moth-mortuary

[moth-mortuary]

𝔏𝔞 𝔳𝔢𝔯𝔤𝔦𝔫𝔢 𝔡𝔦 𝔑𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔤𝔞

Rating: Mature Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Category: F/M Fandom: Twilight Series - All Media Types Relationships: Carlisle Cullen/Original Female Character(s), Carlisle Cullen/Reader Part: 7/? Language: English

♱ Masterlist ♱

Chapter 6: For a daughter who bites her words

Then why are you tapping your fingers frantically over the entrance desk of Fork’s hospital? A steaming hot cup of coffee in one hand and the childish fear of being caught, staining your jittery movements

Why did you text Samuel that evening, asking for the doctor’s schedule?

You have no idea, you are unsure about a lot of things right now, you always are, you are not a woman of certainties; you barely know how to live day by day, you don’t expect much more from yourself.

«I’m looking for Doctor Culle— actually, could you give him this?» The receptionist looks at you like you have grown a second head in the minuscule time it has taken for you to stammer out the phrase. «He’s in his office, dear. I’m a nurse, not a secretary.»

Ah. Hit and sunk. «Yeah, sorry— I didn’t mean— good day, sorry again.»

That was pathetic. You make haste, running from the front desk into the halls of the hospital.

You should have asked where Doctor Cullen’s office was, but you were too embarrassed to continue talking to the lady at the desk, so you settled for roaming the halls.

Another doctor tells you the way; you had not been too far off, only a couple of corridors to your right, you walk there with a nervous gait, but once you find yourself at the door something twists in your stomach and you stop in your tracks. You wish you had not almost run to the office,  you don’t really know what to do right now, dumbly staring at the wooden door like it had been the gates of hell.

«I told you, Alice, she’s unmanageable. I tried.» Oh. He’s not alone, man, you really hadn’t thought that through. It’s weird to knock. Yes, it definitely would be weird… right? What if he's in a meeting? What if he’s working? Of course he is, he’s at his workplace. That would be weird, a hundred per cent… but what if the nurse tells him you dropped by? Would he think of you as a weirdo? You hate lingering, it’s not like you, you can spin the situation as you please, your options remain two: you either turn around, chug the coffee in your hands as if you had bought it for yourself and never come back, or you knock. Now. You don’t want to eavesdrop. «Carlisle, please! I saw happiness in her, for you. If you could just… try.» Okay, you have to decide.

«Come in.» You shouldn’t have knocked. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, now you must enter. God, you are so dumb.

The office is dimly lit, a small girl, not taller than five feet, is standing in front of the desk where Carlisle is sitting. Donned in fashionable clothes as blatantly well-made that even to you, who knows nothing about fashion, they appear stylish, she stands relaxed, arms crossed and a playful glint in her eyes that reminds you of how Anna used to look at you when she had been no more than a child and to her you had still been the girl that had hanged the stars in the sky. 

They are both looking at you, and in the depths of your brain, something tells you that they are related for sure. «Miss Moore.» Carlisle's voice is surprised, for some reason, it puts you at ease. «Hi, sorry I didn’t mean to interrupt. I can go if—» «Absolutely not!» The girl twirls on her feet, a skip to her steps that almost startles you. You gag on your immediate reaction, scared and ready to fight. She is only a girl, no matter how much her liveliness has startled you; that is no excuse for being cruel to a kid.

«You must be the fighter girl who keeps my dad’s work going!» That surely is one way of looking at it. «Alice. Please, meet my daughter, Alice.» Carlisle's voice is a warning, not a serious one; there is no hatred seeping through his words, and you find yourself wondering how good it must feel to have a father who disciplines with soft words instead of closed fists. You allow yourself to linger in the ifs and buts, wondering how different you would have grown up to be if only your cheeks had met cupping palms instead of rough knuckles.  «Hello Alice, nice to meet you.» You extend your hand, warm palms meeting the icy cold hand of the small girl. It must be a family thing, another assurance that the two of them are related. «I— sorry I won’t take much of your time, I just— wanted to give you this and say sorry for the last time, I was a jer— I mean, rude. Sorry.» Great! Cursing in front of his daughter, way to go, if he didn’t hate you then he must now. God, you are so stupid. You put the coffee on his desk, ready to flee the room, a dusting of pinkish embarrassment splotching your skin. He looks stunned. Good, it’s your cue to leave. Flee before he can process what happened, flee before he can stop you, so you don’t have to be held accountable for your actions. If you could just— «Oh, that’s so sweet from you!» Fuck. «Dad loves coffee, did you know that?» Oh god no, you are being questioned, you cannot leave if you are being questioned. «I— no, I just…» You just what? Tossed and turned for entire nights, feeling the nagging sensation that you have been nothing more than vermin for having spit on the feeding hand of a good man? You cannot say that.

«Thanks.» Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. Your window has just closed. He knows. He understands. You feel he can see straight through you.

You are gruff, rude, unkind. You do not ask for forgiveness, he knows. You have made that abundantly clear. And yet here you are.

«Alright, Alice, thank you. Go home.» Oh no. God, no. Help. You cannot be left alone with him after this. Why must you have been so stupid? Why had your brain chosen to obsess over your cutting words? You had been a bitch countless times before and you are sure you will be a thousand times more in the future, then why had your conscious felt the need to get stuck on this one?

«Come on, dad! I just need to go to the mall. Is it because of the attack? I promise I’ll be careful, it’s just one trip, I promise.» «Wha— no, Alice.» «I can take her.» You are a genius; you have just created your own escape route. «You want to go to the mall?» The girl’s face lights up, you can see her literally bounce on her feet, and a small part of your heart warms at the clear excitement the girl seems to radiate from every fibre of her being. «My car is in the parking lot, it’s no trouble to take her there and back, really.» Directing your words to the man in the room, you look down at his desk, not quite ready to look him in the eyes. «You don’t have to.» Your eyes dart upwards, and something in his eyes still looks confused. «Dad, please.»

You can see the moment his gaze softens, something profound inside you hurts deeply and horribly. The child in you cries tears of neglect and abandonment, for a moment, you ache. You yearn for that gaze to be directed at you, for kind eyes to look at you and soften. You swallow blood, emotions bleeding through your tall, tall walls of indifference and solitude, and you try to stay afloat.

He looks like a father who could never say no to his daughter. You bleed. He breaks. «Okay.»

«We’ll be back at two.» You promise, voice horrifyingly hoarse. Alice’s voice covers for your own, light and joyful. «My phone is a bit dead, though. You can call her if you need me!» Fuck. «Do you mind?» Yes! Yes, you do. «Not at all, here.» You scribble your phone number on a notepad on his desk, hands trembling and nerves fried. What have you just gotten yourself into? You had come here to close that weird acquaintance on a good note, not for him, but for you to be able to sleep soundly again, and you had found yourself escorting his daughter to the mall, giving him your phone number, a way to contact you, not that you think he will ever do after today. No, because you hope he won’t.

«You are the best! Thank you.»   You don’t feel the best, you feel like a dumbass.

«No problem.» In the parking lot, Alice calls your car “vintage” and “cool”. You are not immune to the praise of a teen, as rare as they are,  so you huff a sound of recognition through your teeth and blush once more. «Shouldn’t you be at school?» you ask when seated, eyeing the girl and nodding toward the seatbelt when she makes no moves to fasten it. «Oh, right.» She jumps into motion, all happy smiles and crinkled eyes, making quick work of it. «The heating system busted in our building, so some classes got cancelled.» You extract your phone from your pocket and throw a glance at the screen, no new messages, your siblings’ classes must not have been affected. You talk without thinking, sarcastic and unserious. «That sucks.» She laughs, you feel bad for the curse, but her dad is not there with you, so you let your mistake slide.

«To the mall then.» She giggles. «To the mall!»

You let her control the radio, she laughs and scrunches her petite nose at every unwanted song, singing along to pop ones and bouncing in the seat next to you as if dancing while still. You understand why her father must adore her, so full of energy and unrestrained joy. She feels so different from your siblings, a flower bloomed in a pot watered every day. You once again find yourself thinking you would give your hand for your siblings to have been raised like she had. But you had not been born a mother, your father had been what he had been, and you had only been sixteen at the time. You are not to be blamed, let alone her. Your quiet jealousy is easy to swallow, you hum along to her high-pitched voice to some Britney Spears song you have no idea how you know the words of.

«So, what do you do for a living? Do you study?» The traffic light turns yellow, you slow down and stop. «I bartender, down at the Mallory’s» «Oh wow! That’s amazing, you must meet so many new people every day!» you snort, eyes still glued to the red light above your head. «In Forks?» She giggles once more, as if you had been the funniest person alive, «Well, it’s still a pretty awesome thing, do you know how to do flair bartending?» God, why does she know how it’s called? «I do, not that the drunken in that hole cares for the dramatics of it.» Damn, she’s a giggling machine, it’s cute, really. It makes you feel warm and fuzzy, as if her sole presence had wrapped you in a blanket.

«Aw, man, what a shame. I’d love to see you do that.» «I am not serving you alcohol, kid. Your dad would have my head on a pike for that.» You huff, by now expecting her soft laugh to follow. It does. You take off as the light turns green and the next pop song starts.

«Shouldn’t you be working then?» You shake your head, this time to the rhythm of music, her movements contagious. «New door’s being installed, bar’s closed all day.» «What happened to the old one?» «Broke a guy’s back on it.» That must unsettle her, stupid, why have you said that? Her laugh, though, cuts through the funky song being played, without missing a beat, not weirded out, not fake. «So you are a bouncer?» Why does she know how bars work? Who cares, teens would be teens, and you are not her mother, you barely have the upper hand when it comes to disciplining your siblings, you definitely do not have any right to scold someone else’s daughter. «Nope, still a bartender, he was being a —dick— rude man to my boss’ daughter.» «So you are a knight in shining armour?» At that, you laugh, deep and ruined by years of smoking. «God, no. I’m a loser in a leather jacket.» She laughs at your lame joke, you feel a sense of calmness that you had not felt in a very long time, for a minute or two, you almost feel human again. Not a fighting machine, not an unlovable, broken mess of unmatching puzzle pieces. You just feel human.

You park the car in the nearest available parking spot close to the entrance. You have not lied, you are intending to keep the girl safe, it’s the only thing you know how to do, so you better believe you’ll do a damned great job at it. «Stay in school, kid,» you grunt, unbuckling your seatbelt, and opening your car door. «or you’ll end up hoisting dudes through doors on a random Tuesday night for work.» Apparently, once again, you are the funniest person alive. «Is it funny, though?» she retorts, eyes glistening with something mischievous and youthful. You huff a half-laugh. «Only the first handful of times.»

As it turns out, she has excellent taste in clothes. You follow her like a guard dog, too used to doing the same thing with your siblings, you don’t even register the first minutes of your silent guarding. She chats and plucks dresses from hangers with price tags as lengthy as the number on your paycheck at the end of the month. She must be living the dream life every girl wants, you don’t feel jealous, you wish that were you, but it’s not, so if anyone else should be living that life, you feel like she is a good second choice. «Are you sure you are allowed to buy this much stuff?» «Yeah, Carlisle doesn’t really mind.» Wow, that is some next level teen shit, who the hell call their father by his first name? The weird face you pull must have shown your inner thoughts because after yet another giggle, she murmurs softly, «I’m adopted, we all are.» Oh. Damn, you are dense.

«Sorry, I didn’t know.»

Thankfully, the phone in your pocket buzzes, pulling you from saying something else and looking even dumber than you feel you already presented yourself as. It’s a message. Plain and simple. “I thought you might have needed my number as well. In case you needed to contact me. -Carlisle.” Posh. «It’s your dad, do you want me to tell him you are bleeding dry his entire bank account?» She’s not listening to you, nope, she is running to a rack of clothes. «Oh my god, you’d look stunning in this!» She’s not wrong. You know your body well enough to know she had found the single most perfect garment, all sharp curves and stiff materials. It’s some sort of leather imitation, rigid and structured, stiff on some parts and flowy on others. It looks like a dream, but you had never been the type to dwell on them. You huff, typing painfully slowly a simple “Thanks, all good here.” before focusing your attention back on her. «Yeah, not happening, kid, that thing costs a salary and a half.» «Oh, come on! It’s alright, I’ll buy that for you.» What? «What? No, kid, that’s your dad’s money. Put that thing back.» Your panic must have shown through your harsh words as Alice’s face crinkles up and her shoulders drop, a sour expression on her pretty face.

Teens. Not knowing the value of money and all that old folks’ shit talking.

«Alright, jeez, party pooper… I’ll just ask his permission.» your phone, once in your hand gets snatched, she’s so quick you barely register it, horror seeps underneath your skin as, with deadly confidence only a teen could master with those devil’s device, she dials her father’s phone and hold your phone to her ear. «Hi, dad! There is this gorgeous dress, she’d look stunning in— alright! Thanks, see you back at work.»

You finally manage to get your ass in gear, shock too strong to let you move any faster than a drunken bastard, you yank your phone out of her hands, terror in your voice as you finally hold your phone to your ear and command: «Carlisle, no.» Silence follows, so much so you fear Alice had just hung up, then a low laugh gets through. Deep, rich, like satin sliding down your neck. Something stirs in your stomach, and for once is neither anger nor fear. «Frustration then.» The world stills, his voice is the sin of lust incarnated. «What?» «Is that what it takes for you to say my name?»

⚜ ℭ𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝟟

AO3 link WATTPAD link

[moth-mortuary]

𝔏𝔞 𝔳𝔢𝔯𝔤𝔦𝔫𝔢 𝔡𝔦 𝔑𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔤𝔞

Rating: Mature Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Category: F/M Fandom: Twilight Series - All Media Types Relationships: Carlisle Cullen/Original Female Character(s), Carlisle Cullen/Reader Part: 6/? Language: English

♱ Masterlist ♱

Chapter 5: Say my name like a slur

Okay, maybe it is a bit weird. Why did you have to say the mouth thing? It had slipped your lips in a moment of lack of judgement, you had felt it slipping, no worse, you had known it had been tinted with a sexual undertone, and yet you had said that anyway.

You feel young, no, you feel like your younger self, not what life has shaped you to be, only your original form, the same one you had thought lost forever, buried alive in between the walls of the personality you had erected all around yourself. A layer of protection, a mask, a disguise.

You feel raw and naked.

You can also feel his presence behind you. It doesn’t help, not while you jiggle the handle of your door, turning the key in its lock like a knife in a wound, twisting and pulling, trying to get a grip on your faulty front door until it gives way.

Your house is warm and cosy, messy for sure, but when Frank is not at home, it almost starts to feel like one. You ungraciously toss the keys in the bowl by the entrance, toeing off your boots in one swift motion and shrugging off your jacket.   «Alright, my siblings are upstairs. I don’t think they’ll come down to greet you.» You turn to address him, but you find him still standing at the door. Your eyebrows furrow. Odd. «What?» he smiles at you, head gently tilting to one side. «May I?»

You almost snort. Stupidly old-fashioned man. «Oh, yeah, yeah, sure, come on in. Make yourself at home.»  You feel a gush of cold air sinking its teeth into your flesh; it’s profound, so profound you feel it scratching your brain. Not mid-March coldness, fear… no, anticipation? Dread? You shudder, but the door clicks shut, and you no longer feel that ugly thing crawling up your skin.

You feel your thoughts. Louder. When had they muffled?

Did you just? Have you just… What happened to “never trust men in button-ups?”, a thought gets dislodged from its place in the forefront of your brain, forcefully and dizzingly, you squint your eyes and rub a hand on your temple. The sharp pain of your fresh bruise sickens you, but it also grounds you. You are in your house with a doctor. That’s good, right? You can’t get safer than this… right?

The house creaks under your weight, you move toward the kitchen, gesturing with one hand for him to follow, unsure he would have unless ordered. «Do you want anything?» Not that you have much else other than Frank’s beers in the fridge, but you cannot function most days without coffee, and Anna likes tea, so you have a secret stash of the former and some loose bags of the latter. «Oh no, thank you, I’m just fine.» You drum your fingers over your thighs, shaking your jacket straight and hanging it on its hook, «You sure, doc? You might need some energy to convince me to let go of the brooding and mysterious act.»

That is not you; it might have been a very long time ago, but that is not you. Something loosened its grip somewhere inside your guts, and you have not been able to inhale properly since.

A huff comes from your back. Doctor Cullen is still standing in the hallway, but he has lost the brown coat and the scarf loosely tied around his neck. Then he hums, deep in his chest, «I had my suspicions it was an act.» It’s a low murmur, so rich that it makes the hair in the back of your neck stand up. Not in fear, in something you cannot quite pinpoint. Something different yet stemming from the same vine.

His coat falls on the back of one of the stools circling the kitchen table. He doesn’t walk, he glides, effortlessly collected. «So, which one is the violent cupboard?» one of his hand gestures toward the side of your temple, and once again, the simple movement is criminally measured. And it’s so unfair for you to feel this out of place in your own damned house but you do. You don’t lie to yourself, not even in your own thoughts.

«Not this one, this one was just… a dude.» You shake your shoulders, hip leaning to the side of the big, wobbly table, arms crossed and eyes half lidded. Tired. «May I?» You eye his bag suspiciously, another sassy remark clawing its way out of your mouth, «Will you use what you have used on Waylon Forge on me?» he smiles softly, the gentle creases on the side of his eyes folding perfectly around a measured smile, and you feel like time will be extremely gentle on him. You almost know for a fact he will age as perfectly as he seems to be already doing, maintaining some sort of ethereal beauty even in old age. It almost feels unfair, you feel older than him, no, you know you look distinctively rougher than him, worn, old in the worst possible way. You look worn thin. Like something used again and again and never cared for. And it is unfair, but you cannot fault him either.

«Not if you address me properly.» He shifts closer, setting the bag over the table at your left and settling right in front of you. «That’s a tough request to satisfy, doc.» His hands find your face gently, cold, but gently, tilting your head higher to account for your slouched posture and the handful of inches separating your heights. His touch is barely there, pressing slightly around the edges of your bruised cheek. He works silently, you squeeze your arms in their knot, feeling at the same time like you should and should not close your eyes. You cannot meet his gaze from the minimal distance, doing so feels like a challenge, and somehow, deep in your instincts, you feel like challenging him would be the last thing you’d do.

