breeze, and even the petals of your flowers begin to wilt midway through your travels. They shrivel and curl into one another as they huddle close to your chest to feed off of your warmth. You’re killing them slowly in your own selfish way, and yet they still cling to you as if you can save them any better than you can save yourself.

The TV is on when you arrive home. Muffled voices drone through the speakers, none of which properly reaches you. Ignoring it, you don’t even bother to take your shoes off or announce your presence before slipping away into the kitchen. Over the weeks, both you and your mother have been bombarded with floral arrangements from distant family members and friends. They’re much too lazy to offer their condolences in person. There’s bound to be a leftover vase for you to resuscitate these poor, withered plants in your hands.

Your mother is in the kitchen, and she is sitting.

Legs wide on the floor, back slumped against the cabinet under the sink, her eyes burn a hole into the ground in front of her. It isn’t until the tips of your shoes dip into thick cruor that you fully realize the blood on the ground. It’s everywhere. Spreading along the linoleum, soaking into the crack just under the sink—she is motionless and torn to shreds in front of you. Offals press out of her stomach just underneath where her hands rest, attempting to keep herself from spilling. Now, she cools on the floor with parted lips and dried tears on her face.

“Mum?”

She does not respond. She only stares at the floor.

A hand clasps over your mouth before you’re able to process the mess in front of you. Pitiful feet squirm and thrash as you’re dragged through the room, flowers soaring through the air and blood smearing the soles of your shoes. You’re violently spun around and shoved against the wall where the back of your head collides with the paneling with a dull thud, sending your vision whirling.

You attempt to make sense of the black hair and green eyes in front of you. Of the hips that pin you against the wall while this intruder leans back to get a better look at you. Yet, when he smiles with teeth just as sharp as the knife that he presses against your throat, all you can do is stand there and panic.

“Easy now,” the man warns. Each syllable washes over your nose with mint so strong it burns your eyes—like he’s trying to hide something vile behind the freshness, but it isn’t working. “Pretty thing you are, aren’t you? Yeah… Yeah, let’s try to keep it that way. Gonna move my hand and you’re gonna keep those lips sealed, right? You’re not gonna give me any trouble.”

The only thing you can think to do is nod. To confirm you’re not a threat. To do anything to ward off the blade against your throat. Still, when he removes his hand, you whimper. Eyes wide with terror, you look over this man and find nothing recognizable. Not his attire nor grin—not even the heavy cologne that burrows into his clothes. There is only one thing that seems remotely familiar, and it’s the heavy lids over his eyes like he’s ravenous and sizing up a good meal to eat.

When he asks for your name it stumbles from your lips like it caught on your tongue on the way out, and he gives you his in return. Marco. He says it as if you are having a polite conversation; like your mother isn’t slouched against the cabinet by your feet.

“Sorry about the mess. Dear mum wasn’t very cooperative. But you seem like a smart girl, hm? So you’re gonna stay quiet and listen to what I have to say. Nod.”

Just as ordered, you nod with a tremble, forcing your throat to bob against the blade. Marco allows himself to drink in the sight of you. Blood stained shoes, long winter skirt, pristine coat—your mother had just ironed it for you that morning. Delicate and careful hands had worked with grace to make sure you looked well and proper while off at school. It’s a sour memory, now. Those hands now cover a mortal wound she couldn’t save herself from.

“I’d like to apologize about the loss of your father. Good man, he was. Hard worker. Managed to get himself in a bit of a mess, though.” A wince tears through your throat at the pressure of his hips against yours, and he finally seems to register just how close he is to you. Offering you a smile in faux reverence, he moves back only an inch before pressing the tip of his knife against your sternum. You can’t feel its blade through the layers of your clothes, but the dread that stains the steel is unmistakable. “It’s the type of mess that gets a man killed. The type that got your mum killed. One that’ll kill you too if you don’t play your cards right.

“Now, your sweet father works—well… worked—for a very important man named Vadimir Makarov. Ever heard of him before?”

Vladimir. Your mind reels as images of your father’s funeral flashes before your eyes, forcing you to remember that strange man and his cold grip. Is that the Vladimir he speaks of? The same man who offered you kind condolences?

“Makarov… that sounds familiar,” you admit.

Marco’s smile is accompanied by a chuckle so saccharine it turns your stomach. “Yes. Yes, very good. Smart thing, you are. Everyone knows him. Everyone’s heard of him. Makarov. The Russian Mafia. Your father worked for him.”

Confusion rattles your bones as you shake your head, bottom lip jutting out and trembling. Marco sneers at it—he revels in the twitch of your skin as you shudder against him.

“But, no… No, my dad worked-”

“Your dad was a liar,” Marco interjects, bored. “A fat fucking liar, yeah? I’m sure he didn’t mean any harm by it, but dad kept a lot of things from you. He worked for Makarov as a drug runner. Sure you know what that is, right? A transporter? Makarov makes a lot of money off of that little side business of his. Lost a lot of cash for the big man the other night. Got himself killed trying to deliver a shipment. Lotta money we’re short on now. Care to venture a guess, babe? How much do you think we’re missing?”

Numbers spin in your head like slot machines. This isn’t a game you want to play. Some deranged guessing game with a knife against your chest and your back pressed against a wall. You wish he would kill you already. You wish he would leave you to rot on the floor next to your mother where you can cool and congeal in peace. You hope you’re buried between her and your father. You’d like to be able to reach out and touch them both again.

“Roughly three hundred thousand,” Marco eventually answers once he’s had his fill of your petrified silence.

The number he names is astonishing and cruel. Your mouth opens in an attempt to respond, but nothing comes out. All you can do is stare at the widening sneer growing on his lips.

“I know. Bad, isn’t it?” he humors with a crass chuckle. “Imagine how we feel, getting shorted like that. Not very good. Of course, he’s too dead to pay it back, so I tried to talk to good ol’ mum. Didn’t take too kindly to me visiting. Wasn’t very keen on wanting to pay back what your family owes. But you seem smarter than that. Smart enough to know what your options are, yeah?”

Reading between the lines is easy when he’s carving the message into your throat. It’s your turn to pay. Your turn to right your father’s sin, and if you don’t?

Linoleum can only hold so much blood.

Maybe you wouldn’t mind joining your mother on the floor. You’d be too dead to care. At least this incessant void that continues to swallow you whole would be sated. There would be nothing left for it to feed off of. But then you look at Marco. Verdant eyes bore into you with more than just curiosity. More than a sick sense of power. There are things worse than death. A filthy wanton desire taints his lips as he wets them, and for a moment the stale viscera mixes with the mint on his breath and you think you’re going to be sick.

“I… I don’t have that money. I-I’m still in school, I’ve…” Whatever you’re trying to say, it won’t come out right. It catches on your teeth—sticks to the confines of your throat—and chokes you.

“Quiet now,” Marco coos. Convinced that you’re not going to run, he drops the knife from your chest but the weight still feels there. “I’m not a monster. Of course it’ll take time. We’ll work out a payment plan. Wait until you’ve got yourself a job, something proper without worrying about school. I’ll make things nice and easy for you. Always better that way, right? We have a deal then?”

