#*Suicidal Thoughts/Actions | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

acid-ixx · 3 months ago

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ch.5 pt 2: again &. again (platonic! yandere batfam x neglected! gn reader)

directory: preq, chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four, chapter five pt 1, chapter five pt 2,

read under the end for an author's note.

tw: talks about death, prostitution, self-harm, trauma & ptsd, suicidal thoughts, and neglect.

the world was still spinning when you had awoken.

you didn't know if that was good or bad news alone. didn't even know what your current state could do now that you're in some room, subconsciously recalling between the gaps of memories that had caused you to be here.

lying down, with the painful throb of the holes within your body pinning you in place.

what happened?

breakdowns, booze, flirting, tears, comfort, gunshots, acceptance and death—

— lots of it.

all in the span of one night. one singular night which reigned in spilled blood and reopened wounds.

maybe you should've never made a stupid decision in the first place, the calculating, smarter, yet easily shut-down part of you scolds yourself. the events of the night were still fresh, enough to make both your heart and your head throb: were you finally sobering up, or does this ache come from a different type of pain, more painful, more heavily emotional than being met with death?

how long has it been since you were out? how long has it been since he saved you? since he...

the name tastes bitter in your tongue, it's been months, maybe even almost a year since you've last encountered him, let alone talked to him without being met with strained eye contact and cruel scoffs; a painful reminder of how your actions were what stuck the final nail in the coffin for your own neglect against the man, the brother you consider closest to you; despite it never being enough.

jason.

your last interaction was particularly unpleasant, an act of teenage hormones swelling in your very veins caused you to be spiteful towards him, ignoring his casual small talks in favor of refusing to offer your homemade treats and grabbing the jar of your favorite sweets - that you always meticulously and willingly give him whenever he'd make his rare visits - away from his prying hands.

you remember his offended tone, the sudden venom in his words as he asked, too mockingly for your own taste, "what's wrong with you, angel? what's gotten you snappy these days?"

these days?

most days, it was you succumbing to his wants and needs. considering the treats he liked, the books he read, the movies he watched. all an effort painfully done if it meant having his eyes on you for just more than a second.

these days? just what had you done these days that warranted his offense? all you have done, all you ever did, was tag along everyone's tail, watching from the shadows, biting back the poisonous words, the tears that clung at the edge of your throat; ready to uncoil, to pounce the moment your envy unfurls even further.

these days? yeah right, these days, you just wanted to fucking die—

'cause highschool is shit, your life is shit, and you can't- just can't afford to play nice these days. not when they've all been so cruel, not when the people you look up to treat you lesser than the worms they step on when they spend time around the garden- your garden that you've carefully cultivated, all for your efforts to go to waste.

— but Jason won't understand, nobody could. not even alfred could comprehend just how worse your mood has soured. nobody's aware of just how close you are to your breaking point.

you glare at him for a second, wanting to retort, to swear at the sight of his knotted brows and frustrated pose, but the flicker of fight within you has just as quickly extinguished. your shoulders slumped, yet jason remains as rigid as ever in his seat, no amount of softness could be found in his expression, not even the softness he directs at you.

'he doesn't feel the same right now but—'

'there's no point in even trying anymore.'

ignoring the pang of regret in your chest, the urge to apologize with widened eyes, to pretend this was all a dream; you simply turned away in spite of the brimming tears, biting at your raw lips, to escape to another room.

afraid to show anymore weakness, afraid of the consequences, your hurried footsteps had echoed across the hallways.

you left the tooth-achingly sweet treats he originally intended to take by the table.

'he can have it for all i care.'

but are you sure you don't care? are you truly sure, when your chest spiked with frazzled haste just from hearing a familiar scoff - the one he directs to the people he despises - behind you? is it indifference when your hearing began to wring just to block out whatever vile words he spewed that day?

you want to apologize, you truly do, even if you're aware you're not much at fault, but rather him for being inconsiderate to your feelings, your foreign actions, he calls you his angel, but when his angel shows obvious hurt, he doesn't care?—

hah. but you just can't deal with it, with him any longer.

so you let it be, let him think you're just having your rebellious teenager phase, that you being a piece of shit in his eyes would pass eventually.

he wouldn't know, didn't even notice the bandages plastered across the expanse of your aching arms, the bags dipping below your eyes, or your frizzy, thinning hair.

with your last encounter, there was no more after that.

and if there were, you couldn't even call it that, for he was raging fire, and you a blistering snowstorm.

those were never meant to clash, let alone part.

thinking about it now, recalling what's gotten his mind on a twist, in your little, foreign mattress, with your eyes still shut close, lower abdomen still aching; it makes you want to die a little more at how much you never considered your feelings in the past.

you still don't right now - couldn't even make past your crippling self-esteem - but compared to last time, you at least maintained a flicker of dignity.

jason, meanwhile.

he- maybe he had a terrible day that day, you recalled his argument with bruce fresh on your mind that fateful afternoon. how tense and resounding the tension was in the room they'd fought. something over morals, over his still-burning need for justice by unfairly taking the lives of most criminals, bruce stated.

how it never quite changed, even until now.

it's the norm for all their little spats, the usual dynamic with their bated breaths and venomous words, their pitiful angst. how could you not remember, when it's dick who had to physically rip jason off from plunging a weapon on bruce's chin, whilst alfred's disappointed scolding hung in the air — whilst it's you watching in the corner, witnessing the entire scene unfold, useless when it comes to intervening because your words hold no impact for their dynamic?

maybe, just maybe, you could've been more considerate of his feelings when he'd blown bruce off, throwing him the finger before bursting off to the kitchen's pantry - to stressfully feast on the treats you carefully stored in, for moments like these, because he loves to thrash around the kitchen eating your baked sweets - to ruminate on his raging thoughts.

but if you could recall all the moments of his rage, how could he not recall his promise to bring you home some of your favorite dishes the night before that, then?

how could he not consider his so-called angel's feelings, when you had to adjust to his whims?

yeah, maybe you were boiling with rage that time too, not only due to the pressure of highschool, but at yet another broken promise. maybe you just wanted to hide away the tears, the looming expectations to act normal ultimately failing, which translated to your snappy behavior— but you thought:

'maybe, just maybe, my favorite brother, my closest confidant, could understand.'

you were wrong, you always were.

and for that, when you'd run crying to your room, another fresh scar was soldered in both your skin and your memories.

— a painful reminder of losing the closest thing you had in the world, just because you finally felt brave enough to show an inch of your closeted yet forbidden emotions.

your rebellion caused a permanent rift between your already drifting relationship, you despised yourself for that seemingly small, yet highly impactful mistake.

thinking about it now, in your crippled, nearly paralyzed state, makes you just want to forget.

— and remember the even more painful present.

finally, you compiled the strength to blink away the weight in your eyes. remnants of dry, salty tears were still fresh in the corners of your lids, throat parched, mind thrumming with dull pain and aching limbs— it reminded you of your unbidden nightmare just moment's ago; a stark contrast from its pleasantness compared to the damming reality you're actually in.

it felt like a fading memory, that dream, a looming freckled dust of air you couldn't quite catch in your stretched out fingers. how her gentle touch was like a cure to all your ailments, yet her hurried good-byes an eternal scar to the broken pieces of your heart.

oh, my momma.

how you miss her and her angelic presence already.

it never truly occurred to you how much the heavy weight of missing her stumped you from actually maturing. it was always her you mourn in moments of painful respite. her fading advices, her airy voice, her silent hums and warm presence. it was a whiplash to have her in such a wicked environment, in gotham of a places.

seeing her, in that cottage, in all her glory, wrinkles and aged, sagging skin surrounding the expanse of her angelic appearance. she was so young when she had you, and it was all you ever dreamed of— watching her gracefully age before you like fine wine, rather than those... those flashbacks of those bloodied tiles and the ichor dripping down her lifeless, icy lips.

damn be her reputation, she was your momma first, and prostitute, money laundering scam, second. thinking about her just makes you want to shut your eyes once more, return to that restless dream, and stay there forever.

rather than...

— your eyes switch to shuttering quickly, faded imagery still present in the fog of your vision. everything felt suspended in air except for the mechanical churn of the hanging fan on the ceiling, yet the furniture still present itself in shaped globs rather than actual three-dimensional objects. it took you nearly a minute to regain your sight, to finally hone in on your surroundings. albeit the haze and the adrenaline slowly pumping in your veins, your mind telling you to run despite the lack of sensation in your lower half, you slowly take in this...

this unfamiliar room...

a place displaying artillery, heavy weapons on the four corners of the walls, surrounding the dainty, one person cushion you lay on. there's an array of both fresh and bloodied gauze on the tabletop on your right, it seems to be used just recently, on you, probably. they're tightly wrapped on your lower half, you can see through the dark of your blankets and the feel of its restrictions on your guts.

strange how you're here, recalling the events of the night, yet it's still night now.

have you been out for an entire day?

and your phone and other essentials is on the same tabletop, you can even make out the table napkin containing conner's number still carefully tuckered behind your phone case. the faint waft of your favorite takeout caressed your nostrils, if not for the pain of having to carefully churn around the weighted blanket splayed on top of you; you might've sat up to dig in the savory meal.

but you can't focus on your hunger, not just yet. not when the dread overpowers your bodily urges, not when this entire thing feels like it's imitating a sense of normalcy; a room, reflecting the danger of the inhabitant living within, despite your foggy vision still, trying it's best to placate you into feeling safe.

but worse yet, the most dreaded of them all—

a room with your brother in it.

a room with the person you'd least want to deal with, not with just how much you haven't calmed down, how your final resolve was to avoid the very same people who'd always avoided you.

you couldn't possibly face them now, not ever.

not even the man you once came to call your favorite.

the holes in your body, now wrapped tight with gauze, throbs noisily, as if it senses the resounding doom wrapping around your heart, until it spreads across your entire body, now cold with caution. through your careful inspection of your belongings, through the noise of your frazzled thoughts, you haven't felt the dip on the bed you lay on. dim lights surrounded your vision afterall, the same ones still clearing up after hours of restless slumber.

and everything around you was unlike the specks of sun you were greeted with when you'd awoken from that dream.

dark and heavy.

your fingertips, your head, your injuries, the dip of the bed just now, his breathless haste; as if he waited for this moment, for you to slowly awaken, to return to consciousness.

an overbearing sense of desperation: his manic trance, the tusled locks of black and white hair, the faint shiver in his breathing.

and it's not as if you needed to second-guess the man now seated on the bed, he's so easily recognizable with his toughened form and muscles churning beneath his ashy jacket.

no, no, you want to close your eyes, pretend you're still asleep.

— but you can't, it's too late now that he noticed.

"... mornin', angel. you alright?"

he asks, silent and unsure, the question drifting off his tongue so gently, so hesitatingly as if he couldn't believe witnessing you breathing in front of him. warm yet burning with need for answers. and for a second, for a measly, quintessential span of time, you might've thought his raspy words were an aftermath of some tears.

he sounded so...

broken.

like a man torn from the inside out. the last you've seen of him, he'd already sported eyebags— but not too sunken, too tired like the current one you're staring at. like a washed out ember amidst winter, everything about him felt vulnerable...

it just makes you want to die on the inside— that- that you feel a semblance of care for someone who's hurt you far more than loved you.

the gentleness in his question, the hesitant stumble of his hands that came to bury itself into your tangled hair. the warmth that emits from his raggedy fingers hovering over the scalp of your head; it just made you feel fuzzy yet awful. the image of a brother and a stranger in front of you just blurs into a singular mess.

your vision spins, his hands are still awkwardly patting your head, as if urging you to speak, yet no reply escaped from your parched throat, from your dry, cracked lips. you fear whatever words might come next will just be a product of your impulsiveness— like the last time you met, like- like how you always fucked everything up, and you just did so the other night, and you're afraid of everything that might come after—

"i tried fixin' my apartment up just before you woke up... got us some takeout for dinner, too. it's your favorite..."

a hesitant smile, teethering on near gentleness that seemed impossible for a cruel man like him. jason looked almost like the brother you once knew as he coughs to himself, a poor attempt to wash away the awkward tension between you two. you're still silent between it all, not a single word mustered from your gaping mouth.

no.

your breath hitches—

your cold hands drive away his fingers entangled with your hair, shaky breaths make up the silent space between you two. he's not- not going to go about this way, would he? how could he?

no, this was not a moment to pretend. he saw you cry out there, under the moonlit night when the world was out for your life— you begged him, implied you'd rather die than let your savior be him.

you're hurt, everything still isn't fine between you two. not a single thread of softness will make up for the broken remnants of love he left you with. he can't act like the last time you met was a warm memory; not when it was filled with icy words and barely disguised contempt.

for a moment, you swore you could see a flash of heartbreak filling his stare. for a moment, you want to take your actions back like last time and become the younger you, but it's just for a moment.

these feelings don't last for a lifeline, not anymore.

"look, angel. i'm- you're not fine, still. it's the doctor's orders that you you need to eat, especially since you just got discharged and got all drunk on an empty stomach."

since when did he care?

ignoring him, your eyes dart elsewhere, ears purposely blocking out the meaning of his words, senses entangled with anything but his vulnerable stare. you look at the rickety fan barely blowing air on your messy hair, buzzing on top of dusty ceilings and shadowing dimly lit walls, at the spare armory scattered actoss the room - he could kill you with them, could end you with just a snap of his fingers - at the spider webs housing the corners of the apartment boxing you in with a man you dread meeting, let alone facing in a space you're far too unfamiliar with.

trapped and vulnerable; like a doe locked in place in a vast forest, surrounded by a pack of hungry wolves, ready to devour the closest thing in sight.

there may only be one you're dealing with now, but they're out there. dick and the others are out there with intentions to face you too.

and you don't know which part of you triggered this sudden desperation, this sudden link between you and your estranged siblings, but you hate it.

you hate this unfamiliar care. you hate the concern laced in every sentiment of jason's. it's unlike them, it's not them in your eyes.

and you hate how this resentment is overpowered by the shadowed by something more sinister, the one thing that dictated the course of your life—

one word: fear.

it wraps around your throat tighter than the bandages adorning your body. traps you in its clawing grip and molds itself in the form of your family.

fear of how to deal with their foreign worry, their questions lingering in the air with patience in its virtue rather than disdain. jason's unmasked face, thumbs softly massaging your unfeeling, cold fingers.

where you show a hitch of a breath, the widening of eyes, and the slightest of shivers. a hint of vulnerability, the softest of hiccups, the deep intakes of air—

instead of being met with a scoff, an offensive remark about your weakness, or a flick of worry immediately wearing away as dismissiveness takes place.

you're met with unfamiliar worry, the heavier dip of the bed, the splaying of bedsheets as jason's body moves closer to yours, the quick succession of movement as he takes off his jacket to loom over your- your shivering form.

just a little more, then your teary eyes meet its gaze on his crumpled jacket with its stench of cigarettes clinging in the air. your tired eyes shakily gaze at the layers of gauze wrapping your ever-bleeding body, and feel the ache nesting in its abode.

panic, unyielding; so much fear which rattles your bones and turns your muscles into useless jelly; which worries the perpetrator of these complicated emotions—

jason.

how do you pretend you're fine? how can you act so carelessly vulnerable in the domain of unknown territory; in a room, alone, but not quite?

it takes you back to when you were at your apartment, takes you back to when you try your damned best to ignore the sensation of panic and bile rising up your throat when you saw dick's messages. all in the span of less than a week.

your life is so fucked.

yet you choose to be inactive in facing these struggles, you choose not to run, or fight, but to ignore.

it's the only common symptom you share with your... your family.

just like now: anywhere but him.

you can't expend anymore hope—

"why, angel?"

confused, pleading, perhaps struck with grief. so unlike the man who scoffed at your lack of reply months ago. maybe he'd truly change, or maybe he felt pity at watching you nearly die before he could redeem himself.

it was his voice that cuts through the tension in the air. this time, he sounds like he's begging. for a second, your tired eyes run to him: him and his stupid worry. the nonchalant buzz in his words were no more, replaced by... betrayal.

for a second, you're reminded of your last meeting. the contrast of the cold past and now this burning sensation within your chest. then suddenly, everything hurts just a little more.

suddenly, you're back at the start. just the little kid looking for answers in a world too big for them. just the little kid who wanted to be good enough for their newfound family.

"for-for wh— what?"

god, even now the past still haunts you, the present crueler too. you and your stupid stuttering, your exposed and vulnerable aching heart that yearns for answers. why is jason hurt over seeing you hurt? why does he... care?

it's just so incomprehensible for you.

his worry is just too foreign.

under the pressure of his boiling gaze, which renders you useless and pinned in damp bedsheets, you simply feel bile rise up your throat. feel anything but comfort when both your eyes met. your teeth nibbles on your sore lips, and you find jason's wince, his almost tense fingers about to stop you from drawing out blood.

"you know what i mean." you don't. or rather, you don't want to know what he means. "why were you..."

'why am i out of the manor, right? in an unknown place in the middle of the night, drunk and alone? almost killed by my own stupidity? why? you know why, jason?'

you bite your lips, its raw, peeling skin opens up old scars anyways, and it bleeds like your raging heart.

'—it's because of you and all the others.'

you don't want to explain how they're the reason for all your burdens. how his sudden presence in that fucking alleyway caused more distress than nearly dying. why you're out in public wasting away at your life, avoiding anything that you can associate with them because, just because you're always hurting.

you don't want to be reminded of the past anymore. you never expected to be in one of your sibling's damn apartment, being interrogated, almost scolded for your impulsive decisions and forced to listen to his sickly bitter worries over your health as if he actually cared for you.

sweat ran down your bobbed throat. your tongue, your lips and your skin felt damp yet dry. cold and crisp air was a commodity, everything felt blazing hot under jason's expectant stare.

an uncomfortable heat, almost burning you, turning your bones to ashes and organs to dust.

"just—" his presence almost felt ghastly, fingers hovering over your downturned chin to softly tilt it up. your eyes felt blurry, and the world felt so... just so cruel when his other hands made its way to wipe away your damp cheeks.

were you... crying?

"just answer me, please."

jason todd, no, the red hood doesn't beg. he doesn't plead. the infamous crime lord doesn't gently swipe your sweaty hair to the side so it doesn't disrupt your already blurry vision. he hurts others, cuts their skin and veins, shoots their bones, rips their limbs one by one, tortures them until all they could beg for is the sweet release of death—

but he doesn't just care for somebody easily, right? he shouldn't burden himself with your own personal issues. he never has done so, only coming to you for casual talk.

what changed?

"i—" you gulp, but the lump in your throat remains everlasting. do you tell him of your worries? do you even trust him? can you even trust him?

"i don't know..."

'i don't know, jason... i'd rather not let you know anymore than you should have.'

"i-it's fine... don't worry about it." you added to your pile of excusing, shrinking in on yourself when his eyes squint at your words.

small. you feel like an ant taking in everything that felt particularly enormous against you. jason's body blocking out the city's skyline and the moon's watchful glow made everything dimmer, made it feel like your only choice was to go through him.

it doesn't help that it feels like every word you mutter, every breath you take, feels like a daunting action devoured by the inner workings of his mind.

why should you worry? jason never— he never truly cared this much.

whether you lie or not wouldn't change the outcome. just a little slip up and he'll leave you alone once more. just a few more minutes and he'll eventually give up, right?

so why are you nervous? why are your fingers picking at the skin of your palms? why do the tears just keep leaking like a faulty pipe? why is he— why can't he just stop staring at you—?

"you're lying."

"h—huh?"

"you're lying and it's obvious, angel."

he reiterates, this time, the tremor in his voice reaches the depths of the ocean. and just like an ocean, you feel yourself drowning in the pressure of his answers. you feel the heaviness of his words, feel it pinning you in place and locking your joints, until all you could hear are his paced breathing and the subtle agitation in his voice.

"wh—"

"why? why were you out alone, huh? what were you doing all alone at night? alfred wasn't even with you— you're drunk out of your mind, you're not even old enough to drink, angel. you weren't with- with anybody by the time i reached you— so why... just why?" this time, he demands. even if his questions were mere whispers against the blaring sounds of traffic from below; it still reaches out and buries itself into your skin, tickles the inside of your ears and nips at delicate skin.

until all you could focus on were his questions.

why?

'isn't it obvious, brother? or do you still see me as a little child?'

"when's my birthday, jason?"

it doesn't take much to know when you've turned the course of the tides to side with you. it doesn't take much to watch jason stumble between befuddled thoughts until he crosses a hurdle he couldn't jump through.

'it shouldn't be a surprise to you, jay. i thought you truly changed.'

nobody... nobody except alfred knew when you were born. not even your closest brother, no. you almost genuinely convinced yourself he cared, but the delusion quickly breaks when you find him wide-eyed as the thoughts churn in his head.

"what...?"

if he truly cared, then he should've known, right?

"—you... i'll answer you if you answer me back. when's my birthday?"

you call him out in that sickly, sweet nickname. it was what that past you called him. it's the same verse you chirp over and over again just to gain a traction of his attention when you feel his eyes drift over the book he's read rather than on you. the name you oh-so carefully drawl out so that he doesn't drift to sleep just so you'll be given temporary respite from the loneliness, so he could rest his fingers on your scalp and promptly hug you from the side.

it feels so foreign on your tongue now, after all, you haven't spoken to him in months.

the last note you left each other with was pure bitterness.

it feels even more strange that you realized how you know all their birthdays, but they never knew yours.

never knew it passed by so quickly under their radar. how you're free from the shackles of their ownership over your name. he doesn't... doesn't even know you're not a wayne now, no?

"do you even know how old i am now?"

"it's... you know, shit—!" he mutters under his breath. it's like he just realized how much he doesn't... couldn't even remember a crucial detail of you when it's you who knows all his favorite books, his favorite author, how his comfort snacks are different for every feeling he feels; hell, even his preferred places to smoke.

yet he doesn't even remember your birthday? couldn't even recall a single moment where you blew out a candle? in all the moments he visited, spending nights with you under the moonlight or through the shine of the library's chandelier; he never even thought of giving you a present, let alone wonder why how within those years of knowing you— jason couldn't even remember the most important occasion of your life?

he bites his lips, and this time, it's him who buries the tips of his fingers on the hastily crumpled bedsheets.

if he calls himself your brother, who thinks he has the right to worry over you, then is a brother someone who couldn't remember your birthday?

now that his eyes aren't on you, you're spared a moment to take him in through the hastening of your heart and the neverending rivulets of tears escaping your blurry gaze.

'ignore the pain, (name). you shouldn't be hurt anymore. you shouldn't feel surprised that he doesn't even know when you were fucking born."

but you can't bear the thought of him stumbling through his words, formulating excuses he knows you know you could easily reject. it just makes everything hurt even more, makes the endless ache in your heart thrum at the implications that this person— his worries were nothing when he has nothing, no care in the past to bare to you now.

"i'm eighteen now, jay..." his eyes quickly flit up to stare at you, mouth agape at the newfound information. what's the use in being shocked now? when all your other birthdays were dismissed and breezed by like a normal day for them— for your family?

and yet you know the answers to your very own questions.

eighteen is a quintessential part of someone's life.

it marks the path of adolescence, the descent to maturity as you learn to grow, to make your own decisions. some children move out of their parent's home to build a nest of their own, they find jobs, maybe even a partner to make or break a life with. people in america who turn 18 are still restricted from drinking, but most still choose to break some laws, fuck up with their decision, get shit-faced and party off with some fraternities and friends who'll turn their backs on you; and then regret it all later.

they build their lives, they go through ups and downs, and slowly bring themself back up again. there's no more gentle approaches, no more excuses for a developing mind. they go through so much in just a year.

and the most important of it all, is that most graduate.

and they weren't there for you, nobody was, save for alfred.

bruce wasn't there when you graduated, so it's no surprise that jason, or even the others, wouldn't come.

jason's still a dead man in the public's eyes, after all.

and even if he wasn't, what would've guaranteed that he'll still come to watch you walk up that stage? what would've changed, when the weight of your graduation and the future to come was thwarted by their worries over damian's? it was always him they— bruce prioritized, when he'd first enter the manor, all eyes were on the brazen boy.

when you first entered the manor, it was a rainy, desolate day. bruce was busy, of course he was, why wouldn't he be when he drowns himself in paperwork to distract the horrid reminders that his second son had passed?

and you don't know what hurts even more, the heartbreak in his stare, or the thumps in your heart that felt like footsteps stepping on the beating organ until all its blood is drained?

"shit, angel. i never knew... i'm— you're eighteen now and i didn't even know? fuck, how could i have forgotten it—"

"just, please save your excuses, jason..."

it's like he couldn't even believe you were old enough now, mature enough to comprehend how his excuses don't mean shit if his lack of knowledge towards your birthday ran on for years.

your sniffles weren't as silent as your words, it hurts, everything felt like fire. the world wants you to burn as your body felt like betrayal, your vulnerabilities stripped bare in front of him.