So you simply stare at a peeling spot in the wallpaper in the background of his frame.

A cold fingertip digs too close to your fired nerves, you hiss, and one of your hands flies to his wrist. The only sound in the kitchen is the rhythmic ticking of the clock. You exhale in a shaking puff. 

«Sorry…» his voice is sinfully low, and you cannot resist the temptation anymore. Your eyes dart to his own, something flickers, and you are sure it wasn’t the buzzing light over your heads. His eyes glow a weird mixture of yellow and deep crimson. Dread pools at your belly, fascination tugs at your brain, the duality of your own feelings scrunches your eyebrows up. You feel like something is amiss. A big part of something that is keeping you from truly understanding god knows what.

Doctor Cullen retreats as if burned by your eyes. «Lucky you, nothing seems broken.» His voice is not controlled; it curls around the edges, almost panicked, something is scratching at the back of it, pulling and tugging. «I fear it will swell. Ibuprofen or acetaminophen should help with pain.»

You put some distance between your bodies too. Too sensitive and responsive, some sort of live wire sending sparks into the thick air surrounding you.  You scramble to your refrigerator, pulling out a bag of frozen veggies and pressing it to your throbbing eye. The sting of coldness grounds you for a moment, enough to let you recollect yourself.

When you turn, he looks concerned. «What?»

«Do people usually hit you?» You feel something retreating, your head stings for a moment and the same dread that had flooded you when you had pulled out of the parking lot pools in your stomach. Only this time is less, less violent, almost politer.

You are not. «What kind of fucking question is that, it’s not like I don’t hit back.» Now that. That is you.

His face twitches, you don’t know if it’s for the curse or your head spinning twist in personality. It just does. «Yes, I saw the repercussion of that. Perhaps you shouldn’t resort to violence that quickly.» Oh, so now he’s pissed at you. «I don’t. Sadly, when I don’t, this happens.» The frozen peas in your hand sting your flesh, too cold, he winches once more. «And yet you hadn’t de-escalated the situation either—»  The guts of this guy! You scoff, bitter and full of venom, ironic how much of a bite a single exhale of air can carry when breathed by you. «Yeah, and tell me, doc, what should I have done? Should I have let a little girl get punched? Talked to her after? De-escalated a cracked skull out of her bruising skin?» You toss the bag onto the table, anger quickly rising in the depths of your brain. «Believe me, better me than her, at least I don’t bitch about it afterwards.»

And then you look at him. And he’s looking back at you… worried.

No. How dare he? How dare he throw his pity at you like swill to pigs? Does he think you starved of it?

You don’t want his pity. Nothing makes your blood boil more than pity.

«Were you protecting someone?» What? Because that changes something? Does that make you a hero? You are only an idiot. An idiot being perceived; something you recoil from every single time. Shut up, shut up and stop looking. You wish to be alone, to finally slip the mask off and just breathe.  Your own home is too unfamiliar to you, so you clench your teeth and pour venom inside every word leaving your lips. «I think you should go now.» That is you, that is the you no one wants around, that is what people getting closer to you are getting into. That is the mess you are. You are not all witty remarks and sarcastic humour. You are a rabid dog; you bite and infect, your disease is contagious. You sink your teeth into the hand that feeds you, cornered, scared. You have learned that doing so means starving yet another day, but it also means saving yourself the beating that had always followed until even the threat of it had made you snap.

You will die the saddest, loneliest woman alive, but you had made peace with the idea a long time ago. Watching the spinning of tires disappearing in the fog for the last time. Left behind. Alone, starving, and sick.

And yet you yearn for a lick on your wounds, the part in you that had never stopped whining in pain still looks up at every scrap of care. You don’t lie to yourself. Even when doing so would spare you so much pain. «Thanks for the ride.»

Silence falls thick, you feel tired, tamed, as if something had put a hand on the head of the barking dog thrashing inside your guts, unafraid and sure, petting and holding the beast still, closing shut its ugly jaw. You suddenly know you have been unfair, you have been rude and unfair. Like your father. You are growing into your father, you have been for quite some time, you have noticed.

The guilt makes you feel raw. Suddenly, the man’s presence feels too much; the ugly side of yourself you had been so cynically eager to show him feels like a burden. The hateful want of finally make him face what kind of worms squirmed under the log of your bad temper, feels like something too personal, too ugly even for some low-life failure of a daughter like you. You feel ugly on the inside. You know you had been for a very long time, but it’s only in this moment that you realise that the girl you were six years ago would have hated the guts out of the one you are now.

And it hurts. A kind of hurting you are not sure you can live with.

The silence deafens you. Then his deep voice cuts it. You wince. Waiting for a strike, a punishment you yourself would have inflicted on you too.

But it’s not a strike, not something you understand, not something you can raise your fists to. Something you are defenceless against. «I didn’t mean to upset you. Apologies.»

No, no, please, not another scrap thrown in your direction. You won’t survive softness; you are not vaccinated against it.

So you just stand silent, hands wrapping around your arms in the only hug you know won’t come with a pricetag: your own.

The briefcase disappears from the table, you can only see its movement in the corner of your sight, eyes planted on your socks.

You are cold, the bruise stings, and you feel utterly alone in the world.

«I beg you to be careful out there, Miss. I have no right to ask anything from you, but if I had for one thing only, it would be for this.» You don’t answer, you only sink your fingernails in the very same clothes that are stopping you from drawing blood, only to feel a wave of nausea hitting you.

You were not born a creature of violence; the repercussion of it had always fallen heavy on you. You were born for silence and solitude, or maybe you were shaped into something craving that, you don’t know anymore.

From the door comes his voice. You are a coward, eyes planted on the floor, nails digging into your flesh. «Good night.» You don’t answer. The door clicks shut in the gentlest way it has ever been closed.

. . . The emotional crash-down is brutal. And yet you still try and function, putting some makeup on the ugly extension of the purple forest on your cheek and dropping your kids at school the following morning. Life is supposed to go on as it did all the other times you had been rude to someone, a tentative friend who had thrown in the towel after one too many snaps. But it somehow doesn’t. You feel stuck, in the ugliest place possible, in a limbo of some sort of shame and childish fear.

Not that you would do something about that, that is how you are made, nothing new, nothing unusual; you simply pity the man for not having met the real you sooner, saving himself the disappointment of finally doing so.

You won’t, you have not run after your own mother, you will not start now. He’s no one at all. Life will eventually unstuck itself, and you’ll be able to return to your own existence. A quiet one, full of regrets and simmering resentment.

⚜ ℭ𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝟞

AO3 link WATTPAD link

[moth-mortuary]

𝔏𝔞 𝔳𝔢𝔯𝔤𝔦𝔫𝔢 𝔡𝔦 𝔑𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔤𝔞

Rating: Mature Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Category: F/M Fandom: Twilight Series - All Media Types Relationships: Carlisle Cullen/Original Female Character(s), Carlisle Cullen/Reader Part: 5/? Language: English

♱ Masterlist ♱

Chapter 4: I saw the devil in my front yard

The moment you turn onto the main road, a wave of anger crashes over you. Something aches deep into your soul, and the world spins on its axis on an angle that surely isn’t its own.

You feel shaken to your core, the bone-chilling feeling of needing to glance back every five seconds bites the nape of your neck forcibly.

You shudder, deep and stiffly, life is chaos for a second, and then it’s just primal fear. The rolled-down window is chilling you to the very last layer of your skin. The tips of your fingers are blue and numb, and you have no idea how you got to this point without realising it.

Ashes fall into your lap, the cigarette sizzles in your mouth. At least you are not feeling like Frank anymore.

You flee home, forgetting all the plans you had for your only day off. Terror follows you deep into your bones until you bury yourself under your covers, breath coming in quick waves. You feel like you could throw up.

You don’t, hour passes and the terror slowly slips away, leaving some sort of stain on the back of your throat, like a word you have no letters to form. You can still feel it lodged in between your bones, like a socket of air you cannot pop, no matter how much you twist and snap your joints. It’s raw and wrong.

The front door wiggles in its frame, and your siblings are back home in a flurry of laughter and thrown backpacks, a race to the TV, the soft buzzing of static, then the switch of a channel or two, a ping-pong between the Winx theme song and Naruto’s. The feeling starts to melt.

Morning had slipped through your fingers like sand and you still feel like shit, but they are home, you are no longer alone, and for how childish you feel, ear’s tips colouring red, you feel like you no longer need to fear, as if a light had been turned on during the darkest night of the year.

You are safe. They are safe.

You descend the stairs two steps at a time, as soundless as a cat. Anna and Nik sit on the couch, Winx is on, she won.  A wave of joy seeps through you. It’s time like this you finally breathe. You were not born a mother, not even the oldest sister, but life had shaped you into something similar. Something similar yet completely different, never enough, always too much, it had carved that out of you. Painfully, unwillingly on your part, you bear the marks of your transformation, more a mutilation, on your skin every day, some still bleeding, some so old you have forgotten how they had ended up on your skin in the first place, but you still manage some gulp of happiness here and there. It’s impressive how you were forced to swallow something you had despised and still managed to puke out something entirely yours, something that had made you shyly proud.

You will die a very unhappy woman, you know that, but moments like this almost put you at ease with your fate.

Anna spots you, she squeals and runs over to you, arms outstretched and gorgeous features relaxed into a smile. She’s happy you are there. So you are too. It’s not entirely yours, but it’s something that includes you, something you can rejoice in, even if the feeling is second-handed and worn. «You are home!» This is not your home, but they are here, so you guess it kind of is.

«How was school?» She throws her arms around your neck, dangling from it like your very own piece of jewellery. The cold gets chased away by her embrace, you squeeze and hope you’ll never have to let go; the air in your joints finally pops, and your soul melts back into its original shape. You can breathe.

. . . Two days later, you sit on the first step of the police station, a cigarette in one hand, Charlie’s shoulder in the other. A man has died.

Waylon Forge, although you had known him as “American Brown Ale, generous tips, mostly silent.” You feel bad categorising him as such, but you truly have nothing else for him; you are not in the habit of lying, not even to yourself, not even in front of death.

Charlie will not cry; he does not linger, something you truly appreciate about him, but you wish he would at least ask those stupid questions no one really has an answer for. Why? Why him? How? At least you could feel useful. Chewing words you don’t believe in. But he doesn’t, so you sit in silence, your playful visit having turned into a sombre get-together.

Carlisle Cullen’s car is not only brand new but also expensive. The bridge of your nose turns red in shame. You had let him climb into your ratty old car, and you had known he had been way better off than you, but knowing something and witnessing it first-hand is something completely different. Your blood rushes to your ears, and something similar to fear and anger twists painfully in your chest.

«Miss Moore?» He’s moving toward you two, his briefcase swinging gently in his grasp, long black coat hugging his figure like night’s cloak itself. For a second, every fibre in your body screams at you to just run. To bolt away and simply run, run anywhere but near the man, then the feeling gets gagged, as if something had been shoved down the throat of that entity constantly screaming at the back of your head. Your brain hurts for a second or two, then everything shifts back into place. Like your jaw had done in the deserted room of Fork’s hospital.

He’s coming your way, your legs are stiff from the cold, you no longer feel like running, so you simply nod in acknowledgement.

«My condolences.» That he says, and yet you don’t feel any sorrow in his voice. It’s weird, no, it’s outright wrong, you feel his empathy, you can tell he’s not lying, you are good at these things, but you cannot feel any true emotion behind the words. It’s probably your fault. Only this time, only because Waylon Forge had meant nothing more than an American Brown Ale and generous tips for you. «Not me, he was Charlie’s friend.» Your hand squeezes involuntarily, Charlie leans almost imperceptibly in your touch, and you feel marginally useful. Something twists on Doctor Cullen’s face, something you had not thought possible, you don’t recognise it, but you know it shouldn’t be there. It makes you feel better. You have no idea why. «Of course, my deepest sympathies, Chief Swan.» As soon as it has manifested, it vanishes. You breathe better.

God, even his kid has a better car than you. How old is he even? Seventeen? Fucking teenagers.

That thought alone had aged you ten years at least; you feel like an old man shaking his cane at frat boys in their expensive cars, you kind of are. Well, thanks god you had walked to the police station, at least you would not need to put yourself through the humiliating affair of having to coax your car into motion in front of the two Cullens. Not that the kid’s paying you any mind, eyes focused on Isabella and face scrunched up in worry. That’s sweet, but the kid needs to eat something and take a chill pill; he looks constipated and pale.

Something makes him laugh, abruptly, softly, and yet the sound jumpstarts you into motion. Now that wasn’t kind of proper for a crime scene.

Fuck yeah, two can play at this game Doc, your child is an unmannered little shit, that’s what he deserves for calling you improper. The bartender is never wrong.

You turn on your heels, stuffing your leather jacket closer to your body and take the first step. «You are not seriously thinking of walking back home, are you now Miss?»

Now that’s ominous. You’re about to tell him off, already turning on the heels of your worn boots, when once again something on his face makes you stop.

Is he… scolding you? No, no, worse, he’s… disappointed? Doctor Cullen is standing tall in all of his infuriatingly impressive stance, one hand gripping his suitcase and one loosely nesting in the pocket of his coat. Something in his expression makes you want to curl up and hide. As if you had done something wrong, something you had known it had been wrong from the very get-go, only hoping to not be caught. You are an adult, a responsible and sensible adult; you should not feel as if you need to justify your actions. And yet something boils you from the inside out, you feel your cheeks turn red, and something in your steps makes you stumble into stillness and stare at the tips of your boots. «What? Is it illegal? Are we back at the cop stuff?»

You hear a soft laughter, something more akin to a puff of air, and something in your throat tightens. «Miss, there has just been an attack. Please let me escort you back home.» «For what? The ride in the shitshow-mobile?» Always biting, yet once again missing the usual venom you pour into every letter of your snarky rebuttals. Why do you feel like this is an old version of you? Something that had been more sass than actual bite, something people had actually found entertaining, funny. Likeable. You feel declawed, tiptoeing on the line between fear and nostalgia.

Doctor Cullen extracts his hand from the depths of his pocket, car keys in it, something clicks a few steps to your left, and you already know it’s his car lock. His eyes soften, something deep inside you freaks out, but it’s not the same part you are growing accustomed to being suppressed, it’s something else, something far more distant and old. His voice is soft. «For your name.»

He guides you to the passenger seat, opening the door for you, one hand hovering over your lower back, always so polite, always so well-mannered.

You climb into it without really fighting it, you don’t know why, later you will ask yourself that exact question, but for now you simply comply, malleable and pliable as you have never been. A mansuete dog, resting in the spot it has been put.

The door clicks shut, you hiss at the noise, seconds later, he’s behind the steering wheel, the yellowish light of the interior making his skin look more alive than it had ever looked. It’s in this light that you finally notice his coat is not pitch black. It’s brown, a deep, rich brown. It looks expensive and soft, not that you will ever reach over to find out. You can’t. Besides, you are a die-hard fan of leather jackets, those almost too heavy to be carried on one’s shoulders and so stiff that folding them over one’s arm is virtually impossible.

But the coat looks so cosy, and you are so cold. Leather doesn’t create heat; it only traps it, and you have nothing left to give for tonight.

«Are you cold, Miss?» His words hit you in the guts, you feel as if he has just read your mind, catching you red-handed. «I- No, it’s fine.»

He turns the heater up regardless, taking his time in directing it to you, testing it with his hand before deeming his work appropriate. Something inside you shifts comfortably. It feels good. You don’t know what does, but something does.

The car pulls out of the parking space where it had sat while Charlie had looked at the horizon, while the doctor had performed some sort of preliminary autopsy on the dead man in the station. You feel as if it had happened days ago, warmth spreading to your fingertips.

«That is a nasty bruise.» The road hums under new tires, you imitate the sound, a low exhale stemming from the deepest part of your chest. «It hurts like one.» «Will you let me take a look at it?» You huff, tapping your index finger on the window on your side, telling him to turn without really bothering with words. «Do you hate money that much, doc? Or do you just like probonos?» «Carlisle.» That is only a half-assed scolding, eyebrows pinched together yet an almost pout on his lips. He looks alive like this, normal. In control but a little less stuck up. The wobbly edges of your house come into view, his car hits a hole in the old cement, and your head lolls to the side, your reflection staring back at you from the window.

He is right, that was a nasty bruise, so much so that you had feared your skull had cracked once more.  It hadn’t been at the beginning, when he had looked at it from the passenger seat of your car and your roles had been reversed. You had thought of him as a bit dramatic, the drunken prick that had given you that light rosy stain on the side of your eyebrow had swung a weak-ass punch, but he had worn rings, and it had stung in the moment, and it had shown later.

Yesterday, when it had not been more than a slight redness adorning your cheek, it had looked like something inconspicuous, but then overnight it had bloomed into a painful purple bouquet of splotches on your eyebrow and cheekbone, leaving you with a bloodshot eye and the same itch you had not scratched festering beneath the skin of your knuckles.

The car stirs gently into your front yard, not that you can truly call those dead patches of grass a front yard, the doctor sits still, as if waiting for permission to even set foot outside of his car.

You know for a fact Frank is not home. Somewhere in your brain, you hope the feral animal that had killed Waylon Forge had left room for dessert, but the thought gets shoved in the back of your mind.

«Alright, Carlisle, suit yourself, but if you put your fingers in my mouth, I’m calling it quits.»

⚜ ℭ𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝟝

AO3 link WATTPAD link

[moth-mortuary]

𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔻𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕝 ℝ𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕤 𝔹𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕞

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 5

Rating: Mature Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Category: F/M Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe Relationships: The Winter Soldier/Reader, The Winter Soldier & Reader Part: 5/? Language: English

✪ Masterlist ✪

⚠ TW: Light mention of vomiting. ⚠

The cafeteria lady doesn’t look at you. Your ears ring, the rush of your blood in your ears sings loudly. You can’t fixate on the money. He’s alone in the world. You are alone in this. A life depends on you. «I’m sorry, what?» The lady at the counter looks at you unimpressed, shoves your three sandwiches to the side and taps a finger over the display blinking $6.45.

It’s fine, you can do this. «Yeah, right, sorry.»