Before his words properly register, you’re already nodding, desperate to get him off of you. You’d do anything to fawn and appease this terror as he stares you down, lips peeling in a gibe.

“Good. Good… Wanna make another deal?” Before he continues, he slips his hand into his pocket where he stows that wicked blade after flicking it shut. With both hands free, he’s able to move easier. A warm hand settles on your waist and it burns through your school uniform all the way to your skin, layers turning into ash underneath his fingertips. You don’t fully register what he’s doing until his other hand brushes against your cheek—your blood runs colder than your mothers. “I’ll knock the price down by a quarter if you let me fuck you.”

This is your fault. You should have seen this coming. From the very moment your back was against the wall and Marco had you pinned, this was his idea all along. And instead of fighting, you froze. Let him close in on you until you were caged. Leashed. Attached to him by a string of infinity that you can’t seem to break through. He feels it, and you feel it too. That lure. That connection that allows him to take and take.

A crucible ignites in your stomach as the hand on your waist ventures lower, the thick fabric of your skirt bunches as he moves it to the side. Your legs attempt to knock together, to shut him out before he even enters, but he’s quicker. Faster. Stronger. His knee darts between them, and you try not to cry when he chuckles. This is his bread and butter. His favorite meal and the only sustenance he desires.

“I’d be gentle, of course. Like I said, I’m no monster. Could show me your room. Bet your bed’s plenty soft. Like you, huh? Pretty, soft thing, aren’t you?” Greedy fingers sear the insides of your thighs as he travels up and up… the tears begin to fall when his fingers reach your underwear. You feel the hot press of his fingers against your sex and the pressure hurts. You squirm, shoulders fidgeting and hands trembling as the foreign feeling taints you. “I’d knock it down by half if you’re a virgin.”

You want to close your eyes. To pretend it’s not happening until it’s over. You don’t. You look anywhere but him as the tears mark your cheeks, and you swear they’ll create canyons in your face if they continue at this pace. Cutting deep until the flesh erodes away and there’s nothing but bone left. So you look away. You look at your mother. Her crumpled form hasn’t moved. She’s just the way she has been. The way you found her. Forever frozen in her last moment—with her final breaths—hands attempting to stitch together something she can’t.

Her eyes are dead, and she is dead, and you are glad. You are glad, because you don’t think you could survive her witnessing what’s about to happen to you.

“Just say the word,” Marco eggs. He’s luring you in, fingers pressing harder, and it aches. You should be apoplectic. You should be raging against him, but you can’t.

Wavering hands slither between your body and Marco’s, palms flat against his chest as you attempt to melt into the wall behind you. Amused, he cocks his head. Avaricious eyes rake over your face, drinking in the sight of your tears like he wishes he could grab a taste for himself.

“I’ll pay the full amount,” you mutter. You can’t look at him when you speak. You can hardly even get the words out as is. “All of it. I’ll do it.”

He huffs in a patronizing scoff that has his breath fanning across your face again. Menthol burns your eyes and evaporates the tears on your skin. You wish you would evaporate with it.

“I’ll pay it, just… Please stop.”

There is a fleeting moment where you don’t think he will. You’re convinced he’ll continue to take, to ravage you on the bloodstained ground next to the corpse of your mother, but he relents. Hand sliding away from your thighs, your skirt covers yourself as he releases you. Without his weight pinning you like a specimen to an examination board, your legs give out, knees turning into jello as your back slides down the wall. He chuckles, and it is purely virulent.

“Alright, alright. No need to get fussy,” he sighs. “The other half of the deal is still on, then. We’ll make arrangements at a later date. Best you stay in town, babe. Would hate to have to track you down somewhere else.” Marco pauses, filth stained hands shoving into his pockets as he glances around the mess he’s made of both you and your mother. “Call the police. You’ll need help cleaning up. Tell them you came home and found her like this, but don’t tell them about me. About anything else. I’ll know if you do. Makarov’s got eyes and ears everywhere.”

Vision tunneling, you nod. It’s the only thing you can think of doing as you stare at the stain on the floor.

“Hey.” His shoes come into focus as he stands in front of you, and he gently kicks the side of your leg, prompting you to look up at him. He’s amused. You’re nothing more than meat to him. “That other offer is still on the table. Just in case you find yourself changing your mind. I’ll be seeing you later, babe.”

The door slams behind Marco as he leaves you. Crumbled flowers lay on the ground where they feed off of your mother’s blood as they tenderly rest next to her. You want nothing more than to crawl into her lap as if you were a child again—to feel her embrace as you sob. Aren’t you still a child? Only sixteen and still in school? You feel like an adult shoved into a child’s body—or a child shoved into an adult’s. You’re fractured. Spiraling and sparkling like kaleidoscope fractals to be gawked at with wet lips and greedy tongue.

You are in between a girl and a woman. In your prime state, you are now a meal, and Marco is everything more.

It isn’t long before flashing lights smother your neighborhood beneath azure waves. The officers arrive before the ambulance does, and they find you curled up and shivering on the front steps of your home. They call out to you—amicable and sweet—but none of it reaches you. Trembling fingers clutch your phone as you stare at the pavement at your feet. Unlike the kitchen floor, it’s pristine and clean; void of all blood and gore, and yet you still see it. It haunts you. Scarred deep into your retinas until all you see is red.

When a pair of shoes invades your vision, you are certain it’s Marco again. Already come to collect your dues, and more. But when you look up, you’re met with a new figure. A kinder figure. There is not a single shred of any giddy virulence that you had been subjected to before. He keels in front of you with a hand on his knee, like the motion has his bones screaming at him. He doesn’t seem to care about his pristine pants as old dirt begins to stain his uniform.

“Hey there, love.” His voice is friendly and soft, and it’s enough to coax you into making full eye contact. You squint as blue lights diffuse around the back of his head, but you can see him smiling. You wonder how he can muster such a feat when there’s a corpse in the house behind you. “Come on. Why don’t we get you somewhere warm?”

For the next few hours, you are a broken record as you retell your falsified story to investigators. You relive every gruesome detail except for the one that scares you most. It doesn’t feel good to lie. You hate lying. It makes you swelter with perspiration beading along the back of your neck as if you’re cooking in an oven under their gaze. If they see your deception, they don’t say anything, and so you keep repeating what you were instructed to. You walked home. You found her body. You called the cops.

You walked home. You found her body. You called the cops.

Somehow, after it’s evident that the fringes of your family died off with your mother, you end up in the care of the same officer who cajoled you from the stairs of your home. You don’t argue with it. It’s certainly better than sleeping on the streets for the night, or tucked away in the back of some crime scene.

His name is Sean Gilroy—the Chief Inspector who now works the case of your mother’s death. It’s quiet in his car. There’s nothing but the hum of the engine and grind of the weathered road beneath the tires, but he breaks the odd silence to tell you about his daughter. He’s proud of her, his sweet Aelin. She’s older than you; already moved out and engaged. It’s small talk. Just something to keep your mind off of everything.