"i... appreciate your concern, but," it hurts to lie under your breath, hurts to hesitate, let alone voice out what you truly feel. it hurts to wonder why you're unsure if what he felt for you was worry, or just mere guilt over the situation you're both in.

the lines between all your emotions were blurred, you don't even wait to see his expressions anymore. you fear you'll revert back to the younger you, who considers the others before yourself, even when you've disillusioned yourself countless of times that you've changed.

you did, didn't you?

"you don't— you have no excuse to patronize my health when... when i know my limits and..."

"—i have to go, jason..."

barely a whisper. your words were barely a whisper, like the haste of thunder striking through metal rods though without sound, without thought, without hesitation; before your hands suddenly push all your weight to straighten your slumped form. your legs, which felt like blazing jelly, made an attempt to stand despite the burning sensation. you don't offer jason a second to register what you were doing, don't even let him see how your stomach bent enough to nearly reopen wounds—

god, fuck—!

it hurts, it fucking hurts so much.

your heart, your head, your entire body.

one second, you stumble, the gravity of your body fighting against the blistering, aching pain which shoots through your veins. all in one second, seering in your abdomen, like fingers digging deep into your injuries, twisting and churning until all you could feel is pain so absolutely revolting, so mercilessly cripping in your lower abdomen, that it seizes you useless, so utterly unable to capture your balance in the midst of standing, that your legs quickly give out on you.

then another second passes like a beat, all too quickly, yet all too slow for you as the world spins in your darkening vision, all the blood from your head rushing to where the holes lay in haste. your heart thumps like a drum in a warfield, like boots splattering on wed mud, sporadic, in near panic.

another second, the third, and just as you're about to stumble down, the pain so much that your eyes shoot out salty, ignorant tears. just as your body is close to thumping, writhing on the floor, jason catches you in his arms, grip so tight it almost felt like he'd refuse to let go. like how it was back in that shitty alleyway, like how it was, you felt trapped, trapped and forced to feel his sweating muscles churning mechanically, taut and tense through his thin sweatshirt.

close enough to feel that same, raggedy panic — the hitch of a breath, the loud thrumming in your chest, adrenaline shooting into your senses, your mind registers jason as a token of danger— emerging as your elbows make way to hit him square in ribs, only for his quicker, stronger palms instinctively stop you, his larger body locking you up in place, stabilizing you as you feel like you're hovering, suspended in thin, nearly charged air.

he's— he's carrying you, left hand respectfully gripping below your thighs, the other palm resting on your backside. it still hurts, everything does, nothing about you screams okay, only the slight subsidizing of pain as your brother, no, jason carefully puts you back down to sit on the bed, like you're weightless and made of feathers and— and vulnerable with how much gentleness he placates on instinctively hushing you, like a brother would to their injured sibling after a rough hour of playing in a sandbox of a playground.

the tears still won't stop.

through your quivering hiccups, high-pitched whines escaping the back of your throat at every subtle movement, at the thoughts that drown you the more time passes by— it hurts, it hurts so much you'd rather die, you'd rather be anywhere than here. does he know that, does he know the pain of looking at him, feeling him so close like never before is why you're so desparate to leave? does he know your heart beats erratically because you can never forget the moment you last met—?

— you don't even see, let alone feel the anger brewing off his chest, at the sudden, venomous words which escape his mouth next, like chains rattling, acidic bile brewing in a hot cauldron, nearly combusting at the seams.

you don't know that you pain him, don't know that you're his weakness.

and it especially hurts him when you refuse to look him eye-to-eye, refuse to see the tears rooting at the edge of his eyelids, at his teeth grazing his teeth until blood draws out in a steady flow, the opposite of the panic resurfacing into his body as he watches your dazed, breathless form trying to recover from what happened.

wordless. he despises that. how it's like your body repels him, head dodging his lips that hint at kissing your forehead. how you hesitatingly allow him to massage and help straighten the taut muscles of your bent legs— how you remain silent all throughout like you didn't just- just fucking attempt to stand, almost killing yourself despite his warnings.

he despises your not-so subtle avoidance that he just couldn't control it, couldn't control the burning rage brewing inside his heart that he just— just screams at you before he could compose himself.

"— fuck angel, FUCK! just what the fuck were you thinking?!"

jason wasn't always known for anger, he wasn't always the spiteful man everyone makes him out to be. he was sweet towards you because he knew you were innocent in the midst of batman's schemes, so it's no joke, no fucking joke how much he scares you off right now.

it scares you watching him fight others off, scared you when he shot those bullets at the man pinning you down, but you had a semblance of reassurance that it was never directed at you.

until now.

and now that you remain the spectacle of his anger, the sight of his widened, blown out eyes, his furrowed brows and clenched fists — you're so afraid, so fucking afraid he'll end up hurting you like damian, yet conscious of his actions. he looks like a painted demon before you, with clenched teeth and frazzled hair, and you feel like a dear caught in headlights — you feel another surge of tears, another wave of nausea drowning out his voice as your throat closes in on itself.

'stop, jason, please stop. you're scaring me.'

but you couldn't say the words out loud, couldn't even compose your body from quivering, fingers clenching the bedsheets in sudden instinct so hard it crumples on itself; as if it could help ground you, as if it could control the next, hurtful and loud words surging from his mouth.

as if it could cease time just so you wouldn't bear witness to his scary, monstrous rage.

"can't you see what you just did?! don't you know how— how fucking stupid and dangerous that was of you to just stand when you're still obviously HURT!? if you wanted to, you should've told me first instead of just suddenly pushing me away. what's wrong with you, huh?! what possessed you to just— JUST STAND UP AND LEAVE?!"

it's like he couldn't believe you. couldn't even make reasons why you did what you've just done. not even a tinge of comedic effect, not even any comfort laced in any word. not the jason you knew and loved, but a stranger whom you learned to call a friend, a brother that never was.

that's all he ever is, a stranger. all of them, living under the same roof as you.

and he was the same stranger who nearly fought you if not for you leaving that kitchen.

— it was the same old scoff he gave you all those months ago after talking, the same old squinted eyes and generous rage. yet this time it's enhanced with something else, something more personal, something way scarier than just being a spectator.

you always wanted to revolve around his life, but never this way.

it hurts, doesn't he know that?

doesn't he know how much his words just hurt you more than the dull ache in your abdomen? can't he see it too? how you're backing away to the corner of the bed until your back hits the headboard, despite all the pain spreading throughout your body?

if- if he cares so much about you, shouldn't he have known that— that you're sensitive to everything he just said?

bile rises up from your empty stomach, and the tears that keep surging out your eyes refuse to stop; yet it's your words run faster than your thoughts. then suddenly, all too suddenly, everything just snaps.

suddenly, your consideration for him doesn't matter anymore.

not when you never mattered to him, right?

and it feels like a part of you broke tonight.

"... what's up with you, angel?! answer me! first you're drunk off your mind when i find you out in the alleyway, bleedin' to near death, and when i try to help you before it's too late, you come begging me to not take you to the manor. did somethin' happen, huh?! why in the name of lord are you rebelling all of a sudden?! why are you fucking—"

"BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT MY DAMN SIBLING ANYMORE, JASON!"

it just won't stop. the pain and the tears and all the words spilling from you won't stop and everything- shit, everything is spinning but you can't stop now.

it hurts. saying those eight words hurt, but it's the truth.

and the truth fucking hurts. what right should he have worrying over you? what right does he have to criticize your life now when he's only been there for you when he needs it?

"IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS ANYMORE JASON! STOP— STOP PRETENDING LIKE YOU CARE—!"

fists clench at the bedsheets bring itself up to tangle upon your matted hair, and you pull and tug and rip off the strands, biting your lips to quell the anger, the pain shooting across your scalp, your fingers stinging with every snap of the strands. shivering and trapped, and useless in fighting back; why are you like this? why does he keep watching?

you close your eyes. for what? so that all you could hear are your ragged breaths, the only thing you can hear every time you'd have reoccurring nightmares? so that you could return to that lonely child, to the lonely teenager you once were?

the lonely, scared child you still are?

'since when have you ever cared, jason? since when? since when has anybody ever cared?'

your voice trembles at the ends, you can't afford to look at him, burying yourself deeper into the mattress as if that alone can melt you until you were nothing, just so you wouldn't have to deal with this neverending heartbreak.

"stop... just please—" you bite your lips, but it does nothing to quell the overwhelming panic, the spiralling thoughts, the blazing emotions. your knees are pressed against your chest, fingers now scratching at your heated face.

until it bleeds, until it all bleeds.

you open your eyes, an array of tears come bursting off your sore eyelids, your cheeks feel considerably swollen, yet you just can't stop fucking crying. it worsens even more when your wobbly vision turn to look up at him, at his unbelievable stare, at his widened, ocean blue orbs, dull and almost unforgiving.

'this isn't the jason i knew.'

"just why, (name)? why?" hearing your name roll off his tongue, instead of your usual nickname hurts, hearing it with such rage, contempt, like he's directing his hatred at you for something you couldn't control— god, it hurts.

"what do you mean by all this? i'm- i'm still your damn brother—" he says, as if it's a matter of fact, as if nothing between you changed the last day you saw him, as if he didn't know the reason. if he was your brother, then why does he sound so diffident, then?

why does his voice tremble? why does his care taste foreign against your tongue? why does he stand there, as if hesitant to even approach you?

"and because i am your brother... i have every right to care for you now—"

"i was never important then... so why do i matter now?"

"— what?"

"why do i matter so much now than before? how come i never deserved your care before?"

"angel, please. what the hell are you talking about—"

"JUST FUCKING ANSWER MY QUESTION, GODDAMNIT!"

all that you were, all that you ever are, was just a distraction for jason to bide his time with, weren't you? all he knew about you was that you acted as his entertainment, a quiet little kid who listens more than they ever learned to speak, who purposely read all the archived books in the manor's library, waiting every month for their favorite brother to visit. even if it was just for minutes, even if he'd leave you right after, escaping your boring rambles, because of course he'd prefer the fucking batcave over your silent, expectant, always yearning eyes.

all you ever wanted, all you ever did, was just be.

do what you thought they wanted you to be, not what you wanted yourself to be. baking because you knew they loved to raid the fridge for snacks after missions, drawing because your mother always praised your messy sketches, even if it was nothing compared to damian's now, dancing, ballet, gymnastics— going as far as trying to learn how to fight, giving up halfway through because you'll never progress with just how much you're juggling other extracurricular activities.

all that, just to be what you wanted to be for them.

even if it was never enough, even if your rare a plus', the occasional gold medals, the praise and acknowledgement from your teachers, even alfred's suggestion for bruce to just, please, take his time of the day to talk to you— all those achievements shine dully compared to your other siblings.

and you've long since accepted that it was all that you ever were. just a mere tool, ever-so-useful, yet ever-so-forgotten by all the other convenient ones.

all that you are, all that you ever were. but all that you ever wished for, was to be his child, their sibling.

but that was never possible, you've accepted that. you branched off, left and never came to look back because you knew you'll just be trudging another path of pain.

...

so why, why does he care so much now?

why, for the first time in your entire life, does it pain you more than it comforts you that he finally called himself your brother?

why, just now, does he say it to your face, when he never once did so all those years ago?

why does he pretend to be so shocked in front of you, wide-eyed and frozen, relinquished in guilt? why does he stand there, breathing, trying to compose himself as if your words ever held any weight on his chest? why can't he just understand, why can't he just let you go as easily now?

why do you still cry after all these years?

why do you still pretend that none of these... these issues mattered anymore in your heart?

why do your fingers still forcefully pierce into the mattress, grounding yourself to reality? why can't you rip your eyes away from jason?

why does his care break your heart more than it does fixing it?

you've always wanted this, didn't you? you've always wanted to be finally acknowledged, yet it still hurts. your throat still closes in on itself, like fingers clawing and constricting your airways, your breathing like jet missiles vaporizing mid air.

and yet all the pain, all the yearning and destesting for a love so passionate were still overpowered by the senseless need for answers.

'jason, why do you still try?'

"angel, calm down you're—"

on the verge of a panic attack? hands suddenly beating at your chest, tears neverending still streaking your sore cheeks and bitten, bloodied lips?

his hands reach out to grab yours, yet you slap his palms away, ignore the stinging sensation that came after; and back away to a corner. like a reckless animal, like the same young child hiding behind closet doors, biting back tears yet desperately failing.

you're both at your breaking points, you both refuse to back down this stupid game of cat and mouse.

"just calm down, please—!"

"NO, I WON'T— you don't fucking understand it, jason!

— i don't need your help, or anyone else's anymore! you have never been there for me! never been there for all the times i suffered because of your death! so don't even try to make a difference now!"

before he could even refute, before he could shout and cause another wave of panic, before he could break you even further—

"... so why do you care now?"

you couldn't even face him, too afraid to see his reactions churning. he shakily breaths, fog encapsulates the air around his parched lips. and you're reminded that it's almost winter, that your heater in your apartment is broken, that you'll be freezing underneath your thin blankets, eating off cold meals— that it's another one of those months where you're reminded of the privilege you've both lost and gained after leaving the manor.

you've lost your last connection to jason, so you thought, yet he's here in front of you now. he's here, and rather than wanting him to be here, you'd wish it was a dream instead.

you wished he never cared, for his next words stabbed you more than it did made you feel cared.

"i care, (name). because you were drunk when i got you, you were impulsively provoking the same guys who nearly killed you. because what? it's easier to escape that way?. i care because you've done something stupid, you nearly died because of your recklessness! my younger sibling did something stupid and it's my responsibility to worry over you, worry over your overdramatics! you're still fucking eighteen and you're already wasting away your life—!"

"that's why i fucking care for you, because you're my burden alone and nothing changes that!"

what...?

overdramatic? impulsive and reckless? is he serious? is that all you ever were to him? he cares because he thinks you're still that stupid, innocent child chasing after him? is that what you are? is that all you ever amounted to him after all the times you spent sleepless nights reading the books he recommended you? all the hours burning your fingers just to perfect his favorite lunch?

just that?

just a burden?

and he just stands there, so cruelly imposing, hands crossed like he's right and you're not. tears equally streak his ragged face, dripping all the way down his sharp jaws and wobbly chin. but his brows are furrowed, eyes still squinted at your body, weaker than his.

like all he feels is rage towards you, like everything's your fault.

while you're just sitting in his bed, limp and utterly unable to stand without his guidance.

and you hate this, hate being reminded that just like last time, you used to depend on him alone.

"how dare you, jason? we... i've always been so good to you... i've always done what you always wanted, i—"

this time your heart aches differently. it's not the subtle panic stinging your beating organ, not even regret shrouding your thoughts. but a painful, stabbing pain; slow and cold. your nose is clogged, your teeth rigidly grinding, the ball of your joints feel like they're pressing deeply on each other— everything just hurts.

his words feel like a knife slowly twisting inside your guts. not even the salty, warm tears feel worth crying out anymore.

it's just silent understanding, a painful acceptance.

of your pain and all those wasted summers and lonely winters.

your hands grip the headboard as you shift your weight to the uninjured side of your abdomen. you glare at him when he almost hurriedly attempts to help you, but through silent puffs of effort under your breath, you're already standing, right hand gripping nothing on the wall as you lean on it.

it still hurts, god, the burning sensation won't boil down at all.

— but you want to face him, head-to-head. you want him to face his burden. if he wants to understand you, if you want to understand him— there's no use hiding behind a semblance of comfort.

because more than anything, you just wanted a family. you just wanted to be part of their family.

yet now you've come to realize that maybe you were just a burden all along.

"it's- it's so unfair..."

your voice cracks at the seams, but there's no use composing yourself anymore. no use in trying to look decent in his eyes when all you ever were was a problem to him, to everyone else, right?

"out of all the times i nearly got killed, jason... you decided to save me by the time i accepted my death...?"

maybe your mother would've sided with jason, only for the part that she wanted you safe and sound rather than dead. but she's dead now, you wanted to be dead because it meant you'll finally have her at your side.

and it feels so cruel to be stripped away from that honor, that merciful gift of life, from the very same brother whose death caused you more turmoil than anything.

"—this isn't the first fucking time this happened to me, jason, and it wouldn't be the last."

your voice was barely a whisper, barely a recognizable tremor, but it speaks volumes of your desperation, of what could've been if he didn't intervene. of what wouldn't change despite it all.

you'll still be dead afterall. this is gotham where you're living. and you're not a priority to the vigilantes, not anybody important to the family.

even if his expression shifted to shock, even if you find an ounce of softness throughout the exterior of his fragile agitation; is it not true?

he takes a step forward, but your hands shoot out to put distance between you two. even if it pains you to see the confused heartbreak in his eyes at your refusal, you don't want him any closer, you fear you'll submit to his whims if you do.

you can taste blood in your tongue, but you swallow it all like you're swallowing all the bitterness you feel, you drown this ache in your heart, replace it with temporary assurances that this will all end, that jason's stubborn attempts of placating you is just another attempt to draw you closer, only to push you away in the end.

... and yet he's still trying even after what felt like minutes, maybe hours, stretching between you two.

jason still keeps trying, while you're close to giving up.

"why are you like this, angel? what happened between you and bruce? did he hurt you—"

"nothing happened—" you're lying, but not quite so. you're lying but it's not a lie when you mean nothing, literally nothing, happened between you and your father. that's the worse of it all, you and bruce never had a moment together, never had any memories to cherish nor times where he comforted you through the trauma of it all.

that painful reminder just makes past emotions stir within you.

of those cold nights, the barren hallways and alfred's countless excuses for bruce's absences.

"i have my personal reasons, jason." you seethe through your teeth. it hurts to admit your feelings to him, hurts that your drying tears are still overlayed by a resurgence of new ones. "it involves you guys... you and the others; but it's nothing now. it doesn't matter now and you know it..."

"... no i don't, angel. and no, it's not nothing. because if it was, then what's all of this for? what do you want from him, from me? that caused you to act this way...? to act so selfishly, trying to rebel like us when you've always been a good kid, huh? god, (name), if you just wanted his attention, to be his favorite—"

"— then there's so much better ways, angel. than being like this... being someone that isn't you."

he truly never knew you well at all, huh?

considering everything that happened tonight, you thought he did, but fuck...

hearing all those assumptions come straight from him just destroys you inside out.

"jason... please listen to me."

cutting him off, it's both an act done to just stop him from rambling any further, stops you from just— just irrationally ripping your ears apart so you wouldn't have to hear it anymore; hear all those disillusioned excuses, those painful words ripping you apart at the seams.

he looks at you, at your weak hold against the edge of the bedframe, at the hushed, shivering breathing, at your downcast, almost resigned eyes. you don't reciprocate his worried gaze, you just... don't.

"i don't want to be his favorite... i never wanted to be— fuck!"

"why do you assume all this, jason?" you faintly glared at him, but that flicker of the fight blew off, and you returned, looking at your feet, speaking through your beating heart, your irrational thoughts of shutting down, if not for the faint stench of smoke grounding you, if just by a fraction.

"i never wanted to be an athlete like dick, or as academically talented like you, or some crazed detective like tim, or as skilled as an assassin like damian! i don't even have the determination steph has or barbara's perseverance to continue fighting alongside all of you! i can't even reach cassandra's level of fighting, and i certainly don't have powers like duke!"

there it is again: the envy, the spite, and the undertone of yearning in your words. maybe jason was right, maybe you're still the young, good kid afterall. but good kids still do bad things, good kids can still feel and fuck, you feel a plethora of negativity mentioning all their positive traits, while you have none.

you have nothing, not even a small merit to offer.

"— all of you guys are so fucking talented, and here i am, so pathetic for thinking i can reach the same level as you all when i can't!"

the medals are useless compared to damian's success in topping the entire gotham university. the certificates for placing indancing competition were none the more important than cassandra's ballet recitals. your research projects that you've spent nights crying on, was it all that relevant when tim always one-ups you within just a day of data-gathering?

so what makes you special, what makes jason think you'd even try to be bruce's favorite in the first place, when you're absolutely useless?

"—so i just can't, jason! how could i have the damn audacity to desire being bruce's priority when each and every one of you are beyond my level?!"

untouched breakfast, thrown away lunch, cold dinners. thrashed out backpack, unsharpened pencils, inkless pens, wornout diaries, bandaged arms and sleepless nights. your life was a cycle of constant wanting, of constant attempts to earn your place. even if there were moments some of them looked at you in pity, it was never enough to warrant their comforting words or even just a pat in the back.

the last time dick has ever looked at you was the first time you met.

and in those moments where you wish you were as forgettable to damian as you were to others, he'll remember to always remind you of your place.

maybe you were like them, in ways where you're always trying but never enough. in ways where their attention on you was never enough too. you need something from them, they needed something else from you too.

"angel..." you don't have to look up to know the air has changed. that wretched nicnkame plastered itself back into his mouth. this time, he said it softer, like he's come to a realization, like it was enough to draw you out of the caverns of isolation you've kept yourself in.

but before he could speak again, before you'd get lost in those memories of the past—

"i never wanted to be bruce's favorite, jason..."

"i just..."

your eyes soften, as tears begin to spring from your eyes, red and swollen, and you let them. you look down at your unclenched hands through blurry vision, and find indents of crescents present on raw, battered skin— and it's enough to make you remember your childhood, enough to deepen the heavy weight of conflict drowning your heart.

when you look up to jason again, you bite your quivering lips, just to silence the ugly wail brewing from your chest. he looks at you, as equally befuddled, as heartbroken.

"... i just wanted to be his child." the sentence comes out your lips, so silent, so broken and lightly pitched. it speaks volumes of wanting, of yearning, of years begging for even a sliver of love offered on your way. it felt like it was the younger you speaking to him, begging him to fucking understand how it was never about just wanting attention—

it was about wanting to just have a family. people who should've loved you, saw you through the veil of your reputation, yet chose to love you still.

because they're family, they're your family. and all that mattered to you was family.

how hard was it to understand that sentiment?

"i just want to be loved because i'm his child, not a charity case, or because he's doing this for my mother..."

you remembered those nosy paparazzi's stalking you even in elementary. they ask you how it's like being adopted by the bruce wayne, how it's like living a life most orphaned children dreamt of living; how lucky you must be, having a mother who's come to share a bed with him, that your life must be so full of luxury because bruce took pity on you and your poor, whore of a mother, right?

they didn't know it was alfred, the estate's butler, who'd suggested adopting you. and with a flick of bruce's wrist, a slight furrow of his brows and a dismissed thought of you, you were brought in the manor.

it was never bruce who considered you, maybe the paparazzi and journalists slowly came to realize that after discovering your father is nowhere to be seen beside your side. maybe that's why they slowly dissipated away from you year by year, leaving you as lonely as ever.

'and now,' you thought, 'bruce still doesn't care for me at all.'

that hurts.

"i just want to be selfish for once... i want to see him the same way he looks at you back then, every damn time he stares at your grave, while i watch by the fucking windows, wishing it was me he looked at."

despite never meeting jason from back when he was robin, you mourned for him too, you prayed for his soul the same way you prayed for your mother's. it helped you disillusion yourself to believe you mattered, sitting beside his grave by the gardens despite the rain pouring downcast and staining your clothes. it helped you think you were becoming closer to bruce.

"i wanted him to look at me jason! think of me as someone as important as you, even just a semblance of it...!"

you tried so hard to imitate them all. dick's athleticism, cass' elegance, tim and barbara's elite-level knowledge on the digital world, duke's cunningness when it comes to puzzles, damian's strategies and steph's awe-inspiring rebellion paired with sarcasm. you try to emulate it all, waking up early every day, schedule packed with activities in each corner of the manor just so you'd have a chance of finding bruce in the same room as you; but it just never was enough.

"god, i don't even want him to see me as a priority, i don't want him to see me and think that i'm the best damn thing in the world. i know i'm not, jay. i'm not perfect, not even half as good. but i just want him to stare and think, 'this is my child,' without any second thoughts, without any regards for my dirty fucking past."

there was one moment in your life where you almost despised your mother. almost. you blamed her for birthing you, for having you as her child, for bestowing you this curse of being unloved, as only being acknowledged as the woman who stole from others: a bitch, a prostitute who got pregnant too early, a lady with a sullen reputation bleeding into the present of her child.

you nearly hated her, you wish you never did. she was your only light, the memories of her was what kept you alive, and you dim that light off, purposely try to blow off the shining embers that gleam for you just because you wanted the love and attention from a family that was never yours.

and you nearly worked yourself to death because of it.