The file room is still an impressive mountain of boxes and papers; you don’t even think you can read all of them in a week, let alone study them. You’ll just have to skim through some of them, probably most; the box you had shoved some stray dossier into weighs more than you had expected, the brown bag dangles from your clutched hands, your water flask perched on the top.

The young man in uniform opens the door for you. «Thanks.» You murmur back, he smiles, but your attention is already to the man you were there to see.

«Hello. -You look around, no clock in sight, damn, that must be alienating.- It’s almost 2 pm, 1:40 or something like that. So… good evening, I guess. Have you had lunch yet?»

Silence obviously greets you, but the military boy still standing at the door responds for him. «He did, ma’am.» And with that, the door clicks shut behind you.

«I got you sandwiches.»

Apparently, you still need to take a bite out of them; you don’t really get why, but if that’s what it takes for him to eat, then you’ll gladly do it.

Like a band-aid, you know it will hurt, but you have to. One deep breath. «I had a heart-to-heart with Steve Rogers.» He stops chewing. Frozen. Like a band-aid, come on… and yet you don’t know how to break the news to him; he was so adamant Captain America would not have come back for him, but you had told him he would have, you had been so sure. You feel like you have let him down, but you can’t lie.

«I’m so sorry,» silence, acceptance. That is no band-aid at all. That hurts. You can feel it.

He returns to his meal. «A-and I’m sorry for what I said. I still believe you don’t deserve to rot in this place. I guess… —god, you are rambling again— I guess it’s just one less of us thinking it. No big deal, you lose some, you win some. We’ll make do.» No reaction.

The first sandwich is gone, wolfed down in one go, you step closer, fishing the second one out of the bag and mindlessly tearing a small corner and plopping it into your mouth.

He looks at you, deeply, and menacingly, but you don’t really feel the threat; you are beginning to feel like this is his natural state of existing: on high alert, always ready to strike; as if there wasn’t any true active intention behind his unnerving presence. Only a blanket of primal instinct following him around.

«You shouldn’t have taken the job.» You swallow the piece of bread you’ve been chewing for what feels like minutes and shift your eyes over his body, looking at him. A chuckle leaves your lips, you pour him a cup of water and take a small sip before depositing that too on the tray entrance. «Yeah, broken record, tell me something you haven’t told me yet.»

He drinks. Eagerly and quickly.

And you are supposed to betray him, to write page after page of dripping venom on this poor, broken man. Assassin, he was still an assassin, but the more you thought of him as one the less you felt afraid and the more you felt like bleeding. Aching. The devil’s work, you are supposed to do the devil’s work.

«Do you know what my job is in here?» A moment passes, you are still holding onto your untouched lunch. He had cleaned off his own without leaving a single crumb. «Here, have mine too.» The small bite you force yourself to swallow is all bread and scrape your dry throat falling down.

«Evaluate.»

You chuckle, dry, without any real mirth behind it. «I wish. I’m supposed to look at you and write about how evil blooms inside a man for no reason at all, I’m supposed to say you are rotten to your core.» Your head falls back, your eyes sting.

«I read your files, and all of them are missions, all of them are actions, not reasons, not your thoughts, I guess that’s the point. To just see the action, never the motivation.» Silence keeps its tight hold on your throat, it makes breathing harder. It’s painful.

«And yet I look at you and I only have questions.» If you are doing the devil’s work, then you must be the devil.

«I took the shot.»

He did; there are mountains of files proving that. But the question remains, the only one you should have really asked. «But did you want to?»

————— He knows this protocol. Carrot and stick. The bread is the carrot. Her softness is the carrot. Then where is the stick?

«I can’t. I can’t tell them you are a monster…» Irregular beats, uneven, wrong.

She is wrong.

Something falls down her cheek, he doesn’t understand.

«Why did you take the shot?»

That one he knows. «Orders must be obeyed.»

«Why?»

Insistent, pressing. She is difficult to swallow, to exist in her orbit. She pulls, and pushes, and asks.

He doesn’t want to respond. No, he cannot want, he… He doesn’t… He doesn’t— He has to.

His chest is squeezing, not functional; he is not functional. No, he always must be.

Shallow breaths. He— «Please. Please just give me something.»

An order, no. Please. A plea, a request.

«Training.» A safe answer. He is trained.

She looks at him, he knows that look. His victims, kneeling before him, his gun to their heads. Pleading.

Hurt, he hurts. Pain is irrelevant. He can not feel.

Shallow breaths, hers, soft, his, hollow.

A beat, unsure, fragile, wrong. She feels wrong.

«Do you think you should be in here?»

Silence. One minute, two minutes.

The scratching of her pen.

Time passes, he waits, the same routine over and over again. He watches her. Soft, jittery, never still. She’s chaotic, it’s hard to witness, hard to accept. Movements are meant for purposes, an action requiring a reason, a reaction. Reason.

Why did he take the shot? No.

Why must orders be obeyed? No. Stop.

Actions and reactions.

Cryo was better. No, he cannot have preferences.

Cryo was easier. Yes, cryo was easier.

But in cryo, there wasn’t any woman to observe, no bouncing legs, no popping knuckles.

Her neck, loud and deep, followed by her shoulders. He knows the sound, the creaking sound of joints, he had caused it, then he had pushed beyond, bending, snapping. A sigh.

Her sigh. Satisfaction. No. Tiredness. Then a deep breath. Exhale.

Soft. Safe even if unpredictable.

Safe.

«I’ll leave you to rest a bit…» hesitant, lingering, suspended on a string. Not gracious, only losing her balance. «Will you think about it? Please…»

The door closes in a soft click, the lights flicker for a second, he follows her uneven heartbeat down the corridor until even his ears lose the frantic clicking of worn shoes falling into place with the soft thuds of her heart’s voice.

————— Your room is depressing, your computer is dangerously hot, and the fans are loudly spinning in their case, making your own thoughts spin at the same dizzying speed.

You got yourself into the messiest mess you could have stuck your stupid head into.

The blinking cursor on your pc stares idly at you, the blank page makes your stomach twist.

You turn to your notebook, your messy notes scattered in all kinds of directions over crumpled paper. Your handwriting had always mirrored the way you felt; you were taught how to write neatly, in cursive with pretty pens now lost to time. With metal nibs and ink that had stained your fingers and had looked messy only on your hands, a pretty handwriting that during your school years had morphed into a mess slanted on every side possible, with black boxes furiously scratched over, covers for your mistakes rendering them impossible to know and yet impossible to miss. Unreadable.

There are dozens of tabs open on your pc, another mess you have no idea how to tackle.

You had stumbled upon tons of forums on the whole Avengers thing, but only some serious fanatics seemed to know about the “Winter Soldier Rabbit hole”, as they call it. It helps that loads of files had been released to the public in 2014, giving your case enough time to sit and brew tons of conspiracy theories and paths for you to follow, trying to piece things back together, given your extensive possibility of knowledge. Yup, because that’s what you have, potential knowledge, not yet yours, only there for you to grasp it. But you also have little to no time. The game had been rigged from the start, giving you a semblance of possibility while trimming your wings each hour spent not even making a dent in the monstrous mountain of files and reports.

In all honesty, you know you are being used as a scapegoat, you accepted, so that means they can say he had been followed by someone, he had had help, and that same help had deemed him unfit for civil life, for life altogether.

It’s a scam, you know that much. And yet you dive deeper into rabbit holes found in forums that make your antivirus notify you every five minutes, and your fans work overtime as if you had not paid your pc a hundred bucks and a smile.

You build something, a painstakingly long process that drags well into the night and the early hours of the morning, you build it slowly, eroding your delete button. You don’t know how to structure your thesis. Is it supposed to be a statement? An advocacy? An accusation? Something needing to be written in legal terms?

Since you don’t know any, you just stopped wrapping your head around things you cannot control, and you simply started doing what you know how to do.

Your text is based on your knowledge; you had studied Ethics in university, it had been your favourite course. And the little dissertation you are setting up shows it.

You doubt the jury would understand a single thing you’ll write if you let yourself run wild, so you try your best to keep it simple, not too in-depth, not too contorted. You still have time to weigh your options, to carefully decide where to load the heavy stuff and where to simply draft some edges of monoliths of topics.

Your focal points are essentially two: -The recurring memory wiping with annexed brainwashing -And the brutalisation of a man until nothing of previous morality and ethics had remained. The existence of said man, still there, still buried. Left alone to rot in his own mind.

You had argued, citing names you had then found more opportune to summarise in a note at the end of the page, that James Buchanan Barnes had been conditioned into doing what he had been ordered to do.

It’s a contrite argument, but it’s genuinely the only thing you can think of. He doesn’t speak to you, why would he? He doesn’t even know you. And for how much you can pull out of the magician's hat, you simply don’t know how to navigate such a complex situation with only theories constantly put to the test and infinite mental jerking-off sessions that only give you a different view and never a definitive answer.

You wish you had stayed in law school, or that you had followed your high school teacher’s suggestion and gone for psychology, but you had followed your heart and dived into Philosophy as if it would have brought you to something more than a life full of bigger questions and nothing at all to help the man counting on you.

You simply don’t know, and although the Socratic paradox might have comforted you when you had spent your night studying for exams seemingly impossible to pass, right now, it’s only putting you down.

Your phone rings its alarm. It’s 7:30 in the morning, you haven't slept a wink, and in an hour or two, it will show on your face, it’s already showing on your slumped shoulders.

. 2nd day of the 1st week: morning.

«Do you like coffee?»

Gently shuts behind your back, a fresh batch of dossiers and files is piled into your arms, culminating in two steaming mugs of porcelain, deep and full.

The man behind the glass wall remains silent. Not that you had expected something else.

The liquid gurgles, and you struggle for a while with your own nightmare of a structure. Once the files are finally down at your feet, you pluck both of your mugs and, taking a —scolding— sip from both of them, you offer one to him.

«Just found out that if you bring your own cup, the cafeteria lady only charges you 50 cents, isn’t it great?»

Another stretch of silence. That you expected, but James also seems not to make a single move for the coffee. «You don’t like coffee?» Silence. «It’s yours if you want it.»

A minute must have passed. You feel both stupid and restless. «I’ll leave it there in case you change your mind.»

He doesn’t respond; he’s a complete blank slate of pure nothingness. You try to pry answers from his sealed lips, but nothing comes out of them. He doesn’t eat or drink, you swallow down half a sandwich you later puke in the narrow bathroom of your room. Chest tight and eyes heavy. Something ugly grips your stomach, and you wish you had puked it out along with your scarce lunch.

>> ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 6

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Tag list: @merakifreedom Let me know if you want to be tagged! Also, sorry for the delay, but it's exam season T.T

[moth-mortuary]

𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔻𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕝 ℝ𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕤 𝔹𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕞

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 4

Rating: Mature Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Category: F/M Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe Relationships: The Winter Soldier/Reader, The Winter Soldier & Reader Part: 4/? Language: English

✪ Masterlist ✪

The girl was soft, some youthful fat still clinging to her cheeks, a heart-shaped face with soft eyes and the distinctive features of someone who grew up in good conditions.

She talked a lot, fidgeted a lot, spoke with her hands. She would go crazy in his situation, hands tied and silence filling the aseptic room.

But she has no business being in his situation; only monsters end up in his situation.

Time passes, the lights dim.

He will not see her again. Better to close the memory in a sealed-tight container in his brain, less messy, more organised, no stray thoughts confusing his order.

The soldier closes his eyes and sits on the metal bench bolted to the side of his glass cube. Forget her. She had not accepted the job. He had told her not to.

Steps, an irregular heartbeat, something weirdly spaced, too much adrenaline in the body hosting that heart. «Contrary to popular request, I accepted the job.»

Fool.

«I spoke to some guards, and I guess I can give you this. They were kinda unprepared for the request.» A giggle, true, no, nervous. Fake, no, still true. Chatty.

She’s dressed the same way, not much must have passed; he doesn’t know. A t-shirt, graphic, literally, some sort of rat wearing a spiked collar, a messy font saying something the creases of the shirt do not allow him to decipher; jeans, worn, old, borderline unsalvageable, sneakers. A messy rhythm in her chest.

She’s carrying a package.

Files, missions, reports.

Bread.

What?

She takes it out of the brown bag, gets closer, scared, still scared. Unsteady heartbeat, fast, then slow, then fast again. No. Not adrenaline. Something else. The bread gets put on a paper plate, in the slot in his cage for feeding. Waiting.

«There, eat.» An order. A new handler? HYDRA? Hesitation. He should not hesitate. «Or don’t! You can choose.» A choice, not a handler. Softness, not HYDRA. «I just— I saw your dossier, and the photo.» What photo? Photos of his missions? Horrors, her heartbeat unsteady, something that had shaken her. Fear? No, she doesn’t beat to the rhythm of fear. «And you looked way healthier.» He’s functional.

«So, you know, I thought you could use some more food. Anyway, this morning, you knew I was there, didn’t you?». Such casualty, such disorienting honesty. She knows. «Could you see us through the mirror?». She knows and she doesn’t. She observes.

Us, two heartbeats, the older man beats at a sick rhythm, old, dying. She beats faster, like a mouse. Something small and full of adrenaline. How has she noticed? Sharper, a threat, she could be a threat. «Are we alone right now?»

Not what he expected. Is she scared of it? Good. Who wouldn’t be?

He nods. «Good.» Yes— what? «I contacted Sam Wilson.» The man in the tight car? «To get to Mister Rogers the news you are here, but— god, I don’t know what I was expecting but I wasn’t expecting that, he thinks you already are in hiding with Captain America, he’s adamant about it… I— I don’t know what I’m doing, shit, were you captured with him? Is he like, detained too?»

No plan, no plan is a bad plan, the girl is unprepared, not a threat. In danger.

«Fuck. Can I take a bite?» She paces the room, nervous, heartbeat spiking, doesn’t wait for a response, nobody ever does. A stress eater. Not poisoned, the sandwich is safe. He’s starving. «Sorry, I have another one—» «No.»

Silence. Her cheek protruding, mid-chew. «You don’t want it?»

When you are in a cage, you don’t get to want. How did he forget something as simple as that?

«You want… This one?» Observant. «It has the same filling— Oh, oh, okay, here, sorry about the bite.»

He’s starving. She’s no capturer, she’s buzzing, stressed, soft. Still chewing. Swallowing. Safe.

It tastes better than anything he has ever eaten. It’s the hunger speaking, but it speaks truths.

The food is gone in under a minute, clean, efficient. Still starving.

«Do you want the other one too?» He does, he really does.

Another plate, clean, new. Soft, she is carelessly soft.

Silence. Waiting. He’s starving. «What?» A laugh, soft, breezy, true. Not nervous. «Do you want me to bite that one too?» a joke, another laugh. Faltering. Silence. «Do you want me to?» A frown.

A nod. From the soldier. «Oh, um, okay.» A smaller bite. «There, started.»

She is not swallowing. A trap, he should have known, was the rest of the food given to him poisoned too? Was it—

Gulp.

She swallowed it.

«Oh no, shit, you are right this one has mayo.»

. Chatty. So chatty.

She sits on the chair, then on the floor, one file becomes two, then three and then four. She speaks a lot. He has to respond. No, he doesn’t have to; something else. Maybe he needs to. «Okay, this one.» Another file pressed to his glass. «Was that you?» another question. The same answer: Another nod.

December 16th 1991 Yes.

«Fuck dude, that’s bad.» No judgment, only a remark. Not toward him, a casual one. Not efficient.

If people had words instead of days to live, she would have been dead at two.

«Shit, I haven’t even offered you water.» She licks a thumb, ink staining it. A bad taste, bitter. He knows, but he doesn’t know why. A camping bottle, a cup. «Here. Should I bite the cup?» Another joke, not mocking, only teasing. Laughter, soft laughter. Freely given.

«A sip.» «Oh, okay, sorry. Lousy mouth.»

The water is safe, she sloshes it in her mouth and swallows it. Safe.

«Are we still alone?» A nod.

«Alright, man, I really don’t think you should be rotting in here, but if Steve himself is being detained, I don’t know what I, mind you not being a lawyer, can do for you.»

«Steve’s free. In hiding.» «What? Are you sure? Then I have to tell him, shit, I need a photo of you, a recording, something to give to Sam—» «He won’t come.» She freezes, truly, finally, no nervous fidgeting, no absentminded movements, true stillness. He feels better, something in her nervousness clings to him. Better like this. Undisturbed, empty.

«But… but it’s… It’s you.»

Something squeezes his chest. It’s him. That’s why no one will come. «He cares about you.» No, no, he doesn’t care about him. A cancer, a sickness, an illness.

«No.» «Why wouldn’t he?» she presses. Insistent, petulant. «He does, he screwed his whole career for you, he must—» For him, for him, not for him. «He won’t.»

Uneven beats, nervous, no, frustrated, no, something else. «Why. Because you think he wouldn’t? People are weird, dude. You don’t really get to understand their feelings most of the time.»

«Because I took the shot.»

———— The phrase rings hollow, an unspoken continuation lingering in the blindingly empty room. You can’t decipher it, you don’t know where to look for an answer. He’s written in an alphabet you don’t know. You don't understand who he is trying to convince, is it you? You doubt it, yet somehow it's truly difficult not to believe him, he doesn't look anxious, he doesn't look backed into a corner, he just looks empty.

And angry. Not blatantly, deeply, under layers of nothingness. So deeply angry. The pen clenched in your fist creaks, or maybe your joints do, it’s hard to tell, you are gripping too hard. «How many of those you killed did you personally know?» Sifting through files, your notebook, the worn cover, the bent rings, you refilled it for the occasion, back in the UK, back when you had still thought you would have taken notes on a criminal, a serial killer, cowering behind rows of medics and therapists. He snaps, like a rubber band just waiting for the last yank. «Some—» «Not as Bucky Barnes.» This time is your index knuckle, a low creak, the grating of bones. The quiet in a chaotic place, something misplaced and alien. His silence, your creaking, you two are like a haunted house. Chaotic, silent, tired.

«None.» Keep pushing, keep pressing until he cannot but tell you, you must, it's an itch you can't scratch otherwise. «And how many do you remember?» Stillness, calm, something misplaced. Wrong. «All of them.»

Your knuckle pops. Painfully and satisfyingly There you go. «I don’t think an unsalvageable man would remember even one.»

He hadn’t said that; you had heard it.