You appreciate it until he shares that you remind him of her. You nearly apologize for it—that he might have a daughter like you.

His wife—Jianna—freezes at the sight of you when he brings you inside of his home. Puzzled at your presence, she brushes it off quickly before welcoming you as if you’re old friends. Her voice is sweet and quiet like a mother reading a bedtime story as she brings you to a room that’s too well lived in to be a guest room. Somehow, they already have spare clothes and toiletries on hand, something that they urge you to use at your convenience.

It isn’t until you change and lay in the bed that you realize that the Gilroy’s are used to fosters. Vagabond, wayward children with nowhere else to go. You wonder how many other kids have laid in this bed before you to stare at the same empty ceiling as you do.

You don’t sleep even though you desperately want to. You’d give anything to not be conscious through this new, miserable existence. Instead, you rot in that bed with your soiled body, still marked from Marco’s fingerprints. Your fingers twitch for something warm, for something you can use to burn the essence of him off of you, but you think you’d have to burn yourself alive with it. Immolate yourself as an offering to whatever sick god decided you deserved this fate. As long as the memory lives on, so does the crime, and so does your shame.

Shame for being alive. Shame for enduring what you had to. Shame for surviving it.

Come morning, you slip into the bathroom to try and clean yourself up properly. You want to wash your hair and face and forget the blood that stains the soles of your feet. Sean and Jiana provide everything, and they don’t skimp on anything either. When you exit your shower, your skin has never felt softer, and for a simple, fleeting moment, you’re convinced you might be able to sleep despite the sun’s position.

Everything falls apart when you brush your teeth.

Mint floods your mouth, smothering your tongue with its cooling burn, and it hardly begins to foam before you’re freezing. Your stomach recoils; twists and thrashes at the flavor as you try to will the nausea away, but you can’t, because underneath the menthol and frigid bite, there is your mother. There is your mother, and her offals, and her dead, glossy gaze; and there is Marco with his fingers pressing into you and his breath on your face—and there is you, too weak to do anything about it.

Your toothbrush clatters to the floor just as your knees do. Torso curved, stomach constricting, you hardly make it to the toilet before you throw up. It’s vile. Bitter bile coats your tongue, washing away the aftertaste of the horror with acid. You pray it torches your senses. You want it to render them completely useless so that you’ll never have to think about that man or that kitchen or the mess ever again.

“You alright in there, sweetie?” The question comes with a gentle knock and a fair amount of concern from Jianna. Feet shuffle just underneath the door in your periphery, and you try to quiet yourself as your stomach lurches once more.

You spit the last remains of vomit out of your mouth. “I’m alright.”

Christmas passes by in a blur you can’t remember. There are vague conversations that stick—how Aelin is traveling for the holiday, how she can’t be home, but they’re grateful you’re here—but it’s nothing of value. Just muffled voices to be added to the soupy mess of your brain. Disconnected. Disjointed. Bereaved, you spend your days wandering this strange home like a ghost as you try to pilot out the rest of your seemingly decreasing lifespan. Marco’s threats still ring fresh in your mind, as do his hands on your skin. Surprisingly, it’s a very simple life. Work, pay, repeat. Pray Marco doesn’t hurt you. Repeat. Try to forget. Repeat.

Repeat.

What you don’t account for are the nightmares. The lack of sleep. The way you can still so clearly smell everything—feel everything. Breath against your cheek. Hand between your thighs. Fear boiling your blood. Mint mixing with gore and death like something clean attempting to conceal something rotten. It follows you. Clings to you. Burrows into your skin. No, it’s deeper than that—it’s not some superficial wound. It slices through thick muscle and sinew and drills deep into bone and the soft tissue of your head. It fries synapses until all you can think about is the despondent ache that pulses in place of your heart.

Unfortunately, Sean Gilroy can sniff out death better than a cadaver dog, and you’re smothered in the scent.

“Now, you’re not in trouble,” he says, but his voice carries a sense of authority that nearly has you trembling as you sit on the couch in his living room. He stands in front of you with his arms crossed over his chest as you stare at the photo in your hand. “I just need you to tell me the truth this time.”

It’s Marco. A grainy, CCTV image of him, but you don’t think you’d be able to forget his face even if you tried. You see him with his hands shoved in his pockets just outside of your house. Your real house. The one your mother still haunts. You swallow thickly as the picture stares through you—you want to look away, but it won’t allow you to.

“Who is that man?” Sean asks.

You shake your head. “I don’t know.”

He doesn’t argue. He doesn’t fight and call out your obvious lie. Instead, he kneels just like he did when he first found you on those icy steps. Soft eyes attempt to peer into yours, but you can’t stop staring at Marco. Not even the static can obscure the smirk on his face, and you feel your stomach churn at the sight.

“I know this isn’t easy,” he says, voice soft yet still carrying the authority of an officer. “We’ve seen the video. We watched this man walk into your home. We watched you enter long before he left. It’s not easy facing men like that. Someone terrible enough to take life so flippantly. I’m sure he said a lot of things to you, right? Made a lot of threats trying to get you to keep quiet? I promise, whatever he told you isn’t going to happen. Not while I’m around.”

His confidence is almost laughable, and you would laugh if you weren’t terrified. Marco’s words echo in your head the same way they have for the last few weeks. Makarov has eyes and ears everywhere. Are they listening now? Are they testing you? Trying to see how easily you’ll crumble if given a way out if you’re tempted with even the mere thought of escaping this life that was so viciously forced upon you?

“I can’t,” you stutter. It’s weak. Poignant and miserable, especially when accompanied by the tears that mark your cheeks. You cry so often these days you think the well might never run dry. “I can’t, he’ll kill me.”

“What did I tell you? That’s not going to happen while I’m around,” he assures. “Is he part of any syndicate? Is he on his own? I just need a little bit of information—a name, anything you have—and I can put him away for good. Let me help you.”

A part of you believes him. There’s a quiet flicker of hope that has you praying he’s right. Perhaps most of what Marco said was an empty threat. Something to get you to be complacent and easy to abuse. Aren’t you, after all, still a child? Gullible and pathetic? The conflict roars in your chest and manifests as shaky hands and ribs that crack with each beat of your heart.

“I…” This is going to kill you to say. It’s not easy being brave—it’s nothing but asperity. “His name is Marco. He works for a man named Vladimir Makarov and he… he…”

Everything wants to spill out. The blood, tears, bile—the hands slipping underneath your skirt and the dead eyes that watched your defilement. It’s too much to hold by yourself, and you don’t know what to do with it besides let it fester and metastasize inside of you. When you look up at Sean and see the look in his eyes, you can tell he already knows. That he’s known for a long while. He could see the cracks through your skin like dry desert clay long before you ever showed them.