"jason, i just wanted to... to go through the normal things a father does with his child. i wanted him to love me, even just for the tiniest bit. is that hard enough to fulfill? am i just too high maintenance for him that he can't— can't even deal with me after you died? tell me, jason—

"—am i just the burden of an aftermath?!"

a small of you nearly excused bruce's neglect for his mourning of jason. but that mourning extended even after his resurrection. and slowly, the more the members of the family piled up, you figured it all out.

it was you that's unlovable.

and no matter what, you could never truly accept that fact.

not even as you cry out your woes to jason, not even as your voice cracks and breaks at every syllable, at every spilled word tinged with bitterness, with pain so deep it cuts through your already bleeding heart.

"i just- just wanted to be part of the family. i just wanted to eat takeout with you that day- wanted to forget you fought bruce— forget everythin' just to bond with you 'cause you never gave me enough time in your already busy day. so why can't i? why can't i have the things everyone else had? is it too entitled of me to say that i just wanted your love? am i too demanding if i just wanted a family?!"

"is it so hard to love me?"

"tell me, jason! just, fucking tell me, please..."

your fingers' grip on the edge of the headboard nearly slipped, your sniffles were unbearably loud, a reflection of the thrumming beats of your heart nearly escaping out your chest in the form of shrieking sobs.

he finally speaks, unsure. he still stands in his place, but you're crying too much to even care.

"no, no of course not. it's not... you're not..."

"i'm not what, jason? not your sibling, not bruce's child? 'cause that's what i've felt like this entire fucking decade! and now that i've left everything behind, you all suddenly want to pretend like i was never unnoticed back then? that all my damn efforts to be good enough was finally acknowledged just now—?"

"why can't you just answer me, jay? why does nobody want to give me answers?"

"... why can't anybody just love me?"

it felt like heartbreak on both your sides. like a thread snapping, jason was as quick to retort—

"we do love you, angel. i do...! i love you so fucking much that i can't handle seeing you in pain. so please let me take care of you, just... just let me handle all of this, please."

— but you can't believe him, not anymore. it hurts falling for his lies, for his words and false reassurances. he can't even promise you takeout back then, what more does his 'i love you's' do you now?

"no, no you can't care for me, jason. not anymore... you're not my brother anymore, you guys aren't family to me anymore..."

is it betrayal in his eyes, or something far deeper? is it unadulterated anger at what you'd said? why can't he just accept your words? why can't he just accept there's nothing in between you anymore other than those past memories long gone?

"... yes, yes we're family. i care for you. just let me show you i do, angel—"

"... we're not even siblings, we're not. we're just strangers to each other.—"

you whisper softly through your damp lashes, throat sore after all the screaming. it doesn't calm down the momentary adrenaline rushing through your body, though. it doesn't, all these reassurances are just a temporary distraction.

"that's not true, angel. don't even... don't even think of saying that—"

"take me back, please. just please take me back to where you last found me. i'll find a way—"

you want to go home, you want to sleep your way through this pain. but jason proves himself to be stubborn, just like his father. and you are, too; anymore of those similarities, anymore and you'll bash your head to the walls just so you could forget.

"no, angel..." he retorts just as quickly, suddenly imposing, suddenly back to square one where it's all him, all his words that matter with no regard for yours. "who the hell says i'm letting you go back there?! that's suicide!"

but you don't matter, don't you? so that automatically means he shouldn't pretend like your life matters, too.

"... i don't care, just please! jason, i'm begging you...! just do this one single favor for me. i can't..."

'i can't go back to the manor...'

just saying it in your thoughts alone makes you sick with nausea. because that means returning to yearning, returning to those sick nights filled with broken diary entries and dick's huff of dismissal, damian's weapons pointed at you, tim's click of the tongue and just... that inflicted, neverending pain.

"you're hurt, angel, you won't survive out in the dark like that. i'm sure as hell not taking you back there. we're going back to the manor—"

"NO! i don't want to be there! that's not where i live, not anymore, no take me back home...!

anywhere... anywhere but there. anywhere but that wretched cage.

"please, jay!"

you call him by his nickname, nearly yanking yourself to his side if it weren't for your legs keeping

"if you don't want me to... then let me go and i'll call a taxi or something—! whatever...! just not—"

"—not there..."

"and if i bring you back to that apartment, what now? you're gonna commit the same old mistakes, you're going to hurt yourself!? you're gonna get yourself killed, break another limb, use more than just crutches to support yourself and get yourself hurt all over again?!"

"NO! i won't, jay... i won't bother you anymore. just not there and... not with them—"

"... not with you, please."

it was a mistake on your part, to audibly whisper out those last words. and yet it was unfixable, you can't take back words once they're said, jason can't take back all the cruel statements he made your way that day, and yet it's him who's offended, who tears up, who heaves and nearly shrieks at you, uncaring for the neighbors living below.

"why are you trying so hard to push us away?! push me away right after you.. you opened up?!"

"because we're not family anymore, goddamnit—!"

"why are you so goddamn stubborn?! care for me, care for me like you care for all those strangers getting mugged in the street! not as my brother—!"

"i am your brother!"

it hurts, your chest hurts, your throat, your wobbly arms and your unfeeling legs. yet what hurts the most is that you just can't accept it, accept all the words he throws your ways. can't accept how you've both changed and it...

it just hurts...

"and i care for you, more than you can ever fucking imagine, so don't... don't fucking push me away! not especially right after i almost lost you!"

"god..." suddenly, he resigns through a sigh.

why, just why, is he calming down now?

"i'm such a fucking dick to you, aren't i? i know i don't deserve you. nobody deserves you and your forgiveness, angel. you've always been so good to me- to us...

"i'm so fucking sorry. for everything. for leaving you behind after that day, even being an asshole to you after. for ignoring you all those years, for breaking every damn promise i made like you were nothing, for realizing all of this just right after you nearly died, in my arms."

his voice breaks at the last words, as if the reminder of what transpired last night permanently left a broken fixture in his memories. as if thinking about it is enough to destroy any bite in his argument.

"you don't— you don't deserve any that—"

"i'm— i'm so sorry, angel."

that was all you wanted to hear, all you wanted to be said throughout the layers of defensive, reckless statements he threw your way.

heavy were the unspoken words that hung in the air. heavy were the unbidden promises he forged himself to ensure but ultimately failed to do so, that were all meant to repair his relationship with you. heavy were the tears that streaked both your cheeks, the unsung arguments, the fists that curl, fingers that bite at indented skin until it bleeds.

"— I should've noticed sooner, i should've known you felt that way."

"i know, jay. i know," your mind, your mouth, they both betray the words your heart wished to speak, but you lock that beating organ out before it forces you to mutter something else. you feel too faint, from the tiredness coursing through your body as an aftershock of your injury, the throbbing of the holes in your body, and the intensity of your emotions.

'i know you know that, and i wished you did something about it when you knew you had the power to change all this—'

'all that were are, all that we were.'

you wanted to tell him, but the sentiment tastes bitter on the expanse of your tongue, as if confessing it would scorch you and your aching brain even further. you just couldn't anymore, you couldn't break both your hearts.

heavy were the emotions uncurling beneath both you and jason's chest, boiling and spilling, until the only words you both could mutter were the ones that scald your aching hearts.

"jason, i'm- i'm still hurt."

"i know, angel. let me take care of it, of you. just let me do this, just once."

he takes a careful stride towards you, a knot forms in your brows and in your stomach. it curls inside your body when his both his hands grip your forearms, gently, like you're made of glass, to push you to softly sit on his mattress.

made carefully, cleaned neatly for you.

you never thought you were worthy enough to have a bed made for you.

— you don't even allow alfred to clean your own room because you don't think you deserve it.

silence ensues, only the squeak of his shoes sliding against the floor, his panting breaths, your unstable intakes of air, and the hinge of his bed were heard, drowning out the swears of the citizens from below his apartment complex and the thumping of car horns.

it's just the two of you, in this room. you and jason, just like the moments spent under the roof of the manor.

you don't fight against him, don't push him away like you did so earlier, in favor of relinquishing your control, your pain, to his squinting, wandering blue eyes that trap your body, at his calloused fingers running across the expanse of the lumps in your arms.

and in that moment, under the sheer glow of his apartment's flickering lights, under the watchful gaze of the restless city nights, of the lamp posts gleaming in the streets; you both looked a little more like each other for every passing second, every passing moment after you'd scream your woes, after he'd retort and retaliate with his excuses, his reasonings.

you had his vengeful glare, staring daggers at him as he took in your wrapped wounds. he had your silence, desperate and aching pleas. you stuttered like him when he chases after words tangling in his parched mouth. he bites his lips like you when he couldn't find the right words, bounding his hands to his delicate strands of hair to pull in agitation, just like you always do.

and both of you were- were good...

a good soldier and a good child, lost in the weave of dreams, expectations and broken, unfulfilled promises.

it reminds you of how he was the only brother you truly had a bond with, of how truly close you were to him, shared moments of brief laughter with, a respite, a paradise without the need to chase after his presence, all done in such short moments, moments that could never be enough to quench your aching thirst for love and familial attention.

he finally speaks after taking his seat beside you, muscled arms wrapping around your shoulders. he broke the intangible silence, with knotted brows and sorry, pleading eyes that look at yours. it made you feel trapped, in his arms and in his mindful apologies, it reminded you of the manor.

"i could've been better for you, angel. i should've known, i'm so fuckin' sorry, i—"

"i know, jay. i know, please..."

please stop. no more, you don't want to hear anymore,. you don't want to dream, to fantasize what could've been.

— because that meant drowning yourself in the past, that meant running back to chasing after empty promises.

and yet...

the more you think, the more the possibilities unfold in your thoughts.

a bitter part of you wished it was him who had welcomed you into your home, into the manor. you wished it was him, not alfred, dick or bruce you'd chase after, wished he was alive when your fleeting dreams were too. the child in you wished his assurances were what graced you in such an early time. just so that, maybe, just maybe, your throat wouldn't close in on itself every time you're reminded of your solitary past, a past lost and without a cause because of his passing.

running after dick, acting as his invisible silhouette, hearing the empty yes's on your invitation for him to come visit your room. tugging on bruce's sleeves whilst his eyes flit elsewhere. knuckles rupturing on the door of tim's room, only to be greeted with a silent hm, and a plea for you to come the next time. hands shakily holding a heavy tray of arabic food you learnt to cook for your younger brother, just for the same bowl to scald and prick stickily against your reddening skin

— you wouldn't have to do all that, if you had at least one ally, an ally who had to be dead when you were alone. someone as perfectly imperfect as you.

he's not like dick, the sun doesn't shine for him, the world doesn't give him grace— if it did, he wouldn't have died. he felt more charcoal than diamond, jagged and rough on the edges. yet charcoal was easier to obtain than diamonds, like the bright blue's of dick staring at you - such a precious, yet rare instance - or brazen emeralds like damian that could only look at you like you're mere pyrite; his attention was easier to obtain, because he knew you outside of your ghostly reputation. saw you as something else. jason was the only presence you were able to share your laughter with in the face of his brief visits.

as you look at him now, as he looks at you too, through his panting and the neverending tears streaking his cheeks. you look at each other in painful, understanding silence. his face, shoulders, chest, legs are painted with scars, incisions on skin, the first trait your eyes lay could on, as your gaze flitters to your equally scarred figure, too.

on the cuts that run deep into your wrists and palms, on the lighter scars, the deeper pigmentation that lay awake, like a chaotic portrait, that throbs with painful reminders that unlike jason, you chose to hurt yourself to replace that pain in your cold, beating chest. but like jason, you both wear these memories painfully on your sleeves.

imperfect, sullen and easily broken, like you.

you don't know whether to cry, or to laugh. that finally, fucking finally, you could share your similarities, your flaws with someone else too.

and at this very time, you knew neither of you could win your losing battles. if you argue even further, if your heart spills anymore words you know would only cut through the tension and break into even more back and forths— jason would only retort, would call you angel as be attempts to calm you down, as if you were an still an innocent bystander to his pain, as if you never told him you wish he'd stay dead.

if you wanted to survive this wretched night without anymore heartbreaks, you'd have to be the first to back down, to step away, be the bigger person.

like how you had to choose to give up on your family, to finally let go of your expectations on them. it was the only way, it was your way of adjusting to them, as you always do.

maybe it was fortunate for jason, that you'd already easily given up.

you'd give up when he wraps you in his arms, and unceremoniously perched you up his lap like how an owner cradles his injured cat, ensuring your injuries aren't pressed against the weapons stuck in his utility belt.

for a moment, you let time with him be. you allow the course of calmness to wash over, for your tears to dry until it feels like sickeningly dry salt rubbing against skin, for the lump resting in your throat to retreat to your throbbing heart, for the blood escaping your body from your injury to slowly seep into the gauze that wraps around it.

without the adrenaline coursing through your veins, without the haste of trying to escape from his hold, you've now access to the feel of his entire body. when the panic escapes from your heart, and all you're left with is resignation, his muscled arms wrapped around your torso; you're left reeling at the scent of motor oil and gunpowder, head buried at the crook of his neck whilst your tears are drying ever so slowly, effuse into his favorite jacket.

everything about jason felt foreign, uncharacteristically huge. his body felt too strong, too heavy, like a burden deeper than just vigilante duties of ridding the crime of gotham.

you never knew just how touch-starved you were, ignoring the specks of blood littering his clothes and the familiar scent of cigarettes reminding you of the bustling streets of gotham, even though the stench of ichor overpowers it— you feel like you're home. not at the manor which smells of fresh, flowery sheets, not at your empty apartment polluted with car smoke just wafting outside your windows; but a home you've once lived in, with just your mother and you.

it was just so fucked up, how he could easily subdue the anxiety eating you away. it was so ironic, how in an apartment filled with deadly weapons: guns, knives, bombs, and journals containing contingency plans against all his enemies; it is where you felt currently the safest, as you're reminded of your past; your humdrum life with your mother.

back when everything was normal, back when all your worries were about the chances of having dinner that night, or hoping that your new clothes wouldn't tear as much so your beloved mom wouldn't have to spend wretched hours stealing just to provide you with all your wants and needs.

it never occurred within your mind, just how similarly you lived like jason. and in jason's thoughts, he realized how much you could've ended like him if he hadn't protected you this very night. if he hadn't heard the family pitch of your scream, a scream engraved deep into his memories, a haunting record that plays nightly as he's reminded that he was the reason why you had terror shocks from the shadows in the corner of your eyes.

he hated that he made you scream as a child, that he was the stuff of your nightmares, but he despised it even more when it had to be the others tormenting his little sibling.

it was enough to make his blood curdle, the sight of those filthy men touching, pinning and kicking, shoving a gun against the head of the person most important to him, puncturing holes into their body. he takes in a shaky gulp, yet he hums - pretending like he isn't truly bothered. he can't let you worry anymore - when your fingers listlessly play with the hems of his jacket.

'they're dead, jason. don't even think of doing what you have to do.'

the palm that rests on the back of your torso digs deeper at the thought of you wriggling in pain, not enough to hurt, but enough to tell you that whatever jason is thinking right now isn't good, your ears taking notice hearing the hastening thrum of his heart, even when his body is slumped against yours, you could still feel the slight shivers trailing across his body.

yet you only bury yourself deeper into him, closed eyes dry with tears and nuzzling at warmth you knew you'll soon never be able to feel again, from a brother who was too late to take you back. his right palm, big against your head, nearly covering the expanse of your scalp, scratches and guides you to properly lean on the blades of his shoulder. you don't see his expressions, you don't know if all the comforting he's doing, all the love he's offering you right now is authentic, or just out of mere obligation as your older brother, but you're grateful either way...

entirely grateful that you'd at least be feeling what it's like to be cuddled by one of your ex-family members, before you ultimately make a quick escape from gotham. you're so grateful that despite everything, at least now, the tiny little part of you, the innocence long gone, would rejoice at their life-long dream at finally being able to coddle with just one family member.

past you would've ranted about this in your journal, would've jumped in joy, run across the manor, and thank the world for blessing you with such a miracle. you wouldn't even care if damian shoved a nasty glare in your way.

even if temporary, even if a small, unyielding part of you wishes that you could stay like this forever; the stronger version of you, the one that learned to mature, to forgive yet never forget— it is the voice of reason amongst a sea of conflicting emotions. it tells you that you've moved on a long time ago, that whatever this is right now, will have you force to let go.

and even if younger you begged that it is unfair, that this is what they've always wanted in their life, for someone to acknowledge them as much as they've loved the family even without reciprocation; you've long since given up at hoping. your heart is weary, and tired of constantly being led to believe, only to come back broken in pieces all the damn time. you're older now, old enough to learn that, well...

everything is temporary in life. the comfort your family offered you was always temporary. jason, who succumbs to burying his head in your scalp to hum foreign tunes— he'll soon be just a burning memory, yet at least you'll be left with something positive to say about him.

after all, their love for you happens in quick successions, it wasn't all the time you were ignored, but chasing after it when it had already become mere dust before you could catch it with your clawing hands.

dick had shown you a crumb of his love, back when he first introduced you to his room. hell, even bruce was decent enough to transfer you out of school, even if it was out of mere dismissiveness and to keep a reputation, he showed he cared for a child, even if it was never enough.

and now?

'now, jason will forget about me soon enough,' you tell yourself.

just like the times you stumbled upon steph and pushed yourself to be invited to watch a movie with her, only to be rejected and given her side of popcorn as compensation and an awkward grin promising that she'll find a time in her schedule to spend with you. waiting for months for an update proved fruitless, writing praises in your journal, all about her silky blonde hair, and her lighthearted smiles don't do anything to manifest time well-spent with someone you thought would at least put in effort to be with you. she was similar to you in so many ways, how she felt dismissed by the family, and never enough for them— but the sheer difference that places you both in different lanes is the fact that she was at least loved, that she still had people care for her outside her status of spoiler. people loved stephanie brown, because she was at least unique, she was noticeable with her ironic jokes and love for purple.

you still had nothing to offer.

it's like the silent moments you were able to cherish when you could last for more than five minutes in the room with damian, his emerald eyes petting titus and alfred the cat, as you sit in the far corner watching how softly, how precious like treasured gems, he treats them. he doesn't fight you, doesn't bat at eye, but witnessing the young assassin, your little brother, become a kid, watching him paint in your memories without his scowled growl directed at you, or a knife pointed on your body; it made you feel like they do have a semblance of love, of care, only for those who deserved.

you only deserve care when you prove yourself to be capable enough.

hell, despite you knowing the least about duke, watching him play with his powers against bruce's orders was what made your bleak life a bit more interesting. having to save him from nearly dying, from fainting due to the overuse of his metahuman abilities when he was still new to being signal. being the faint silhouette he sees throughout the white light in his vision, the quivering, desperate voice who assures him he'll be alive, he'll be fine; you don't know if he remembers it, if the young boy could even recall how your eyes lit up, how your chest felt lighter when his scarred palms came to cup your shivering ones to keep you from ripping at your hair—

your point proves, chasing after them amounts to nothing. you could only be a witness, a bystander if you want to relish in their shared memories, but never part of their small community. you'll never be able to know what's it like having inside jokes with them, to share your homemade meals with them, to show old albums of your life as a child before being adopted. you just can't.

even the prospect of being married, of having them help you arrange your marriage becomes mere fantasy.

everything you ever hoped to spend with them is fantasy, an unattainable desire. you should've known from the start.

to them, to you, to everybody you lived with under the same, gothic roof of a manor rich with history still unknown to an outsider like you— you are but a mere stranger. there at the wrong place, in all the wrong times.

maybe that is what jason felt after his untimely death, that he does not belong anymore. maybe he felt like an intruder instead, just like you, with how he felt replaced by tim, how the legacy of robin lives on even after his passing. how he felt like a cheap rebound of dick after years of searching for answers, or how he never truly mattered to bruce—

— but at least he still has a place in their heart. despite only knowing him after his resurrection, you've come to love him too, and learned to let go at the same time.

you hope jason understands why you're so unwilling for him to help return you to the manor. you hope he doesn't question why you chose to live in your apartment, you hope that if he does find out the reason, he'll shut up about it.

you wish that jason understands, even as you felt well-rested enough on his muscled shoulders, head slowly, eyes blinking away the drowsiness washing over you, rising even if the arms that hover over your scalp invites you to sleep instead.

you're stronger now, not physically, but you willed yourself to force your eyes to stare back at him. his lidded, dull blue oned unlike dick's, and it doesn't look like the ocean eyes you find yourself drowning in staring at bruce's whenever you watch him across the television during his interviews. it was a blue similar to the sea at night, tranquil shores that caresses the soles of your feet standing on sand. there was no shine in them, it was a symbolic retelling of his death, gazing into them, at the depths of emotions swimming in those orbs alone, you feel a sense of ease when they soften, when they give way for you to stare for as long as you want.

although you were sitting atop his lap, looking down at him, his gaze made you feel little. like you were a child all over again. both of his hands are now resting on your waist to stabilize you. you couldn't reason the sudden protectiveness, the unwillingness to let you go, but your mouth opens before you could think, yet jason beats you to it, spilling words you thought he was incapable of admitting — breaking the peaceful silence once more with the significant tremor, the apologies laced in his words— with all the years he spent looking at you in contempt before he resigned to casual, yet fleeting conversations with you back at the manor.

"you know, angel...? i'm so sorry for everything. i really mean it... for all the times i was blind to you wishing you could've spent time with me. and i was so stupid, rejecting you, hurtin' you all those years thinking bruce was out there favoring you when it's the opposite... I didn't know he didn't even care for you. i know you won't be able to forgive me, or them, i know it took me long enough to forgive bruce too. but it's different now, 'kay? i'll be different, angel. i'll protect you from now on, in your, what? your little apartment, right? i don't mind scouting the entire area for you even if it means you're on the other side of the city. all for you, i promise."

"all for you."

he speaks in a careful manner, choosing his words and flinching - the scar on his lip stretches, it reminds you of the one on your neck - when he feels it doesn't rightfully get the message across. you can feel it, feel how every sentence is wired with regret, heavy promises, and an unspoken desperation to keep you close to him, as if- as if he actually cares for you—

you blink, vision blurry as you catch sight of a stray tear running down your damp chest. your nose clogs once more, tongue licking at your chapped lips. jason, he- he takes your fingers before it ventures to tangle upon your hair, he hushes the tight wail escaping your throat as he cradles your body, other palm nuzzling into your sensitive scalp.

are you crying again? at what he'd said?

why are you so broken, that the prospect of somebody once full of disinterest towards you, now cares for you?

and for what is he doing this for, though? all for you? he apologized, exactly like dick, with the same foreboding assurance. is it to repair, to mend a broken relationship that was never there?

"y-you don't have to anymore, jay— i just- just wanted to—"

'i just want to make peace with you before i'll be gone from your life, before you could even fulfill your promises. you don't have to be chained with someone like me for the rest of your life anymore.'

thankfully, he hums at you, interrupting your growing stutters, at the thought that noisily seeps into your head. you hiccuped in reply, drowning out the shivers jolting across your body. if not for his hands still digging at your waist, you swore the dizziness of it all could've made you stumble across the floor.

but, you can't just stay silent about this. about all the shit that happened in your life. not when he's promising you something so burdening, not when he thinks he has a chance of making it up to you.

no, you can't just let them push at you anymore.

you whisper through your inconsolable stutters, eyes drifting down to your lap, at your hands that scratch at raw scars, "i don't blame you, jason. it never really came across to me to hate you for, you know- it's not- you're not the only reason that he neglected me—"

"shh, i know, angel. i know. but that doesn't change shit 'bout how he— we treated you, does it not?"

you shake your head, downcast gaze refusing to look at his troubled one. if you do, you might just surrender to the softness, to the child-like whispers at the back of your mind saying you wanted this.

"w-well you can't change anything about it now... and i hated you still back then, for different reasons. i hope, i hope that you know that, too..." your voice cracks at the seams, "i- i'm still hurt from everything, jason—" he shushes you again, fingers brushing away at your stray hairs sticking to your damp cheeks. his palms were huge as it cups your face, emitting a comforting warmth against the jagged surface, a heat that makes you slowly, but unsurely melt.

— you never had this brotherly love in your whole life before, never felt comforted in the hands of who was once your tormentor.

"i know you're hurt. i know you're in so much pain because of us— of me, so let me take care of it from now on, 'kay...?"

he whispers, hushed voice a gentle tremor lulling you to near sleep. but you can't just return to this uncharacteristic softness, not now. your eyes, almost squinting shut, snap open to look back at him hesitatingly.

"no, you don't have to do this, jason... i told you," you hesitate, gulping. "we're not– we're not siblings anymore. you don't have to do all this for me... you're not obligated to, unlike last time."

you can feel it, his shoulders squaring in on itself, the subtle tension returning in his muscles, as if his arms were ready to trap you in his gentle hold, restricting you for further escaping.