The pen scratches, you hum lowly, mumbling your own thoughts to not let a single phrase get lost in the labyrinth of your horribly messy mind.

His voice is soft, his words are not. «Quit it.»

The job? You are not even sure you still can. It’s such a small peep, not the order he gave you yesterday. "Don’t take the job." You are so stubborn. No, this one is fragile, almost shy. You don’t expect it to escalate. It does, but instead of roaring lowly in anger, it just grows heavier, tired. «Don’t make me think I could be good.» Until his words soften. «It hurts.»

Your heart shatters for the man; you don't pity him, but you ache. Deeply and freely. You bleed for him.

And yet you must press, because nothing comes without a price, and you have a job, and for how much he hates you for doing this to him, you have to. You know no other way to save him. «It wouldn’t stop. Even if I quit.»

You let him be at peace for a while, you try to stay still while scratching some notes on your notebook. You have noticed how much he relaxes when you just stop existing in the loud way you have always existed, but it’s hard for you. Your leg begs to be bounced, your fingers gather air in your knuckle pleading you to just pop them and after that keep twisting and cracking until your joints ache and your pads tingle. «Do you want me to go?» It’s an honest question, one you are positive will receive an honest answer. You don’t think he likes you that much, it makes sense, you are not exactly the quiet type, and he looks constantly dipped in silence.

Surprisingly, he shakes his head. This time, you don’t press further; you just acknowledge it with a nod and resume your work.

Your eyes grow heavy, you can feel his eyes on you, but it’s less and less unnerving by the hour. He’s empty once more, no more anger, not the speckle of bottomless sadness you had glimpsed. Only empty. Waiting.

«I think I should let you sleep.» You finally declare, getting up from your contorted position on the floor and popping as silently as possible your stiff back. He doesn’t respond. You collect your things, buzzing the intercom beside the door. You wave at him, a tight-lipped smile more focused on being quiet and not overly you than polite.

A couple of seconds pass, nothing happens, then a full minute goes by, still nothing, you try the door handle, then you buzz again. Nothing.

«They went to sleep.»

«You are not surveilled 24/7?» Well, that was rude, but something is gnawing at the bottom of your stomach and you are pretty sure it’s anxiety clawing its way back from where you had tried to bury it.

«The food. It has tranquillisers.»

«What— No! I would never—» «Not yours.»

Oh. Oh, this is messed up.

«Well that is fucked up.» You warned him, everything going on up there must find a way to get out. You simply cannot keep a thought to yourself.

The room fills with silence once more. You spin on your heels, then slowly slide your way to the floor, tiredly slumping down the walls.

«I guess we’ll just have a sleepover then.»

The thought unnerves you, and you doubt you’ll be able to close an eye, but the man doesn’t need to know this. «Do the lights turn off?»

Silence. You are probably annoying him. Scratch that, you are definitely annoying him, hell, you are annoying yourself. «Нет.»

Silence. You should maintain it. «Animals.» No inner thoughts, right.

. 1st day of the 1st week: morning. If you had not closed an eye, you would not find yourself opening both of them, back stiff, your shoulder being shaken. «Ma’am, ma’am, what are you doing here?» Oh, the kid from yesterday, the guard bringing the soldier his mixture of gruel and tranquillisers. You want to reprise him, to ask, “Do you know they are sedating him?” without caring about any consequence at all, if not for the hope of changing the way things are being done, at least to make someone face the objective cruelty of their own practices. But even though you still need to reboot properly, and you still struggle to keep your own thoughts to yourself, you know that stating what you now know could not be a good move. What if he was not supposed to know? What if your lousy mouth ended up making things worse for him?

«Ma’am?»

James’ eyes are already on you, of course they are, what were you expecting? But something is amiss, there is a certain tension in his jaw, something deeply unnerving given the fact it’s distressing to the Winter Soldier. His eyes dart to the younger man in uniform, you can feel the faint buzzing of metal somewhere in the room.

Something is really tense in here, and it’s not your creaking back.

You jump up, knees popping loudly, a surge of nervousness punching a laugh out of your mouth. «Well, I need to shower.» The kid follows your moves, a machine gun you had not noticed strapped to his torso, dangling between your bodies. «Ma'am, I’m sorry I left you here—» «No harm done, kid. I had a lovely pyjama party, now please, I really need to pee.» And with a quick handwave, you bid goodbye to the man in the cage and shove past the door.

You had not lied. You need to pee so badly.

. ”He has a mole on the left side of his forehead. He’s being sedated and kept in a locked container. Believe me, he is not free. Please, I really don’t know what I should do to help him. This is my phone number. I’m begging you to give it to Steve Rogers.”

Well, there is no harm in trying; you still firmly believe that if only Captain America knew, he would come barging through the door to rescue his friend. You simply have to tell him.

You are barely out of the most uncomfortable, cramped and cold shower you have ever taken that your phone starts ringing.

«Hello?» «You are in a very bad situation. Whatever you are doing in there, stop. I’m saying this for your own good. You sound like a sweet girl, and I get that you want to make things right, but there is nothing to be set straight in this situation. Please. Go as far as you can from that man.»

Silence engulfs you, something rings hollow in your ears, a piercing sound that makes you shiver. «Steve Rogers, I gather.»

«I’m sorry you find yourself in this situation, whatever your job is, drop it. I’m truly sorry.» Prick, you had known the Winter Soldier for less than a day and you are more set on helping him than his life-long best friend.

A coward and a prick.

«Yeah me too, I thought Captain America had more spine than whatever the fuck you have. Have a nice day, sir. I’m not quitting.»

«You should—»

The line cuts, your thumb stays pressed on the red button, something boils deep in your chest, so furiously that you almost think sleeping in the same room with the Soldier had made you cling onto some of his repressed and deep anger.

Alone in the world, he is alone in the world. «FUCK!»

>> ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 5

Ao3 Link Wattpad Link

[moth-mortuary]

𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔻𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕝 ℝ𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕤 𝔹𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕞

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 3

Rating: Mature Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Category: F/M Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe Relationships: The Winter Soldier/Reader, The Winter Soldier & Reader Part: 3/? Language: English

✪ Masterlist ✪

«With some conditions.» The colonel laughs once more, thick smoke twisting around your head. God, you miss smoking. The distinctive feeling of puffing away your worries one after the other in each rasped breath.

You had stopped like you had started every damned thing in your life. On a random Tuesday, on impulse, not because you had seen your mother wither away, hair falling off her head and skin stretching thin over her bones, but simply because. You had been smoking when the doctor had told you she would not make the night, you had held her hand with nicotine-stained fingers when she had closed her eyes one final time, not peacefully but not screaming either. Only tired, on a Friday night.

After, when the funeral had passed and your childhood home had been sold, you had kept your little bad habit. Sat on the curb you had scraped your knees over countless times, over and over again, when laughing and running after your only good friend. Smoking your sorrows away. No remorse at all. You had buried your head under the sand of blatant ignorance, yet another ticket for yet another country burning a hole in your pocket far deeper than any ember falling the tobacco pillar could have ever scorched. You had clung to it as if you hadn’t known better, never changing, never evolving, always cowering away from new perspectives.

Then, a year or so later, you had stopped, and a day hadn’t passed since without you missing the feeling of thick clouds of poison stuffing your mouth like wadding. But you had stopped.

You miss it now, nerves fried and head full of thoughts too thick to be chased away in a puff of air instead of a puff of smoke. «Miss, you truly don’t get to have a saying—» «No, I’m sure I don’t, but I need to at least know what I’m working with. How long do I have? What is he being accused of? At least tell me what my role should be in all this. I get you need a report on him, but on what? Be specific.» Specific is not the right word; lengthy might be.

The dude is accused of virtually everything under the sun. Mass murder, Terrorism, Property damage, Conspiracy, Mutilation, Kidnapping, Blackmail, Treason, Mass destruction, Vigilantism —you have no idea what that means—, Torture, Abuse, Aiding and abetting, Grand theft auto, Assault, Breaking and entering, and Stalking.

It’s almost comical that you share with the Winter Soldier, —as the header of the folder supplies your memory— a voice in his long list of crimes. Your property damage had been a petty revenge poorly executed while blacked out drunk, a puke-stained splotch on your record from that stupid, stupid, night you had decided that keying and slashing the tires of your ex’s car had been a fitting revenge for deciding to have a bit on the side.

Your head throbs the same way it had done the morning after, when policemen had shown up at your place and you had had to witness a grainy video from his Ringcam of you stumbling over your own feet, a pink butterfly knife you had bought on Amazon a couple of mistakes ago in one hand and a bottle of cheap alcohol in the other. At least this is not as humiliating as that.

«Okay, so you want me to do what? Confirming all this? That he is a dangerous individual?» You still cannot see his point, but something in you tells you the colonel had not lied; you are no psychologist, and that was clearly a job for a psychologist; you were there only because no one else wanted to. You had been the only option available. «Yes and no, you see the thing is that he wasn’t really of sound mind during all this.» Yeah, you doubt he was. Your knowledge of the whole Winter Soldier case is still awfully scarce, but you knew he had been under some sort of brainwashing, an asset from a terrorist group that had made of him an unthinking and uncaring weapon.

Is this why the colonel was so set on treating him like an object, an unfeeling machine only capable of destruction? It kind of makes sense now, you still highly disapprove of the base idea, but you can see it better now. The list is massive after all.

«So you want me to make a philosophical evaluation on his implication on the matter? The root of evil and all of that? You want me to say he is still responsible for what he did.»

There is no true satisfaction in the grin the colonel sports; it’s jarring, something not clicking into place, but his next words completely obscure anything you could think of it. «Good girl, I see you understand.» 

So patronising, so utterly patronising and slimy.

The man stands up, moving rigidly to the door. «Since we have understood each other so well, I’ll leave you to it.» What? No! You still don’t know how much time you have, when and if you can speak to him, or if a lawyer would have been involved. «Wait!—» «You have two weeks, the hearing is on Monday, you’ll need to read your evaluation to the jury, but every written material needs to be done in a week, evidences, and anything falling under that spectrum, need to be viewed by the court beforehand. You will be given a room here in the compound, but you can leave anytime you want. The file room containing the Winter Soldier reports is at the end of this corridor. You can speak to him whenever you need to. He doesn’t sleep, and if he’s sleeping and you need to talk to him, wake him… use as much of his time as you need.»

Oh no, no, no, no. A week is too little! You are no magician able to pull out of the hat a perfectly structured, perfectly formulated rabbit shaped thesis, you had hoped for three months, two if they had been stingy, but a week? A week is nothing but an anticipated sentence of doom. You are still panicking when the colonel stops in his tracks and lingers.  «Pieces of your evaluation might be read out of context. Keep that in mind.»

Does he want you to be cruel? Direct in every page you write? Does he want you to destroy a poor, used, and discarded man mercilessly, so much so that even a single word read out loud would have spoken against him?

The thought makes you shudder, the file in your hand rattles, the long list looks at you with the same intensity blue eyes had done back in the converging room.

You cannot do this.

«I need my phone. For— for research, and my pc.»

The colonel nods.

«They both will be brought to you, but they cannot enter the containment room. If you need to register anything a voice recorder will be given to you. . It’s clear why it’s better to stay there, the cab ride back to your B&B is not quick, and although the driver tries to bill you for a longer detour you are sure you did not take, you still know it took you more than forty minutes to reach your temporary home. You are too devoid of energy to argue, you still do, as stubborn as ever and too broke to pay a hundred dollars for a 45-minute drive. You end up paying the right price; you’ll have to flag down another cab once you’re ready to head back to the compound, but you are not too stressed about it.

Unsure of what you will need, you take your whole selection of manuals with you. Still willing to make at least a good job, thesis or not. Your unpacked trolley and your phone charger lazily dangling from a too far up outlet planted in the middle of the wall. The room they gave you is not only small but cramped and dark too. You had not expected a suite, but that looks more like the old-fashioned version of the soldier's own room. No white walls —Thankfully, you would have gotten crazy in a day instead of slowly falling into depression lulled by the cement tones— with a bed, a sink, a nook for a toilet and a shower and a desk. Damn, that is depressing. It’s clear someone in here doesn’t want you to be comfortable, probably looking forward to the moment you will throw in the towel and call it quits. You don’t care, your old apartment in London had been shared with two Egyptian brothers and an overly enthusiastic, freshly moved, Balkan girl with a strong Serbian accent and a very poor English vocabulary. You know how to make due.

Your computer is already stationed on your desk, you hastily dump your case over the worryingly thin mattress, a back pain waiting to happen, it’s already 1 pm, your stomach is rumbling and you desperately want to put something under your teeth, the very sad, very impersonal cafeteria in the building you had passed on your way back from your apartment calling you like a sirene. You need energy, you need to eat and then start to grind.

You are barely one step out of your room when your body collides with someone. A youthful and only half stern voice erupts from their chest, «Careful.» The man you had bumped into is clad in a military uniform, not the colonel's one, but a very simple, very average-grade uniform, and he’s carrying a tray of food. You offer him a half-formed apology, the gears in your brain spinning on the thought: that cannot be your lunch. You had been told you were not a captive, and the slob on tray in his hands screams prison food. You don’t even have the time to fully formulate any of the numerous questions festering in your brain when the military man resumes his previous trajectory and, surpassing you, keeps walking down the corridor. Oh. That is the Winter Soldier’s meal. Your stomach does something ugly, it squeezes its own base at the very bottom of your tummy and churning painfully shoots you a dreadful feeling up your spine to the pit of your throat, your blinding hunger withers and dies, and something horribly akin to a retch almost triggers your gag reflex.

That was unpleasant.

It happens again, when in front of the cafeteria lady, you pay with a crumpled 5-dollar bill, the very appetising food looking back at you from the bowl it rests, not a tray, not a lump of unshaped food. Dignity. Your lunch has dignity.

You wish you could finish it, but you simply cannot. The next five hours pass in a pile of old files you spend your afternoon sifting through; they are either terribly lacking in details or missing pages altogether, going back as far as the late 1950s. You knew the man was old, but god, he was ancient. You don’t know him, you don't. You should not be the one doing this; you have the distinctive feeling you are doing Satan’s work in looking for a reason to condemn him, but you push the thought down. You are not, you are only trying to get an objective point of entry.

You are not looking for a fault, you are simply trying to understand what you should feel. You can build your thesis after that, you first need to understand what you think of him. He’s dangerous, ruthless, piles of files tell you that but even you, after barely five hours of reading the reports, are growing desensitised. No unnecessary violence, no cruelty, only mechanical volition. No. You scratch the last word scribbled on your tired notebook, the cardboard cover bent out of shape and fraying. Volition is not the right word, he had not had any. Your phone dings, a notification illuminates your face, but it’s only a spam text that had managed to get past the very lazy barrier your provider put up. No reply yet.

You had tried something dumb, hell, the whole ordeal should be called that, but after finally getting your hands back on your phone, you had looked for Steve Rogers’ phone number. Unsurprisingly, you had found nothing. But during your fruitless attempts you had found out Steve Rogers was still marked as a rogue agent alongside some names you had no idea who they belonged to. Some had led to no one at all, until Sam Willson’s one had finally popped up.

Some pretty spectacular, low-quality videos later, you had decided that writing a mail to Sam Wilson —or “The Falcon”— had been your best shot at getting The Winter Soldier’s situation to Steve Rogers.

You are still waiting for a reply. The cracked screen protection of your phone blinks back at you the very European setting of 19:34, your stomach protests for the almost skipped lunch, and your brain does that thing where, for a second, it feels way bigger than your cranium. You crave a cigarette. Or a lobotomy. Either should do the trick. You shake your salad in its container, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the file room. Something plain, something not too difficult to push down. The “main” file is an account of the most recent evaluations the Soldier must have gone through; one report is from a psychiatrist but their evaluation is cut short, suddenly. Another is older, this time from a behaviouralist, but on the top page, a red writing you don’t recognise the penmanship of, states “unusable, out of date” in scribbled letters. It’s from three months ago. The other files are just plain medical mumbo-jumbo; you don’t even begin trying to dissect those, way too out of your field to understand anything of those entries at all.

You have the almost sure idea that he has been kept in that box for a little more than three months, a horrifying knowledge that almost makes you choke on an olive. Three months roaming a two-by-two box with his hands confined in metallic shackles. That has to be a violation of some convention.

You feel so bad for him. You cannot help it. Your phone gives no sign of activity, you refresh your mail page but nothing changes. The medical files are all too difficult for you to understand but some things you can still take as for set. Some more futile details if you wish. For example, he’s 6'0” sharp (183 cm Google supplies you for your own peace of mind), he’s 260 lbs (and you truly hope they are including the metal arm, otherwise the man would simply be an absolute weapon of packed muscles.) and has had two sessions of… chelation therapy? You don’t really know what that means, but you’ll Google it later. You turn yet another page, reading the two remaining voices under “medical procedures under governmental care”, only to jot down on your notebook the word “Hemodialysis” already knowing what “stomach pumping” meant, having received one after a very nasty food poisoning that had not let you live up to your childhood nickname. What truly puts you on edge, though, is the next page’s content. A photo. When you had entered the room that morning you had been scared. You had looked at your feet with insistence, almost stubbornly refusing to look up at him. So much so that if someone had put a gun to your nape and asked you to describe the Winter Soldier, you wouldn’t have known how to save your life. You can’t truly recall any details to memory, you can only make a half-decent job recollecting his general shapes and colours, but even your stubborn ignorance could not have prevented you from noticing immediately just how much wrong the difference had been.

The man hauntingly looking up to you from the flipped page is a broken one, true, but at least healthy-looking. It suddenly clicks into place just how much skinnier the man in the cell had looked, something you had not noticed immediately due to your damned stubborness. Unlike the man in the photo, the one you had met had looked carved out of his own flesh and bones, completely hollowed out.

You shakily unclip the portrait from the dossier, twisting it in your fingers. In the back, a date. Three months ago. The photo had been taken only three months ago. Another horrible growl in the depths of your stomach rumbles.

Criminal or not, you need to pull him out of here.

Almost on cue, your phone chimes.

>> ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 4

Ao3 Link Wattpad Link

[moth-mortuary]

Wattpad cover

I hate that Wattpad makes the covers all grainy; it makes my brain shiver.