He hugs you when you begin to cry, and it feels like your father is holding you. It’s the first fraction of comfort you’ve received since either of your parents died, and you’re unable to hold back the sorrow. You are a leaking faucet. Something that has no choice but to make a mess, and still he holds you through it all.

When your crying quells enough that it no longer racks your body, Sean asks you if you’ll go to the station with him to give an official statement. He promises that it won’t go public, and that it will stay classified until everyone who could ever want to hurt you is rotting behind bars.

Still sniffling back snot, you agree.

This might be the only chance you’ll get to avenge your parents—to avenge the girl Marco ravaged and left to decay in that house.

The streets of London are packed, leaving you and Sean stuck in tightly knit traffic. Each stoplight you run into seems to last an eternity, and it only aggravates the already untamable anxiety that dwells in the pit of your stomach. A time bomb ticks away somewhere just out of reach, forever slipping through your fingers, and it only gets louder the closer you get to the station.

Halfway through the drive, Sean calls someone. His tone is clandestine, hushed and soft as if you’re in some other room and not in the passenger’s seat next to him. Only a few of his words cut through the tempest in your mind. He mentions your name. The homicide case involving your parents. Marco and Makarov. The streets you’re passing on the way to the station. Lighthearted complaints about the traffic. His voice shakes when he laughs.

You think he might be scared.

There is a moment in time when everything shifts. The air becomes thicker. Your body has felt light as a feather ever since you shared your true confession, yet there’s a trepidation that hangs so tightly around your neck you’re certain you’ll choke. But you’ve been choking all along, haven’t you? Marco’s had a hold of his end of the rope this whole time, slowly pulling and pulling as the nose constricts around your throat like a viper.

You suck in a breath of air as best as you can while your eyes wander over to Sean. He’s still on the phone, but you can’t understand what he’s saying. His mouth moves, jaw bobbing with his words, but it's nonsense. Silence. Gibberish through static. When you exhale, you look at the steering wheel. One hand guides the car as firm fingers keep it straight while you make it through the intersection.

When you blink, those fingers suddenly look like your father’s—crooked and wrong.

Pop!

Your vision is plunged into darkness as a gunshot-like bang deafens you. The muscles along your spine tense and harden as your body is thrown about, seat belt digging into your chest and hips as you’re helplessly tossed—nothing but a ragdoll in the hands of a merciless child. Something hits the side of your head and your ears scream with a high pitched squeal by the time the movement ceases. Your eyes are open, but you can’t see anything. It’s blotchy. Underdeveloped images that fade in and out of existence. Sparkling glass. A white airbag. Blood on your fingertips.

Something shakes you, prompting you to look elsewhere. Your senses move slower than your body does. You turn your head but your eyes don’t catch up until later. Sean looks at you as he shouts something that makes your ears pulse, but you can’t hear him. His brows furrow as his hand reaches for the side of your head, and when he retracts it, his fingers are coated with ichor.

Everything begins to stitch itself together as you glance around. Crystalline shards of glass litter your lap. Small pieces of it embed themselves into your arms where beads of blood poke through your jumper. Frigid air hits your face through the broken window, and when you look to your left, you notice the door is bent with metal morphing inwards as if to crush you in its maw.

Pain rages inside of your skull as more blood trickles down the side of your face. Your hands press against your ears and they scream out at you, but you’re finally able to make out the words Sean speaks.

“Well get out of this, love, just try to stay still. Fuckin hell, of course they had to hit your side,” he grumbles, voice thick as if stuck underwater.

When you turn your attention back to him, you see someone standing by his door. One hand stays in the pocket of his jumper while the other opens the door. Sean hardly has the time to look over before the assailant retrieves a knife and plunges it into his stomach. The man does it so easy. It’s a practiced motion. One executed with too much confidence. There’s no sound that accompanies it. No clink of metal or a sickening smack. There is nothing but a gasp.

Blood flows freely from the wound as the knife is yanked free, and Sean paws helplessly at it with a groan. A stuttering plea leaves your lips, but this man with his dull eyes says nothing as he retrieves the cellphone lying on the floor of the car. He begins to pick it apart, hardware and internals ripped open just like the dying man next to you. He removes a few parts before shoving it into his pocket.

“Maybe I was wrong about you.”

The repugnant voice of Vladimir Makarov drowns out the ringing in your ears as he leans through your broken window. Your head only snaps to look at him when he presses against the wound on your head, and he grins at your surprise. He stares at the blood marking his fingers like it’s a trophy.

“You’re not as smart as I thought you were. Not witty enough to keep out of trouble,” he chastises with a titter. “Let this be a lesson to you. I don’t like teaching the same thing twice.”

Slurred nonsense leaves your lips as Makarov leans away from the window, attention turning to the man ravaging Sean’s phone. He nods to himself, tossing the phone back onto the floor before looking to his superior. The man dying before him is nothing more than collateral.

“Come, Andrei. We’ll have guests soon,” Makarov orders.

They fade into the mess of the commotion around you, melting away like ghosts you can’t seem to catch nor escape. Nothing but dark figures joining the void. You’re always one step behind. Just another piece in a game you don’t know how to play.

“Sean,” you choke out. Your voice is raw and tight, vocal chords twisting and threatening to snap. “I-I don’t know what to do, please, t-tell me what to do, I-”

He’s dead by the time you’re able to turn your attention back to him. Hazy eyes stare through the cracked windshield as stained hands rest over his stomach. It’s the same thing all over again. A vicious cycle that spins around you. You’re at the epicenter. Approaching the event horizon that will soon rip you to shreds. For now, it lets you live, but it’s impossible to forget the gravity slowly dragging you in.

You cry as his body begins to cool. Each sob pierces through you, electrifying every nerve until you’re rendered nothing but a thrashing mess. Your arms flail, glass sent flying as you attempt to free yourself from your seatbelt. Other people have approached the wreck, but their voices and warnings to stay calm do nothing to soothe you. They don’t understand. No one understands. The only person who ever could is lying next to you, dead.

Each moment that passes is a painful reminder of what you wrought upon yourself. You should have known better than to attempt to harbor some useless meliorism as if you could outrun voracious greed. There is only one way out of this game—this limbo you’ve trapped yourself in—and it involves death. It has to be yours.

It will be yours, someday.

Until that day, you continue to let the blood fester on your skin. You know you’ll only ever be clean from this sin when the mortician washes you post-mortem to lay you in your casket.

follow @mother-ilia to be notified of updates | get early access to chapters here

#ilium writing #sr ilia #in limbo #simon riley x reader #ghost x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #female reader

102 notes · View notes

lullabyes22-blog · 4 months ago

Text

Snippet - The Stretcher - Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

An ugly reckoning...

tw: gore, violence, medical trauma, limb loss

cw: suggestions of inappropriate relationships between mentor and student

Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

Snippet:

Silco walks on.

Inside, the odor of stale chemicals seeps through the air. Jinx's containment pod is a plexiglas sphere resembling a transparent hive. Inside, she is laid out on a narrow cot. Her left hand—the two clever fingers so cruelly excised—is strapped to a splint. The stumps are a little red, but clean and dry. Each one is neatly sutured with black thread.