"... nonsense, angel. take that back— i am doing this all for you."

his voice was always tinged with gruffness, rarely any softness in the way his words were said with finality. sometimes mocking, sometimes spiteful. for a crime lord, it was imperative to always be the supreme voice, a voice of reason.

... but this time, it seems, there's a childish softness, a despondency, laced in his reply. like him, though, your resolve to leave his apartment was as solid as his promise to keep you to stay.

"no, jason, you're doing this all for your guilt... not- not out of pure hearted intentions, aren't you...? just to prove that you're right and- and you're better than the entire family. and then you'll forget about me afterwards—"

you crack at the seams.

"this will be just like all the other times..."

you ignore how his fingers dig deeper into the plush softness of your waist, how it feels like he's staring right past you, mind drifting to another plane of existence at what you'd said.

yet you continue.

"— so please, leave me alone after this...?

after all, what's the point in considering their emotions anymore, when they've never done so for yours?

a silence you couldn't swallow, strangling at the chords in your throat. it feels like a bucket of cold water had washed over the once comfortable silence he'd bask in.

"... please, jay?" your heartbeat spikes at calling him by his once beloved nickname. the one you used to lovingly mutter under your breath, shyly taking his attention from back when you were a child, a subconscious manipulative tactic.

you always called him out with that title, a wide-eyed plea, with what felt like butterflies spinning in your tongue inviting him to linger for just a few minutes with you, just so he could spare some time reading a paragraph of your favorite classic book—

— it was a nickname that fell astray, turned into a flickering memory, after your relationship with him slowly strained. after every month, little by little, you saw him less. until you were a teenager, until he felt his business were with your other siblings instead, his priority on his and their vigilante lives— like the unbidden promises he kept from you, the nickname fell short, turned stranger in your eyes like the man you're seated atop on.

your lips feel dry, your sweat clings to your dampened shirt, and jason.

god, jason's hands enclose itself on your waist, heavy head dropping to your shoulders. you can smell it, his conditioner and a heady scent of cigarettes. his hair tickles the underside of your chin, you don't know whether to laugh or to cry when he takes his space in the corner of your neck, inhaling and exhaling deeply— the heat of his breath hits your skin, it feels too warm, a stark contrast to the shivers overtaking your body.

he heaves in a breath, you can't see his face from below, can't make it out if he's laughing or groaning or what. you can't wrought his head out, he's stronger than you.

momentary panic ensues, you fear he might've disagreed, that he might end up locking you up but—

"huh..." his gruff voice returns, a deeper tremor laced with confusing you'd expect a frigid reply, a desperate plea, maybe even a familiar anger bursting right out of him

"with you calling me that," he whispers on the crook of your neck, head burying far deeper as if- as if he wants his skin to fuse with yours. the depth in his words felt utterly abysmal when he referred to his nickname.

a little more, and you swear you might feel his teeth grazing your flesh. at that, goosebumps start to trail your entire body, your teeth aches with unbidden agitation.

you can't, you can't fall into hopeless respite.

he continues with his little monologue. you're too breathless, shallow air fills your lungs at every word he punches your way, clinging, burrowing deep into your mind, with every touch pinning you in place—

"how could i argue against you now, angel...? not when you sound like the little kid i met back then."

a scoff, laced with amusement, erupted from him. you can feel the vibrations on his adam's apple, you witness the thoughts churning in his mind, the subtle reminiscing in the silence that clings onto both your memories.

a sense of nostalgia washes over you —at the night you both meet, of the gentle giant sneaking past gothic windows and his reaction to being caught, at your excitement to make a new companion— but bitter resentment claws its way faster into your thoughts.

how could he pretend like everything's fine? how could he act like he didn't break your heart when you first saw him?

"but still, i'm serious about the change, for you, just you. anythin' you want, angel, anything—"

a small part of you hates him still, despises the entire family for what they did; what they caused.

how could he have the audacity to think he has a chance at your life? to assume he deserves one? right after- after destroying all your hopes?

he's right, though,. he remembers those memories from when you were a kid. a kid, but not anymore. you're not the little child who looks up to him, to dick, to bruce— who kisses at the soles of their feet, who acts as their shadow chasing after them.

'how dare you, jason...'

you don't know what overcame you, what monstrous being possessed your soul to spitefully reply all of a sudden. maybe it was bitter anger, the past resentment, an urge— a subtle defiance that wishes to torment them like how they did you.

maybe it was the broken remnants of your child that just wants assurance, or the mature teenager in you that wants to move on, to have a new lease on life.

but, either way. it's the words that need to be said that matters, and not the reaction, the unneeded outcomes from the same people who hurt you.

you had to grow past everything, had to take the first steps if you truly wish to let go, rather than run away from the past with no final message.

they say indifference is the opposite of love, not hate. and if you want your tormentors to feel what they've done to you, to know what it's like to be met with spiritless replies, empty promises and hallways, broken hearts and cold dinners— you had to beat them with oppressive silence; a loveless nothingness.

"jay," you call out to him, interrupting his shameless rambles.

"please promise me..." at the sudden shift in your voice, your soft tone, he wretches himself away from you, albeit slowly; looking you straight in the eyes.

there was naught a sudden flicker of absolute firmness in your eyes, but a quiet resolve that demanded finality, a silent plea opposite to the screaming that ensued just an hour ago.

'be the bigger person, (name).'

'because you are not a wayne anymore—

you are your mother's child.'

and she's kind, but assertive. gracious, but cunning. you see an imagery of bruce in your reflection, your passions in dick, your trauma in jason— so many similarities, so many stark contrasts.

but ultimately, you came from her.

you can sense it, the intangible shift in the air, the curious, yet hesitant flicker in his eyes.

you lick your lips, the tinge of blood grounds you in spite of the hastening of your heartbeats.

"look, okay... promise me this—"

a deep inhale, a quivering exhale. and for once, you control the tears brimming in your eyelids.

he nods, urging you to continue.

the knot on your chest only tightens, strangling you until it feels no words could escape your mouth. yet they're mere paranoia, you can't afford fear no more.

"i... i want you to forget about me after this. promise me, jason, to treat this night like all the other nights you pretended i didn't exist. that you love your family but not me, because i am not family. treat me like you despised me because i was your terrible replacement, i could never amount to you and that's all fine with me... let's leave all this behind and- and return back to our normal lives, alright...? where i'm nobody to you, and you're just a stranger to me... "

even your resolve tasted foreign on your tongue, as your eyes suddenly dart everywhere but at his breathless reactions.

"you don't— don't have to dwell on the past anymore."

'come on, (name). don't hesitate anymore. this is your future speaking for you.'

your guts twists in on itself, everything's spinning, your heart feels like it's running a mile. but you force yourself to smile at him despite the energy draining from your body, despite how you had to watch the color wash away from his face, feel how his hands dig into your skin, watch the frustated furrow of his brow—

you smile a shaky smile, grin a final grin, clasp his vulnerable, and equally conflicted face in your scarred hands, and finally let another wave of tears erupt from your eyes.

"can you do that for me, jason?"

"..."

"— alright..."

let the cinema's curtains finally close, let there be no more acts, no more formalities to happen between you two.

let this all be a fleeting memory. just like those past thirteen years and a half: let it be buried in a treasure chest you'll never visit.

his silence acts as resignation, your hands letting go of his cupped face, to carefully bring you down from his loosening hold, as you wince at the pain still throbbing in your wrapped scar; it shall symbolize a final message of goodbye.

the unspoken agreement to move, the cushion of his red helmet brushing on his hair as he puts it on, the jingles of his motor keys in the pockets of his heavy pants, the creak of the door as he opens it, slow and unsure, the stench of your blood still lingering in the air, the uncomfortable solace as he props your hands up his shoulders to lean your body weight against him before he brings a crutch to your armpit. the gruff that came after as his hands stabilized you, for you to properly walk with the newly armed crutches beside his company—

it provides at least a grounding notion for the thoughts spiraling in your mind. the drowned thumps of the wood stumbling on the carpet, the moonlight spilling out the cracks of the hallway's windows, the faint rumbling of the city streets as passing cars honk at the traffic, the ding of the elevator, the anything of everything.

but him.

focusing on anything else, it at least helps distract you from his heavy gaze, from jason's prying arms ready to capture you, trap you in his apartment, the moment you show slight faintness, any hesitant stumble in your steps, any wincing sound at the pressure in your joints; his overprotectiveness still at an all-time high despite the promise you proposed that he had to pretended to upkeep for you.

when you were finally propped on to his huge motorcycle, a few mishaps being met in your way when he handled you too tight, so daintily as if you're made of fine porcelain, as if he were afraid to let go — crutches graciously placed in the space between his seat and yours — and when you hear the engine's gas revving up, but no jason making a brief quip, a comedic joke only he could understand which you laugh at still...

... only one thing was for certain despite the millions of ideas racing in your mind from his quiet reaction.

'let him bring me home, give him space, and let him forget about all this in the end.'

let the past be a dream.

and you shall only hope that everything that comes after this, will also be just another dream.

after all, he had only agreed to let you go home - for now, just now... - but hadn't truly promised to leave you alone, not at all, never.

and maybe, just maybe, you should've never trusted his words at all.

it was all that it is, all that it was.

a mere device for tactical missions.

the intercom linked directly to the batcave was just a device used to communicate with the family in the rare instances he chose to pair up with them in case jason learned his current tactics required more than a helping hand, but rather companionship in the midst of completing tasks.

its usefulness was only for practicality.

and it was just that, a tool for the greater good, yet easily discarded after he gained what he wanted.

when you left him, crutches in hand, back turned as your body fades in on the distance, he realizes that even thought it was his pride that he knew you the longest - now even bearing your deepest, most personal issues that just makes letting you (temporarily) go hurt his heart - he had only ever used you for his entertainment, not even an apology nor a confrontation was made to confess to you of his past sins towards you.

he's such a shitty brother, isn't he?

all that it is, all it ever was.

and yet as the polluted breeze of gotham flutters through his hair, the night sky still gleaming over the horizon of long standing, abandoned buildings camouflaged amongst shitty, barely functioning apartment complexes - where he knows are one of the current places you live in - he willed himself to comb them back, especially the stubborn strands sticking near his ears. in his hands, he holds an intangible device.

the same old, rickety intercoms.

just like old times.

so he presses the tiny button used to trigger direct calls, and shoves it deep into his ears, a perfect fit as every device was crafted to each individual working for the batman. you're the only member of the family to never adopt the vigilante life, he's glad you never did, but at the same time... it was what what you apart from everybody else.

everything just reminds him of how much you're worlds apart from the family. everything just pushes him to change that current position of yours; to make you know you matter more than you ever know.

"... ah, young master jason, you're back," alfred's contemplating voice buzzes through the call. no hint of surprise was evident in his tone, but rather a welcoming quip at his current rebellion towards jason. "i suppose you might require some assistance if you're calling then, right?"

'yes,' he might've said, stalling, but it's not as simple just as money heist problems or an issue regarding the resurgence of new kryptonite deposits— no.

jason doesn't want that. he doesn't want to waste anymore time, not with making jokes or pretending like the topic at hand was just a joke. not when the matter precedes mere missions or a tendency to prank bruce, not when it's his angel who he refuses to truly let go of.

not when your life is at stake living in a completely foreign part of gotham. not when you nearly died, and if he wasn't a lick away from saving you, you'd end up like him.

but with nobody to mourn you.

"we need to talk about (name)."

and then like a thread snapping, he hears gasps from a distance, beyond the device's speaker registering. he hears hushed whispers, stephanie's feminine voice cutting through the tension, but no sarcasticness, no quips from duke, not even cass' occasional question. despite only hearing a fraction of the batcave's echoes, he feels like a witness to the tension rising, even he feels his shoulders squaring up. like a spectacle to behold, like time frozen in the hands of fate itself.

gotham wasn't always this silent, but the space between jason and your world felt like mountains apart that it just destroys any caution jason feels at the current moment; all in the name of this... this urge to feel your head resting in his shoulders once more, your arms wrapped tightly around his, safe and sound.

"tell me what happened."

it wasn't alfred's voice this time that cuts off the ever-so confusing thread, the dangerous thoughts swimming in jason's head. a deep tremor, laced with an undertone of desperation, is heard through the silent murmers of the intercoms. he couldn't see it, but he could picture the haste, the emergence of the bat to be the very

and yet all was said in a tone so different, so completely foreign to jason.

it wasn't as commanding, as opposing as what he's used to. it wasn't his voice that he uses towards criminals, it wasn't the vibrato used to interrogate criminals, let alone scold his vigilante partners.

... something completely different, yet easy to catch on.

it was batman through the call, yes, yet not quite so.

no.

it was bruce wayne asking, it was a father who hides his worry through a veil of composure. yet jason knows him, knows him enough to know that he, bruce, knows of your disappearance all too suddenly. knows that that the entire family might've finally come through their senses like he did.

"jason... did you... did something happen?" dick's voice, laced with audible shivers. jason had to do a double take at the noticeable shift in his behavior, at how... wrecked his eldest brother asked. but despite it all, it seems like he catched on as easily, at the sudden convenience, of what might implied jason's impulsive decision to call them at such a dire moment.

— that's why his next question doesn't come off as shock.

"you didn't possibly... meet them, didn't you?" it's like the athlete couldn't believe the words escaping his mouth, yet jason could feel it, the charged air, the shift of movement, as dick's mouth presses uncomfortably close to the speakers.

"tell me, did you... find them?"

reblogs and interactions are encouraged and appreciated.

PLEASE READ: 20,490+ words. no beta, we die like the reader's love for the family. anyways, wow, this was the hardest scene of all to write. so many dialogues compacted into one scene alone. because of all my hard work, revisions and even rewrites 😭 i demand you all to comment and interact with me because i am NOT wasting all this effort for only like a few comments. that's all i ever ask for actually <333 anyways, the jason and mc parallels are still prevalent, but i'd also like for all you guys to take note of the miscommunication trope that i did. like the reader who's so broken to the point they can't comprehent that people are capable of loving them, and jason who can't property communicate how much he cares for you, stumbling over all his words and saying all the wrong things wow. very much me and my siblings' dynamics to one another. we love doomed siblings trope!!!

yes, again, i am begging for you guys to interact with this post, and avoid on hate comments, please. i've already dealt w/ enough anons but oh well, that's unavoidable huh. happy late valentines day, btw! and please do remember to not directly steal parts of my work. now to check if you guys actually read the author's notes: what is your favorite line/quote/literally anything in this chapter? again, despite its shitty quality, i put a lot of time and effort into the creation of this. this is not just a fanfic for me, but something very personal. again, don't forget to interact and give inputs, thank you all for being so patient and waiting for this!

taglist: @neerathebrightstar , @ghostdoodlen , @prince-nikko , @daisy-spot , @strawberryglass , @h0neybun-was-here , @confused-they , @weirdcore-fantasy , @mystyque234 , @marssthings , @notwhoy0uthink , @aliengutzstuff , @lilyalone , @luffyadolover , @bunbunsonny, @lazyemmy , @questionthegrapevine , @oh-nowo-i-got-uwu , @winter-world , @budijojo , @budijojo , @altruisticbeauty , @dopepursebasketballplaid , @the-holy-pigeon , @red-phantom-0 , @em-draws14 , @thypplover , @cens0r3d-blog , @yl90 , @sadeem575, @couldeatthatgirlforlunch , @maicenitas, @kiiyoooo , @flyingpansaurus , @farmerboywakatoshikun-blog , @rogueofbullshit , @earlqurl , @dotomuses , @sheep-from-rad , @tsuniio , @thesm1l3yface, @nosochek-3o , @radiantharry , @iwasveronica , @kdjhubby , @ashstwin , @thetreefairypersonalblog, @se-rae2 , @0ut0fsweets, @notwhoy0uthink

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evilnicegirl · 7 months ago

Text

how i feel listening to music written by miserable suffering people with heroin addictions & suicidal thoughts & actions

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eddiesfaerie · 1 month ago

Text

who you let in

Summary: Jack has a soft spot. He didn't expect you to be the one to find it. (6.9k words) read on ao3 here

Pairing: Jack Abbot x f!reader

Warnings: NSFW, porn with plot (the storyteller within me can't help it), unspecified age gap, hurt/comfort for both of them LOL, canon typical gore? medical stuff? idk, panic attacks, trauma, angst, power dynamics (reader's a med student), suicidal ideation, Jack being flustered, oral (m receiving because he needs it), big dick Jack, fingering, rushed sex despite how long this fic is i'm sorry, unprotected PIV sex, Jack's sort of a soft dom, semi-public sex, praise kink, competency kink, lots of fleshy bodily words in here to describe lust idk

AAAAA i just spent all day writing this yes i'm embarrassed <3 also haven't posted my writing in like actual years at this point.... anyways be nice to me

It’s unlike you, Jack thinks to himself, to look so out of it.

GSW to the chest. A young girl in her early twenties maybe. She’s lost a lot of blood. Her blonde hair somehow already matted with it, so much so that she could pass as a natural brunette. It’s gone dark with oxygen and coagulation.

Your team huddles around her, as do the other units around the dozens and dozens of gurneys being brought in one after the other, unrelenting and without promise to end soon.

All protocols you’ve learned in the last year are out the window. Disregarded for the mass casualty event that was PittFest. None of the residents had ever seen anything like this, you’d never seen anything like this. This was the most action you’d ever witnessed and suddenly you felt like there was a balloon in your own chest, compressing air flow or blood flow or something to your head.

All the blood, the smell of metal inescapable no matter which section of the ER you were suddenly rushed to.

Your knees go weak, they shake, your hands shake. Everything’s wrong-

“She’s going white Abbot pull her out.”

You hear your attending huff from right behind you before his hand finds your bicep, curling around it and pulling you from where you leaned over the patient. You can hardly protest, your mind elsewhere and your feet blindly follow Dr Abbot who leads you to the family room.

“Robby I need you to cover over on the GSW to the chest for a sec.” He calls over, his voice ringing in your ears, your mind trying to focus on one single thing but everything’s registering all at once. His hand on your arm, all the beeping, the cries of agony, tubes being intubated and balloons being puffed into chests. It all seems a lot further away when Abbot closes the door.

You never thought you were particularly his favourite. You’re much younger and typically too upbeat. You clash naturally, he’s not drawn to you and you’re not drawn to him.

Dr Abbot is unafraid of correcting you in front of your peers. After a year now of him being your attending you’ve become familiar with his ways but that doesn’t mean you’re any more appreciative of the public humiliations.

There’s something about these older ex military men, the ones who joined too young and have been in the system ever since, climbing up and up the ranks, hardening at each level to a point where disassociation is expected. Hold it in, hold it together. There’s is no I in team. All for one and one for all. All that bullshit.

Dr Abbot wasn’t really that guy to a T but hell was he uncrackable, unshakeable, hard as stone. No doubt it’s helped him here in the ER, you’ve never seen someone as laser focused and capable as Dr Abbot. It’s almost effortless for him, it seems. Like he doesn’t have to think twice about anything. His confidence is unmatched and you’d always admired that, no matter how much you thought he disliked you. So yeah it was kind of surprising when he was the one to pull you away for a time out.

Jack never meant to become so attuned to you. He didn’t do it on purpose. He blames it on being your attending for a while now, he’s worked with you the closet over this past year and he knows how you work, how you operate. He didn’t mean to but it happened. He feels like he can read you like an open book, you wear your emotions on your sleeve, on your face. You’ve never been one to conceal how you were feeling, unlike him. So when you stopped talking, stopped making little remarks and little jokes, nearly frozen and clearly dissociating, he knew what was happening long before the resident called for you to be pulled out. He wanted to give you a moment to bounce back as you usually do.

Dr Abbot closes the curtain to the family room, shutting the door. He turns around and finds you still awkwardly standing there, eyes far off, elsewhere. He had expected you to take a seat immediately, he doesn’t know what you’re still doing up considering how close you look to collapsing.

“S-sorry I don’t know what’s happening, I-” You stammer, embarrassed yet not in control of whatever’s taking over your mind and body.

“Hey, hey stay with me, kid. Don’t go to that place.”

Abbot puts his hand softly on the middle of your back, guiding you to the chair. You sit down reluctantly, unable to move your body in a coordinated way for some reason. He kneels in front of you, groaning as he goes down and his knees cracking.

“Listen, don’t tell anyone but I’ve had my fair share of panic attacks, okay?”

“Is that- is that what’s happening?” You ask dumbly, squeezing your eyes shut. You suddenly feel dizzy. Not enough oxygen to the brain.

“How does your chest feel? Can you breathe?”

“I feel like I can’t.”

“Then yeah, that’s what’s happening.”

Your lip wobbles despite how much you’re still trying to hold it together, that much Abbot can tell. You’re fighting like hell against this panic attack which might only threaten to make things worse. He grabs your hand in his, squeezing lightly. You’re barely able to return it.

“What are five things you can see?”

“W-What?” You sniffle.

“Tell me five things you can see, come on.” He squeezes your hand again, reassuringly.

You try to take a deep breath but your diaphragm spasms and it comes in all shaky, causing you to hiccup like a child.

“Y-you.”

Against all odds, Dr Abbot smiles. Incredibly small but you see it.

“That’s right. What else?”

You try to take a deep breath again. “Uh, the paintings on the wall.”

Abbot nods. You continue.

“The curtains. The chairs. The door.”

“Good. That’s good. What about four things you can touch?”

“Your hand.” You say most obviously, since he’s still holding your clammy hand in his. You’d be embarrassed if you weren’t so shaken up.

Dr Abbot squeezes your hand again and this time you squeeze back, a silent thank you of sorts.

“Um, my scrubs, my hair on my neck, the wind from the fan.”

“Okay, now three things you can hear.”

“Your voice.” Dr Abbot chuckles, like he was expecting it.

“Sure.” He nods.

“You’re breathing.” You take a deep breath now, as if it reminded you. Abbot breathes deeply with you.

You try to motion lazily to the door, “The doctors outside, I can hear them talking.”

“That’s right, and they’re being pretty loud, aren't they?” He tries to joke, to lighten the mood.

You nod your head, yeah.

“What about two things you can smell?”

You go to open your mouth but Abbot cuts you off again.

“And don’t say me, we’re about an hour into this shift and I know I’m not smelling too pretty right now.”

You laugh, you actually giggle a bit, albeit a bit breathless, your body still trying to catch up to your more relaxed mind. Jack smiles.

“I can smell metal and disinfectant.”

“Okay and one thing you can taste.”

Your cheeks burn a bit. You know it doesn’t mean anything but when you started each sentence with something relating to him… You can’t help but think.

“My stale gum.”

Jack chuckles a bit, shaking his head. What were you doing with mouth in your gum. It’s not allowed on shift but everything had started so suddenly you hadn’t had a moment to toss it and you got scared on choking on it if you swallowed it.

Abbot clicks his tongue at you in disapproval, holding out his open hand near your mouth. You look at him confused, but he just gestures to his outreached hand.

“Spit it out, let’s go get you a new one, hmm?”

Your face burns again, but you do what he says for some reason.

Because he asked.

He closes his palm around your gum for a moment before easily tossing it into the trash can in the corner of the room.

Dr Abbot stands back up, knees cracking again. He helps you up, holding your elbows in each of his hands. You’re still a little wobbly, weak in the knees from your body’s sudden breakdown. You haven’t yet regained all your strength.

You try to steady yourself, your hands gripping his forearms, trying to concentrate on the strength of him holding you up.

You suddenly feel oddly close to him. Not just physically seeing as how close you two are standing but in the air, it feels like something’s shifted, like something’s irreparably been changed between you two. He’s just seen you at your most vulnerable, talked you through your first panic attack and even admitted to having experienced them himself. How many people in the ER can say they know that much about Dr Jack Abbot.

Maybe you’re just over analyzing what’s transpired.

“How you feeling?” His voice sounds out and you realize you had your eyes squeezed shut, when you open them Jack’s peering down at you, trying to give you the softest look he can muster.

“I’m okay.”

“Yeah? You don’t have to be.” You shake your head no.

“No, no I’m good. Promise.”

“I’ve got my best med student back?”

You can’t help but look at him quizzically, laughing a little.

“I don’t think I’m your best med student but sure, I’m back.”

“Come on, take the compliment.” He quips and it surprises you. You didn’t think he’d press your objections.

“I actually thought you-” Hated me, you want to say.

“I know.”

Oh.

“I know I’m hard on you. But I only do it because I know you can take it. I think it makes you better.”

Your lips go into a hard line, you nod. Right….