Wattpad Link

[moth-mortuary]

𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔻𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕝 ℝ𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕤 𝔹𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕞

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 2

Rating: Mature Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Category: F/M Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe Relationships: The Winter Soldier/Reader, The Winter Soldier & Reader Part: 2/? Language: English

✪ Masterlist ✪

Fifteen minutes, what are you supposed to do in fifteen minutes? In the back of your head the video of Billie Joe losing his temper at a festival slithers its way into the front of your brain supplying you with the iconic “Let me show you what one fucking minute fucking means.” phrase. God, you are losing your marbles, but this is no place to revamp your punk phase; you need to focus. There is a man waiting for you, with eyes as sharp as knives and laser attention focused on what you are sure he cannot see from inside his cell: You.

He’s just a man, let’s approach it like that. Yes, just a man in a box in another box in a prison. Fine, a dangerous man, then. God, fifteen minutes are too much and too little altogether. What are you supposed to do in those fifteen minutes without your phone? Marinate in your own thoughts? Ridiculous. You wish you could call your mom, she had always known what to do in every situation, but for that, perhaps, the phone —security clings onto for you—is of little use, but the ouija board you sold on Facebook marketplace before leaving the UK could have suited the job. Fifteen minutes are too many. And none at all.

You’re a coward at heart, a heavy supporter of the ideology that burying your head in the sand has indeed saved you from countless headaches, but here? Now? You cannot turn your back on that man. You simply know the guilt would haunt you.

«Hell, if it were for me, he should be shot in the head.»

No, you cannot let this happen. I mean… He’s a grown ass man, what is he now, ninety? a hundred? No, stop, he is not your responsibility but you are not that big of a coward.  There is a door to your right, not the one you had entered from, a plain, unsuspicious door. You know nothing of the job, how could you? No one has taken the trouble to brief you. You don’t even remember the man’s full name, you try to recall it to memory but you simply cannot. James. James something something, he has a second name, a middle one, you are fairly sure, something that rhymes perfectly with his last one, Barn, Barnes, something like that. Something rolling off the tongue.

It’s not rolling off of yours while your sweaty palms grip the handle of the door. You try, you really do, desperate for any detail at all, anything capable of telling you something more about the man other than the gripping feeling of pure terror that is making your legs tremble, but the fact that his eyes had followed you in your little trip from where you had stood to the doorframe does nothing but put you more on edge. You inhale. Calm down. Exhale, he’s just a man.

The door clicks open, you enter the white room. You don’t have the guts to look at him, but you are sure he is looking at you, I mean, what’s one more minute now? He has been staring at you all day.

You try to escort the door back into its frame without letting it close, something deep inside your stomach tells you it would not open from the inside, but your attempts are futile; the door closes in a soft snap, making you jump and letting go of the handle altogether.

Well, no turning back now. Actually, turning might be the single most difficult task you have to endure today. Not that having your back to the caged man is any better.

Say something, yes, say something, you have always chatted your way out of the slipperiest of situations, just do that again, swallow back the fear gripping your throat and start puking something, anything. You are just about to speak when your eyes fall to the mirror. It is a one-way mirror, but you don’t have the time to rejoice and dumbly (as a defence mechanism) bury your absolutely well-founded fear, that your eyes click into place with his.

Now you are sure he’s looking at you. «Hello.»

How can a single word be dumb and normal at the same time? No, stop with the self-doubt. What were you supposed to say? Goodbye? Still. You feel an absolute idiot.

The man doesn’t respond. You turn, eyes downcast, staring at your feet, watching him in the eyes feels like a declaration of war, a challenge you are not willing to throw.

You just press yourself against the wall, making your body as small as possible. He’s scary. Even when restrained to a metal chair, inside a glass box, inside a prison cell. A matrioska.

What a silly thought.

«My name is—» Wait! Wait, pause, do you really want to give the very dangerous, very unpredictable assassin, in the most fishiest situation ever, your name? You are no target whatsoever —What would anyone want from you? Your collection of sun-dried insects?— But you still shift stiffly in your own shoes.

«Well, when I was a kid, my friend used to call me Bla, it’s short for an insect, the roach, in Italian. T—They used to call me like that because nothing could knock me out for good. I came down with chickenpox and pneumonia at the same time when I was seven, and in a week, I was back in school. Also, I talk a lot, so I guess that’s fitting.»

God, you are lame. And you also just told him where you come from. You must be the single most stupid woman alive. «Anyway, you can call me that. What’s your name?»

Silence. Great! «Alright, did they tell you I was coming? This is all actually very weird to me, job’s details were all kinda blurry, didn’t even know it was you till a few minutes ago, I would have studied harder otherwise, I’m not really making a good impression not knowing your name, aren’t I.» A nervous laughter flees your lips, you cannot contain it, it has always been one of the numerous nervous tics that grip you in its hold every time you feel too big for your own skin. «It’s James, right? Am I right? I read about you in the Smithsonian a couple of weeks ago.»

Another empty silence, something so devoid of any personality that you almost start to feel less anxious. It feels like he’s not even in the room; he looks like part of the glass cube, only another cog in the intricate mechanics of his restraining. The wall behind you had gradually morphed from cold to warm, your body heat slowly working its way into a balance of temperature. You still feel on edge, but you can almost feel the grinding of your bones slowing down into a soft background sensation.

You don’t get why, his eyes are still fixated on you, his attention unwavering, but something in the big picture of the whole situation is steadily pressing a chloroform cloth to the mouth of your senses. Something in him is not threatening. Enough so as to tell your whole body to just relax. He feels empty. Yeah that’s it, he feels empty. Like nothing he could do would come directly from him. «Okay, listen, I— I don’t know how to be subtle, everything I think, one way or another, always ends up out there, there are no “inner thoughts for me”, it’s a flaw, sue me, I wear my heart on my sleeve. What I’m trying to say is that I’ve been told they want you either dead or behind bars for life and— god, I don’t even know how long you live. Do you— no, sorry off topic, I, anyway, I guess I’m here to… evaluate you? I don’t know, I’m not a psychologist, I told them, but I don’t even know when the hearing would be, where, hell, I don’t even know what they are accusing you of. What I mean is. The people who should have shown up for you… Didn’t. I don’t know how else to tell you. I think that’s because no one knew about this—» and in an almost conspiratorial way, you turn your head and look over your shoulders to see if anyone had dared enter the room, darting your eyes to the mirror even though you cannot tell if someone is actually behind there.

You feel like you should get closer, like you should whisper really low your next words, they feel weighted, as if you had unknowingly known a hidden truth the colonel had not wanted you to know. «I think I should tell Mr. Rogers, I feel like you are being deal some shitty cards here.»

At Roger’s mention, you see the first real reaction, or perhaps it is because you had actually gotten close to the glass cage. Reason aside, you can clearly see it. His eyes twitch, squinting, recalling? No, processing? Man, you are not good at this. But that had been a reaction, yes, you are sure of it.

«I mean, he should be the one fending for your life, but I guess no one gave him a notice, perhaps the whole fugitive thing might have had a part in it. Do they let you read the newspapers in here? It’s old news by now, I wish I could show you, but they confiscated my phone when I entered, sorry.» The way you are rambling, spewing every living thought forming into your brain makes you cringe, but if you have to trade looking like a moron to the silence you are sure it would fall if you stopped your mouth from working then so be it. A coward and a moron, what a nice way to introduce yourself.

«I think I should let him know you are being kept here, that you are about to be put under process, and then I guess he could be the one finding a solution for your… predicament? Not that I don’t want to! But I’m no lawyer and, hell, I’m as broke as one could get, so even if I wanted to help, I cannot afford a legal advisor for you—» «Don’t take the job.»

Oh. That’s a nice voice.

Secondly, what?

«What?»

Then your eyes, almost without being commanded to, snap to his own. Only for his to be elsewhere. He’s back at looking at the mirror. «Don’t take the job.»

You hear the click of the door being open, the colonel waits for you on the threshold, one hand in his pocket, one lazily gripping the handle.

«Stand down, soldier, the adults need to talk.» What a huge pile of shit. You get taken to another room, just down the long corridor at which end had been situated the room with the glass box. You still feel silly for the little hand wave you had offered him as goodbye, but you don’t have the time to chastise yourself as your attention is needed back at the situation at hand as soon as yet another door clicks shut behind you.

«You talk a lot, don’t you?» Fuck you. «Yeah, sorry,» The man circles the table in the centre of the room, pulling out a chair from underneath it and pointing with his hand at the one in front. You obey. «I guess I was a bit nervous.» «Chatty is good for this, the fucker is a statue.» Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. You inwardly flip him the bird as his rough laughter fills the empty room. No mirrors, no windows, only four walls of gritty cement and a sense of humour you don’t share at all. You hate the way he speaks about the man, sure, he’s a serial killer, an assassin, something to be scared of, but a man nonetheless. The colonel’s words are so undignified, so patronising, as if the man had been an animal to be kicked around and treated as unthinking. «So, what do you say? Are you the right woman for the job?»

No. He had literally absolved you of every obligation. He had clearly told you not to accept. Hell, maybe that intimidation had meant “don’t interfere” what do you know? Perhaps the colonel had lied to you, perhaps thousands of more qualified people had been waiting in line just outside the cell, ready to truly help him in a way you physically can not.

You could get out of here free, back to the UK, Italy even. Perhaps you stepping back would mean for the man to actually have a shot at freedom, rehabilitation, whatever he had needed the most.

And you could have gone back home. With only a weird experience under your belt and the bitter aftertaste of a new project dead before it could have even started, no guilt, no shame, not even a drop of self-loathing. You had literally been exempted.

Then why do you feel no one was coming to help him? Your mom used to tell you your big heart would be the death of you. Ironic since she’s the one dead now, and her heart had not been big at all.

You could always step back if a more competent person were to show interest; there was always a margin of adjustment on your part if you were to be involved in the first place. If you don't accept, you would be forcefully cut off, but if you do, if the opportunity arises, you could make yourself as small as needed.

Besides, of something, one must die. «I guess I am.» The man in uniform laughs. You feel like you have made the biggest mistake of your life. You still cannot blame yourself for it.

>> ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 3

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[moth-mortuary]

𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔻𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕝 ℝ𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕤 𝔹𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕞

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 1

Rating: Mature Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Category: F/M Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe Relationships: The Winter Soldier/Reader, The Winter Soldier & Reader Part: 1/? Language: English

✪ Masterlist ✪

Summary:

Dr. Helen Cho survived the attack of Ultron, but what the Sceptre had shown her was so much, perhaps too much. Obsessed by the idea of being able to create a fully human living body from scratch she spent the next three years working on her Regeneration Cradle, close, so close to perfection… A desperate Steve Rogers cannot pull out of his own derailed mind his very best friend. How good can he be if he can’t even help the last bastion he has left of his past? If only there were a way of splitting the two men festering underneath the same skin… And you? Well, you are only a Philosophy student, way too deep in debt and with a stuck thesis on morality for your PhD, when your professor offers you a case fully compatible with your hypothesis on morality and the birth of evil, you cannot help but jump at the opportunity. Perhaps you should have read the fine print before diving headfirst…

The cold, the cold water. The cold he knows. His mission. A man. A man? Irrelevant, his mission.

He knows him.

A man he knows. He knew.

A man, a life. Irrelevant, his mission. A man who weighs nothing, a life saved. Not taken. Saved. Run. Not his mission. Run.

. Destruction, lives taken, people. Machine and Gods. The world is not his own anymore. Warm, too warm. Being awake and sleeping, not reprogrammed, not blank. Not wiped. He’s scribbled on. . Things are relevant. Memories, other lives, not his own. Towns fall out of the sky. He struggles to remember. The fall, a man screaming, an echo. Cold. . Ultron’s fall, watched from the stillness of an abandoned apartment, a safehouse, a refuge, a hideout. Gods and machines, a soldier, not like him, a man, not an asset, only a man. A boy in uniform, a smaller one, dusty blond hair, a brunette all curls and bright lips. The future. Not his memories. Irrelevant. He writes them down nonetheless. . One day, he wakes and it’s not Monday, it’s Tuesday. An error. He had not fallen asleep on the bed. He wakes up in it regardless. It happens again, two months later, he doesn’t have a beard anymore. It scares him to no end. He looks for HYDRA agents everywhere he goes, and when he finds none, he flees out of pure fear. . Barely a year later, in a new country altogether, the woman at the market talks to him like she knows him. He has no recollection of ever speaking to her. He considers fleeing once more. «Cum sunt? Sunt ele bune? Dă-mi șase, vă mulțumesc.» A week later his face is plastered on every screen of the world. The Winter Soldier had struck again. But he hadn’t. Hadn’t he? The man in his apartment. He knows his name, he knows how much he weighs, he knows how he used to look. Steve.

He considers killing him. Someone inside him screams. And while the Soldier reflects on a kind way to kill the man, he turns and sees him. He calls him Bucky. He hates the name. But he doesn’t spit his own back. He doesn’t know him. The blond man brings trouble. It always ends in violence. Futile attempts, there is no reason for preventing the soldiers’ deaths, they know what they are doing, the same as him. War is a machine that stops for no one. The blond man doesn’t understand it.

He’s old, he’s been awake for years now, more than he has ever been; he can feel it on his shoulders. Another man chases him, he can’t shake the panther off, there is killing intent in his gestures, something the soldier can understand, something he knows. He hasn’t felt this comfortable in years. He knows how to deal with death, the killing intent, the chase. His body sings. He’s home. Not in a hideout, not piecing a sense of normality back. Home. Steve interferes. They capture him. Back behind a glass. He waits for the cold, the pain. Electricity. Nothing comes. Until a man does. Frail. Breakable. He fights the words, but something deep inside him craves them. He’s back home, in the scarlet certainty of violence.

—————— James Buchanan Barnes is no longer his best friend. He could not be, not while the Winter Soldier stretches his skin from the inside out. Thin, so thin that of Bucky nothing remains. He is there, spread too thinly to be recognised in the hard dips and crevices of his metal arm, but he’s still there. Unreachable. Bent out of shape and different. Wrong. So substantially wrong. How many times must he disappoint him? How many times does he have to lose him before he stops being the hero he never was? «Your mom’s name was Sarah. You used to wear newspapers in your shoes.» A fleeting light, a flicker of hope. It’s small, but it’s there. Bucky is there, he can almost see him behind the cold eyes of the soldier. Then the question had come, and his world had shattered. «How much time has passed?»  «A couple of hours.» «No, no, it’s— The last time I was awake, it was summer.» Like a switch, a button being pressed, Bucky’s face had gotten blank, eyes unfocused and lost, and the Winter Soldier had reemerged. Not quite the killing machine, surely not the man remembering his mother’s name. «What did I do?» Calculating, almost a request for a report. «Enough.» Silence. That is not Bucky. «Who was he?» Silence once more, nothing else but silence, reluctance. «People are dead, the bombing, the doctor did all that only to get ten minutes with you. I need you to do better than silence.» The man looks at him, full attention on him, and for a moment, Steve fears for his life, doesn’t matter there are literal tonnes on the mechanical arm. Steve fears in one way or another the Winter Soldier could break free and end his life any minute now. Calculation runs behind his eyes, Steve can almost see them, then, «He wanted to know about Siberia, where I was kept. He wanted to know exactly where.»

It’s too early to breathe a sigh of relief, but Steve concedes himself to at least swallow the knot forming in his throat.  «Why would he need to know that?» Another calculated silence. «Because I’m not the only Winter Soldier.» Not Bucky, not even The Winter Soldier. Only something else. Something close enough. That version of Bucky is wrong, so deeply wrong, but that spark of old recognition had been enough.  He’ll follow him till the end of the line, but Steve is unsure who he is following. He’s chasing a ghost. A ghost flickering in and out of existence.

. Bucky follows him methodically, as if he’s nothing more than a means to an end. He glides over the fact he almost killed the kid. The journey on the Quinjet is silent, the soldier sits stiffly, eyes focused, deadly. Steve knows he’s on a mission, still, he silences the doubts clawing at the back of his brain. He should have listened to them. The Winter Soldier is a killing machine willing to end yet another life. Tony does his fair share of damage, but the soldier is simply better, more well-trained, efficient, not only calculated but ready. A loaded gun, His best friend had grotesquely morphed into a loaded gun, always glued to its target. He fights dirty, viciously. He leaves Tony and him for dead. Steve begs for him not to, but his words don’t even reach his ears. That must be it, Bucky would never have left him like that, but Steve is once more forced to see his best friend get away, fleeing, not even daring a glance back, and nothing of the soldier’s demeanour speaks of the Brooklyn boy. He’s a killer. And until the Winter Soldier festers underneath Bucky’s skin, Steve can’t do anything about it.

. But there might be a chance for him to rip the problem at its root. Quite literally. Doctor Cho has aged badly, fine lines marring her once perfectly smooth skin. In less than three years. But she speaks with such passion and intensity about her creation that Steve cannot help but fall into her own words. Taken. Sold. In early January of the new year, he tracks him down. To be precise Nat does, in a cramped apartment in southern Italy. That is Bucky, the scared man ready to cut off the cancer growing underneath his skin. That is Bucky. And even if Steve is only half sure about the morality of it all, the desperation is too much to stop now. There are no screams, but he knows something —deep inside the broken shell his best friend had amounted to be— is thrashing. A cornered animal. Feral.

—————— You are grossly underqualified for this. It’s not even a question of pride, of having lied a bit on your curriculum (you don’t really speak Russian that well), it’s a matter of subject. You are a philosopher, if you can define yourself as such, not a psychologist, and there is nothing on your curriculum suggesting any of that sort. «Sir, I— I really don’t think I am in any way, shape, or form qualified for this job. I’m not a behaviourist or a behavioural analyst or— or anything of the sort, hell, I’m not even a plain psychologist, I’m—» «the only one who showed any form of interest.» The words cut you off efficiently, you should have expected that from a colonel, your disjointed ramble comes to an end and somewhere in the back of your head starts the plain noise of static and silence that perfectly follows your astonishment. «…What?» Now that must be a lie, a plain, fat lie. It cannot be true. You are in no way fit to be called a fanatic of this sort of thing, but you own a cell phone and a TV. You have seen the rise and fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. you have heard of Captain America and his newly-found-timely-lost brother in arms. Hell, you had even visited the Smithsonian on your first visit to Washington, D.C.