Black as the sucking hole in her chest.

Through the covers, Silco can see the delineations of the wound, a map of gauze adhering to her torso. The flesh is still flayed. But it is no longer a disaster-site of hideous spillage. The raw tendons are scored with tiny stitches. Each one, a testament to Singed’s ruthlessly meticulous handiwork.

The rest of Jinx is bone pale as if the scant pigment on her skin has been sucked dry. Her freckles stand out in stark pinpricks.

Two bags of fluid hang on a metal pole, drip-drip-dripping down a tube into a needle jammed into her arm. The steady flow of antibiotics, morphine, and synthesized Shimmer will bolster her vitals and keep her under. Her breathing—a tarred constriction of bubbles caught in her perforated lungs—has smoothed over the course of the night. But it remains an effortful jag: deep, dragging, discordant.

Silco's guts churn. The instinctive grind of rage is offset by guilt.

Then: shock.

Jinx is not alone.

A longer body's curved around Jinx's small one. One arm, the sleeve rolled to the elbow, is flung over her hip. Fingertips splay against her thigh: an anchor. The other arm, metallic, makes a protective arc over Jinx's skull. The cybernetic fingers, tipped with steel, are threaded in her blue hair. The head, half-obscured in lank brown curls, is tipped to Jinx's own.

Their temples mirror. Their eyelashes kiss. The cadence of their chests rises and falls in concert.

The Hexcore, with hypnotic rotations, bathes Jinx and Viktor in a violet glow.

From his own extremities, Silco feels pure rage blast open as the Monster unlocks.

"What the hell—?"

Singed looms from the corner of the medbay: tall and fleshlessy thin as a mantis. He's clad in a white smock resembling a butcher's apron. The barest smear of blood is caught in the weave. He glances up at Silco's snarl.

Apart from an expression of insectile alertness, he shows no other signs of concern.

"Ah," he says. "You've returned."

"Open the pod."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Viktor. What in the frozen hell is he—?"

"He's aiding her retrieval."

"What?"

"Her retrieval," Singed says, in the same imperturbable tone. "From what I understand, a plunge into the Void is not unlike falling into arctic waters. It takes a strong grip to pull oneself out. J17 is a skilled swimmer. But she remains partially submerged. She'll need a guide to drag her to the shore."

"He has no right to—"

"To what? Hold his companion's hand?"

"Companion?"

Singed nods.

Silco's jaw locks as the Doctor's meaning sinks in.

Guardians and Mages. He'd known, in his bones, that the bond between Viktor and Jinx held a strange, unearthly resonance. A tie that binds, like gravity does a comet: two celestial forces, inexorably pulled together by the galvanic charge of their shared potential.

He'd assumed the nature of the bond was intellectual. That their kinship was a matter of mathematics: two minds, one wavelength. Then Jinx's spells of strangeness and self-enforced secrecy began. He thinks of the audio recordings in the Aerie: the susurrations and whispers. The ungodly silence.

It wasn't sex—no matter the wildness of his paranoia, he knew Jinx was still too innocent, and that her tastes lay elsewhere. But the overtones—of communion, and a deeper, almost otherworldly intimacy—were terrifying.

Now, seeing them together—a tangle of arms, a knotting of fingers—his worst fears have been made manifest.

It's plain, from the ease between their bodies, that Jinx has slept in Viktor's arms before. Plain, too, that it's happened enough times for this closeness to take on overtones of trust. A trust Silco had invited: to his doorstep, past his threshold, and straight to his daughter’s bed.

A trust that’s been repaid with disaster.

Reflexively, Silco's fists ball.

"Open the pod," he says.

"What?"

"Open it."

"With all due respect, that is not the wisest course of action." Singed remains maddeningly equable. He could be discussing a minor surgical procedure: the pros and cons of local versus general anesthetic. "The Hexcore—from what I gather—is acting as a buffer. It is protecting both J17 and Viktor as they work to draw her out. To separate them at this juncture would risk a backlash."

"Backlash?"

"I'm speaking in metaphysical rather than medical terms. From what I have gleaned, the Hexcore is a living organism. It has its own will and wants. I am not privy to the nature of the bargain it has struck with Viktor. But I hazard that it is his key to the Void. And that, in exchange for entry, it protects his and Jinx’s corporeal forms. To rip them apart would be... traumatic. For all parties present."

In Viktor's embrace, Jinx expels a sigh. There's a subtle alteration in her breathing. The Void creeping across her brainwaves, perhaps. Viktor's arm flexes around her. His own breathing—that half-mechanical, half-organic rasp—deepens. His lips touch her temple.

The Hexcore sings. The pitch is nearly ethereal.

Two spirits: locked in orbit.

Silco's jaw grinds. A vein ticks in his temple. Whatever's happening, it is not something he comprehends. Not something, he suspects, meant to be comprehended. But that doesn't stymie the rage. Nor the dread.

The former, he can dissect with a cool eye, peel it down to the viscera of what it is: a primal need to keep his child safe.

The latter, though...

That's a formless shadow stretching over his psyche. The sense of something very, very huge: a force the size of a godhead eclipsing the horizon. And the stormfront, lightning-laced, is rolling across the sea straight towards his ship of destiny.

It's not often Silco feels his smallness. But he does now, and the fallout is brutal.

"You knew," he says, deathly soft.

"Hm?"

"You knew. About Viktor. Compromising my child."

Singed is not a shrugger. Hedging is not his strong suit. But his silence speaks for itself.

"I would not call such a bond a compromise," he says at length. "In some ways, it was inevitable. Viktor is extraordinarily gifted. J17, a creature of pure potential. They are both seekers in the dark. It makes sense that they'd find each other." A slight cant to his head: a gesture of self-reproach. "I will admit: I should have informed you. But there was no reason to believe the entanglement was of a carnal nature."

"No reason to believe they weren't fucking?"

The vulgarism stirs Singed out of scholarly calm. He doesn't smile. But his lipless mouth shows a glint of teeth. It's the same expression he'd wear when Silco would return to the Cannery after prowling the dank cloaca of the Lanes.

Always: with a plaything on his arm and ill-gotten gains in his pocket.

He'd often likened Silco's gravitation toward vice as a form of self-medicating. The sex, the drugs, the power-plays: all symptoms of a man whose eye could not close, and needed other means to unwind. Other ways to blot out the light.

It was a diagnosis Silco only partially agreed with. It was not autonomic impediment that kept his bad eye from closing. Simply the refusal to look away from the world as it was.

Now, his bad eye smolders in its socket. It's a marvel the Doctor doesn't wilt in its heat. Then again, Singed's always been a hard man to burn.

It's what he and Silco have in common.

"No," he says. "That, I do not believe."

"Is that so?"

"Given Viktor's... condition... it's unlikely."

"I'm not sure if you're aware, Doctor—" Silco's tone, beneath the frigid civility, is honed to cut jugulars, "—but there are ways around that."