“I mean, it doesn’t hurt to be told I’m doing good every now and then. I do think I’m tough, you’re right, but I don’t know… I like this side of you.” You admit before you can stop yourself.

Now it’s Jack’s turn to blush. His cheeks go red in that boyish way and it blossoms all the way to the tips of his ears. Your heart leaps a bit.

If you weren’t back to yourself before, you were now. You’re suddenly very aware of how close you’re standing even though you’ve both let go of each other. It was sobering.

“Alright kid, as long as you don’t tell anyone.” He winks.

You burn.

“Promise.”

Things did, in fact, change after that.

Dr Abbot pulls you for huddles, just you and him now for feedback, no longer doing it in front of the other med students, doctors or attendees.

You stand closer to him, he stands closer to you in general.

He’s not afraid to grab your hand and stop you from doing something. Or start something. The amount of times he’s guided you through a procedure you’d never done before with his steady hadn’t engulfing yours, guiding a blade smoothly through a patients skin or a thin tube through an incredibly small incision.

You wondered if anyone noticed. If anyone had become attune to the fact that you followed each other around like each other’s shadows. Never one without the other. You could see Princess and Perlah whispering to each other whenever you stood close to Dr Abbot, you couldn’t help but smile at the fact that at least someone noticed how he’d picked you as his favourite and warmed up to you. It made you feel special, all girlish and giggly even though it absolutely shouldn’t.

A new unusual sound had started to fill the ER. Jack Abbot’s laughter, even quiet giggles fuelled by none other than you. Not even Robby, once his rival now best friend in the ER, could get that sound out of him as often as you do.

Jack gets you sandwiches, juice boxes from the cafeteria when you look particularly out of it or if the moment granted a quick escape for food. He’d find a chocolate bar or anything to perk you up on days where you weren’t doing so hot, or had a particularly anguishing patient. Death was inescapable in the ER, everyone knew that but not everyone handled it well, it didn’t matter how well versed or experienced you were in the medical industry.

Not even Jack himself.

The night shift was now coming to a close, meaning the clock was close to striking 7am. That awkward time before the day shift shows up and the night team goes home to sleep through the day, all to start again in 12 hours.

It was weird working in the off hours, you felt like a vampire or a bat, you thought to yourself as you climbed the steps to the roof, trying to find Jack. You knew him well now, and you know where he goes to run away when he can’t handle the weight of the shift anymore.

You open the door, it creaked open annoyingly loud, announcing you rather ungraciously.

Jack drops his head low at the sound of the door opening. He knew it was you coming to find him. He leans back against the railing behind him.

“What are you doing up here?” He asks, calling out to you without turning his head. The wind carries the sound of his voice to you.

The sun is threatening to come up over the city line, light only beginning to spill upwards into the sky, painting the clouds all pretty shades of light blue, pink and orange. You struggle to take in the beauty due to the night that just transpired.

The vet hit and run. It was a hard one on Jack. He’d known guys like that in the military. They seemed untouchable, surviving tour after tour. It was never easy to watch one go, especially the ones that made it home and get taken out in some seemingly avoidable way.

Some church bell tolls in the distance. You approach him, unsure how to answer what you’re doing up here. Checking on you, wanting to make sure you’re okay, everyone’s worried but the reality was no one batted an eye at him escaping after spending the last two hours coding this guy into the system. This was how Jack operated. Disassociate, dissociate until he couldn’t anymore and his feet carried him up to the roof. Contemplating.

So you don’t say anything, you just stand behind him.

Jack’s skin looks golden up here. The light passing through his curls, catching the greys. Your heart tightens.

“It’s always a rough way to end the night.” You offer, unsure of what else to say.

“I must’ve had a reason at one time to keep coming back but… I can’t think of it right now.” Jack grips onto the railing, leaning forward and looking down below him.

You instinctively reach out to him, your hand going for his bicep, it’s closest to you. Despite the cool early morning air, his skin was still hot to the touch, still coming down from what had just gone down in the ER room.

“Jack…” You can’t help but sigh, silently pleading with him to stop.

His head turns, dark eyes meeting yours. God he looks so sad, a man worn down.

And you realize you’ve never called him by just his name. Just Jack.

“D-Dr Abbot, I mean- sorry.”

He doesn’t correct you. He doesn’t particularly care right now. And the way you said it makes his heart tight like your hand is on his arm. Palms clammy with being so high up and so close to a ledge. You never liked heights and you hate that he’s always flirted with them.

He clicks his tongue, sighing before crouching down and reeling himself back over to your side of the railing. You sigh in relief, you hadn’t realized you were holding your breath.

Jack is completely distraught. He looks wrecked, broken.

Your hand still on his arm, he comes to face you, standing so close but you can’t find it in you to step away from him, not when he’s like this.

Jack drops his forehead to your shoulder, you try not to freeze up at the sudden extreme closeness.

“Are you okay?” You ask dumbly, voice gone quiet because of how close he is. Your lips ghost over the shell of his ear, plush flesh on soft cartilage. Jack shivers, turning his head slightly and his nose pushes into your neck.

What else is there to say to such a quiet man, lost in his own solitude of reflection.

“No.” He says simply, plainly.

Your heart aches for him.

Your hand is still on his arm, you flatten it and trail it up to his shoulder, squeezing him there.

He presses himself closer to you. You hold your breath, your heart threatening to leap up out of your throat. You swear he must feel it beating through his own chest. You think you can feel his.

He trails his nose along your neck, up your ear. You can feel that subtle white beard that carves the angles of his face so sharply, so perfectly, colour so soft and white it nearly blends into his skin seamlessly. They catch at your skin in that scratchy way and its almost too much.

His hands, they move and suddenly they’re on your waist, sliding around the circumference of you until he’s enveloped you in his strong arms. You can feel how sturdy he is, how solid and strong from years of exertion and force and yet you feel like you could blow away at any moment. This cannot be real. You can smell his hair, the remnants of his cologne peaking through the smell of antiseptic and disinfectant. You can smell him.

He knows this shouldn’t really be happening. You both do. You’re both very much aware of that fact. Even though its just a hug its just a hug. Jack had been aware of it ever since that day in the family room when he first worried about you. Because that’s what friends do… they worry about each other, right? Friends….

Jack lets his nose travel higher, along your hairline behind your ear, relishing in the closeness of another living, breathing human being. Warm flesh against flesh, closeness of muscles and organs. Hearts, beating. When was the last time this happened? When was the last time he let his walls down like this? You both wondered.

“I’m sorry.” He offers lamely, voice quiet and matching yours. He tries to pull away from you but his body doesn’t get the memo, he stills clings to you. He’s afraid of what would happen if he were to let go now. Surely he’d crumble into nothing off this roof.

He moves his head, nose against your cheek as your hands move to his chest, bunching up the fabric of his shirt in your palms. You don’t want him away either. You need him close, suddenly very close. Despite your breathlessness at the closeness, you think you’d stop breathing if he were to pull away now. You wouldn’t bear it.

You shake your head no, “Don’t be.” You reassure him, voice still quiet.

Something posses you and you nudge your nose with his, Jack sighs loudly, arms tightening around you and you sigh too. Your mouth opens in an innocent way, trying to get more oxygen to your brain. But you can feel his breath on yours, feel it fanning against your lips and you lean closer, pushing your nose into his again and he has to use every iota of strength within him to not lunge into you.

This shouldn’t be happening, he reiterates to himself. All the alarms are going off in his head. He shouldn’t be touching you like this, he shouldn’t have grabbed you, you shouldn’t be letting him. You could both get in serious trouble for this.

But you fist at his shirt, hands trembling against his chest, feeling him, muscles under supple flesh. Your lips part, small breath fanning against his lips and he breaks. He’s just a man.

Jack presses his open mouth to yours, and you let him again for a reason he doesn’t quite understand. It’s sloppy in a desperate way, passionate and sad. You could cry if you weren’t so wrapped up in the feel of being completely encompassed by him, his soft lips on yours.

You open your mouth wider, your hands moving from his chest to wrap your arms completely around his neck, hauling his body into yours as if you couldn’t get any closer. You wanted to meld into him. Bone fusing to bone. You let your tongue poke out and suddenly he’s right there with you, his tongue going as far into your mouth as it possibly can, trying to get to every inch of you. Jack whines and you burn at the pathetic sound. A grown man, whimpering for you. Your knees threaten to buckle.

His body flush with yours, you can’t help but feel how his body reacts to you. Hard and solid against your hip, your leg as your bodies writhe against the other, pleading to get closer.

“Jack,” you whimper into his mouth, unsure, testing.

Jack lets his lips travel to the corner of your mouth, kissing every inch of you that he possibly can, your teeth as you say his name, your cheek, earlobe, the spot underneath your ear.

“Tell me to stop.” He groans, hands moving back to their spot on your waist, trailing down to your hips where he grinds you against him, making that aching part of him known.

You whimper again, eyes threatening to roll into the back of your head like the sun threatens to come over that edge and catch you both where you ought not to be.

“I don’t want you to stop.” You admit, face burning even though you’re both as debauched and pathetic sounding as the other.

Boldly, you let one hand travel down from his neck, down his body to softly touch in between his legs, feeling where he’s hard, aching between his legs. He groans again, this time absolutely pained, his forehead dropping to yours.

“W-We shouldn’t be doing this.” He admits, like you both don’t know that already. He’s practically begging you to give him a reason to stop this now, even though he knows he’s already too far gone to do anything at this point. You’re too warm, too welcoming and soft and willing. Salvation.

“Especially not here.” You manage to laugh a little. Suddenly you pull away from Jack and he thinks that’s it, you’re calling it. His instincts propel him to check his watch to check the time. T.O.D. Time of death. He’s being dramatic.

You pull him to the opening of the stairwell, creaking open that squeaky door once again and you lightly press him against the wall furthest away from the stairs.

It’s an enclosed space, a room up on the roof. You have to open another door to get to the stairs which lead all the way down to the ER, blocked by another set of doors. If someone were to go into the stairway, you’d hear them from a mile away. At least that’s what you hoped.

Jack let’s you move him, lets you press your body against his and kiss his tanned, freckled neck. Your hand finds its spot on his crotch, feeling him through his pants. God he hasn’t gone down an inch. He feels huge, painfully hard. You can’t believe you’re feeling him like this. You can’t believe The Jack Abbot is letting this happen, you can’t believe he wants it. With you.

“Can I?” You ask, already lowering yourself to your knees.

Jack just looks at you in complete and utter disbelief, mouth agape as he watches you get down on your knees, pressing your face to his clothed dick, kissing him through the fabric. Kill me now, he thinks. If anyone were to find you both like this…

He feels like a dirty old man as you pull his cock from his pants, watching it spring up and slap his belly with wide eyes, like you need it, like you’re suddenly starving.

His cock is huge. You don’t know what you expected but it wasn’t this. You try not to look frightened by it, by the prospect of shoving it into your mouth and hopefully, your cunt.

He’s your attendee, you try not to think about that. Try not to think about how you’re his subordinate and he’s so much older than you, experienced, well versed. This is all completely wrong, incredibly fucked up but fuck if it doesn’t turn the both of you on just a little more in the worst way.

His dick is hot in your hand, skin like silk and you salivate at the pure sight of it. You look up at him, his face flushed all the way up to his ears and down to what you can see of his chest poking out through the small v in his shirt. Skin on fire.

You give him a sort of inquisitive look and he realizes he never answered you. You looking up at him with those big, needy eyes. He can only bring himself to nod his head, at a lost for words.

You smile up at him, hand already gliding up and down his thick length. Jack hisses at the near foreign sensation, in this moment he can’t bring himself to remember the last time this happened, let alone a time when it wasn’t his own hand. Yours is much smaller, more delicate than his, you can barely wrap it around the entirety of him and suddenly he feels dizzy.

You lean forward, kissing the tip of him and he squeezes his eyes shut. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, they open and close into fists at his sides. God does he want to touch you, to have you let him take what he wants but he’s afraid. Afraid of over stepping, afraid of scaring you.

Suddenly you’re opening your mouth and kissing at the head of him, licking at his slit, collecting whatever’s pooled there and humming to yourself at the taste. You’re worried you’ll become addicted to this.

More of him slides into your mouth, all the way until he’s hitting the back of your throat. Suddenly his hands are flying to the side of your head, holding you there. His eyes open and he looks down at you, eyes intense, mouth set into a hardline like he’s barely hanging by a thread. You make eye contact with him and he groans, loud. You’ve only ever seen him like this leaned over a patient, intense focus, blinders on to anything except the task at hand. But this time its you. Your pussy throbs.

Jack let’s himself thrust into your mouth a couple of times, eyes squeezed shut again, head leaned back against the wall behind him in complete surrender to you and your mouth. He says your name so broken, like its the only thing he can remember, the only thing keeping him grounded.

You wonder if he’ll let you fuck him.

A few more thrusts and suddenly Jack is pulling you off of him, looking back down at you again and hauling you back up to your feet. You give him the saddest eyes and he swears his heart breaks.

“I’m- I was gonna cum if you kept that up.” He sort of laughs to himself. Jack’s never felt more out of practice than he does now, pants down around his ankles, cock heavy and begging still in your hand, and a young, pretty girl looking at him with wet eyes, hungry for him.

What did he do in a past life to deserve this?

“That was kind of the idea.” You smile, bitting your lip and your hand continues to move up and down on his aching length.

Back face to face now, Jack can’t believe he has you like this, lips plump and swollen with exertion and slick with spit. Your eyes are dark with greed, hunger for something else. He never though this would happen, not between the two of you. Not that he ever explicitly thought about it but there were moments of weakness. Moments where he let his mind wander as he held your hand in his, guiding you through a procedure, noticing your body and its proximity, its warmth, that girlish smell you carry around you. You’ve always been intoxicating, a temptation just begging to be indulged in. Had he mentioned how wrong he thought all of this was?

“Jack?” You ask, pulling him out of this thoughts.

“Hmmm?” He basically slurs, distracted by the continuous movements of your hand on his cock, it was on the verge of turning painful.

“I asked you if you’re gonna fuck me.” You ask, devilish grin plastered on your face like you’re the cat who got the fucking cream. Or is at least trying to.

Jack lets out a broken laugh, voice cracking from your particularly harsh grip on him.

“Is that- Is that what you came up to the roof for?” He jokes but suddenly you think he’s being serious.

You worry thats all you thought of him, of this. A quick fuck, a need for release, a need to forget what happened tonight.

“No, Jack that’s not- I swear-” You struggle to find your words.

Jack smiles at you, it alleviates some of your worries. His hand moves and finds the waist band of your pants, he shoves it down until he’s cupping your sex. You gasp, his hand hot, feeling your hotter core and whats embarrassingly seeped out of you ever since you pulled him from the railing.

Jack clicks his tongue at you, like he always does.

“Yeah, I bet you want me to fuck you, alright. You’re soaking for it.”

Oh fuck.

You whimper, leaning easy into his touch, letting him feel you.

“Fuck, baby.” He groans, his fingers gliding easy through your glossy folds, playing around in the mess you made. Its embarrassing. So much so that you almost miss him calling you baby.

Jack doesn’t fight the temptation long, no matter how much he wants to tease you about it. His two fingers find your hole and push in steadily, afraid to hurt you. You gasp, body falling into his, letting him hold you with his other arm. Your hand on his cock stutters but is determined to keep pleasuring him.

You moan when he pushes his fingers all the way in, crooking them to press up against that spongey spot inside of you, your eyes nearly rolling into the back of your head.

“Fuck-” You choke, head heavy on his shoulder, your lips grazing his neck as he thrusts his fingers in and out of you, switching it up between that and toying with that fucking spot inside of you.

“Jack, I’m-”

“Oh I bet you are.” He chides and you burn.

This could have been so humiliating if you chose it to be. How quickly you folded for him, how badly and desperately you needed him. As if he hadn’t folded just as quickly, if not faster, for you.

Suddenly his fingers are ripped from your core and he’s ripping your pants down along with your underwear. You step out of them quickly, letting him manhandle you around to get you were you wants you.

“Look at you listening to me so easily now.” Jack remarks, turning you around and pushing you up against the wall.

“I always listen to you.” You admit, voice breathless and breaking and sounding completely debauched.

You feel him step in to your space, you arch your back instinctively and Jack basically purrs all soft for you. You feel the head of his cock at your entrance, threatening your folds. You whimper, shiver. You try to push into him but his hand flies to your neck, holding you still where you are.

He leans over your back, rucking your shirt up with the hand that was holding his dick. He hadn’t meant for this to happen like this, all dirty and rushed and in his fucking workplace. He thinks about the rest of you, hidden under your scrubs, how he’d kiss every inch. Maybe that was for another time. Hopefully.

“I know you do.” He praises, kissing the back of your neck and pushing into cunt in the same breath. You both groan way too loudly, pure relief coming over the both of you.

Jack breaches you slowly, he knows he’s big. He’s not even being any type of way about it, he just knows its a lot from past…. flings. But God do you take him like a champ. You push your hips back into his, needing him to fill you completely you’re fucking whimpering for it.

But Jack’s still got his hold on you, pinning you down so he can work you onto his cock slowly, at his own pace. He’s in control here.

You both moan again once he reaches the end of you, fully seated in your velvety pussy. His head falls onto your back, his arms wrapping around you to hold you to him, anything to get closer. You scramble to gain purchase on anything, the wall, his strong arms, anything. You feel dizzy, you feel full, you feel drunk.

“Always so good for me. Such a good girl” He moans, hips pulling back to just thrust back in punishingly. It punches a moan out from your gut.

You nod your head, unable to speak. I try to be good, I try to be.

Jack doesn’t wait, this has to be quick anyways, you both have been gone for far too long, he’s suddenly reminded that the day shift will be showing up in a matter of minutes and God knows Robby will be looking for him up here. His dick throbs at the thought of being caught balls deep inside of you, his little med student.

He pulls you back by the ass to meet his hips, pumping himself in and out of your creamy pussy at a brutal pace, his eyes nearly rolling into the back of his head. He says your name, you’ve never heard him say a name quite like that and it breaks you.

“I-Is this good?” He asks, trying to be sexy but it comes out broken, desperate and pathetic.

You nod your head frantically again, trying to turn your head to look at him and Jack’s heart soars at the sight. Your pupils blown black, eyes big and watery from the feel of his cock filling you up to the absolute brim, hair matted to your sweaty forehead. He wants to lick the sweat from you. Next time, next time.

Jack leans closer, kissing you on the open mouth and you moan debauchedly into him. As he moved closer to you to keep kissing you it pushed his cock that much further into you, his hips grinding into your ass and his cock into the absolute end of you. You can barely keep yourself standing, you’re thankful for Jack’s strength keeping you up, you could’ve had both feet off the ground and you’d have no idea.

His cock pummels into you, moan after moan being punched from your chest, your gut, the deepest part of you.

You whimper into his mouth at his sweet kisses in contrast with his harsh thrusts, it was enough to make your head spin, your pussy clench, threatening to burst.

“Tell me it’s good, need you to say it for me.”

“S-So good, Jack. You feel-”

“Yeah?”

You cry, you think a lone tear falls from your eye and maybe Jack kisses it away or licks it but his cock doesn’t stop and suddenly you’re cumming, completely surrendering your body to his. You shudder and twitch and your pussy squeezes his dick so tight he nearly sees stars, it takes everything in him to not blow his load inside of you in that instant.

That would be bad, that would be really bad, that would be messy and irresponsible and fuck he’s not wearing a condom how could you both have been so stupid and drunk off each other to not grab a condom. It’s not like you have them in your scrubs but theres a dispenser in the bathroom and -

“Jack please,” You beg, voice so small and worn out. Your hand reaches out behind you, grabbing for him and suddenly he’s pulled back to the very real reality where he is fucking the shit out of you and he’s about to cum about it.

“Please what?” He asks, needing to hear you say it.

“Need you- need you to cum for me. Please Jack.”

Fuck, he doesn’t want this to be over, he needs this to go on forever, needs you to suddenly be his salvation, he’s not quite sure how he’s gone on this long without you but he knows he can’t go forward without it.

Jack’s body tenses, his cock somehow gets impossibly harder, you feel it thicken inside of you and you moan again, another orgasm threatening to rip through you.

But suddenly he’s pulling himself out of your greedy hole, his voice breaking as he spills himself onto the concrete floor beneath the both of you. Your cunt pulses, desperate to have him fill you again. Before you can protest his fingers lunge up into your abused hole again and he grating at that spot inside of you, the one that has you seeing stars.

“Need another one, yeah?”

“Jack- fuck!” It complete takes over you.

Somehow without having to even tell him, he felt the way your pussy spasmed and cried around him right before he pulled out, he knew you were close to cumming again. And ever the gentleman he is, he’s going to give you another one.

He’s unrelenting, just like he was with his cock. His two fingers crook up against that spot again and suddenly you’re seeing stars.

Jack’s arm wraps around the front of your shoulders, hauling your back straight against his chest, holding your trembling body to his. You can feel his slowly softening cock against your lower back, cum still dripping from it onto your ass.

“Do it, please.” He begs of you this time, the muscles in both arms trembling from his own orgasm.

Jack feels your pussy spasm again, feels the way your chest quickens its breathes, the way your feet nearly kick out from under you with the strength of it all and your cumming on his hand, your eyes going black and blind from the force of it.

You slump back against him, letting him hold you once again. Jack wraps both his arms around you, swinging you around so that his back is pressed against the wall so he can lean on something. You both try to catch your breath, clinging to each other with leftover desperation.

Greedily, he lets a hand swipe through your abused folds, collecting what you’ve given him. You whimper, leaning your head back to hide it in his neck, embarrassed.

“Jack,” you whine in a pathetic attempt at protesting.

He clicks his tongue at you, “Let me.” He tells you, plainly.

His fingers linger, scooping up what he can and bringing it to his lips. He licks everything, groaning at the taste and letting his eyes close. You whine, pushing your face further into his neck, smelling him. He smells manly, like sweat, cologne and sex. You let it envelop you.

Jack holds you like that for as long as he humanly can. Before the thoughts of getting caught inevitably come crashing down upon him again.

“We have to move, kid. Can’t stay like this forever.” He tells you in a sad tone. You press a final kiss to his neck, breathing him in before pulling away.

“I know.”

You both pull yourselves back together. Jack puts his own pants back on as he watches you pull your underwear on slowly. Mindlessly, he reaches for your pants and holds them out for you. You put your hands on his shoulders while you step into them.

“Thank you.” You tell him, voice gone quiet again, like you already have to be hush hush about this.

Jack kisses the top of your head sweetly. You wonder what’s to come after this. You look up at him and he gives you that slick side smile you’ve only seen him throw Robby or Dana.

“Didn’t know you could make noises like that.” He smiles and you push him back against the wall you were both just fucking up against, your face absolutely burning. This motherfucker likes making fun of you.

“Jack I swear to God-”

He grabs you and kisses you again, holding your face to his. You let him kiss you, fighting the want to just melt back into him and stay here.

Jack pulls away first. His anxiety getting the best of him.

“Can I drive you home?” He asks, unsure of what else to say. He needs to get you out of the workplace and have a normal fucking conversation with you that doesn’t revolve around grief and dying kids and elderly on life support.

And besides he knows you take the bus.

“Yes please.”

okayyy i literally had to cut it short because this shit was getting too long LOL, i had a full final act outlined but maybe that could be a shorter part two if anyone's interested..... lmk <3

#jack abbott #jack abbot #dr abbott #dr abbot #jack abbot x reader #jack abbott x reader #the pitt #michael robinavitch #reader insert #smut #jack abbot fic #dr abbot fic #jack abbot smut #my writing

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schizononagesimus · 1 year ago

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also hey can we talk about violent psychosis for a sec. cause i really appreciate all the talk surrounding psychosis positivity and stuff but a lot of it is "we're not all violent! sometimes hallucinations can be positive!" like sorry mine are not. im scary psychotic.

im "cant have anything that even remotely could be used as a weapon in the house" psychotic. im "if i miss my meds one day i have to go to the hospital for homicidal and suicidal thoughts that literally aren't my own thoughts but theyre controlling my actions" psychotic. im "im seeing horrors you cant even imagine to the point where i dont exist in the same world as you anymore" psychotic.

im not going to hurt you, i just need help. when im rocking in the corner talking to myself at 3am, remember that i am in a state of terror. im afraid for my life. i either genuinely believe everything is trying to kill me, and i only know one way to deal with it; or something is telling me to be violent or else it will kill me; or i have dissociated so hard that i autopilot myself to violence to try and wake myself up.

some of us are violent, and that's okay, because it has to be, because it's the truth. just get us help.

