#usually this would be a midlife crisis but his life is already so goddamn weird

[my-thoughts-and-junk]

anyway back to thinking about fionna and cake for the night because simon compels me

[embarrassingsmartphonegame]

Anything (Chapter 2) - Nik Ryder x f!MC

Summary: After surviving an attempt on her life, she discovers there are worse fates than dying. And they’re all ice cold. 

Warnings for this chapter: descriptions of depression, excessive alcohol usage, non-explicit sexual content

Link to the previous chapter

==============================================

Three months later.

Nothing.

Nothing.

‘Still nothing.’ Leah groaned as she rolled over to the other side of her queen bed. The other side was cold; she estimated that the woman from the previous night left a few hours prior. What was her name? Something that started with an A: Aisha, Asha, Ashley? Whatever, it didn’t matter. The name of the man from 2 nights ago didn’t, and neither did all the others.

Wordlessly, she got up and walked around her bedroom, shivering as her bare skin made contact with the air. It was already May; why was she always so cold? She considered for a moment packing some broccoli in her lunch because she read somewhere that being cold all the time could mean she was anemic, but she had to rush that morning to get to work on time so no time for lunch.

“Good morning!” she greeted as she entered the office, putting on her usual chipper facade. No one looked up, save for old Rob from accounting who gave her a grunt in response. When she got to her cubicle, she let her face slip into the same old neutral expression and got to work. 

‘Fri-yay,’ she thought to herself sarcastically as she read the latest TGIF email from Janice from HR. Bless her heart for trying to keep morale up in their office. Leah deleted it immediately. More paperwork, more emails, more denying invitations to co-workers’ baby showers. The day passed by in its usual gray, clicking blur. She never did get her broccoli; that would’ve been a wild day if she did.

She got home that day at precisely 5:30pm like she did every other day. At 5:45pm she had her usual small dinner prepared, and at 6:00pm she’d finished eating while mindlessly watching a trashy reality show involving a woman from Brazil coming to the U.S. to marry some ugly guy who still lived with his mother. She snorted at their antics, and the episode and her meal ended quickly. She tried for the millionth time that month to take part in her beloved hobbies again: dance, paint, pluck at the strings of her old violin. 

“Years of violin lessons...these fingers are like lightning!” She slipped the rings off the goblins’ fingers as Nik started an argument to distract them, her mischievous grin never leaving her face.

She pushed down the aching in her chest at the intrusive thought, picking up her bow.

“My mom still plays!” she quipped, strolling with her newfound father through the warm glow of Lamrian.

Leah almost slammed her beloved violin down, but she kept control. She always did. It was only 8:00pm: too early to go to bed and get nightmares again. Wordlessly, she slinked into the only clean dress she had left: a little red number whose bloodstains and memories she knew wouldn’t get noticed in the dark by the other club goers or her. She didn’t want to wear it. But it was either that or a maroon velvet dress with thigh high slits and even more painful memories. She’d meant to throw that maroon dress away, but when she got home 3 months before it was hurriedly buried deep within her closet and she didn’t have the energy to look through it. Piles of dirty laundry were scattered through the floor of her room and she pushed them under the bed in a sorry attempt to make it look somewhat presentable. She lined her eyes with black eyeshadow and eyeliner and slipped into some heels before leaving her apartment.

Nothing.

She woke up with the red dress on the floor the next morning, her bed thankfully cold and empty again. It always was annoying if someone tried to stay, but she was now usually able to go after the ones who wouldn’t. But something was different this time; her phone was buzzing. She groaned, thinking it was her another courtesy invite to a baby shower. To her relief, it was a text from Kristin, and she read and responded to it through squinting, hangover afflicted eyes:

Kristin: heyyyyy bestie! surprise, I’m coming to your town tonight! I miss you xx

Leah: Huh way to give me a heads up, bitch! Lol jk, I miss you too and you know I’m not busy. Dinner and drinks later?

Kristin: you know it babe

Leah suddenly remembered it was Saturday, so she didn’t have to go to work that day and deal with the endless indifference of corporate life. Her thighs sore and bruised from the previous night, she slipped on a large white t-shirt and silently headed to her kitchen. There wasn’t much; she hadn’t gone grocery shopping in 10 days and used the last of her groceries for dinner the previous night. She sat at her small dining room table, stirring her usual cinnamon into her coffee and flipping through the messages of that week: a picture of Cal and Donny on a fishing trip, a sample of Vera’s latest song, Katherine talking about her latest catch. A rare genuine smile graced her features as she responded to all of them, making sure to apologize for taking a week and a half to respond...again. She tried to warm herself up with the coffee and cinnamon combination, and she hugged herself without much success.