You had not expected for the “perfect subject for your thesis” to be James Buchanan Barnes; you truly hadn’t. But you had been so excited and ready to dive headfirst into your stale project with new sources and materials, that when your professor had proposed that you take on a living subject of your own theoretical hypothesis, you had not wasted a minute. You had packed your already-packed life in London and embarked on the first flight to the United States. Then James’ name had surfaced, and it had been such an innocuous name, such a common one, so common you had not suspected anything at all, still giddy at the idea of being able to assist a psychiatrist (or perhaps even an équipe) on such a delicate and rare case. Then the first red flag had shown its ugly head in the form of the metal detectors, then the countless controls had come, until the whole situation had escalated to finding out there was no psychiatrist. None at all, it was just you, your half-assed thesis and a serial killer. No. An Assassin, one raised to be deadly. The more you think of it, the more you can’t wrap your head around the whole situation, the more you can’t, the more it’s painfully plain he is the perfect subject, but… but not like this! Not in the most unsafe conditions ever. «Well, of course except some very bold HYDRA agent not-so-well under cover.» The colonel’s voice snaps you back to reality. «Come again?» Now that was dumb.

«Listen, I understand this is a lot,» A lot? This is a whole mess, one you can’t really grip your fingers onto. He had been the most wanted man alive, the whole world had had their eyes on him, looking for him in every corner, nations had looked for his face in every man with icy eyes and yet here you stand, the only one that had shown interest in him after his capture. Impossible, something is deeply wrong here, and you have no idea how to address such a thing to the very stern, very tall man in uniform. «but the facts are these. You can either accept the job or leave, I’m not wasting any more time with this.» With what, the safety of a civilian? The containment of a rogue agent, a terrorist? Are you even there to assist? Are you supposed to help him? Rehabilitate him? It’s clear you are not there only to observe as you had originally intended; the colonel must want you to do something, but what? What should you be doing with a man reclused behind a glass cage with walls as thick as forearms? Red flags, so many red flags. «Listen, kid, you said you were studying the root of evil or something something, the congress just wants him condemned and behind bars permanently, hell, if it were for me, he should be shot in the head but I don’t make the rules, do you want to do it or not?» What? No, actually: what. the. fuck.

«I am no judge, sir.» «Well, colour me shocked, I would have pegged you for one. No shit, kid, but he will be in front of one soon enough, do you think you can bring an evaluation with him in court or should I sent him with none at all. I’m fine with both.»

So that’s what he wants. There is no way in hell people who care about him know about this, you must tell Mr Rogers, he had gutted his whole career from the inside out for the man in that cage, he must be unaware of all this. Perhaps if you accepted, if you could contact him before the audience, you could save a broken man from a terrible destiny. Your thesis be fucked, in here you are discussing a human being. You know shit will go south if you go and snitch to Captain America but the man is not easily dismissible, still being the national hero and all that jazz, even after the whole fugitive debacle, perhaps he could protect you, if worst would come to worst you could ask him for help protecting you. What if he was dead, though? God, maybe he was, and you would end up stuck with a killing machine and a whole country, if not multiples, after you. For what? A life you are not so sure is definable as such? No, hell, what would your Ethics professor think of you if she could hear you now? You cannot go down that rabbit hole in this situation. Barnes is a man, a living, breathing man. You cannot let him rot in a cage without any help at all. Alone in the world. God, is this how you find out about Captain America’s death? Is he dead? Is that why he’s not here fending for his best friend’s life instead of you? «He’s growing restless.» What? Your dumb face must have spoken louder about your own thoughts than your lodged words still stuck in your throat.  «He knows someone is coming, they told him, he hasn’t peeled his eyes from your spot since we entered.» That’s true, horrifyingly true. And perhaps more abhorrent than the knowledge is the fact you hadn’t even noticed. «Aren’t we behind a one-way mirror?» The colonel laughs dryly, he must be a heavy smoker, nothing else could replicate the gruff quality of his tone. «Hell, the freak could see through walls for all I know.» This is so fishy. You can feel it deep in your bones. And yet you find yourself nodding. «I— I’ll think about this.» «Don’t think too hard, I’m giving you fifteen minutes. Then you either enter there or you get out.» 

>> ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 2

Ao3 Link Wattpad Link

Divider from @strangergraphics (this one)

[moth-mortuary]

𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕎𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕊𝕠𝕝𝕕𝕚𝕖𝕣 𝕄𝕒𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕝𝕚𝕤𝕥

𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔻𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕝 ℝ𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕤 𝔹𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕞

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6 [Coming soon]

ONGOING [12.610 Words]

Ao3 Wattpad [NOT ALWAYS UP TO DATE]

⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡ 「𝐵❁𝓃𝓊𝓈!」 ♡ ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و -Notion Page -Wattpad Cover

Divider from @strangergraphics (this one)

[moth-mortuary]

ℭ𝔞𝔯𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔩𝔢 ℭ𝔲𝔩𝔩𝔢𝔫 𝔐𝔞𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱

𝔏𝔞 𝔳𝔢𝔯𝔤𝔦𝔫𝔢 𝔡𝔦 𝔑𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔤𝔞

Prologue: La Vergine di Norimberga

Chapter 1: The Loop That Never Breaks

Chapter 2: Bite the hand that feeds me

Chapter 3: Look for the truth in the back of your hand

Chapter 4: I saw the devil in my front yard

Chapter 5: Say my name like a slur

Chapter 6: For a daughter who bites her words

Chapter 7:

ONGOING [17.785 Words]

Ao3 WATTPAD [NOT ALWAYS UP TO DATE]

[moth-mortuary]

𝔐𝔞𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱

Hello, hello! And welcome you all.

My name is Moth. There is not much about me except the fact that I write a bit when the Ao3 curse doesn't strike, and I always start projects way too big for the little time I have at hand. Feel free to message me and chat!

Ao3 Wattpad

x Reader

└➣ 「 ♱ Carlisle Cullen ♱ 」 (English) ➣ 「 ✪ The Winter Soldier ✪ 」 (English) ➣ 「 ⛓ Shōta Aizawa ⛓ 」 (English) [coming soon] ➣ 「 ☏ Kento Nanami ☏」 (English) [coming soon] ➣ 「 ▬ι═ﺤ Leon S. Kennedy 」 (English) [coming soon]

Fanfiction

└➣ 「 ❤︎ Simone Balestra x Mimmo Bruni ❤︎ 」 (italiano)

Divider by: @olenvasynyt

[moth-mortuary]

What do you say? You don't care about my very aesthetic Notion page on my new Winter Soldier Fanfiction? Ah! How silly of you. Here, have it.

Dividers are both from @strangergraphics the grey one and the red one, but @firefly-graphics also has a very pretty red one that I used inside the HUBs (this one)

Images from Pinterest: -The banner -Hydra Icon -Psychohazard -The Winter Soldier Character Cover -"Who the hell is Bucky?" Banner -Info dump Cover -Mechanical arm -Bloodied CD -"MAY WE MEET AGAIN"

The only exception is for the cover on the "manuscript", but I genuinely cannot find the source. I had it downloaded. Here it is if you want it. ↓

[moth-mortuary]

𝔏𝔞 𝔳𝔢𝔯𝔤𝔦𝔫𝔢 𝔡𝔦 𝔑𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔤𝔞

Rating: Mature Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Category: F/M Fandom: Twilight Series - All Media Types Relationships: Carlisle Cullen/Original Female Character(s), Carlisle Cullen/Reader Part: 4/? Language: English

♱ Masterlist ♱

Chapter 3: Look for the truth in the back of your hand

You are one. A damned thief to be clear, at least you will be to the eyes of your boss when he’ll watch back on those CCTVs he insists on keep rolling tape after tape in the kitchen of the dimly lit bar.  And you are pissed, so fucking pissed, and for once in your life you feel like all of this is completely, utterly, useless. That nothing you do means anything at all, only another violent child raised in a violent environment that will end up digging their own grave in the same place they were born, digging their heels in a dirt that birthed you and will host your departure. For the first time in a long while, you feel like you could not possibly get out of the mess your entire existence is. And it is not only a low buzz, softly feeding you words of desperation directly into your ears, it’s a fact. Nothing more, nothing less. You just know you will not see your thirties.

The frozen meat you had not paid for stings against your cheek. It drips blood in the sack it has been stored in. Melted ice and droplets of crimson red.

Everything hurts. Who are you kidding? You were never a hitter; you were not born for this, you are nothing but a kid who has learned to take life face-first. 

You wish to scream, yell at the empty space in the back alley you had sought solace in, and funnily enough, as if to mock your own sentiment, you had wished for your clenched fist to hit someone. To just feel the knuckles shift underneath your stretched skin, stretched too thin, too frail to absorb the impact of yet another punch, yet another hit, yet another outburst of violence.

You were not born a violent creature, the fact you are so damned good at pretending you were only makes for a more spectacular fall.

You wish for a cigarette, in a half-assed analogy between candles on a cake and rolled pillars of tobacco in between your teeth, you have not the mind to dismantle. You just wish for your body to cease any functions and just shut down.

So you smoke. Because what else are you supposed to do in times like this?

Your name is barely a whisper, a whisper from a voice you have learn to associate with annoyance. Tonight, you associate it with pure hatred. It just rubs you the wrong way after what you have had to endure, what you have had to pay for that very same voice to run rampant and carelessly to the wrong crowd.

«Get the fuck away, girl.» Lauren lingers on the steps of the back entrance, light coming from the kitchen casting her lithe frame in a soft glow that makes her the prettiest thing this town has seen in a very long time. Silence stretches, uncomfortable and charged with all the pent-up energy you had not had the opportunity to release. You feel deflated and ready to strike all together, a loaded gun jammed with a single shot in its chamber. A single bullet that could misfire at any moment.

«…I’m sorry.» A grunt, you seriously cannot afford anything else right now, or you would snap.

It’s not her fault; she’s a kid, a privileged kid who had had her life fed to her on silver spoons, never watching her tone, her words or the way her eyes linger unashamedly on the eyes of others. But you truly cannot blame her if, given the opportunity, you would have traded your right hand for your siblings to have lived the life she had lived.

It’s okay, you can pretend it’s your fault, you can think it’s not like you to be that sloppy. It’s your fault for biting more than you could chew. It’s alright. You work, you care for your kids, you hit, you rinse what you can rinse out of your soul, then you repeat.

If you get hit in the process, is your own fault.

You work your jaw a few times, it still opens wide, even if with an ominous creak. You truly do not wish for your Hospital visits to be a recurring event.

Mallory’s girl lingers on the steps of the door, she looks sorry enough for you to forgive her; enough for your voice to soften, for your fists to unclench and your vision to lose the red tint that had fallen over it. «Get inside, kid, you’ll catch your death in this cold.» None of you two will address the fact that you are wearing the same attire, she wouldn’t dare and you cannot be bothered to smooth out the creases of your own hypocrisy. «Okay…»

The house is silent, the clock ticks in its quadrant, life passes you through painfully slow. The unsorted mail on the kitchen table waits for you almost menacingly, another wall between you and your bed.

Two hundred and thirteen bucks for an MRI feels like a scam, but you google the damned thing on your loud pc and when the sum 12.000 comes up your throat does a chocked sound just higher that the fan on your computer and you shut your damned trap right away. Two-thirteen it is. You write a check, you lick the envelope shut, and keep sifting through unread mail and expired subscriptions. The night gets thicker, and by the time you wake up to the sound of screams, your back aches and your face has taken the shape of the piles of mail you had dozed off over. You take a deep breath. One, two, three, okay. Let’s go.

«Get the fuck out Frank.» you duck, evading a poorly calculated slap given backward and only vaguely in your direction. He stinks of booze. «Come on, old man. Don’t you have a bar to raid? It’s my day off.» That does the trick, in a minute he’s out and about of the house, wobbly steps carrying him into the fog. Today is another foggy and sad day. «Aight kiddos. Food, clothes, school; chop chop.

Your car smells distinctively of Frank and it takes you the entirety of the trip to your siblings’ school and almost back to town to understand what exactly reeks of it. You. Yesterday night had been a mess, shame on you, truly, for having tried with words first instead of your closed fists straight away. You had been easy to spot, “the bitch that cannot mind her own damned business” sounded about right, a couple of drunken had commented on Lauren’s too-short-short-shorts, she had amped up her bitchiness, a man had stood and you, stupidly, had tried to calm things down without ending up with scabbed knuckles and a very unimpressed Charlie staring you down from his desk at the police station. Instead, you had ended up bruised and wounded in your pride, spilt beer seeping through the folds of your ratty clothes. And perhaps it was precisely because Charlie had been sitting in your section, sipping his beer and occasionally eyeing you over the rim of his glass, that you had not tried violence first. A punch on your cheek, one on your stomach, then the bouncers had taken care of the dudes, your hands had itched and Charlie had not been able to finish his beer. Your fists had met no skin at all, and the thirst for vengeance had rotted in your mouth. Sour and useless.

You smell like Frank. Spilt beer and festering anger.

You hastily park to the side of the main road, you need a moment to recollect yourself. The similitude has you almost gagging, you hate every moment of the mental images that your sadistic brain provides. You are nothing like your father, and it means nothing that you have his eyes. Your breath quickens, you feel three times bigger than your skin, the crack on your skull aches dully, has it always throbbed this way? You feel like the air inside the cabin has suddenly vanished, your lungs twitch painfully. You feel like your father.

A couple of sharp raps over your window have you jump in the air. You hit the horn, and the quick jab of the loud sound makes your heart stumble out of the quick peace it had started, fear literally jumpstarts you back into motion. Your head snaps to the window, eyes meeting the pale fabric of a well known button-up. «Is everything alright, Miss Moore?» his voice hits you, once you finally lose the debate whether it would not be too rude to simply engage first gear and drive away.

The cold breeze swishes over your skin and seeps into your damp hair from the rolled-down window, sweat dripping down your nape, uncomfortable and icy, tangling your locks even more. Winter is still clutching at its last straws; it will be spring soon, not that it would make a difference. Today, you don’t really feel like hoping.

You seize your own sanity by the neck and with both hands, forcing something, anything, out of your mouth. «Isn’t that a cop question?»

A perfect line of pearly teeth almost blinds you, crinkled eyes. Tepid, not warm, as if no warmth had reached them at all. «Will you give me a criminal's answer?» You scoff, the doctor looks relaxed, you weirdly feel so too, even if something still lingers in the back of your mind, a survival instinct that is being forcibly pushed down. «Me and my two kilos of cocaine in the back seat are fine, officer.» The joke tumbles out of your mouth so easily, so weirdly. Since when are you this open? So easy-going and friendly. It almost concerns you, it feels old and disused, something you used to be but have not been in a very long time. It tastes bitter.

At this, he laughs, perfectly controlled and dosed, it almost feels fabricated, untrue. As if he had administered his reaction drop for drop. Cold. Devoid. Something thrashes inside you, you don’t feel safe at all, and yet something forces you to lean on it, to shove your gut feelings down, down, down. «Do you need a lift?» The words blur out of your mouth without a reason to exist. In the nervousness that keeps you pinned by the throat you feel charged. This time, the confused look feels genuine; something calms in the back of your mind and your guts untangle from themself. You feel like you can finally breathe again. «I—I couldn’t possibly ask—» «You aren’t. I’m offering, for— for the face and all…» mumbles, mumbles one after the other, you don’t feel in control of yourself, you still fake it. «Then, I mustn’t say no.»

«I must ask, though. Are you in a condition to drive?» What? Oh. Yeah, you reek of alcohol. «Didn’t drink, some douchebag spilt his beer on me some hours ago, I didn't swallow a drop.» you vaguely gesture to yourself, hand hitting the steering wheel while reconnecting to its sister on the outer rim of the leather. You slouch in your seat, almost defeated-looking. «Sorry ‘bout that.» Doctor Cullen shakes his head of neatly combed hair, not a single lock out of place, and straightens back. «Don’t be.» his hand stays on your rolled-down window, he’s impressively tall, you notice it almost by mistake now that you can no longer see eyes to eyes with him. «Are you needed at the hospital?» you crank your head, the cold sun of the wintertime blinding you for a second. Doctor Cullen feels incredibly still, as if he’s not even breathing, your eyes burn from strain, your back aches, and you just want a way out of your own head, no matter if it has presented itself in the uncanny figure of Forks’ best surgeon/doctor. «Yes, thank you, Miss.» His hand pats the juncture between the interior of your car and the paintwork, he rounds your car and enters the passenger seat.

«Long night then?» he asks once inside and seated, gently putting his briefcase at his feet. Your car is squeaky clean, thanks god, but it’s still a very old model, almost vintage if one squints their eyes and doesn’t think about it too much. You feel like Dr. Cullen must own a very expensive, very new car, but you simply swallow the thought and, engaging second gear, you drive away, the engine of your car, strangely enough, purring under your fingers «One could say so, surely not harder than yours if you did night shift.» You grunt, eyes locked on the icy street, once again not understanding why you are feeling so uncomfortably at ease with the doctor. «I wouldn’t be so sure, Forks is a very small town, not a lot of people need my assistance during the wee hours of the night. Not unless somebody sent them to me.» The implication is there, only this time it’s almost playful; you snort a laugh out of your deviated septum, clearly feeling how one nostril can breathe better than the other. «I didn’t do anything this time.» It’s not defensive at all, you are not biting, not growling in warning. You are nothing but a big dog quietly sleeping on the porch steps. You shift and slip into the next gear, «Forks’ easy to manage.» He hums, you aren’t even sure he understood what you meant by that, but you cannot actually explain what you meant, so you simply let it slip. Silence falls comfortably and only slightly tinted by the fear that had you checking your rearview mirror multiple times the first one the two of you interacted.

The measly traffic passes one car at a time. You fully expect him to stay silent. He doesn’t. «We do have an awful infestation of violent cupboards, though. Terribly bothersome.» You stop at a red light and prop an elbow over the still-open window, supporting your head and turning toward him almost fully. Something tugs at your lips, it feels so weirdly out of place and unexplainable.  He’s staring at you intently, eyes scanning your face as if able to diagnose you in a single glance. «I have no chance of convincing you to stop by and let me examine you, do I?»

You feel some control slipping back into your hand, and yet it almost pains you to say that. «You’re outta luck, doc.» The light turns green, you palm the steering wheel into a sharp curve, and the hospital comes into view.