The glint of teeth deepens. A grin, however cold. "Oh, I am aware. But I'm also aware of Viktor's nature. I've known him since he was a boy. Frailty's always been his cross to bear. But that has not diminished his drives. Only... redirected them, as it were."

"Sublimation."

"You sound dubious."

Silco's good eye slits. Singed's grin fades.

"I understand. We're men of pragmatic bent. There will always be a selfish component to our pursuits. A willingness to see the big picture, even if it means putting our better selves on the backburner." He turns to the pod. "Viktor is different. His nature has a singular trajectory: up. He wants to ascend. To break free of limitations: both inborn and self-imposed. Sex, in comparison, is a dead-end. Love, though? That's something else. Something that can take him to the stars."

Silco follows his stare. The pair, entwined, are haloed in violet. Their breathing is slow and steady.

A duet.

"The boy's always longed for a taste of the transcendent," Singed muses. "I imagine, in J17, he's found it. A force of pure creation. Pure entropy. It is only in chaos that order can thrive. The sense of a divine plan is what gives meaning to the world. And a multivalent, fractal reality is what allows a scientific theory to evolve into law."

Silco's knuckles pop. He says nothing.

"If it helps," the Doctor adds, "I doubt the boy's done worse than hold her hand. The way he speaks of her, one would think her a... psychopomp. Someone to guide him to a higher plane of knowledge. Someone whose existence is to be worshiped. Not possessed."

"Worship and possession," Silco replies, in the voice of cold prescience, "often end the same way."

"Oh?"

"With someone on their knees."

Singed doesn't laugh, exactly. The sound's too measured. But his mangled lips stretch to show the full set of teeth. They hold the implacable sheen of scalpels. Each one slitting its careful way through the tissue of Silco's self-control.

"A cynic's view," he says. "And one I disagree with."

"Do you, now?"

"I'll grant there is a physical element to their closeness. But, I suspect, the physical is merely a conduit to that higher plane. A literal touchstone to guide them through the dark. The true roadmap, as it were, is the end each of them seeks."

"That end being?"

"Balance," Singed says. "If my theory is correct, they each serve as a counterpoise to the other. J17, in her unbound potential: a spirit of half flesh, half catalyst. A force in constant flux. Viktor, in his rigid catechism: a being forged in metal and magic. The very dictum of death. Each is, in their own way, an anomaly. Together, they are a paradox. One that introduces a new paradigm."

"Paradigm."

"Cause and effect." The grin's gone. Only Singed's eyes shine: a cold, methodical zeal. "Or, in your language: cost and reward."

A chill steals through Silco.

It's not the first time Singed's dissections of the metaphysical have taken a macabre turn. For the Doctor, the two are indistinguishable: the duality of life and death reduced to quantifiable variables of mess and mass. In his laboratory, Silco's witnessed the results firsthand.

The Doctor's a man who understands that knowledge only goes as deep as the knife cuts. And Silco, a man who has cut to the marrow of humanity's ugliness, knows there's no limit to the incision when the rest's been pared clean.

"If your intention was to disarm me," he says flatly, "you've failed."

"Disarm." Singed's chuckle is dry as bone dust. "Old friend, you are not the weapon. Only the steel that whets its edge."

"Flattery?"

"Fact." The corners of Singed's eyes crinkle. "We are, both of us, mere tools for a greater design."

Jinx cries out.

In the pod, the Hexcore spins rapidly. The rotations, faster and faster, become a multicolored blur. The fluctuating glow—sometimes blue, sometimes red—is phantasmagoric. Silco has the sense of something primordial unspooling into existence. The birth of a star, on a spiritual scale: chemical fusion gone mystic.

A subsonic hum fills the air. Jinx's cry spikes.

Her whole body begins shaking: a subtle network of pain radiating, it seems, from the epicenter of her wound. Viktor's embrace holds. But beads of sweat pop on his temples. His breathing goes choppy. The pod's plexiglas walls turn milky as if with steam.

No—frost.

Silco can see the lattice of ice spreading. The cracks, fanning in jagged starbursts, resemble spiderweb.

Meanwhile, Viktor and Jinx may as well be under a full rig of stage lights: both of them are simmering in their skins.

Jinx's pallor is engulfed by a bright pink flush. Her breath comes in rapid drags. Her good right hand, fluttering, finds Viktor's good left. Their palms align, fingers twining. The twin rows of knuckles, flesh and bone, are deathly white.

The Hexcore's singing deepens. Jinx's own cry climbs to a keen.

Silco races forward. "Jinx!"

Before he can touch the pod, Singed seizes his arm. The grip is cold, cadaverous, yet somehow comforting.

"Not yet," he urges, as Jinx's wails echo and re-echo. "It's not done yet."

"Let go! She needs me—"

"No." Singed's grip is as unyielding as his gaze. "She needs to finish this. As does Viktor. Let them see it through."

Silco stares. Blood beats in his temples. He understands, remotely, that he is terrified. Paralysis, its predictable residue, clings like a second skin. It's a heaviness he despises. It's why he is so quick to reassert self-dominion with a dose of violence. To defend himself, monster and man, from threats that would otherwise devour him.

But what if the threat's taken root in the tenderest parts?

What if it can never be excised?

(Is that fatherhood?)

Tossing her head, Jinx screams. Viktor, gasping, shudders.

The Hexcore's pulsations go critical.

Then—with a flash of brilliant blue—the humming ebbs. The pod's opalescent frost, in icy bloom, evaporates. Within, Jinx and Viktor subside into stillness. Their hands are still twined, their foreheads together. Both breathe in unison.

But there's a dissonance in the rhythm. A harmony, that, while still in tandem, is their own.

Viktor is the first to wake.

His arm loosens its cradle around Jinx. His head stirs, the dark crown dislodging against its blue perch of her skull. The gold eyes—with their black-rimmed core—flicker. They are glazed in shock. Then he blinks, and they regain focus. The lineaments of his expression—grim-lipped and hollow-cheeked—are ones Silco knows well.

The sense of a spirit coming to the limits of its endurance, and shattering the barrier.

Now he's unsure what awaits on the other side.

Slowly, the golden eyes swivel. They find Singed. They find Silco. Then they fall on his and Jinx's still-linked hands. Something flickers across his wan face. Not a smile, exactly. But a certain softness around the hard brackets of his mouth.

As if he'd held on to a fear for dear life. And now, finding it unfounded, can let it go.

With a gentle tug, he unthreads their fingers.

Jinx doesn't stir. But she lets off a long slow exhalation that could be sadness, or a deep release of tension. Viktor disentangles their bodies. He does so with a delicate, deliberate care, keeping a light contact of fingertips all the way down her torso. Silco follows their path to Jinx's ribcage.

Under the gauze, the wound is closed. The meat is seared like a brand. But there's no trace of torn skin. Even the stitches—each raw suture point—have shrunk into a smooth pink furrow.

Jinx breathes. Each rise and fall—seamless—is a small miracle.