#in other words quetiapine my beloved #psychosis #psychosis positivity #mad pride #lessons of the hand and the mouth

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aleksatia · 2 months ago

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Imagine the six days scenario with the boys, but it turns out the mission was supposed to be done in one day, and the reader went through he'll to get out and is met with this reaction? Imagine when she finally tells the reason she was away, would they regret their actions? How would they react? Don't know if if you take requests, if you do, consider this one.

If not, I am glad I got to read this masterpiece, thank you ❤️

Thank you so much for the request — I absolutely do take them, and I really appreciate this one! ❤️

I tried so hard to keep it short, since the “Six Days” theme has already been thoroughly explored... but, well, I failed spectacularly 😅 So here’s another deep-dive into a what-if/imagine scenario — one that can be read as either an alternate branch of the original storyline or... something else entirely. I’ll let you decide 😉

I’d love to hear your thoughts if you read it — truly means the world to me!

I’ve received so many requests for continuations — especially for Xavier — and yes, his already has a full-length, dramatic follow-up (because how could I not?). This one here is more of a request-based scenario, but it can absolutely be read as its own kind of continuation. Think of it as an alternate path the story could have taken. (One day I’ll write full versions for all the boys… but for now, consider this a little taste.) Hope you enjoy — and as always, I’d love to hear what you think! 💬💔 Here are the links to the previous parts in the series, in case you want to revisit or catch up:

Original Post | Xavier's Story

CW/TW: Psychological trauma, PTSD themes, Forced isolation, Violence / combat injuries, Mentions of starvation, Emotional manipulation, Past emotional abuse, Mental breakdowns, Intense guilt / self-blame, Brief implications of suicidal ideation (in self-sacrificing context), Adult intimacy (emotionally driven, not graphic)

The Truth — What Really Happened

It was supposed to be one day.

A clean, strategic infiltration. In and out. No complications. No room for error.

But no one accounted for the Wanderer.

No one predicted that the target—some nameless, faceless shade masquerading as a rogue—would be more than just dangerous. That he'd found a way to twist Protocore into something ancient and volatile. That he would trigger a fracture in time itself.

In a single blink, the world split. You fell into it. And the loop began.

Six days for them. Six weeks for you.

You lived, died, and bled your way through the same endless day.

Again. And again. And again.

Locked in a cycle of violence, decay, and despair—while everyone else moved on without you.

You clawed your way back—half-starved, half-mad, barely remembering your name. And when you finally escaped the loop, stepped back into their world, broken and still breathing—

They were waiting.

Angry. Unforgiving. And utterly, terrifyingly unaware.

Until now. Until you tell them.

💛 Xavier

It only felt right to write Xavier’s piece after the continuation I posted earlier. The original scene stood strong on its own, but this one—this is what came next. The moment after the storm. The truth laid bare. A quiet, alternate branch of the story, or perhaps a natural consequence of the one that already unfolded. Either way—I’m glad it found its voice.

You don’t ease into it. You sit across from him in the quiet of the morning, sunlight creeping up the walls like it’s unsure of its welcome, and you tell him.

Not six days.

Six weeks.

A loop. A fracture in time. An engineered nightmare that left you bleeding against the same hours, over and over, clawing through shadow just to return to him. Alone. Lost. Dying.

Xavier doesn’t speak. Doesn’t even blink.

But something in him breaks.

Not loudly. Not violently. It’s quieter than breath. Slower than thought. His fingers slip from the edge of the cup in his hand, and it falls. Shatters against the floor with a sound so sharp it startles the silence—ceramic shards skittering like teeth across stone.

Still, he doesn’t look at you.

He stands, but not with purpose. With instinct. His body moves before his mind can catch it. He turns, walks toward the far wall like he’s searching for air, like the room is suddenly too small to hold what’s happening inside his chest.

You rise—hesitant, aching—but he lifts a hand to stop you. Not cruelly. Gently. Like he’s afraid that if you touch him, he’ll fall apart in a way he can’t recover from.

He presses his palm to the wall. Just one. The other curls into a fist at his side.

“I thought you abandoned me,” he says at last, voice raw in a way you’ve never heard from him. “And I punished you for it.”

He turns back.

And there’s nothing left of the man who told you to ask again in six days. Nothing of the controlled strategist, the ever-collected ghost of war. His jaw is clenched too tight. His eyes are glassed over with fury—but not at you.

At himself.

“I accused you. I mocked you. I dismissed what little strength you had left and threw my pain in your face like it was the only thing that mattered.”

He crosses the room again, slower now. Purposeful. His hands don’t tremble, but his voice does.

“I let you stand there, in front of me, broken... and I thought I was the one who’d suffered.”

He kneels.

Not dramatically. Not for effect.

He lowers himself before you like a man who no longer believes he has the right to stand. His gaze stays down. One hand reaches inside his coat, and when it returns, you see it:

A blade.

Polished. Ritual-cut. Ceremonial. One of the old ones—etched with language you don’t recognize. But you understand that these words mean oath, atonement, belonging.

He offers it to you in silence. Flat in his palm.

“Where I’m from,” he says, quietly, “a wound like this is paid in blood. A betrayal like mine is not survived—it is surrendered to.”

Your hands don’t move. Your breath barely does.

“If you want justice,” he whispers, “take it.”

You stare at him. The weight of the blade between you. The weight of everything.

And then—slowly, gently—you take it from his hand.

Only to let it fall.

The sound is soft this time. Barely a whisper of steel on floorboards.

Then you fall with it.

You drop to your knees in front of him, wrap your arms around his shoulders, and let your tears fall freely.

“I don’t want justice,” you breathe into the curve of his neck. “I want you.”

He doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t speak. Just holds you, arms banding around your waist, face pressed into your shoulder like he’s trying to memorize what survival feels like.

When he finally speaks, it’s not confession. It’s surrender.

“After what you endured… after what I made you endure alone… I don’t know what anything means anymore. Not the mission. Not the cause. Not the point.”

You pull back, just enough to see him.

His eyes are hollow with grief. But deeper still—something flickers.

“I thought I understood devotion,” he says, voice barely above a breath. “But I was wrong. What I gave you wasn’t loyalty. It wasn’t love. It was pride. Control. Fear, dressed in logic. And I used it to wound you when you were already bleeding.”

His jaw tightens. His gaze falls.

“I was cruel.”

It’s not said for effect. There’s no tremble in his voice, no self-indulgent break.

It’s simply true.

“And I’m sorry.”

The silence that follows is soft. Dense. Not empty.

You brush your fingers across his cheek, tilt his face toward yours.

“I forgive you,” you say. Steady. Clear. “Because not everything in this world is black and white. And I understand why you did what you did. I know the shape of your fear.”

Your thumb brushes beneath his eye. His breath catches.

“I didn’t tell you to hurt you. Or to punish you. I told you because…” You pause. Your voice thickens with truth. “Because you’re the only one I trust with all of it. The only one who would understand. Who wouldn’t fall apart under the weight of what I’ve lived through.”

You lean forward.

Kiss him. Gently. Not desperate. Not demanding.

Just there. Warm. Real. Home.

Your hands slide up to his temples, fingers massaging slow circles at his hairline, coaxing the tightness from his brow. You feel it—inch by inch—how he softens beneath your touch.

“Let it go,” you whisper. “Don’t carry this weight. Not for me.”

He exhales, shaky. Silent.

You hold him tighter.

“You are my light, Xavier. You illuminate the path. You anchor me when everything else turns to ash. And in that place—those six weeks—do you know what kept me alive?”

Your voice breaks, but you keep going.

“I couldn’t bear the thought of you mourning me. That’s what kept me breathing.”

He says nothing for a moment.

Just rests his forehead against yours. One hand moves to your chest, flattening over your heart like he’s grounding himself with your pulse.

Then—softly, firmly, as if carving the words into stone:

“You will never carry pain alone again. Not while I draw breath.”

No grand vow. No poetry.

Just fact.

And somehow—that’s what makes it a promise.

💗 Rafayel

The morning sun slips in like melted gold, tracing the edge of the sheets, catching the soft arch of your cheekbone. You lie half-curled beneath the covers, his T-shirt clinging to your body like second skin.

And in that sacred hush before the world stirs—you speak.

Not because he demands it. Not because you owe it.

But because somewhere between the echo of his heartbeat and the way his arms wrapped around you like the only anchor you had left—you remembered how to breathe.

You tell him.

About the mission. The Wanderer. The fracture in time.

About the loop.

How six days for him were six weeks for you.

How you woke up every day inside the same nightmare. How you died. How you clawed your way back. Alone. Over and over.

And when you fall silent, your voice scraped raw from remembering—he still doesn’t speak.

He just looks at you.

Like the sun never rose until he saw your face again.

His hand brushes your cheek, feather-light. His voice—when it comes—is almost a whisper.

“Are you ready to share the rest?”

You blink. “The rest?”

“The weight of it,” he says. “Not the facts. Not the fight. The dark. The ache. The part that still won’t let you sleep.”

His voice is gentle. Too gentle for a man like him. It trembles with caution, as if even asking is a violation.

You hesitate. The memories flicker like shadows across your mind—distorted, aching, sharp.

“No,” you answer truthfully. “Maybe not ever.”

His gaze doesn’t falter.

He nods once. No protest. No press.

Then his voice, lighter this time—almost a whisper:

“Then I’ll just have to help you forget.”

And he does.

He lifts you carefully, as if your body might shatter beneath his hands. You expect the weight of a blanket, but instead—he wraps you in something else entirely.

A covering like seafoam. It feels like nothing you’ve ever touched—gossamer, weightless, but cool and smooth against your skin. A whisper of silk and tide.

“It's from home,” he murmurs, adjusting it carefully over your shoulders. “Woven from the ocean’s first breath. They say it keeps sorrow out.”

Then—he scoops you up like you weigh nothing. Carries you to the kitchen with quiet reverence, as if this moment is sacred.

He sets you down on the marble countertop and kisses your knee.

Then he starts making coffee.

He hums as he moves—something aimless and tuneless and purely him. You close your eyes for a moment, letting the scent of roasted beans and vanilla settle around you.

And then—

“So,” he says casually, not looking up, “a cat broke into the studio last night.”

You blink. “A cat?”

He nods solemnly. “Orange. Loud. Looked like he owned the place. Knocked over three canvases and nearly drank my turpentine.”

You raise a brow. “And naturally, you assumed this was my doing.”

“Who else would weaponize cuteness to such chaotic effect?”

You laugh—quiet but real. “I’m not that cruel.”

“No,” he agrees, turning to face you with a soft smile. “But I do suspect you’re still hoping I’ll change my mind about cats.”

You sip your coffee. “I might be.”

Later, the bath is warm, the water laced with something lavender and soft. He sits behind you, your back pressed to his chest, his arms a steady weight around your ribs.

His fingers move slowly—massaging your shoulders, your forearms, your palms, like he’s trying to erase every echo of pain from your body with touch alone.

You both talk, but nothing heavy. Just stories. Old memories. Little things. The shape of the moon that night. The smell of burnt sugar in his favorite gallery. How he once mistook a mannequin for a person and apologized to it for five minutes.

You laugh again, softer this time. And it makes something in him melt.

He wraps you in the softest robe he can find. Carries you again—this time to the bedroom. The ocean glows outside, waves catching the last of the sun like pearls tossed across the horizon.

But he doesn’t stop there.

“Come,” he says, offering a hand. “Tea. Sunset. Company far superior to mine.”

You smile. Follow.

And when you step onto the veranda—there it is.

A small white basket. A red ribbon.

And inside—

A snow-colored kitten, curled like a pearl in a nest, blinking up at you with impossibly blue eyes.

You freeze.

Turn to him, wide-eyed.

He shrugs, just slightly. Nervous. Like he’s bracing himself for mockery. For rejection.

You blink again. “You—Raf, you hate cats.”

He exhales through his nose. “I fear them. Different thing.”

Your eyes shimmer.

He moves toward you slowly, hands lifted in surrender.

“I wanted to make you smile,” he says simply. “That’s all. Just—smile. Like you used to. Before I—” He swallows.

He crouches down before you. One hand comes up to gently stroke the kitten. The other finds your knee.

His eyes lift to yours—and there’s no performance left in him now. Just Rafayel. Just the man beneath the glitter.

“I was so awful to you.”

You open your mouth, but he shakes his head.

“Don’t say it wasn’t that bad. I know what I am when I’m scared. I threw wine over grief and laughter over longing because I didn’t know what else to do. I ruined canvases with your name on my tongue and strangers in my house, and the whole time—I just wanted you to walk through that door.”

His fingers tighten on your leg.

“And when you did—when you came back—I was so full of rage at the idea you’d left me, that I didn’t even ask if you were okay.”

He breathes. One hand comes up, presses lightly to your ankle.

“I don’t know if I deserve this. Any of it. You. The right to hold your hand. To be the one who touches you when you’re tired. Who makes you laugh. Who paints your name into the ocean.”

You slide your fingers into his curls, threading gently through the soft waves.

And he stills. Like he’s afraid to move.

You whisper, “I never wanted perfect. I wanted you.”

He exhales.

“I swear,” he says, softly now, firmly, “on every color I’ve ever touched—never again. I’ll never put my pride above your heart. I’ll never leave you alone in the dark I made.”

Then—he leans forward. Presses his forehead to your knee.

The kitten meows softly, curling into the basket.

And finally—you smile.

Because this?

This is home.

💙 Zayne

You expected something.

A tremor. A breath. A word. Anything.

Instead, Zayne listened. Like a doctor reviewing a chart. Like a man auditing loss.

He didn’t speak when you finished. He simply nodded—once—and turned away, reaching for the drawer by the bedside as though the moment hadn’t cracked the very floor beneath his feet.

His hands, always precise, always godlike in their stillness, carried a faint tremble now. Just at the edges. So minor you might’ve doubted your own eyes, if you didn’t know how obsessively exact they always were.

“I asked,” he said, adjusting a monitor. His voice was quiet. Neutral. Not for you—for himself. “I asked if you’d caught a cold.”

He finished adjusting the drip, typed something into the tablet. Still no eye contact. Still no softness in his voice. But the line of his shoulders was off. A degree too low. A breath too far from centered.

Then—he turned back to you.

His gaze met yours at last. And though his voice didn’t change, the words did.

“I would like to conduct a full diagnostic. Neurological, cellular, metabolic.” A pause. Then softer, with exquisite restraint: “Please allow me.”

You hesitated—not because you doubted him, but because you recognized the plea underneath the logic. He wasn’t doing this for the data. Not really.

You nodded.

And he breathed again.

He worked in silence. Gentle. Thorough. Every sensor placed with hands that barely touched your skin. Each test executed with a reverence that spoke more than words ever could. He treated you like something sacred—something already broken that could not, must not, fracture further.

When sleep finally came, it swallowed you whole.

And when you opened your eyes again—the world was still. Dim. The sterile light of early morning filtered through the blinds.

Zayne sat in the chair beside your bed. Unmoved.

He hadn’t changed clothes.

The same shirt. The same faint stain near the cuff from yesterday’s blood draw. One elbow rested on the arm of the chair, his fingers curved over his mouth, gaze lost in some calculation too heavy for paper.

When he noticed you stir, his posture didn’t shift. But his eyes warmed—just barely. Just enough.

“I cancelled my procedures for the week,” he said simply. “Transferred patients to colleagues. For now, my only case is you.”

You blinked, silent. Then your gaze drifted down, to the low table by the bedside.

There, lined with the kind of hesitant care that comes from someone unused to gifts, sat a modest row of familiar things. A bouquet of white jasmine, fresh and fragrant. Two of your favorite candies in delicate wrappers. And—absurdly, heartbreakingly—three new plush toys, small and soft and so clearly chosen by someone who’d spent an agonizing amount of time in the gift shop second-guessing every decision.

Your heart folded inward.

“Am I dying?” you asked, quieter than you meant to.

He didn’t smile.

But his voice, when it came, was soft and absolute.

“I won’t allow that.”

A long silence passed.

Then you shifted—carefully, your muscles aching—and reached for him.

“Come here,” you murmured.

For a moment, he hesitated. Not because he didn’t want to, but because some part of him still didn’t believe he deserved the invitation. But he came. And when he lay beside you on the narrow couch, his body held a tension that didn’t ease until your head rested on his shoulder.

He stayed still. Let you move first. Let you curl against him the way you needed. His hand hovered over your back, uncertain, until you nudged it gently into place.

Only then did he hold you.

Not tightly.

Not desperately.

But with the kind of quiet conviction that said he would stay as long as it took.

You felt his breath in your hair before you heard his voice.

“I don’t pray,” he said, low, clinical as ever. “I believe in medicine. In numbers. In protocols.”

A pause. His fingers brushed your spine, feather-light.

“But if you hadn’t come back... I would’ve made an exception.”

You didn’t answer. You didn’t need to.

Because some things, even with Zayne, are understood in silence.

And in that silence, held against the rhythm of his heartbeat, you felt it clearly: you were no longer his patient.

You were his entire world.

❤️ Sylus

For a moment after you speak, the room holds its breath. So does he.

Sylus doesn’t ask questions. Doesn’t deny it. Doesn’t demand proof or press for detail. He simply stands there, stone-still, with your words unraveling him from the inside out. The way you say it—quiet, unshaking, without accusation—is somehow worse than if you’d screamed.

His gaze drifts over you then, and you feel the moment the veil lifts.

It’s in his eyes first—how they widen, flicker, and fixate. He takes in the shadows beneath yours, the pallor of your skin, the hollowness in your cheeks. His breath catches when he sees how your clothes hang looser than before. How your hands tremble faintly, barely perceptible unless one knows you too well.

And Sylus knows you.

His chest rises once, sharp and shallow. Then he moves.

Not fast. Not sudden.

But with purpose.

The next second, he’s in front of you, reaching—his fingers brush your jaw, feather-light, as if afraid that even the weight of his touch might bruise. He doesn’t speak as he leads you gently—gently, from a man whose hands have broken bones—into the nearest chair. One knee hits the ground beside you. He opens your jacket with slow precision, not to expose, but to check. To see. To know.

“You’ve lost weight,” he murmurs, voice rough and uneven, like gravel sliding beneath steel. His fingers glide down your arm, finding the sharp edges of bone where softness used to be. “Why didn’t I see it sooner?”

You try to speak, but he shakes his head, already rising.

He moves through the room like a storm with no wind—silent, but charged. Opens drawers. Pulls out clean clothes, a blanket, a glass of water. Then he’s back at your side, crouching again, one arm draped over your lap like a bridge between his fury and your exhaustion.

His hand wraps gently around your ankle, thumb pressing lightly against the bone there as he stares at it like it personally accuses him.

“I told them to take you.” His voice is lower now. Hoarse. “Told them to scare you. Make a point.”

He looks up at you. And for once, his face is completely unguarded.

“I hit you.”

It wasn’t hard. It wasn’t brutal. Not for someone like him.

But it was enough.

His voice falters, only slightly.

“And then I said I wouldn’t look for you.”

He exhales, and it’s not a breath—it’s a confession.

“That was the worst one, wasn’t it?” he asks. “Out of all of it. That’s the one that stayed.”

Your silence says enough.

And something in him breaks again—quietly, like a structure folding inward with no one left to hold it up. His forehead presses lightly to your knee, his arm tightening around your thigh. You feel him breathe you in, like scent alone might bring you back from the half-place you escaped.

“I should’ve known the second I touched you that something was wrong. I should’ve seen it on your face.” His voice cracks, just once. “But I was so angry. So fucking angry I couldn’t feel anything but the space where you weren’t.”

He pulls back. Looks at you again—slowly, steadily. And something inside him hardens, not with rage, but resolution.

“You’re not lifting a hand again. Not for food. Not for water. Not for anything. I don’t care how long it takes. I don’t care what it costs. You’re going to rest, and I’m going to fix this—you—with my own hands, piece by piece.”

And when he stands, it’s not the usual slow menace or calculated power.

It’s reverent.

He lifts you—not like someone injured. Like something sacred. And when he carries you out of the room, wrapped in warmth and silence, there is no doubt in your mind:

Sylus will not let go again.

Not even if time itself tries to take you.

💜 Caleb

You aren’t even halfway through when it hits him.

Not like a punch. Not like a wound.

Like an organ failing.

He blinks once. Twice. And then nothing. No movement. No breath. Just silence.

Then, quietly—almost absently—he mutters, “I’ll resign.”

You look up, startled, and the absurdity punches out of you in a short, cracked laugh.

It’s the wrong moment. Too sharp, too bitter. But it slices through the tension like a scalpel.

And still—he doesn't move.

His hands press against the table, white-knuckled. Not to steady himself—he isn’t swaying. He’s rigid. Locked. Like something in him has calcified to hold him upright.

“I’m not fit to lead,” he says, voice flat, low, scorched. “Not when I see betrayal in the only person I’ve ever trusted.”

Whatever breath of amusement you had left dissolves instantly.

“I didn’t just fail as someone who was supposed to protect you,” he adds. “I failed as your—” He stops. Chokes it down. His jaw clenches so hard you can hear the sound of his teeth grinding. “As your Caleb.”

And then—he moves.

Quick, purposeful. Gone in a flash. You hear the kettle filling, the sharp click of a drawer, the dull thud of something fragile hitting the counter too hard. The way he clutches at control would be laughable if it weren’t so violent.

Then the bathwater starts.

Hot. Too hot. He’s not measuring anything. Just pouring. He throws open the cabinet, snatches towels, drops one, curses.

When he returns—his phone is in hand. “I’ll call Dr. Navik. I want a full neurocardiac scan, and we need to rule out—”

He stops. Mid-sentence. Thumb poised over the screen.

You don’t say a word. You just watch as something slows in him. As if time, for once, is merciful.

He lowers the phone. Turns toward you.

His voice—when it comes—isn't clipped or cold or distant. It's frighteningly gentle.

“Pip-squeak.”

He kneels before you, as if he’s afraid standing over you might shatter what little is left between you.

When he reaches out, it’s so slow. So reverent. The back of his fingers graze your cheekbone, barely there. Not because he doubts you—but because he doubts himself.

“How do you actually feel?” he whispers. “Not what I can fix. Not what the scans will say. Just you.”

You breathe. Only once. It shakes.

“Like roadkill,” you murmur. Then softer, almost smiling: “A hot bath wouldn’t hurt. And sleep. Maybe a week of it.”

Your faint attempt at a smile breaks him.

Not loudly. Not outwardly. He doesn’t cry. But something in his face folds in on itself, like it’s suddenly too heavy to wear. He draws a slow, trembling breath.

“I accused you,” he says, and now his voice is wrong. Hoarse. Quiet. Dismantled. “I accused you of being with someone else. After you went through six weeks of hell.”

You try to speak. He doesn’t let you.

“I thought you left me,” he says, and this time his voice cracks—just barely, but it’s there. A faultline in steel. His eyes are on the floor now, unfocused, as if he’s speaking to ghosts.

“I believed you would.”

His breath falters, like the truth is costing him oxygen.

“That it made sense. That I wasn’t enough.”

A pause. His throat works hard around the next words.

“Or worse—too much.”

His hand curls into a fist against his thigh, knuckles white. Not from anger. From restraint. From the effort not to collapse under the weight of everything he’s never said.

“That you’d finally find someone who doesn’t smother you with love that borders on obsession.”

He shifts, like his own skin is too tight. His jaw clenches. His eyes squeeze shut for half a second before he forces them open again, forces himself to keep looking at you—even if it kills him.

“Someone who wouldn’t try to chain you close,” he whispers, “just because he’s too selfish to breathe without you.”

He looks at you now—really looks—and the devastation in his gaze is endless.

His voice breaks on the last word.

“Someone who wasn’t… me.”

And for a moment, he’s not a soldier. Not a leader. Not even a man.

He’s just Caleb. That boy who loved you before he had language for it. And who never stopped. Even when it ruined him.

His hands curl into fists against his knees.

“I interrogated you. Like a stranger. Like a traitor. And all the while you were trapped—alone, dying, fighting—and I was worried about your silence in my bed.”

A breath. And another. Like he’s drowning in air.

“I loved you before I even knew what that word meant,” he whispers. “I carried it for years, swallowed it, starved it. I told myself it was wrong. Forbidden. And the moment I finally had you—really had you—I destroyed it with my own hands.”

He doesn’t look at you. Not until your fingers find his.

Then he shudders. And looks up.

“You always forgave me,” he says, voice breaking now. “Even when I didn’t deserve it. But this time… if you don’t. If you can’t…”

His hand trembles in yours.

“…I’ll understand.”

You shake your head. Just once.

And in that second—he folds into you, arms curling around your waist, forehead pressed to your stomach like a prayer he doesn’t believe he deserves to say out loud.