The rest of the day passed by slowly, and the only productive thing she did was throw her giant pile of dirty laundry in one washing machine and then the dryer. Who cared if the clothes weren’t supposed to be washed together? Certainly not Leah. Pretty soon it was 10:00pm and she stood in front of the one club in her small town waiting for Kristin.

“Leahhhh!!!” Kristin squealed and ran over, pulling her into a tight hug. Leah inhaled sharply; she may have healed very fast and the skin was nowhere close to being open, but the scars were still slightly tender to the touch. She told all her hookups she had open heart surgery as a child, and they never questioned it. She hugged Kristin back and bit back a groan of pain. 

“Kristin!! I’m so happy to see you!” And she meant it. She actually meant it, especially after she almost lost her because of the...she shook her head, willing those memories away. Ignoring the stinging on her chest, she hugged Kristin tighter, jumping up and down a little. “So why exactly are you here?”

“What? I can’t just see my best friend?” Leah raised an eyebrow, but she let it go. Asking Kristin to explain anything she did was like asking a fish to explain astrophysics in Latin. Last time she tried was junior year of college and Leah would never get those 45 nonsensical minutes of her life back. It wasn’t unusual behavior for her to take a random trip to see her over the years anyway.

“You’re right, let’s get some shots in us!” Leah and Kristin hopped over to the bar, and pretty soon there was a line of tequila glittering in the darkness. Music blared out of large speakers, vibrating in their ears. They each clinked a shot glass together and knocked it back. Leah immediately felt warm and dizzy and her face flushed, since she hadn’t eaten anything that day. In fact, she didn’t remember much of what she did that day...or really the past few days. 

Leah laughed as Kristin launched into a story from something weird that happened to her back in New York, and pretty soon the line of shots was empty with Leah drinking most of it in a span of 15 minutes. The rest of the night passed in a blur. Random men kept buying them drinks and Leah kept chugging them, unconsciously desperate to feel that warm and dizzying effect some more. It felt like she was drifting off into space as she danced with some guy named JT or whoever who worked for ClickIt. She swayed to the music and let him run his lips across her neck and bend her over without a care in the world. Nothing, nothing, nothing mattered to her at that moment. Nothing. Until she felt soft hands pulling her away and dragging her through the crowd and away from the shouting man behind her. She blearily looked at whoever was pulling her, and she was surprised to see it was Kristin with an uncharacteristically sober, serious look on her face. 

“Yeesh, Kristin, since when have you been the one to cockblooooock?” Leah joked, her words slurred. Kristin led her to a quieter corner with a free couch and sat her down. To her surprise, Leah felt Kristin tugging at her dress, and she realized that she was actually placing it back over her chest. And she was too drunk to worry about her scar showing.

“I think you’ve had enough,” Kristin said, holding her by the shoulders.

Leah snorted. “Good one.”

“Leah, seriously, I never say this. But you’ve had enough.” Kristin swiped the drink from her hand that she didn’t even realize she was holding (and spilling on herself).

“Hey, what the hell! What’s gotten into you?” Leah pouted.

“Uhhhh what’s gotten into you is more like it! You’ve been acting really weird these past few months and we’re all worried!”

“‘We?’”

“Me and Vee. You’re not yourself,” Kristin explained, gazing into her brown eyes intensely. Leah inhaled sharply.

“What are you talking about? I’m still Leah! Come on, Kristin, I’m just having fun!”

“No you’re not.”

“What?”

“Honestly, Leah, I know I’m your party queen friend, but we’ve also been best friends since we were 18. I know you’re not having fun because your smile is sooo fake and it’s only because of the alcohol. And that guy you just kissed? Totally not your type.”

“Well ok fine maybe I’m having a midlife crisis or something. Been invited to too many baby showers and shit,” muttered Leah, her drunken brain letting words slip out.

“You’re 25!”

“I could die at 50!” ‘Technically did die at 25,’ she thought bitterly as she tried to reach for her drink in Kristin’s hand, but her best friend held it away from her.

“Seriously, Leah, this isn’t you!” declared Kristin, shaking her a little.

“What isn’t me?!” Leah started shouting, frustrated.

“All of this! The responses to texts that take weeks, the fact that you don’t play the violin anymore, the fact that you’re so goddamn skinny now! Leah, I think you really need help,” Kristin pleaded, her warm puppy dog eyes glimmering in the darkness.

“Kristin, really, I’m fine. I’m just busy with work, that’s all.” Even in her drunken state, Leah knew she was deflecting. 