Silco is not a devout man. Contemptuous of all matters devotional, he treats prayer like a poor business transaction: an unstable currency of sacrifice, with no guarantee of success.

Now, the gratitude that floods his lungs is nearly a baptism. He hates every iota: the helplessness, the loss of agency.

But loves, gut-wrenchingly, what it's restored.

With effort, Viktor straightens. His bare feet, touching the tiles, let off a metallic clink. One hand grips the bedframe. The other reaches for his cane. Every muscle delineates the difficulty of keeping his balance.

The sheer exertion of willpower in holding his mind and body together.

As with all impossible endeavors, he does not falter.

"It is done," he says, hoarse but steady. "She is back."

"Back?"

"Within herself. The Void... has touched her heart. She has seen its own. But she is intact."

"Intact?"

"She will recover." He swallows with a liquid click. "In time."

Silco nods.

On the rumpled sheets, Jinx sleeps. Her breaths hold a deep-sea serenity. Her delicate features are preciously girlish and lost-looking. The sight suffuses Silco with a tenderness that yet calls up the horror of it all.

He takes himself to a place of stillness, and allows himself to feel it. Not just last night's ordeal. Everything leading up to it. Strategy after strategy, error after error, so the outcome is the same as when Zaun first emerged from its ravaged shell.

His child in a sickbed. His paternal devotion in a deathmatch with politics. His and Vi's blood game no more than a war against specters.

A war they've both lost.

Badly.

Silco's eyes pass from his sleeping beauty to the man who'd saved her life.

"Doctor," Silco says. "Open the pod."

Singed does not argue. With a deft touch, he flips the controls.

The plexiglas shell retracts. The air, trapped, is instantly sucked out. It is unseasonably warm from Jinx's and Viktor's body-heat. The smell holds a sterile bite of disinfectant. Underneath, a faint trace of musk lingers.

The unforgettable odor has been imprinted on Silco's olfactory landscape since Jinx began working with the Hex-gem. The permeating ozone-stink of night sweats and lightning strikes.

The afterglow of the Void.

Now Silco detects the component he'd not dared to put a name to: that singular, almost sexual tang. Two spirits, intertwined, coupling in a realm without flesh.

Right under his roof.

His eyes lock on Viktor's. The younger man's ambivalent features, caught between exhaustion and relief, shift. Wariness creeps in. It's not the fear of reckoning. More the full awareness of a gamble gone sour.

Now the ruin, no matter how cataclysmic, must be accounted for.

The gold eyes—infinitely patient, infinitely reckless—do not waver.

"I believe," Viktor says, "you have questions."

"I do," Silco says. Then: "Doctor. Fetch the stretcher."

Singed's head takes on an insectile slant. As if he's caught the taste of blood in his mandibles, and is trying to parse its source.

"Stretcher?" he repeats. "Whatever for?"

"Viktor."

"The boy seems perfectly—"

Crossing the distance, Silco lays a hand on Viktor's shoulder. A steadying, almost paternal clasp.

The Monster, unsheathing its claws, rakes down.

His fist slams into Viktor's gut. The young man staggers with a strangled cry. His cane clatters. The rest of him slumps, jelly-legged, as Silco follows with a snapping right hook, smoking it straight through the boy's frail defense and connecting with his jaw.

There is a satisfying snap of bone on bone. The sound, visceral and rich, kickstarts a tidal wave of blackness that seethes from the balls of Silco's feet and climbs all the way to his hairline.

The Monster is awake, and it is hungry.

"Doctor," Silco says, as Viktor crumples to the floor. "The stretcher."

Wisely, Singed obeys.

#arcane #arcane league of legends #arcane silco #silco #forward but never forget/xoxo #forward (never forget)/xoxo #arcane jinx #jinx #arcane viktor #viktor #arcane singed #singed #jinxtor #vinx science bros #viktor and jinx

106 notes · View notes

allur1ngs · 1 year ago

Note

what if bada comes home from a mission with some injuries and reader gets worried and just goes on full doctor mode ☹️☹️ and bada liking that side of her 👁️👁️

one thing about bada is that she'll always find you attractive, no matter the circumstance 🩹

tw: injuries, blood, and needles

A peaceful silence hangs in the air of the Lee mansion. It engulfs the halls and sweeps through the cracks between the floorboards, reaching every level of the large home. It drifts in the garden like a whisper of vitality, ruffling the petals of red roses.

All is well...until it isn’t.

The sound of heavy breathing and loud footsteps disrupts the harmony. It makes the flowers quiver, and the floorboards creak and wail.

Bada lugs herself up the spiral staircase, a limp in her step causing her footfalls to resonate like a drum, the sound echoing through the hallway. She curses loudly once she finally makes it all the way up, realizing she has to walk down a very long corridor toward her bedroom.

Every movement of her leg and her side makes her hiss, the feeling of a warm wetness sliding down her torso keeping her grimly aware of the terrible state she's in. She clutches onto her side in a weak attempt to diffuse the pain; the pressure only makes it double. She takes a deep breath and grits her teeth, focusing on slugging toward her bedroom.

It takes her longer than usual to come face to face with the dark mahogany wood of her door, but the mere sight of it makes her breathe a sigh of relief. She drags herself over and uses all her strength to push open the door.

Stumbling into her room, she moves to sit down on her bed, her breaths coming out more and more labored. Her head spins, and she wonders if she’s close to losing consciousness.

Suddenly, a loud knock on her door briefly reaches her ringing ears, but she doesn’t have the strength to get up. A stretch of silence passes, then, “Bada?” Your voice breaks through the noise buzzing in your fiancée’s head.

She mutters your name into the open air, breathy and like a prayer.

“I heard you come in–” you step into her bedroom but freeze at the sight of your fiancée barely conscious, your eyes doubling in size. You rush over to her, stepping between her spread legs and grabbing onto the sides of her face. “What happened?”

Bada gulps, clutching onto your waist like a lifeline. “Job went sideways. Took a bad hit.”

"Wh-," you mumble, your voice trembling to the point that your words come out clipped, “where are you hurt?”

Your fiancée lets go of her torso, holding her hand up, and revealing the crimson staining her flesh. “My side.”

“Shit.” You curse under your breath, a stab of fear hitting your heart like a lightning bolt. “Do you have a medical kit here?”

“In the bathroom. Second cabinet.” Bada mumbles.

You glance at the bathroom door, biting your lip lightly. “I’ll be right back. Can you put some pressure onto your wound to slow down the bleeding?”

Bada nods, reluctantly letting go of your waist and moving her hands back to her hurt side. You give her a kiss on the forehead before rushing to the bathroom and throwing the second cabinet door open. You retrieve the medkit and run back to your fiancée, opening it next to her on the bed. You grab gauze, saline solution, sutures, and a needle.

“I’m going to help you take off your suit and shirt, okay?” You gently hold Bada’s head in your hands again.

“Yes.” She breathes, holding her arms out so it’s easier for you to access her suit.