You park without putting too much care into the positioning of your car; you won’t stay long. Doctor Cullen sighs defeated, you fetch a cigarette out of the pocket of your jacket, but you wait to light it.  You are gruff, not rude. «Carlisle.» «Wha—» «My name. Use it, it’s not proper to call one by their profession.»

He’s outside of your car and almost lingering at your side when, in an exhale of smoke, you tell him yours.

«I’m used to being called bartender, but if you want to get all up in my business, knock yourself out.» Your hand fall out of the window, your cigarette dangles dangerously from your chapped lips, the hazard lights blink idly at your ex-passenger; he stares at you, once again perfectly still, infuriatingly handsome, in control.

You feel the childish urge to do something stupid and petty, you haven’t felt petty in a long time. So you wink. Playful and mischievous, looking straight at him. And drive out of the parking lot in one swift manoeuvre.

⚜ ℭ𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝟜

AO3 link WATTPAD link

[moth-mortuary]

𝔏𝔞 𝔳𝔢𝔯𝔤𝔦𝔫𝔢 𝔡𝔦 𝔑𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔤𝔞

Rating: Mature Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Category: F/M Fandom: Twilight Series - All Media Types Relationships: Carlisle Cullen/Original Female Character(s), Carlisle Cullen/Reader Part: 3/? Language: English

♱ Masterlist ♱

TW: Graphic description of the setting back of broken bones, medical malpractice and some general body horror. (mild suggestive content at the end.)

Chapter 2: Bite the hand that feeds me

Why are you biting? Why are you biting? He’s nice. Even if gruff and curt, he’s nice. He had always been, if not polite at least caring.

Chief Swan had been a client for a long time, well before you turned eighteen, well before you had been able to handle the bottle without thinking “This is it, I’m going back to juvie.” You are not sure any judge would have put you in juvie for underage alcohol handling, but even if you had worried about that, Chief Swan had simply closed an eye. Every time. You were sixteen back then, broke and a drop-out. A complete failure. And Chief Swan had simply sat at your counter, without peeking into your ratty neckline, without inquiring about your age, ordering a beer and leaving you with a fat tip. He had been a good man to you. He had been sweet until you had stopped worrying about your age, and after that, he had been the same still, same long silences, same shared hums of acknowledgement.

Then why. are. you. biting.

«I did nothing a bouncer wouldn’t have done.» You almost growl that, the adrenaline of knowing that your sister had been hurt still pumping into your veins. «But you are not the bouncer there. You cracked his skull for god’s sake!» Good, the fucker had deserved that, another one of your father’s species, hurting little girls until they had them crying, panicked and writhing in their grasp. You had wished to do more damage; the side of your head still throbs if you lean on your right side, but the bouncer had stopped you after the door had broken, your knuckles bloody and your nose leaking blood and snot.

You know he’s high on the same toxic misture you are on, his daughter Bella sitting on the neighbouring bed, right beside your sister. You know he’s using your absence from the police department as antistress, something to keep his mind from thinking of what could have happened. And you would be more than willing to oblige, to indulge in that little sketch of “I couldn't come to give my assessment, Chief; I’m so sorry I had to work double.” if you only hadn’t been as scared as he is.

«Get off of my dick Chief, I was more preoccupied for the girl.»

The door to the hospital had recited “PULL” when you had pushed it, same as a few days ago, when at your side it has been the boss’ daughter, now alone and panicked. There had been a small crowd in the hall, students. You had zigzagged in between them, shoving some of the healthy looking ones out of your way.

Chief Swan could not have been less obvious, his questioning gaze lingering over your figure as you had looked over your sister over and over again. «But are you hurt?» you asked, yet another time, anxiety twisting its uncomfortable fingers into your guts. He had had the decorum of waiting for you to at least calm down from your panicked state; he had waited for you to finish kissing your sister’s head over and over and over, eyes glossy and sweaty hands running over the cheeks of the sweet girl in front of you.

Bella had been silent at your side, you had only registered her presence after a bit, a quiet kid all through and through. Then Chief Swan had taken your biceps into his grasp, not uncaring but with that scolding gaze you had been at the end of far too many times in your life.

After juvie, most had left you alone. Few still picked fights with you, but Mr.Swan had somehow decided you had then became his problem to look after, and even if his watchful eye had not been invasive, you had missed the times you had only been another high school dropout lingering in Forks looking for trouble.

«Do you mind telling me what the hell happened, young lady?» You had forgotten about that nickname, that patronizing way of calling you as if you weren't well over twenty-one, closer to twenty-six than eighteen. You had not been a “young lady” for a while now, not that it had mattered to the Chief. «Dude’s got too comfortable with the boss’ daughter.» You had grunt, jerking your arm free and giving the man a dirty look. «And you headbutted him for that?» Comfortable might not have been the right word then.

Charlie pesters you a little while longer. Luckily enough, the man of the moment decide to interrupt your little rendezvous with your old parole supervisor right then.

Doctor Cullen had not misread the door verse, although you don’t think the inside ones work one way. He had entered, all charisma and bright smile, a ray of sunshine in the artificially lit room. You guts had twisted, old sensation creeping up your spine. He had said something funny and enchanting to the Swan duo, shining a light in the girl’s eyes. You flew a few steps to the side, curling into a question mark at your sister’s side.

«Back so soon, Miss Moore?» You’ll spare him a very unsmart pun on your last name, you swallow the urge to tell him to call you differently, by your name, by your mother’s surname, anything else other than your father’s. You swallow it down, a gurgling want that almost makes you gag. «Don’t worry, I won’t make it a habit.»  Biting, always biting. «You won’t pay for this visit either, I assume?»

No, no, of course you will. You fix him a stare, mumbling under your breath: «I will.»

If you were embarrassed by your attitude before, you are mortified now, not that you can let him know that, apologizes you will probably take to your grave.

At this rate you will need a container to put you in the ground, something colossal to keep all the things you had wished to say inside your own place of eternal slumber. «Is she okay?» The doctor looks over your sister a couple of times, doing all sorts of tests you have no idea how to describe. «Overall, yes, but one of her pupils is slightly bigger, so I would like to get an MRI on her head in case something serious is going on.» You nod; it’s not like you can do much more, for how much doctor Cullen freaks you the fuck out, you believe his expertise, you have to. «I’ll have Jackie helping her to the room.» he declares, flagging down a sweet looking nurse, at least in her sixties. You help the old lady get your sister into a wheelchair, unnerved by the unmoving presence behind you. Doctors were always in a hurry in the TV series you had watched with your sisters ages ago, sitting in front of the CRT TV, summer heating your naked legs and sweaty palms, always spending only a handful of minutes per patient, never glancing back twice. But Doctor Cullen doesn’t seem to be in a rush, hand hidden into the square pocket of his coat. Waiting, watching. Anna gets wheeled out of the room, you vaguely register that Bella and Charlie are not in the room anymore; you are too focused on following your sister’s path. You wish to follow her, but Doctor Cullen stops you, swiftly getting in between you and the back of the nurse’s body, polished shoes and pressed pants over his long leg invading your space and almost making you bump into him. «What happened to your face?»

You had almost forgotten about that, not that it had been easy; every meal that had needed a bit of chewing had hurt, the bones under your cheeks shifting unnaturally. «I dunno, cupboard left open—» you mumble, trying to look over his broad shoulders, looking for your sister in the window of the closing door, the nurse so fast in wheeling her to the elevator. «She will be fine. You have a fractured Zygomatic bone.» Doctor Cullen’s hands are on your face before you can even register them beginning to move. You wish for your body to step aside, to put distance in between your bodies, but for some reason, you can’t. His fingertips are icy cold, so cold you even ask yourself if he shouldn't be the one getting checked out, but he’s terrifyingly precise. Gently prodding where the pain had been the sharpest, a soft hiss escapes your lips. «Right where it meets the Maxilla, a very common fracture. Not something a cupboard could do, unless this cupboard had fists to use.» You feel like a kid caught red-handed, an uncomfortable sensation you had not felt in a very long time. You feel six, scraped knees and swearing it wasn’t you who had broken the living room window. «I’m fine. I won’t pay for this—» «You can’t open your mouth fully, can’t you?»

No, you can’t. And it irks you to no end the fact he’s able to tell. «No.»

His smile is sweet, so sweet it sickens you. «I can’t let you go around like this. I’d be a horrible doctor.» He can, he should, and he will. «Listen here—» «If I don’t give you any pain killers, it’s for free.» Now that is a deal. You look at him from under your lashes, one eyebrow raised, the other scrunched. You’re pretty sure he had just offered you something quite illegal, but since you and Doctor (creeply) handsome seem to be the only two left in the room, you are not quite sure you are willing to pass the opportunity up. It does hurt like hell.

«Alright, doc, I won’t go under your knife fully concious—» Wrong. «Oh no, god no. —An airy laughs leave his lips, as if you had just said the silliest thing in the world— No, no, I can set it back right here and now, no instruments needed.» You furrow your brows, a bit embarrassed by the reprise. «With what?» «My hands. It’s quite easy, to be fair. The two bones had just shifted on the crack already present by birth, when the bones in your head had fused together.» It seems legit to you; your older sister had had her broken arm set right back into place when you were seven, in the hospital where now Mr.Cullen had planted roots, the cast flashy with signatures but her creamy skin unscarred by any scalpel. «Aight, what should I do?» You are sure something behind Doctor Cullen’s eyes had shimmered, a flash of something you honestly cannot put your fingers onto. «Open wide.»

Weirdo, but you guess he’s only interested in seeing how much you are struggling in working your jaw.

Wrong again. Two fingers plunge into your mouth, scarily precise, as a fingertip brushes over the inside of your mouth, tickling your palate, and another feels the ridges of your teeth from the back. You only have the time of widening your eyes, you would have recoiled, shrugged your face to free yourself from the intrusion but you can only widen your eyes before an inhuman pressure taps your bones from the inside-out. Your jaw shifts out of place; something right under your eyesocket pops loudly. Then your jaw gets back right where it’s supposed to be. You think you’ll scream, pain so loud and sharp, but the fingers still inside your mouth prevent you from doing so. You bite down on them, on a whim, probably for childish reasons, petty as tears sting your vision blurry and white, the single-minded thought of taking down your tormentor with you. The dull ache in your skull lifts, a pressure you had felt for days shifts into a sharp pain than vanishes.

Doctor Cullen is a weirdo, but he surely knows what he’s doing. You clutch to him, steeling yourself, muffled whimpers escaping your mouth as hot globs of tears run down your cheeks, mouth full of a stranger’s flesh and thick spit. Surprisingly, he shifts closer until your forehead presses into his shoulder, rubbing your back in circular motions, his only free hand moving up and down your spine. «There there, I know, I’m sorry. You’ll feel way better now.» He’s treating you like a child, god, he’s treating you like a child, and it’s doing things to your psyche. «Can I take my fingers out?» Shit. You had been biting down.

This feels wrong, Doctor Cullen chatters lightly and breezily as if his fingers had not been deep into your mouth minutes ago. Your sister had got out of the machine just now, the blond man explaining to her with a slightly higher pitched voice that she’s part of the 20% of the people on the planet that naturally have a slightly bigger pupil. You can’t follow any of his talking, you have gotten your answer “your sister is perfectly fine” then you had turned off your brain, a slight buzz ringing in your ears.

«Like David Bowie?» Anna’s voice pulls you out of your embarrassed trance, «Precisely like David Bowie.» the doctor confirms, a soft smile still parting his lips.

«Cool…» You hate that he’s so calm, so good at getting along with everyone, even your closed off sister, even you. Because you had felt good. In his presence, alone with a man who had been the epitome of the type of men you do not trust. You wish to flee, to go back to your usual routine of never setting foot in hospitals, to never trust men dressed in button-ups and never letting anyone touch you.

You pay for your sister’s MRI, well you give your insurance details to the receptionist, fumbling over words so basic you are the one looking concussed. «It’s March. I suggest you take advantage of the soup season for the next six weeks or so; facial bones are not easy to keep in place.» He says nonchalantly. Bidding you goodbye at the front desk. You flee the hospital halls like a fucking theif.

⚜ ℭ𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝟛

AO3 link WATTPAD link

[moth-mortuary]

𝔏𝔞 𝔳𝔢𝔯𝔤𝔦𝔫𝔢 𝔡𝔦 𝔑𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔤𝔞

Rating: Mature Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Category: F/M Fandom: Twilight Series - All Media Types Relationships: Carlisle Cullen/Original Female Character(s), Carlisle Cullen/Reader Part: 2/? Language: English

♱ Masterlist ♱

Chapter 1: The Loop That Never Breaks

Unfortunately, you will die a very stressed woman.

The bangs from the kitchen and the angry screams of your brother wake you up from your slumber way too soon for your liking. You are out of bed in an instant, bare feet slapping the wooden floor of your house. «Stop! Stop, get the fuck out, Frank!» you yell, voice low and dangerous overpowering the whimpers of your sister’s cries. You throw yourself at your father’s back, hand stilling his raised fist by the wrist. You have done it a thousand times, and you are sure you will need to do it a thousand times more. In fact, you may even say you are genuinely baffled on why down at Mallory’s bar you had not yet been promoted bouncer, playing it safe and relying on the visual intimidation Philip had provided.

You twist your hand, pinning the drunken man to the nearby wall and darting a cautious eye to your brother. A little roughed up but nothing major. «Get in the truck Frank, you’re late for work.» You don’t even listen to his protests, his ‘slut’ and ‘cunt’ thrown your way in that slurred voice you recognize as hungover. You simply fist your free hand into the clothes at his nape and roughly shuffle him out of the house, the cold bite of winter stinging your bare feet and legs, wardrobe choices clearly unhappy. Anna follows you with his coat clutched in her grasp, throwing the old sack in the back of his truck. «Get the fuck out of here Frank, and stop pestering the kid, you’re a grown-ass man.»

You don’t believe your own affirmation, not even a bit, but you throw it his way nonetheless, eyes stinging in the biting cold. You shove Anna back, urging her to get back in the house in case of a replica of the last time you sent Frank driving while hungover, not particularly inclined to dodge his sluggish attempt at hitting you with the car. But Frank simply shows you the middle finger from his car window, scraping the side of your own car while reversing in the driveway.

You are not ready for another day at the bar, for yet another day of your miserable life, that much you came to as a conclusion while looking at Frank’s truck swinging its way up the hill and into the road.

When you enter back into the house Nik is sitting at the kitchen counter, eyes glued to his bowl of cereals and expression guilty.

He’s growing restless, too damn ready to follow your example and throw himself into fights he knows he shouldn’t be picking. «Stop that.» You know it’s a green light, an “all clear” for him to snap into motion and unload his frustration onto you, but you let him have it, you let him do it. It’s for his own good, «He started it!» he yells, eyebrows pinched together, «Of course he did, he’s Frank.» you retort, slapping a hand over your unwashed face, bits of sleep still stuck on your face. You’re tired, god you are. Always awaken by the first yell of the day and never your alarm, always the bouncer in your own goddamned house.

Nik yells at you, not directly at you but he does it to your face regardless. Cussing Frank out and cursing at nothing in particular, in no particular order; in circles. 

You are raising a miniature version of yourself and you don’t know how to feel about that, you hate the idea, you hate the growing suspicion he will end up exactly where you did, never going further than what life had dealt you. You let him yell his lungs dry, leaning over the stove and using one of the burners to light a cigarette. When he’s finally done you simply pat his head, fresh cut as cute as the old mop he was sporting before. «You need to stop that, please.» You don’t know what you are referring to, what you are begging him for, perhaps to stop picking fights with Frank, to yell his throat hoarse or to stop idolising you and your fucked-up way of dealing with emotions. You truly don’t know and you surely don’t expect him to do either. You simply beg him not to. And that is all you are truly willing to ask him for.

The alarm in your room goes off, it’s seven thirty in the morning. «Go get dressed Nik, I need to drive you to school, you too Anna, did you eat anything at all?» Anna shakes her head, golden locks bouncing around her face, murmuring something you don’t quite catch. Your brother jumps down of his stool, footsteps heavy with disappointment. «I can’t hear you, love.» the pet name wiggles its way out of your mouth with the same devotion it would hold if pronounced by the lips of a mother, hand cupping your sister’s shoulder in a calming gesture. «I haven't, Frank was patrolling the kitchen when I woke up.»

You wash her an apple, and put on the first slightly cleaner things lying on the floor of your room, shoving inside your backpack your phone, your wallet and the car keys.

You wish them both a very happy first day of school, fishing your wallet out of the sack and handing both of them a handful of crimped bills for lunch. You watch them enter, eyes following their frames until they too disappear into the crowd of faceless kids.

Work awaits you like every other day, a schedule you have yet to memorize and a dozen clients lingering in their boots for the entire day. Your father had hated you when you had started working at Mallory’s, plates had been thrown, knives had been pointed and swirled in the tense air in the cramped kitchen as if to cut the tension radiating from you two.

He had hated you for taking that away from him, and you had relished in the feeling, smile wide and all bloodied-up, he had broken your nose then, with a single quick jab directed at your face, and it had never sat back correctly after, the ridges of poorly sealed bones still palpable under tense skin. But you had laughed, hard and raspy, gurgling thick blood in the back of your throat. That had been the most glorious day of your life, the day you had finally taken something away from him, something he had cared for and wanted.

The crowd gets thicker and thicker with the ticking of the clock, and by the time the second bouncer gets into the warm room, you are already spinning on your heels left and right to satisfy every customer. You had truly disliked Lauren Mallory but the help had been nice, true, she was not supposed to handle alcohol, only serving foods and virgin drinks —not that you had not been underage when you had started working there yourself, but being the daughter of the owners had put her somewhere on a silver pedestal she had made sure to let you know she was standing on from the very get going.

You had despised her sour attitude, the saccharine tone and incessant chatting, you had, but you had also held her bouncing leg while waiting for Doctor Cullen in the ER hall.

She broke nothing, nose foxy and perfect. You used to have that type too, a long time ago, perhaps so long you are unsure if anything had happened you would have not still ended up with a different one after puberty. But you had broken it several times over the years, a miracle you had still been able to breathe out of it so you don’t dwell on what could have been.