When he finally carries you to the bath, it’s not in silence. He keeps murmuring things—small things, promises, broken confessions, names only he calls you. He doesn’t try to be strong. He only tries to be there.

And when you’re finally in bed again, drowsy and warm, you find him already beside you. Fully clothed, facing the ceiling, his hand resting on the sheets between you like a lifeline.

You whisper his name.

He turns his head, eyes dim in the dark.

You reach for him, and he comes to you instantly, without hesitation. He lies down beside you, and when you press your head to his chest, he exhales like it’s the first real breath he’s taken in years.

His hand strokes your hair once.

And then, quiet—so quiet it almost isn’t real—

“I’ll never be the same.”

You don’t respond.

Because you both know it’s true.

And because you both know he doesn’t want to be.

1K notes · View notes

eowynstwin · 3 months ago

Text

peristalsis - iii

selkie!soap x reader. depression. suicidal ideation. strangers to "lovers." cunnilingus. analingus. spitting. piv. doggy. missionary. rough sex. size kink. breeding kink. biting. mean soap. manipulative soap. smut. . Running away from life to the Scottish Hebrides, you meet a man who won't leave you alone. . Masterlist. Ao3.

The ocean calls the seal to return, and you finally heed the growing chill you’ve been ignoring, as well as the complaints of your nearly-empty stomach.

Starvation is not on your list of preferred ways to end your own life, so you check the fridge Johnny said he had stocked. What you find is disconcerting—hoping for snack foods, pre-packaged conveniences, you instead find a carton of eggs, hard cheeses, condiment bottles. Milk in a jug, green herb bundles, sticks of butter, and an unopened package of bacon.

The freezer is much the same. Bags of vegetables and meats like shrimp or scallops. Frozen loaves of bread. Not even a single carton of ice cream. When the pantry also yields nothing more ready to eat—no chips, no cup ramen, no cans of soup—you give up.

There’s a hierarchy of action you’re willing to take to preserve yourself, organized around a precept of energy expenditure—eating spends less than cooking, so you focus on the former and do not practice the latter anymore.

Even though most food has lost its taste by now.

So you lay down on the couch. Sulking, maybe, but it’s the only halfway satisfying thing left to you. You angle yourself toward the shelf of books it faces in place of a TV; it’s mostly romance novels. Bright pink or blue or violet or red spines facing outward, most of them already cracked and creased down through their titles.

Did Johnny stock those for you too—emptying the shelves of a thrift book store for a woman he knew would be alone—or are they just set dressing for his dream of a honeymoon getaway?

You start thinking about the cliffs by the cove.

They’re not very tall. Maybe three stories. You would feel the impact—and it might not even work. You would lay there at the bottom, in the packed sand, broken. But alive to feel every consequence of it.

You might still die, but it would be slow. Someone could find you, and save you. Probably Johnny. You might be permanently broken—worse off than when you began.

It’s not an option.

You could have just bought a gun if you stayed home. It would have been cheaper, and faster—

Anxious energy needles at your legs and prickles along the insides of your palms; you sit up, agitated. Your stomach bubbles as the acid inside slides around with nothing to eat into. You scowl at yourself and retrieve Johnny’s jacket from the floor.

It’s colder outside than before, when you leave the cottage for the third time that day for the walk to Vatersay village. You can see it from the front door of the cottage, only about a mile away, and as you get going, you find a walking trail cutting through the machair grass leading in its direction.

The sky darkens far earlier than you expect, on the way. You hadn’t thought you were far enough north for that. Absent of city lights, the Hebridean starscape peeks through gaps in the moonlit clouds overhead, winking to life as the sun retreats around the earth’s curve. You pause—even your ennui is no match for the cosmos—looking to see if you can find the arm of the Milky Way, but the autumn sky does not seem inclined to show it to you.

By the time you reach the village outskirts, warm rectangles of yellow light are already brightening the windows against a heavy blue night. You get directions to the pub from an older man walking his dog—Last Cull, it’s called. You find it with a carved wooden sign, adorned with the silhouette of a lounging seal, hanging by the door at the front, and walk in.

Johnny said that less than a hundred people populate the island; when you walk in, at least a third of them must be here, and their collective chatter, along with the sounds of drinking glasses clinking or hitting tables, and the warble of classic rock music, all rush at you at once when you open the door, carried on a wave of orangey lamplight and the smell of hops and a burst of thick, hot air.

It’s more life—more sound—than you were remotely prepared for, and you freeze in the threshold. You stand there long enough that, worse, several heads turn to look at you—

The outsider.

You duck your head, and look at the floor as you direct yourself at an empty stool at the bar. Your purse beats against your leg with every quick step, heavy with a tourist’s excess preparation, and following eyes lance you like pins through a butterfly’s wing.

A man in a beanie and mutton chops is wiping a glass dry behind the counter; he looks at you drolly when you sit down.

“W’can I get you?” he asks, surprising you with a distinctly un-Scottish accent.

You blink several times. “Um…”

The bartender is immediately unimpressed. “Liverpool, love. You drinking or eating?”

You flush. “I’m sorry—um—both?”

He nods. He does not offer a menu. “Right.”

He disappears with the same abruptness of manner behind a swinging door, leaking greenish fluorescent kitchen light around the edges and through the circular window set up in the middle.

Whatever waves you made upon your arrival already seem to have dissipated, ineffectual in the long-term; conversation in heavy Scots flows around you, relaxed and indistinct. The pub is warm with body heat, little groups of islanders pulled in close together around pints and tankards and easy conversation.

These people likely have known each other for years; seen each other grow up. Watched time etch lines across one another’s faces. You can’t really understand the words being exchanged between any of them, but the tenor is familiar. None of it is especially important to say to one another, you know—it’s the back and forth that’s the point. The sway and rock of practiced call and answer. Of knowing, when they say something, that a response will be given, even if the response is something that’s been said a thousand times before.

You run your fingers along the dented surface of the old bar. Shift in your stool. Pick at a sliver of skin coming up from one cuticle. A single drop of oil in the middle of an ocean.

The bartender returns to you from the kitchen, no food in hand. Instead, there’s a new expression on his face—a hammer aimed at your protruding nail. His eyes are narrowed; his brows are drawn together.

“You’re Soap’s tourist,” he says.

“Um,” you say, pinned under the intensity of his stare, “no?”

He rolls his eyes. “Johnny MacTavish. Everyone else calls him Soap.”

“Oh.” You cannot guess at all where this conversation might be going. “Yes?”

“He cooks for me some nights,” the bartender says. “He’s in the kitchen right now. He says dinner is on him, and he’ll bring it out soon.”

“He’s here?” you demand, jaw dropping.

“Some nights,” the man repeats. He picks his drying rag back up, and gets to work on another glass. Your association with Johnny—Soap—seems to have unlocked in him a geniality that would otherwise be inaccessible to you. “Lad was right chuffed when you rented out the croft. Hadn’t seen him that excited in ages. Wouldn’t stop talking about it for a month.”

He hasn’t offered you a drink and doesn’t seem inclined to. Still intimidated, you don’t ask.

“He told me I was his first guest,” you say, worrying at your cuticle.

“Mm-hm,” responds. Then he eyes you. “See why he was so worked up now.”

You stop your jaw from dropping for a second time, but only just—the weight of Johnny’s hand ghosts down your back, aided by his scent radiating from his jacket, released from the fibers it’s seeped into by your body heat.

“How—um, how do you know Johnny—Soap?” you ask, awkwardly.

“If he told you to call him Johnny, call him Johnny,” the man says. “Was his captain, once upon a time. Served together in the SAS. Name’s John Price.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Price,” you say.

He grunts. “John’s fine. He been behaving?”

“Um,” you say, entirely unsure how to answer that, when the kitchen door flings open.

“Bonnie!” Johnny exclaims, apron-clad, rosy-faced, and grinning wide.

He’s exchanged his heavy sweater for a lighter, cream-colored henley, sleeves rolled up his broad forearms. Combined with the cinch of the apron strings around his middle, it highlights and flatters the athletic build of his silhouette. The hem of his kilt flutters around his knees as he hurries over.

“Hi, Johnny,” you sigh.

He balances a steaming dish on one hand and carries some silverware wrapped in a napkin in the other. The plate tilts precariously as he directs himself at you, but the food survives as he slides it in onto the bar in front of you.

“Shoulda told me you were comin’ down, or I’d’ve had somethin’ better ready to make!” he scolds, though he’s clearly too pleased to mean it.

On top of a ceramic plate, the glaze spiderwebbed with cracks from age and constant use, three oblong triangles of fried fish rest atop checked wax paper, attended by a large stainless still cup of large wedge fries that you remember are referred to as “chips.” Beside that is a small cup of some white condiment you don’t recognize. Everything looks fresh from the fryer, as if Johnny could not wait one second to long to bring it to you.

“Oy, lad, how come I don’t get that kinda table service?” someone yells out behind you. “M’ I not pretty enough for you?”

A chorus of laughter answers the teasing. You hunch into yourself.

“Go back to your pint, Angus, ya weapon!” Johnny returns grandly. Then, to you, “Here, this is the best thing for it—”

John Price has already stepped far aside; you and he watch as Johnny retrieves a long-stemmed glass from a shelf, and then pulls a bottle of wine from a low fridge. He sets the glass beside your plate and uncorks the bottle—bicep quivering as he works the screw—and then, thumb in the punt, he pours out a stream of white wine one-handed.

“Tossers over there’ll call me mad but Sav Blanc with a fish an’ chips is pure class,” says Johnny. Then, to your horror, he sets his elbows on the counter in front of you. “Go on, have us a bite.”

You stare at him agog. His cheeks are flushed red, and you’re not sure it’s from the heat of the kitchen or—his gaze flicks to your mouth and back—something far less comforting. He stares back at you, grin unmoving—eyes bright and vibrant and too intense to hold contact with for long.

You look down at the meal again. The fish looks crunchy and thick with golden brown crust; the chips are sharp at the edges and dusted with salt and some sort of green seasoning. The smell is impossible to ignore—hot and floury and oily.

You take a chip and dip it tentatively into the white sauce. Johnny’s eyes dance with excitement as they follow the movement. When you take a bite, the bitter tang of tartar meets your tongue and mixes with the mild potato as you chew.

It is only just shy of hot enough to burn but—it’s good. It’s delicious. It’s the best thing, you realize, that you’ve tasted in you’re not sure how long.

You do your absolute utmost to prevent that from showing on your face.

“It’s good,” you say, and take another bite.

“Barry!” Johnny enthuses. “Now have a dram, go on.”

Rather than allow you to pick up the glass like a normal person, Soap lifts it in one large hand—knuckles and wrist peppered with dark hair—and brings the rim to your mouth. You have no choice but to take a sip as he tilts it toward you, or else end up dribbling white wine everywhere.

You must begrudgingly agree, as it passes across your tongue, that it pairs very well with what you’ve eaten.

You nod at him in lieu of another response; the corners of his eyes crinkle. He sets the glass down and slaps the counter with both palms, pushing himself away from it.

“Enjoy that an’ I’ll be back for ya in a mo,’” he says. With a bounce in his step, he disappears back into the kitchen.

John Price throws you another droll look. “You’re never getting rid of him now.”

When he turns away to address another patron, you scowl at his back.

Johnny comes in and out of the kitchen several times, as you pick at the food. Whatever his usual habits as the pub cook, it seems he’s in a magnanimous mood this evening, bringing orders to every table and chatting with anyone who catches his attention.

And a lot of people catch his attention. Island native or not, it seems that Johnny is everyone’s favorite boy—and it’s hard not to see why. He throws bright smiles at everyone who speaks to him, pats shoulders, trades good-natured Scottish ribbing with anyone who throws it his way. He’s familiar, it seems, with everyone he talks to—or he’s good at making it seem that way.

And the effect it has on everyone he talks to is obvious. Weathered faces, the kind that seem to rest at a permanent, severe frown, rise to beam as brightly as the sun after Johnny spends a minute or two checking in on them. Fond eyes follow him around the pub; the conversations at tables he visits keeps a lively tenor even after he leaves it.

You reach for your wineglass and drink deep.

“There we go!” Johnny exclaims, noticing.

He does not leave you neglected, of course—he keeps circling around, looking at your plate, and then at you, and filling your glass when you empty it. It strikes you as rather sweet until he starts availing himself of a mouthful every time—turning the glass so that his lips cover the marks yours have made on it.

When about half of your plate has been cleared, and Johnny is returning from delivering a tray of sandwiches to another table, he comes up behind you and leans in close, hands curling around your shoulders. Mouth brushing your ear.

“Dinner rush is almost done, bonnie,” he murmurs, butter-smooth and low as banked embers. “Then I’m all yours.”

A tremor runs up the nerves in your spine; you sit up straighter when he pulls away, the fine hairs on the back of your neck reaching toward him as if statically charged.

You catch John Price eyeing you again, expression blasé. You flush up to the roots of your hair and avoid looking at him again.

Eventually, the pub begins to vacate, somewhere close to ten in the evening. No city bar, this one, even on a Friday night. You finish three-quarters of the bottle of wine in between turning the fish and chips into mush and crumbs, finally pushing everything away from you as the last stragglers jingle the bell above the door.

Then it’s just John Price, pulling on a coat, Johnny doing dishes in the kitchen, and you, alone, sneakers hooked to a rung on the barstool.

John Price sticks his head through the swinging door. “We still doing Sunday, Soap? Or d’you have new plans?”

“Course doin’ Sunday!” Johnny yells. “Canny wait!”

“Alright. I’m leaving, lock up when you go.”

And with that, John Price gives you a cursory nod, and makes his exit.

Soon after, Johnny exits the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel, the motions making his pectorals twitch and flex. His apron is gone, the little v of his shirt collar exposing dark, curling chest hair.

The odd pelt—you realize, from your experience this morning, that it’s a seal’s—still hangs around another plaid kilt.

Your heartbeat is hot and heavy in your ears. You stare at him, lips pressed together tightly, a tremor working its way between your shoulders.

He tilts his head toward you, eyes half-lidded. When you meet his gaze again, his smile is set at an expectant angle.

“Drive me home, Johnny,” you finally say, wine and humiliation pulsing through your veins.

He drives you home in silence, and rests his hand on your thigh the whole way there.

You don’t move it. You don’t react, either—even when his pinky flicks against the seam of your leggings, right where it lays against your pussy. He roves his spread fingers and heavy palm all across the length and breadth of your thigh, cresting down over your knee and back up again, squeezing and massaging the fat of your quad.

You don’t say anything. He does not prompt you to do so. The corner of his mouth, when you look to him at your side, catching his profile, is curled.

The silence continues when he pulls up to the cottage—even the wind is light and quiet, as you unlock the door to let the both of you in. The night sky is cobbled with clouds that pass over slowly, letting only slivers of moonlight reach the earth, so inside the croft is dark and murky.

You don’t move to switch any lights on. Nor does Johnny, following close behind you.

Out of sight, it seems your body forgets who—or what, even—is following you. He is only a presence at your back, a body taking up space, and in the darkness, with only your hindbrain to rely on, he could be anyone.

Anything.

You stop in the middle of the living room. He hovers behind you. Not quite touching—but close enough to feel the gravity of him, strong enough to pull you in.

You drop your purse on the couch, and make to shuck his jacket—his hands take hold of the shoulders, allowing you to slide out of it. The deep, even pulse of his breathing is right there at the shell of your ear.

“Bonnie,” he murmurs, husky.

“I’m,” you say, “I’m going to use the bathroom.”

A pause. Then—“Alright,” he purrs.

You escape.

In the mirror above the sink, you look yourself in the eye. What you see is nothing you haven’t seen before—pitiable, needy, pathetic—and it’s nothing you have any desire to confront now. If you think too hard about it—if you ask yourself what you should be asking—there will be no coming back from it.

He’s been dangling this in front of you this whole time. It’s no fault of yours for taking it. This once, you aren’t to blame for what happens next. This once.

You run the cold tap over a washcloth and dab cool water across your face and down your neck. It does little to regulate the heat flushing through you.

If you don’t go out there now, he might leave.

You throw the cloth into the sink basin and open the door.

And Johnny is there, standing right there in front of it, leaning casually against the opposite wall—

Completely naked.

You stop dead.

Gray moonlight falls across his body in a thin haze. The bulky, sculpted planes of it roll with dense muscle and dark hair, which is thick and curly across rounded pectorals and joins in a broad stream down his abdomen. Twisting into a nest at his groin, they cushion a long, wide cock, uncut, half-hard—

That jumps at your appearance.

He meets your eyes. They are silvery and sharp, even in the gloam. Drags his gaze down—leveling it with your tightening nipples. Then he reaches to his side and twists the doorknob to the bedroom.

It swings open. Empty bed in the doorframe.

His cock jumps again. A diamond-drop of moisture beads at the tip.

“Go on,” he murmurs.

You walk in, barely aware of your own footsteps. His bare feet cross the floor behind you, and then the door shuts again.

He does not say another word as he approaches you; you do not turn to face him. You stand as if restrained in place as large, warm hands skim the dip of your waist, slope easily down your hips and up again; he pinches the hem of your sweater and lifts. You raise your arms, lost in the fugue of your pounding heart; he brings it over your head, and tosses it to the side.

Rough hands smoothing over your bare skin, almost like sweeping away dust. He unhooks your bra with startling dexterity—fingers slide beneath the straps and loosen them down your shoulders. Hands dipping down your chest, edging under and replacing the cups around your breasts.

His thumbs press your nipples in, circle around them; you gasp, flinch back against him, and feel his cock, fully erect, nestle in the cleft of your ass. He huffs a laugh into your hair.

His hands return to your waist, and they slide down, pressed open against your sides, as Johnny goes to his knees behind you. He grasps the waistbands of both panties and leggings and—face centimeters away from the globe of one ass cheek—pulls both down in one smooth, soft sweep.

It feels like being skinned. Your heart beats a hammer in the arteries against your throat. You nearly lose your balance, tilting when you lift one foot out of your clothes, before one of Soap’s hands return to your waist to give you ballast. Holding you up like it’s nothing. He squeezes the meat of your hip tenderly, massages the give of it with the tips of his fingers, skin warm and rough against yours.

The moment you’d first caught sight of Johnny in the airport, he’d slotted cleanly into a certain taxon of manhood; one need only to examine his morphology briefly—the mohawk, the muscles, stubborn refusal to cover his knees even as winter fast approaches—to understand that his is the lifestyle of the fast-living. He leers. He gropes. He runs down what he sets his eyes on whether his prey likes it or not.

An organism with cheap pleasure on its mind, and nothing more. Johnny’s bull-focused intentions had stunk acrid and obvious the moment they’d fallen upon you—aimed, you thought unceremoniously, between your legs and nowhere else.

So why, as his hands drag up the backs of your thighs, is he touching you so tenderly? Teasing you open, rather than prising you apart. Touching you as if he’s in no hurry to do anything else.

It feels like an insult. It feels like mercy you didn’t ask for. Without thinking, without knowing you’re going to do it—you slap his hand away.

“Is this going to take all night, or are you going to get around to fucking me sometime soon?” you snap, galled.

An indrawn breath. His or yours, you’re not entirely sure.

Then he rises up, shoves a hand hard between your shoulder blades, and you topple forward onto the bed, flailing, landing face-first, as Johnny knees up behind you.

“So that’s how you want it, then,” he says. Nonchalant. “Aye, I can do that. Come here.”

You don’t have time to scramble away before rough hands grab your hips and yank them back, pulling you up onto your knees, and with no more preamble Johnny shoves his face into your naked pussy from behind. Immediately hot and star-bright; thumbs hook into your outer folds to spread you open moments before his tongue burns a stripe from clit to perineum, no slow build, no warm-up, before he starts eating you out like he’s starving.

You shriek from the sudden contact, hips jerking, but his hold is iron, and the more you resist the more he tightens his grasp, fingertips digging down near to bone. He licks at your folds, at the dips between them, as if he’s pulling swipes of you away on every taste bud, imprecise, mouthing your cleft as if he means to swallow it whole.

When you reach back with one hand to grab his hair—to hold him where he is or shove him away, you’re not sure—he releases one hip and shackles your wrist in his fingers, bending your arm at the elbow and pinning it to your lower back.

“You asked for it,” he growls against you, “and now you’re gettin’ it,” another dig of his tongue around your entrance, “so don’ fuckin’ complain.”

He pulls away and abruptly spits on your asshole before diving back in. With the thumb of the same hand around your wrist, he smears it around, dipping just inside at the same time his tongue breaches your cunt; you feel teeth press against your perineum for a breathless moment before he lets up, and then he prods your clitoris with little jabbing licks, forcing his way up under the hood that fails to protect it from his onslaught.

You have a free hand—you reach back to slap at him again. The theory of insanity proves true; one wrist joins the other, and Johnny uses his own weight to move you as he likes, arms curled over your hips, rocking your entire body against his mouth, lips smacking against you as he alternates between licking up the slick that abruptly starts welling around your entrance and sucking your labia between his teeth.

He grunts and snarls after every brief surfacing for air, every time his tongue touches you again, as if every new taste of you in his mouth is better than the last. His hands tighten into vices around your wrists as he buries in deeper, groaning, shoving his face against you so hard it thrusts your hips forward, which he greedily drags back, and then he flutters his tongue against your clit as if to punish you for his own forcefulness.

“Johnny—” you cry, “Johnny, slow down, slow down—!”

A climax swells within you before you have any time to prepare for it, a closeout curling in so fast that it hits you before you can brace. Johnny thumbs your ass again and suctions his lips closed around your clitoris, tearing a scream from your throat, ripping your orgasm even further out of you as you suddenly, violently convulse.

It jerks you in his grasp, as if whipping you, and then, as fast as it came at you, it recedes; you sag, dizzy and gulping air, but Johnny’s mouth opens around your pussy again as if nothing happened, tongue and lips losing none of their frantic voracity.

“Johnny,” you whimper, “Johnny, I came, you can stop—”

“Don’t give half a shite, am no’ done,” he snarls, accent thicker than you’ve heard it before.

Your breath shudders out of you as he runs the edges of his teeth up your folds, and then, briefly, the flat of his tongue circles your asshole, before dipping back down into the heat of your cunt. He catches your clit again in a quick succession of sucking kisses, loud and wet and pulling at it so hard that tugs at nerves all the way down your legs, spasming through your calves.

Your breath thins in your lungs, escaping you in high, reedy whines, and finally, he pulls his mouth away—only to replace it with his hand. He transfers your crossed wrists into one grasp, wedging all four fingers between the split of your cleft and shaking it vigorously, like a dog might with a small animal clamped in its jaws. He follows this with several rapid slaps against flesh that is already screaming with overstimulation—

And then the head of something hot and hard parts you, circling to find its target, and with as little preamble as he began Johnny shoves his fat, rock-hard cock into you, all the way to the base in one harsh thrust.

It shoves the air from your lungs in one go, leaves you no room to breathe in before he grabs your wrists again, like reins, pulls halfway out, and rams back in again, setting a brutal pace, his thighs slamming against the fat of your ass at a rapid staccato that shakes the old bedframe on its creaky legs.

He barely pulls out as he fucks you this way, thrusting short and hard, your face crushed against the bedsheets as he uses your arms to pull you back against him to meet every thrust. The fattest part of his cock catches your g-spot over and over, bright and hot as iron pulled from a fire, and you can’t even get enough breath in your lungs to do more than whimper every time his hips meet yours.

“This is wha’ she fuckin’ needed, hen, aye?” Johnny snarls. “Hissin’ an’ spittin’ like a stray cat, didnae know wha’s good fer it, jus’ needed a big cock in ‘er wet cunt, didnae she?”

A long, shaky moan is the only response you can give. Fast, fast and hard—he bucks against you wildly, violently, sending shockwaves up your body that jounce your breast and ripple across your blazing cheeks. Your mouth hangs open at a loose angle—if you try to close your teeth, you might accidentally bite into your tongue—

He releases your wrists, and your arms fall hard to the bedspread. Then he bends over your back, planting his hands in the spaces over your shoulders, making a cage with his his body. It changes the angle of his thrusts, lets him force his way in even deeper, kissing the head of your cervix. You climb your hands up the bedspread, claw at his wrists with your nails, but you might as well be a curl of wind trying to knock over a pillar of stone.

“You can bitch an’ whine all you wan’ at me, bonnie,” he says, a nasty thread in his tone, “but I know mean pussy just needs some pettin’ to make it nice again, don’ I, now?”

You try to struggle under him, search for some sort of purchase in the sheets beneath you, and for a moment you think he’s making space to let you; his weight retreats as you rise to all fours, but then one solid, beefy arm closes around your neck in a chokehold. He brings the both of you up, settling you over the cradle of his thighs as he sits back on his heels, clamping your back against his chest.