You quickly but carefully pull it off of her, your heart squeezing at every grunt of pain that leaves her lips. “There you go.” You mumble to yourself, placing her suit jacket on the bed next to her, trying to avoid looking at the blood on it. But when you turn to face Bada again, you can’t ignore the large red stain on her crisp white shirt. It’s dizzying just looking at it, and you swear you feel the air leave your lungs in that moment.

However, the sound of your fiancée’s breathing becoming sparse snaps you out of your daze, making you jump into action.

“Hey, baby.” You whisper, staring deeply into her cloudy eyes. “I need you to stay awake for me. Can you do that?”

“I–” Bada tries to speak but only manages to hiss, the pain in her side growing with every passing minute.

“Tell me what happened while I clean you up. Talk to me.” You quickly remove her tie and unbutton her dress shirt, taking it off her without causing her any additional pain. The wound on her side isn’t quite as large as you thought it would be, but it still oozes copious amounts of blood.

“U-Ram,” Bada says, her voice heavy. “He requested to see me in the hopes of negotiating for his branch to remain under his control.”

“Mmm,” you hum, grabbing the saline solution and a gauze pad, soaking it in the liquid, and holding it close to her wound. “This is going to hurt.”

“Can’t get much worse, can it?” Bada chuckles under her breath.

You take your unoccupied hand and grab hers for comfort. “Okay, three, two, one…” you press the saline-solution soaked gauze pad to her wound, causing her to let out a loud hiss, her hold on your hand tightening. “Keep talking, keep talking.” You encourage her, hoping that the action will allow her to stay awake and briefly distract her from the pain.

“Fuck...” She curses, closing her eye and gritting her teeth while you clean her wound. “U-Ram set me up. It was his last-ditch effort to keep me from taking over his business. Luckily–” she pauses when you press a bit more firmly on the area around her wound, grunting loudly. You apologize, which she quickly dismisses with a shake of her head. “Luckily, I predicted he’d betray me and brought the girls with me. But the bastard got a clean shot on me before I could blow his brains out.” Bada spits, the frustration and deep anger in her voice clear as day.

“Well, you’re right about him getting a clean shot.” You whisper. “The bullet went right through you, no shrapnel.”

“That’s good, right?” She asks you.

“Very good.” You nod, “I don’t have to dig out any fragments of the bullet out of your wound. I just have to close it.”

“How do you know so much about this type of stuff?” Bada watches you thread a needle with a suture fluidly, like it’s second nature.

“My mother wanted me to become a doctor.” You inform your fiancée, knotting the suture to the needle. “She made me study for hours on end about how to properly dress wounds, treat patients, and stitch up injuries.”

“Really?” Bada stares at you, the fog in her head finally ebbing away as she focuses on your words. “If you hadn’t gotten engaged to me, would you have become a doctor?”

“Probably,” you nod, one hand holding onto hers again, and the other clutching the threaded needle. “I’m going to start stitching, okay?”

Your fiancée squeezes your hand, encouraging you to begin. “Did you want to become a doctor?” She continues asking you questions, looking down at your figure kneeled before her. Although your hands are covered in dried blood, and your eyebrows are creased together deeply in concentration, you look absolutely perfect.

“I never really thought about it.” You admit, piercing your fiancée’s skin with the needle, and threading it through. “because it’s what my mother wanted for me, it didn’t matter if I wanted to pursue the career or not.”

“She never–” Bada cuts herself off by letting out a semi-loud groan at one of the more painful stitches, her abs flexing out of instinct. “she never asked you what you wanted?”

“No.” You shake your head.

"I'm surprised she wanted you to pursue a separate career from your father's business," she says, confusion clear in her voice.

"I'm sure you know how it is," you mumble. "Women must remain subordinates under men. Besides, I didn't know the truth behind my father's business until the day I met you."

Bada frowns disapprovingly. "I've noticed your parents like to keep you in the dark."

"Yes well, secrets prosper in the dark," you utter, words sour like a tart, and unripe cherry.

"I find that kind of behavior detestable." Bada scoffs, "The truth is of more value than dirty lies."

You smile softly to yourself. "That's what I appreciate about you." Your fiancée turns her gaze in your direction, eyebrows slowly dipping down, prompting you to continue. "You don't keep me in the dark about anything. I always feel like I can trust you, no matter the circumstance."

Bada swears she feels her heart jump in her chest, beating wildly like a drum at your words. "I'm glad you feel that way. I want you to be free of any worries when you're with me."

You nod, the sweet smile splayed across your lips never once dimming. “How are you doing, by the way? I’m almost done.”

“Amazing, honey.” She says, her teeth suddenly gnawing her bottom lip at the next stitch you complete, while she takes in deep breaths.

“Do you need a break?” You ask, squeezing her hand as a form of comforting her.

“No, keep going.” Bada shifts her gaze so she’s looking at you straight in the eyes. “I can take it.”

You let out a deep breath, nodding before continuing to stitch.

Your fiancée only lets you sit in silence for a minute before she speaks up. “If you weren’t with me, and your mother wasn’t a factor in the decision,” she begins, “what would your dream career be?”

You remain quiet, a thoughtful look crossing your expression as you reach the final two stitches. “Honestly, I can’t imagine myself anywhere else other than right here, with you.”

“Oh yeah?” Bada places her hands on your waist, rubbing her fingers up and down.

“Yeah.” You whisper, finishing her stitches and cutting the thread. You shift on your feet to grab the gauze, wrapping Bada’s wound with it. Before you fully pull away, you make sure to press a tender kiss against the gauze, then stand up. “There, all done. How does that feel?”

“I can already feel myself healing.” She pulls you in close, your body pressed up against hers. “You have magical hands.”

You run your fingers through Bada’s silky smooth hair, smiling softly. “I’m glad.”

Bada stares up at you with love-filled eyes, the worry in your expression still lingering. She knows she shouldn’t feel glad that you care enough about her to fuss over her, but she can’t help but feel a slight warmth in the pit of her stomach at the revelation.

“If I keep coming back injured from jobs, will you take care of me like this?” She asks you, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.

“Yes, but you better not start getting hurt on purpose.” You lightly scold her, continuing to card your fingers through her hair.

“No promises.” Bada smiles at you.

taglist:

@aericrys, @somerandomtinyperson, @bluebada, @dallaji, @luvjanexx, @hyejuwu, @diana-rose-25, @jjlovesbada, @cephox, @prilux, @youknow1234, @fae-the-wanderer, @mightymyo, @aein-tings, @badasgirlfriend, @onlyyou-metanoia, @wiselight, @badasoneandonly, @multiliker, @badabonita, @randomhoex, @justaharmlesspotat0, @sporadicfacebasement, @4bada, @seungxstar, @urlovebot

(if your name is crossed out i wasn't able to to tag you)

want to join the taglist? send me a message or comment saying you'd like to be on it, and i'll add you!

#bada lee x reader #bada x reader #bada lee #bada #street woman fighter 2 x reader #swf2 x reader

444 notes · View notes