“At that job you hate and put minimal effort into? You really expect me to believe that? I know this is about how you got attacked in New Orleans.”

“Don’t,” whispered Leah, a chill running down her spine. “You wouldn’t get it.”

“Did you forget I got mugged and was in the hospital for a week? I still have no idea what happened, but I can tell you I get it more than you think.” Guilt flashed through Leah’s throbbing mind as she recalled Kristin pale and prone in that alleyway before she ran to try to evade the bloodwraith. If it weren’t for her being around, Kristin wouldn’t have gotten hurt. It was all her fault. Leah stayed silent.

Kristin continued. “I know you. You thought since you almost died, you should stop taking risks, stop putting your own life in danger. You stopped being your usual brave, chaotic self. So you ran back to Wyoming—which, may I remind you, you only came back here after college to care for your dad and he’s gone now. You hate your job, you hate where you live, you don’t even talk to your mom anymore; why are you still here? And don’t tell me it’s because you can’t find work anywhere else; I know you haven’t tried yet. I thought you wanted things to be different this year.”

Leah flinched at the mention of her dad—no, stepdad. It was true. She did come back to care for him after college, but he eventually succumbed to the cancer after years of her caring for him. She and her mom were never close in the first place, and she definitely couldn’t face her after Elric. “Ok maybe I decided to play it safe from now on. What’s wrong with that? I was too reckless in New Orleans and that’s what almost got me killed.”

“What’s wrong is you’re contradicting yourself.” Kristin gestured at the rest of the club. “Playing it safe yet you’re constantly here and getting drunk and sleeping with a new person almost every night for the last month. I know you haven’t been eating well and you haven’t been talking to your friends as much. You’re literally depressed now, and I can’t stand by and let you go on like this.”

“...Maybe you have a point,” she finally conceded, running a hand through her hair. It was no use arguing. “But I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know what exactly I’m running from.”

“Love.”

“What?”

“You know what I’m talking about. You fell in love and you’re scared. When I saw you in New Orleans with that Nik guy, I haven’t seen you that alive in years.” Leah froze at Kristin’s unintentionally poor choice of words, but then rolled her eyes. She had no idea there was more, even if a small, buried deep part of her admitted Nik was part of the reason she left. Leah pushed down her last happy memory of them dancing on the float at Mardi Gras.

“Kristin, I knew him for a week.” And what a hell of a week that was. “Sure he was hot, but it was clearly just a fling. Come on, you know I’m not that stupid.”

“I’m not saying you’re stupid and this is just about a guy. But you are running away from things. Come on, can you really say you’re happy here?”

For the first time in months, she inadvertently let warm tears roll down her cheeks and sobs catch in her throat, and she had never felt more human, more alive since leaving New Orleans. Kristin wrapped her arms around her and let her cry as some new pop song about being in love with a liar blared from the speakers of the bar. Leah leaned into the familiarity of it all, feeling like a 19-year-old getting her heart broken for the first time again. This time she was a heartbroken 25-year-old pondering how her life turned out this way. As her sobs turned to hiccups, she thought about how lucky she was to have a friend like Kristin, who’d been calling her out on all her bullshit since day one. The two stayed in the corner for a few more hours, allowing them to catch up more.

At around 4am she and Kristin parted ways, promising to stay in touch better. Kristin gave her a weary look as she headed back to her hotel. Leah stumbled back into her apartment and into her bed, alone for the first time in a month. She wrapped herself in a ball in a blanket and closed her eyes. 

Crrrkkk!

Leah’s eyes snapped open. With trembling hands, she took out the baseball bat from under her bed and poised it up in her arms, ready to take on whoever was breaking into her apartment. She stalked as quietly as she could (which was not very) outside of her bedroom and turned the lights on in her living room to see if anyone--or anything--was there. The bat clanged to the floor as her eyes took in the figure in front of her. 

“...Father?!”

==============================================

Tagging: @furiouscloddonutpeanut @nighthunterkatherine @saivilo @samara-rani @god-save-the-keen  @xxdangerouscapri15xx 

A/N: Lol so how about that Nightbound finale? I personally got frustrated with both the fact that it’s a standalone and how they handled Nik and MC’s diamond ending where MC basically begs Nik to love them and all of a sudden things are okay. Of course this fic is taking some liberties (mainly because I wrote the first chapter before the finale) for that added drama. Also yes, MC almost hooked up with TJ from LoveHacks because I can’t think of anything more embarrassing. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter! Next chapter I promise we’ll see our favorite cursed Nighthunter. I don’t know how fast I’ll update this, since I’m moving and starting medical school soon, but writing is my stress relief and I’ll try my best to make it not too long.