The evening had dragged into the night, you had punched in your extra hours and served more drinks, the promise of a thicker paycheck dangling over your head like a carrot on a donkey's back and by the time you had once again dared the night hour for a cigarette break everything in your body had ached.

The house you go back to is silent and dark, asleep. You park your car in the driveway, killing the engine right as it was getting warm. Your father’s truck is in there too, an old animal on its last leg. Another day under your belt, another day you can say you had survived. You climb the steps to your porch with tired legs, one after the other, it will be morning soon, not that it will physically show in this weather, but you take it into consideration nonetheless.

You check on Anna, creaking the door open and tiptoeing your way to her bed. It makes your heart bleed to yank her from her slumber but you simply need to be sure you can close your eyes too. «Any problem?» She murmurs, not deep enough in her sleep to not hear you. «No, he was mad you had made him leave early but he had kept to himself.» you nod, humming a tune so short-lived she’ll take it as approval. «First day was cool, there is a new girl in the year below mine.» The chuckle that slips past your lips is soft and short, Anna too eager to tell you things to simply go back to her dreams. «That’s good, did you two talk?» She shakes her head no, lolling her neck right and left. «No, I think she’s shy.» «Perfect for you.» She smiles, like a sun, blond hair splayed over her pillow in a stunningly similar imaginary. You kiss her forehead, lightly and devotedly. «Sleep now.»

You throw a glance inside Nik’s room too, just to be sure, just to not regret anything come morning as the lump of sheets making up the silhouette of your sleeping brother slowly rise and fall.

Finally, your bed is cool and comforting, there waiting for you with open arms as you fall into its embrace and drift your eyes close. Your head stops spinning but you had not noticed when it had started so it’s fine either way.

. . .  «You bunch of fucking cunts!» Your eyes dart open and you could swear you had just closed them.

But none of your siblings is screaming so you give yourself the luxury of slowly peeling yourself from the mattress.  This house is a nightmare.

«Stop yelling Frank, it’s too early-» Your breath gets choked, a dying remark perishing in your throat. He is not drunk. «There you are, tough girl.» yep, it’s gonna get bloody.

All in all, you would make a great pitfighter, you are smart, quick, and precise. You have been told you have the very special talent of always hitting twice where it hurts the most, where thin meat stretches over ridges and bones. You rarely take compliments at heart but you did it with that one. You also fight dirty, no one could say otherwise, especially after watching you plunge your sharp nails in your father’s arm and twist. You make a better street fighter. With your dirty blows and your quick wit.

You still end up with a split lip and a black eye, the bone under your cheek cracking disturbingly every time you chew, but you manage to drag him out of the house regardless.

One day he’ll get fed up with your shit, one day he’ll enter the house with his rifle hugged in his arms like he had never cradled his own children and he will put a bullet in between your eyes. You are actually counting on it, but Frank is a coward, both sober and drunk. So you watch him dare the road by feet, insults splattered out of his bleeding lips, limping like a wounded dog, and you —the dog beater, should not be feeling the remorse gripping its sticky fingers in the lump at the back of your throat. But you do, and it makes you want to rip your skin off.

One day, one day you will grow wings, painfully and horribly, and you will take flight in the middle of the night. And there will be no family holding you back, no ties at all; and you will just fly north, until the sun will finally meet the horizon. And you will fly straight into it combusting on impact.

You kiss them both good day, you work your back off, you come back to a Frank-less house, you cook, you wash, you repeat. You wake up at screams, you repeat. You repeat. You repeat.

. . . The phone in your pocket rings at the most inconvenient time, you don’t exactly have hands to spare to fish for it with a tray balanced in your grasp and the wet towel slowly slipping down your shoulder.

«Hello?» the silence behind the clamshell makes you fear you have not been fast enough, but as you begin to move it away from your ear a slight intake of air breaks the static and a voice erupts. «Hello, this is Doctor Cullen, I’m looking for Frank Moore.» The surprise lasts only a few beats, of course the deadbeat is in the hospital, but irritation is fleeting and worry is second nature to you. No, no doctor Cullen had been looking for Frank. «This is his daughter,» you let your name slip, if he couldn’t mail you your bill before he sure as hell can now. «did something happen?» «No, no, I was just trying to get a hold of your father, your sister is here. There was a car accident in the high school parking lot.» Your heart sinks into your stomach. «Wha—» you can’t even finish the phrase, too cold inside your own skin. Anna is at the hospital. «She’s fine, she only suffered a minor concussion.» «Give me five minutes.»

You’re bolting out of the door in one.

⚜ ℭ𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝟚

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[moth-mortuary]

𝔏𝔞 𝔳𝔢𝔯𝔤𝔦𝔫𝔢 𝔡𝔦 𝔑𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔤𝔞

Rating: Mature Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Category: F/M Fandom: Twilight Series - All Media Types Relationships: Carlisle Cullen/Original Female Character(s), Carlisle Cullen/Reader Part: 1/? Language: English

♱ Masterlist ♱

When you had reluctantly taken on the task of driving your boss’ daughter to the hospital after a fight you yourself have had to put a stop to, at three o’clock in the morning, you hadn’t exactly expected to (finally) meet Doctor Cullen; a handsome man with a prize-winning smile and a soft spot for misfits. Weirdly enough, his presence unnerves you… Your life is about to be turned upside-down with Vampires, family drama, and soul bonds that, for a woman with attachment issues, are without a doubt not your cup of tea. But secrets linger everywhere, sometimes in the least expected of places.

Prologue

Dr. Cullen had been insistent, infuriatingly so, with his piercing stares and unnerving calmness. You had known better than this, better than to trust a man wearing a button-up and an unwavering smile.

Especially a doctor, especially one having the audacity to still look uncannily handsome with that button-up and that clashingly matching tie. He had looked objectively handsome and you hadn’t been able to do anything else other than squirm in your seat, thinking about darting out of the waiting room. Perhaps while he was busy with the other party involved in the fight, slithering your way out of the hospital, your coat in one hand and the handle of the door in the other.

«Did you hit your head?» a light had shone into your eye, pupil shrinking into itself until only the tip of a needle had been left in its place. Doctor Cullen had startled you, and startling you had always meant a flash of fear and then slow steeping irritation. This time is no different. You battle his hand away, turning sharply «I really shouldn't be here, I’m fine. I won’t pay any medical bill.»

The pang of realization hurts you just a bit more than what you would have liked it to hurt: you truly are your father’s daughter, all gruff exterior and splintering personality. Doctor Cullen had laughed, untouched by the unmistakeable bite in your tone, he had fished for your hand with cold fingers, eyes down casted and expression serene, and then he had probed and touched, massaging each knuckle into his hands, the coolness of his fingertips soothing your bruised and scratched knuckles. «Nothing broken.» he had declared finally. And thank you very much, you have known how to throw punches your entire life.

Your eyes dart to the now empty chair where not even a couple of minutes ago had sat the girl shaking in her boots. You hadn’t realised she had fled the scene as you yourself should have done. «Are you new in town? I haven’t seen you here before.» You were not, you were born and bred in Forks, Washington but you had never taken it upon yourself to pay a visit to the hospital. «No.» «Then it is good I have not met you before, it’s never good to meet new people at the hospital.»

He had startled you again, but this time it had been his stupidly handsome smile to startle you. Yeah, that’s it, what made you wary of Dr. Cullen had been his stupidly handsome face. You had heard tales of his undoubted beauty, of the “handsome surgeon roaming the day-lighted halls of the central hospital” but you had never pressed the matter, you were the bartender and the bartender never asks questions, they only listen.

You had heard divided opinions on him, “handsome and perfect” from the ladies downing Martinis like you should have done with your vitamins, “unrightfully beautiful” whispered by some men too deep in their glasses to pay you any mind, and “a vermin infesting our town” by some other, mostly Quileute, mostly too drunk to be driving back to La Push after closing hours. You had paid them all very little mind, refilling their drinks one by one and praying for your shift to end.

You were praying for this to end as well, a splitting headache festering behind your eyes as the hours of the morning had slowly crept its ineluctability over the next day, shortening your already short sleep schedule for yet another night that will be needed to be catch up. «I won’t—»  «Pay any medical bill, I heard you, do not fret, I’m simply checking on you.» He had been infuriatingly polite, posh even and that had done nothing but put you even more on edge. Polite people don’t dwell in a looming town filled with gruff men and women mourning the life they could have had somewhere else. anywhere else. Politeness doesn’t rub you the right way, you try to pour it every time you similarly pour drinks in their respective glasses but unbind politeness simply gives you whiplash. «Medical examinations are not for free.»

«How very lucky of you then that my shift ended…» —and looking at his wristwatch with a sharp jerk of his arm, he declared: «Three minutes ago.» Politeness rubs you the wrong way but you are nothing if not an opportunist. So for the same vile reason you accept drinks from strangers, you also sit quietly, your empty hand filling his palms. «You have quite the left hook don’t you?»

You have a meaner right one, you truly do, but the adrenaline and the fury that had tinted your vision red and blurry had not cared for which hand had flown in the direction of the dude’s face at that moment. You hadn’t even really cared for the result, for the reasoning behind yours and his gesture, you had only cared for an outlet.

«Did this happen tonight too?» No. No, that one had happened this morning. «No.» His freezingly cold hands had grazed over the cut on your forehead, already swelled and bruised a deep red that will eventually fade into green and yellow. «Yesterday night perhaps?» The implication in his voice had you cringe, as if you had been going out every night looking for damsels in distress or trouble. «This morning, cupboard left open.» cupboard slammed open over your head, a couple of times to be precise. «Ah, I see.»

The doctor had retreated then, finally putting some well-deserved distance in between you and his unnerving presence. «Well, I see nothing wrong with you miss…» You know it’s a way to get your name, but you take it as dismissal. «Thank you very much, doctor.» you retort simply, leaving the honorific unclaimed, bunching your coat in the fist of your dominant hand, scraped knuckles rubbing uncomfortably over the rough texture of your jeans, and standing up.

You are at the door of the hospital when his voice calls you back once more. «You did a very noble gesture. Miss.»  You grunt a noncommittal sound you are sure he won’t hear then you take the door.

. . . The bar stays open, it physically cannot close with the door splintered in its hinges and two neighbouring windows smashed in. You scrub the counter clean, the sour scent of artificial lemon burning your nose and the stinging cleaner seeping past the hastily fastened band over your knuckles. «Done.» Nik hums from his boot, book dangling over his head as if to prove his affirmation to you. Brat. You sling your rag over the already damp shoulder of your black shirt, an unfashionable piece you had had to dig out of your closet ages ago when you had taken up the job at the Mallory's bar just down the street. You let your eyes skim over the scarcely filled seats, looking if anyone needs a refill on their drinks, but the early birds are all either sulking like teenagers in a rom-com over a glass of watered down whiskey or simply too invested in their newspaper to care if their alcohol is in need of a topping up.  «Lemme see.» you declare, finally letting yourself fall into the cramped boot, hand extended to the boy in invitation. «What? If I have finished?» Your brother passes you the book nonetheless, and your palms get sticky laying over the poorly cleaned surface of the table in between the two of you. You flipped it open, eyes darting over words swirling in your head as slowly as Carillon’s horses. «What happens on page 67?» Nik snorts, rolling his eyes like the teenager he is. «God I don’t know, care to give a little context?» You don’t particularly do, you simply plop your weight down to the backrest of the couch, turning the book 90° sharp. «Lemme see, there are…» —you feign a darting of your eyes and a clicking sound of your tongue on the inside of your teeth, counting some lines here and there but ultimately not doing so.- «Around several lines on this page, on the very end of the page there is this little number saying “67” and the names “Margaret” and “Marianne”, confusing in my opinion, are repeated… well, several times. More specific than this and it’s basically cheating.»

Your brother snorts a laugh, eyes crinkling in the poorly lit corner of the room. «Tomorrow I need to be at school.» You hum, letting your brother snatch the book out of your lazy grasp. This is better, better than at home or, sadly, wasting time with you, rotting in a place where everyone’s future goes to die. «That’s good, does your hand still hurt?» The kid shakes his head, a mop of black hair taking life and swinging on the top of his head. «Good, but you tell me if it does.» You fish out of your jeans a clam phone, wrestling awkwardly with your sitting position, the irritatingly small pockets of your flared jeans and the useless little apron that you are required to wear, and shoot your sister a message. “Tonight we need to cut Satan’s hair, it’s getting out of hand.” You hear a ‘ping’ in response but you ignore it, closing the phone and slamming it back on the sticky table. «Read page 67 one more time for me, I still need to change out of this thing and then we can ditch, plus you clearly need to freshen that part up.»  You decide it’s better not to tell him what awaits him at home, better to have the element of surprise on your side.

A couple of minutes later, a new shirt donned on your back, and the two of you are out and about. The butt of a cigarette bitten in between your teeth and the promise you will get your brother to the local library as unlit as the rolled tobacco.

The motor of your car doesn’t purr and if perhaps, once, it had used to sing now it surely doesn’t do it anymore, it coughs; deeply and agonizingly, like you do when winter gets its icy fingers on your poorly dressed figure but you still resolve yourself to smoke, stubborn and petty, hacking up your lungs each time.

Nik doesn’t comment on that, while you try and turn on and off the car with growing impatience. When it finally starts you smile smugly, eyes flickering to your brother with pompous satisfaction. The drive to the library is so short-lived that you almost whine at the idea of turning off the car you had just managed to start but electricity costs and for how much you would have liked the idea of sitting in the almost warm car for a couple more minutes your brother has never been the “in and out of a library” type of kid.

«You have twenty minutes.» you warn him, sure it will be well over the time limit when the two of you finally get out of the stuffy buildings to dare the cold once more. The brat hums as if he knows the same exact thing, unfastening his belt and exiting the car. You follow him like a dog, his scary dog privilege in a town that’s so dormant a kitten would make do, finishing your cigarette and hanging a little bit back, a weird attempt at giving your brother a bit of freedom despite your overly acute protectiveness.

The librarian offers you his greetings like he does every time you end up in his reign, eyes glistening with unhidden curiosity and for how little it costs for you to spend some time among the living you bid your brother “good search” and you hang back to indulge in some good frivolous gossip. «So, big fight last night uh?»  Not really if he’s asking for your very personal opinion, a drunken slave to the bottle and a girl too mouthy for her own good. «No, not really, dude’s got down after the first couple blows. Lauren needs to learn when to shut up tho, but you know how kids are at their age, all piss and vinegar and the will to fight god or whatever they say nowadays.»

Samuel snorts a laugh out of his Greek nose, eyes darting to the register to check if he’s needed, he’s not, god, you, your brother, and Sam are probably the only people in the library at this moment, but you appreciate his dedication. «Man, I was pumped up when I heard you got to the hospital, it’s not every day’s news you have been finally knocked out of your feet.» You will gloss over the fact he directly told you he had been excited about your trip to the ER, Sam’s a good boy if you can be a judge of anything regarding the matter, but the sting of untrue rumours spreading about you still pangs at your pride. «I went only because the boss was too preoccupied in mourning his oak door to bring his daughter in himself, I didn’t need it.» That had been a truth, it had been mumbled harshly at “handsome face” and it had been a truth still said carelessly at your old acquaintance.

The encounter with Doctor Handsome had been described by numerous tipsy women as ‘life-changing’ but for all of their big talks, no one seemed to have taken it upon themself to actually tell you it would have haunt you for a couple of hours afterwards.

His stare on your back has haunted you all the way to the parking lot, your car still parked in the ER patient spot, engine too cold to start immediately. You had felt it on the back of your skull, deep, underneath your skin like an infection. It had made you look at your rearview mirror several times on your way back home, a truly bizarre feeling coming from you, always diving headfirst into every possible dangerous situation. No, his danger, if that has been what that was, had been subtle, a feeling more than an ostentation, simply a nagging sensation chewing at the back of your head.

«You haven’t seen doctor handsome then?» There he is, his creepily handsome presence looming over your discussion as it has loomed over your sitting position in the hospital’s hall.

You shrug your shoulders. Beside the Quileute, you had been one of the few persons still unfamiliar with the “new” doctor, and even more so it had been excessively strange since you had been fighting in back alleys and bar’s entrance since your first day of middle school. «Weird, he works on Saturdays, he should have been there till 4.» you arch an eyebrow at him, the question lingering in the soft silence that follows. «Got yourself a crush Sammy?» you tease, shoving your hands into your pockets and resuming a previously abandoned origami of a lump you had started to fold with a receipt a couple of days ago. Sam laughs nervously, a bit red on the bridge of his nose. «No, no, it’s that I’m always there, you know, epistaxis and all of it.» You don’t know, but you vaguely remember an oddly young Samuel clutching at his nose during 9th-grade Biology, when you two were classmates still and you had yet to decide to drop out.

You hum approvingly even though it’s a lie, and Sam seems to put himself back at ease.

Right when he’s about to ask you something else a slam jolts the redhead into motion. «I want this one.» Nik’s standing on the other side of the counter, a new book pressed into the wood of the desk.

The rest of the day is wasted in the city on errands, in the Laundromat, since your washing machine back at home has been leaking for a couple of months now, in the supermarket, shoving handfuls of school supplies in your cart and finally in the clothes store since Nik had started to look ridiculous in those jeans —by now not even ankle length- you had bought him a year ago.

The ride back home is comfortably quiet, the engine of your car stuttering softly under your seat and a random song cracking in some spots over the disturbed radio signal.

You let Nik decide his fate, well at least you let him decide the style he wants on his head for at least a few months. Anna gently brushes Nik’s hair over the stool in the middle of the kitchen as you wash the dishes and throw something together for a quick dinner. The night is eerily quiet, your father’s truck is not in the driveway and the three of you carve every minute of each other’s company into a semblance of a life you are painfully crafting from scratch. If every day of your life could have been like this one —fight included but not binding, you would die a happy woman.

Note:

I will be honest with you guys I watched the movies twice, the first time when I was 12 with my bff of the time and once a couple of days ago for a drinking game. It was cringy, they were funny I got drunk etc etc… But I hadn’t expected for doctor Hottie to CONSUME my every thought, Carlisle Cullen the man you are, this one is for you babygirl Let me know what you think about the story with a comment and if you are (and I'm sure you are) a big twilight fan please do infodump on me because I need it <3

Also English is not my first language so be patient with me.

⚜ ℭ𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝟙

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