His free hand snakes down between your thighs, finding your clitoris again with rough, abrading calluses. A hard, grinding roll of his hips, upward and forward, pushes it up into his touch, like the crest of a wave, but gravity gives you no escape on the downwell; he pushes and pulls you as he likes, heel of his hand digging hard into the sensitive edge of your mons.

You scrabble with your hands for something to hold onto—you find the brackets of his wide thighs, wiry with dark hair, and dig your nails into hard, tensed muscle. He only laughs in your ear, speeds the rhythm of his hips, pinches your clitoris between his fingers and drags it around.

“Told ya, bonnie,” he gloats, taking the lobe briefly between his lips, “she wants it—” and he pushes his cock in deep, shaking his hips “—bad as he does.”

He reaches further inward and splits his fingers around his own girth, pressing upward—as if he intends to shove them in too, and choking for air as you are you think deliriously that they might just slip in, no resistance, aided by the wetness free-flowing now around him, dripping in long streams down the inside of your thighs.

Inescable—no matter what you do, it’s nothing to him. You thrash against him, whining through gritted teeth in frustration, but he only moves with you, anticipating every direction you might blindly throw yourself in to get away. You cry out in wordless fury, slapping whatever parts of him you can reach, but it doesn’t matter. There is no purchase for you anywhere, nothing you can use to grab back any sort of control.

He’s too big. Too strong. You finally begin to comprehend it in a way that had been impossible before. Looking at him from a few paces, Johnny is easy to take in; easy to summarize and dismiss when you can see the whole of him at once.

But now, at your back—he feels vast. Enormous. An undulating wall of a hard body flexing against you, mooring you to it, all heat and sweat and sharp, animalistic grunting as it pistons into you from behind. The hand manipulating your clit is wide enough to cover your pussy entirely; the pillar of his body doesn’t so much as shudder as you struggle, instinct overriding desire as you try to escape the lightning-streaks of pleasure he carelessly sends through you.

You are too primed from your earlier climax to possibly last, and Johnny seems to feel it—you flutter and clutch around him, the sensation almost painful, but when both your hands fly to the one between your legs he only increases the pressure.

“You gonna come again, bonnie?” he sneers into your ear. “Jus’ tiring yourself out, poor baby. Fightin’ it so hard, an’ it’s gonna happen anyway.”

It does—he starts slapping your pussy again, right above where his cock stretches you to your limit, quick and sharp, and you break with ragged scream, arms flailing out uselessly, nails finding his forearm around your throat.

“Johnny—” you cry out, “Johnny!”

“Fuck,” he groans in your ear, “steamin’ Jesus, fuck—”

Suddenly he pushes you away from him, and you flail again as you land face-first into the pillows. His cock slips out of you entirely, even as you’re still clenching around your orgasm, but you have no time to react, either to mourn it or be relieved, because Johnny grabs you by the thighs, flips you over in one motion, and drives back in again before it ends.

“Fuck, bonnie, so good, fuck, do it again—”

He throws your legs open, leaving your calves to shake in the air as he fucks you faster. You nearly fold in half under the force of his thrusts, knees hovering nearer and nearer to your ears. Each slap of his hips against yours ricochets up your body, and, with nowhere else to go, back down—you ring like a bell, shaking all the way into your marrow.

“Soap,” you whine, “Soap, it—I—I can’t—”

Suddenly he grabs your face in his hand, so tightly he squeezes your cheeks together, pushing out your lips, and he lurches forward to get in your face. Fury blazes from him.

“I told you,” he snarls, “to call me Johnny.”

It shocks you so much that freeze up, going completely blank. The dark, sharp lines of his brows arch dangerously over flashing eyes.

He shakes your face. “Say it.”

“J—” you slur, unable to shape it in your lips properly, “Johnny.”

His nostrils flare wide. Fury is replaced by triumph. “Good fucking girl.”

He slams his mouth against yours.

The first time he’s kissed you, and he gives you no chance to participate in it. He purses your lips with the pressure of his hand to meld with his, opening your jaw wide enough to thrust his tongue behind your teeth. The force of it presses your head back into the pillow. It’s an attack; it’s an onslaught. And—if the grunts and groans Johnny makes in his throat as he does what he likes with your mouth are any indication—

It’s what he’s really wanted this whole time.

Everything else, he’s enjoyed. But this—his mouth on yours, lips moving together, saliva pooling and seeping between the seams—is the prize he’s aimed for all along.

It touches something inside of you. Something tiny and ugly. A thing that you’ve wrapped up in nacreous layers of shame and guilt, lodged in your soft tissues, and tried to forget about.

It sends your arms to wrap around Johnny’s neck, fingers digging into the shifting muscles of his shoulders. You close your thighs around his waist, crossing your ankles, and roll yourself up into every meeting of his hips with yours.

He moans, higher, and drops his full weight over you. His belly meets yours; his chest crushes your breasts under his. He uses the full brunt of his weight to rut into you, crashing his hips against you, stealing the breath from your lungs—

It’s an old trick you’ve learned from small experience, inhaling when you feel the rush coming—as if climax blooms in the lungs rather than the clitoral head, and filling your alveoli gives it no place to expand. It’s useful to prolong satisfaction, to stave off the end.

Johnny does not give you opportunity try. The only thing he allows you to occupy your mouth with is his, and as hypoxia thins out your bloodstream—as you begin to struggle for air—you go rigid with your third climax beneath him.

However long it lasts, you don’t know. It freezes you in place, in time. It wrenches your head back, arching your spine, tears one long, broken cry from your throat.

“Fuck yes,” Johnny gasps, feeling you clamp down so hard around him it seems you may never release him. He moves to bury his face in your throat. “Fuck yes, fuck yes, fuck—yes—”

His tempo falters, signaling the end—

Realization—“Wait!” you find some presence of mind to cry out—“a condom! We didn’t use—”

“It’s got a’go somewhere hen, an’ I’m no’ wastin’ it on yer belly,” he snarls, “just—just—yes—fuck—”

Then his teeth come down on your neck, hard, as his hips beat against yours, and then he buries himself to the root with one final, full-body thrust. He shakes his hips flush against yours as he groans long and loud, cock pulsing inside you, wet heat flooding you in jets, so full that it spills back out to drip down between you.

He pants hard into your shoulder. Your own breath labors, vision swimming.

A cloud covers the moon outside. Johnny makes no move to pull away from you—instead his arms wedge beneath you, banding around your back, and he rolls you both to your sides. You feel him kissing the sting his teeth left on your neck, as you lay there together, sweat cooling on your naked bodies.

Eventually, he pulls back enough to look at you. You have no time to arrange your expression, no idea even what you might want to present to him; whatever he sees on your face makes him smile, crinkling the corners of his eyes.

“There’s my bonnie,” he murmurs, and the next kiss he gives you is soft and very sweet.

Your lips rise to meet his without you thinking about it.

He strokes your back very gently. Sooner than yours, his breathing evens out. Even as he softens inside of you, he keeps his hips against yours.

“Johnny,” you whisper.

“I know,” he says. “I know. Just a little while longer. Can you do that for me? Aye, you can, I know it.”

You should say something about spermicide. Plan B. But the look in his eyes is so soft, so content, that you put it away for later. You just hold his gaze as he looks at you like you’re everything that could ever make him happy.

He kisses you again. Soon, the heaving of your chest abates. Exhaustion pours through you in one drenching wave; you turn your head to yawn.

“Go to sleep, bonnie,” Johnny croons, pressing his fingers into the soft part of your lower back. “I’ll clean us up, aye? You just sleep.”

You don’t have the energy to fight anymore. Soon, you’re slipping away—you’re aware for long enough to feel it when he finally pulls away from you, when he runs a warm washcloth between your legs, and then when he slides back into bed beside you and pulls up the covers.

Then you’re gone.

Sometime after midnight, you half-wake.

The moon has moved far enough across the sky that its light floods the bedroom through its one window, casting everything in silver. Your eyes open slowly, blurred with sleep; Johnny is still beside you.

He’s sitting up against the headboard; eye-level with you is his waist, covered by the thin bedsheet. You draw your eyes up his body slowly—there, his navel, dark hair curling around it. There, his chest, full pectorals rising and falling slowly with calm, even breath.

When you reach his face, you find him looking down at you, corners of his mouth curled. You meet his eyes—

The moon reflects in them. Disks of shifting light in both pupils.

Some part of you, buried in your hindbrain, shouts with alarm. It’s far away, cottoned with sleep. Muffled enough by the soreness of three full-body orgasms to be ignored.

Johnny reaches out and drags the back of one finger along the wounded part of your neck. Touch feather-light.

“Why are you here?” he asks.

Vaguely, you remember that you’ve answered this question before, but that doesn’t feel consequential. Any part of you that could protest is still lost to sleep.

As is any ability to dissemble. The truth—the thing you attempted to abandon, that has followed you regardless—slips out.

“Nobody wants me,” you whisper.

So quiet you fear he won’t hear you, and ask you to repeat it.

But Johnny tilts his head. The curl of his mouth softens to something almost kind.

It doesn’t quite get there, because a gleam of satisfaction that you cannot name colors his shining gaze.

“I want you,” he murmurs.

His broad hand covers the crown of your head, and he strokes your hair. The tide of sleep comes back in, and you know nothing more.

chapter 4 early access

#soap x reader #soap x you #john soap mctavish x reader #john soap mctavish x you #john soap x reader #john soap mactavish x reader #soap mactavish #john soap mactavish x you #soap mactavish x reader #soap mctavish #john soap mactavish #mwritessoap #madi writes #selkie soap #peristalsis #remember that hot chef who went viral recently? that's who i'm trying to evoke with pub cook soap

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lizardho · 6 months ago

Text

I was like 11-12 years old when I figured out at a boring-ass church activity that you could put rocks into little plastic spoons and then pelt people who annoyed me with them. I did this for the rest of the activity, and at Sunday dinner the next night was bragging about my victory (cornering the mean kid who picked on my youngest brother and pelting him with rocks). One of my cousins was like “no way, that sounds SO fun! Let’s do that RIGHT NOW!” So we grabbed spoons and went and got pebbles from the back yard and launched them at each other.

The problem was my grandma sold her soul for the world’s most resilient plastic spoons so we could launch those fuckers HARD. I gave out welts like candy on Halloween, and I got them back in kind.

So we resorted to taking cover and giggling until we got whacked, then yelping, then returning fire.

My cousin hid in my grandpa’s little fishing boat. It was a good boat, but simple and honestly underused. We didn’t know the little windows on it, meant to keep the wind out of my grandpa’s face while he drove, were cracking. However, they were definitely cracking. Eventually it became obvious and we realized we had been being dumb.

This was NOT the first time in my life I’d been dumb roughhousing and broken something, and I had developed a reputation in my family as being “suicidally honest” so I was the one to deliver the bad news. My grandpa let out a pretty good chuckle and said it was OK, tousled my hair, and asked my grandma to bring me cake. I am not kidding. I learned later he hated his boat and only bought it for his kids’ sakes, since he thought everyone needed to know how to fish. At the time though I was just bewildered and pleased at my good fortune. FINALLY, at long last, being honest and telling the truth about breaking something expensive was getting me cake. I knew if I kept trying it would eventually serve me, and now so had CAKE. I was pleased as could be.

My dad, on the other hand, was livid. He LOVED that boat. He spent several weeks each summer recovering from breaking ribs in that boat every year for about 7 years prior to this incident. He had great memories and memories that boat. So he told my Grandma NO cake for me AND that I’d be coming by this weekend to fix stuff around the house and pay for the broken window with my babysitting/lawn mowing money.

Obviously I was devastated, but that felt more in-line with the way things normally went when I broke something expensive so I just figured it was OK. My grandpa gave my grandma a look and sadly said “Ok, have her here on Saturday to help me with some yard work.”

That Saturday my dad woke me up at 6:00 sharp and drove me, sleepy and bewildered, to my grandpa’s house. He was mumbling under his breath the whole time but he thought he was teaching me consequences for my actions so he was ultimately OK with it.

We get to my grandpa’s house at 6:15. My grandpa is outside with a ladder hanging Christmas lights. The lawn is freshly mowed, the trees and garden are weeded and well-tended to, the carnations in the front yard look immaculate, and my grandpa has this giddy mischievous look on his face. He tells me he was so excited that I was coming over that he couldn’t sleep, so he did all the yard work himself. He asked me to help him put up Christmas lights and decorate the Christmas tree, which I did, then said that because I was such a good helper I could have some pancakes for breakfast. I was sent home with the slice of cake I had been denied the week before, wrapped to keep it as fresh as possible.

The whole way home my dad looked a little miffed, but told me that he was glad I had been honest and was proud of me for helping grandpa. I know he wanted me to Learn a Lesson™️the cowboy way, like he had as a kid, but didn’t have much room to complain since I’d still been Put To Work.

I think that was a lesson for both of us, although I’m not totally sure what it was supposed to show me. I think it was my grandpa’s way of showing my dad that discipline without tenderness doesn’t count as much. He died last year and I miss him terribly, as does my dad. I hope that my story of victory, drama, punishment, and ultimately a secret second victory is meaningful to someone else out there, but if not it still means a lot to me ❤️

#grandpa #grampa #nostalgia #ex mormon #mormon #parental discipline #love

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lost-romantique · 5 months ago

Text

Imagine being Stolas...

You're chilling on your living room couch drinking your favorite brand of alcohol, waiting for the commercial to finish so you can watch your favorite rom-com.

All of a sudden, the channel switches to a live broadcast of your ex-situationship that you still can't get over, despite how much of an ass he was last time you saw him.

"Oh my Lucifer! What are they doing!?"

You rush in anyway to stop whatever the fuck is going on because OBVIOUSLY you can't just sit there and do nothing!?

You don't think, you're an autopilot, but you have one thought on your mind. You need to save him! You love him! It doesn't matter how much he hurt you, he also saved you in so many ways, and you still love him! FOR FUCKS SAKES! YOU WOULD DIE FOR THIS MAN!

And all of a sudden, you’re on a suicide mission...

You will take the fall for whatever his charges may be because you love him, and it's better to die than live in a world without him in it.

You go in that courtroom knowing that you are going to die that day. You expect it.

Of course, you have some reservations doing this, some regrets...

The man you're sacrificing yourself for will probably never return your feelings, but what can you do?

You love him so much, and can't imagine a world without him.

If one of you has to go, it's better you than him.

You're bound by chains and the moment of your impending death approaches...

The moment he's freed, he rushes right to you, clutching at you, desperately begging you not to do what you're about to do.

He fights his captors tooth and nail, having to be dragged out in chains, and he doesn't stop screaming your name.

You feel a flood of emotions, happiness, sadness, love, anger, desperation, longing... so you give him one last look.

It's here, you're impending death and as you approach the device that's about to seal your fate, you're at peace with your decision...

Only...

You didn't die... You can't die...

You're royalty after all...

Your life holds actual worth...

Instead, they strip you out of house and home. Taking away everything of value as you're banished from the life you've led till now.

The only thing you could think about as you're stripped of everything is your daughter.

They drag you out of court, and throw you to the gallows and the first person you see is the man that you did all this for...

And the first thing he does is grab your hand and offer you a place to stay...

People are throwing things at you, makes sense, you did this to yourself after all... but he keeps you close, wrapping his arm around your waist as he leads you back to his place.

He takes you by the hand, and for the first time ever you see his tiny dingy one-bedroom apartment that's a lot smaller than you thought it would be.

As you look at the unfamiliar surroundings of this small home, you're greeted by the sight of the man you did all this for and his daughter, hugging...

And it fucking destroys you, as the gravity of the situation finally dawns...

You have just lost everything for a man you think doesn't give a shit about you.

You were supposed to die...

Why aren't you dead?

Why do you have to live with the consequences of your own actions?

Things are a blur...

Fuzzy...

You can't think properly, but you find yourself in his bathtub as he helps you bathe...

He's being unusually kind and soothing, and doesn't try to make conversation.

He says reassuring words to you, but it doesn't register.

None of this feels real...

As you drearily walk to his couch you feel both exhausted and defeated, he tucks you in and thanks you for saving him.

"Always."

You're angry at him, justifiably so, and you're having the worse day of your fucking life, but you'd save him again and again.

Always...

#helluva boss #blitzo #blitzø #helluva boss blitz #ro rambles #stolitz #helluva blitz #stolas #blitzo x stolas #stolas goetia #Mastermind spoilers

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bi-writes · 6 months ago

Text

attached | ghost x f!reader

i have no idea what it is that binds us together. but it doesn't really matter.

type: one-shot (8.4k)

cw: zombie apocalypse au, mature language and content, suggestive language and content, dark!ghost, dark!reader, reader described as curvy/plus-sized + has hair long enough to braid, graphic depictions of violence + murder + gore, depictions of suicidal thoughts + intentions (no actual action), mentions of depression + sadness + loneliness, depictions of assault + harassment (not by ghost), horror movie vibes, unprotected piv, allusions to baby trapping, cumplay, oral (fem!receiving), 18+

Death can be a curious thing. It used to be something definitive. Exact. It used to mean the end of something.

No, now it's a beginning. Not a sweet beginning, but a beginning nonetheless. It turns a new tide. Reactivates cells that were once dead. Sparks nerves that used to be dormant, that used to be dark. It makes muscles move even when they aren't supposed to. Brain-dead, but still hungry.

He hasn't been able to understand the phenomenon quite yet. He's tried. He's picked up a few books and tried to do his own research, but it's difficult when there is no way for him to view the cellular structure of it all on a micro-level. He cannot see the way it grows or how it takes over. He hasn't been able to figure out what techniques it uses to keep a body awake even when the central organs no longer function the way they're supposed to. What keeps it moving? What keeps the feet running and the stomach hungry and the saliva warm?

Why is it that when he plunges his blade through its heart, it still kicks? The brain is its engine, as with his own body, but this is different. The brain runs even when it has lost its necessary components. Blood circulation, oxygen, the things it needs to thrive; but this state of being is not like his own. It doesn't need the same things it used to need because its purpose is not to keep a body running. Its purpose is to eat. To infect. And that is all.

He likes to play games these days. He has a lucky silver euro, one he pried off the dead body of someone that he hated. He spit on that body before raiding his pockets. He hated that fucking brute; he disgraced the style of wearing a mask by using a fucking t-shirt instead. Perhaps Austria is a beautiful country, but it certainly produced one of the most unlikable of men. He thinks even if the world was still right-side up, he would've killed him anyway. The only thing useful about him was that he was carrying a few extra magazines and this coin in his front pocket.

Every morning, when he wakes up, he makes whatever will happen that day a game. If the coin lands on heads, he gets to kill himself today. If it lands on tails, he has to endure 24 more hours before he can play again. The rules are simple. The game is easy. Everyone knows how to play it, but not everyone will like to win it.

Today, he decides to do something different. Today, he decides if he wins, he will wait another day. He has never won this game; he decides if he can't win it, he'll manipulate it until he gets what he wants.

It hits the table with a light clink. It rattles around in a few circles before settling, and when he leans back in his chair, he sighs. He knows what it will be even without looking, but he looks anyway. When he sees the carved outline of its face-side up, his eyes flash. He won.

He never wins.

Something is keeping him here. He chooses not to ask questions. There isn't anyone to ask anyways. No one answers when he speaks. He doesn't think there is anyone left to listen.

If someone would ask him why he doesn't just put the muzzle to his temple and pull the trigger, he would just say that it was because that was how the game is played. Those are the rules. He can't try unless that's what it tells him to do. There is no fun in cheating the game; it wouldn't be proper, it wouldn't be correct. It would be grounds for disqualification, and that just wouldn't do, not for him.

He has to do things the right way. Always. It's how you keep order in a world that has none left. It's how you maintain structure even without the lines drawn in the sand. This is the way things are done; God is not waiting at the end of a very long staircase, He is rattling that coin on the table and waiting for Ghost to take a peek.

He thinks it keeps landing on tails because perhaps God is tired of playing this game with him; Ghost has never been surprised. He will always be ready for disappointment. Giving a gift is no fun when the recipient simply receives it.

It landed on heads today. He won the game. He tried to play it differently, but someone won't let him.

There's snow on the ground this morning. It snowed all night, coating the ground in a few inches of powdery ice. He looks away from the window and back towards the mirror, continue to run the razor over his head. His blonde hair falls in clumps in the sink. He keeps it neat and short, close to the head, and then he does the same with his face. He cuts the stubble close, keeping his face clean, but it doesn't wipe away the rest of his face, the things he can't just cut away. The scars, the ridges, the skin that closed over wounds angry and white and uneven. He can see his teeth through the broken skin above his lip, the yellowing of them now that he only brushes them a few times a week with his lack of proper toothpaste, and he grimaces when he sees the new red spots of raised skin left behind from the dirty mask he wears now. He dips his toothbrush into his bottle of water before brushing, careful to scrub his gums properly before spitting into the sink.

When he finishes, he makes his way back into the bedroom to get dressed. He did the washing yesterday; he found a creek only half frozen over, and he made use of the bar soap he keeps and managed to clean off most of his clothes. He feels a little better slipping into his cargos now that they aren't drenched in sweat or dirt. He tucks a long-sleeve into his pants before putting a thick windbreaker on over it, but he finally feels complete once he slips his mask on over his face. In the mirror, he adjusts it, making the skull straight, and he blinks back at himself. The mask does more than just hide him from the dead.

It keeps the living walking a careful circle around him, and he wants to keep it that way. He hasn't spoken to a single person since it began. He stopped counting the days once his boots ran out of space for notches. Anyone he sees now, he scares them off with one look, or he puts them down before they can take a step closer to finding out if he's real or not.

He doesn't take chances. He has always had a special skill, being able to sniff out the bullshit before it begins. He leans into it now, and it isn't a bullet wasted if it stops the chaos before it can wind up.

He still wears his tactical gear. He can't part with it. His holsters have not failed him, still buckled around his thighs. His vest is still strapped on, and without it, he feels naked. He has long since discarded of the Union Jack patch on his chest; there is no king nor country anymore. They are colors in different shapes, and they mean nothing now; they were buried a long time ago.

His backpack feels light. He's running out of bullets, and he doesn't like how it feels. Nowadays, he has to go further and further to get what he needs, and recently, he's taken to picking up everything and simply moving to make the trips all the easier with no home to go back to.

It's not all that different to the life he had before. He never stayed in one place too long then either. He signed the shortest leases, and he would move once it was up, never lingering and never buying more things than he could carry in the back of his truck. His memories are in his head and nowhere else. He keeps no trinkets. He saves no pictures. There is nothing from the old life that needs to be brought into the new. He shifts between both lives, one foot in the past and one in the future, and he thinks that's what really makes him live up to his name.

He's a Ghost. A drifter. Standing between two places at the same time, not knowing which to stay in and which to leave. It would hurt, if he was really human inside, if he could feel anything at all.

But he's not. His insides are nothing but organic matter. His head is a clock, ticking, counting down, but he's not aware of when it runs out.

He digs the heel of his boot into the snow to gauge the depth. It barely comes up over his toes. He huffs a little before taking a peek at the map tucked into his vest. He had circled a place just north, a main street he is hoping will have a stash of things he will need.

Ammunition. Weapons. Food. Water. A new book, for fuck's sake, maybe a Sudoku puzzle that isn't already scribbled into.

The forest gives him cover, so he sticks to it. Out in the open, he would stick out, dressed in all black. He keeps to the trees, ducking under the leaves and trying not to leave too much of a track behind. He doesn't plan on staying in that cabin again, but if he must, he doesn't want anyone seeing a way to come back to it.

The one thing he does appreciate about this new place is the quiet. It lingers, and it's calm, and when he breathes, the world breathes back. He feels like he had always been telling everyone to shut up, but now, his voice hasn't been used in months. Even when he passes other people, he doesn't speak to them. If they don't spot him, he keeps to the shadows, and if they do, they don't see him for long enough to know what hit them.

It's a good stash. The store had been rifled through by now, but in the office, there had been a nice drawer filled with supplies. A few boxes of ammunition, a revolver, and a new blade to stick in one of his boots. He picks up some other odds and ends. Batteries. A roll of yarn. A small sewing kit. A few pens. His backpack feels a little heavier, and it's a weight he appreciates when he makes his way back outside.

He sticks to the alleyways as he searches for the roof over his head for the night. He decides the cabin he slept in last night was too close to the road; if anyone was driving or following it, they could find that place too easily, and he wouldn't be able to sleep another night comfortably there knowing this truth.

He finds himself veering off road just enough. It's fucking cold, freezing, and he's grateful to the mask for helping him keep it together as he ducks under the wind and keeps an eye out for any nearby landmarks. Sometimes, on slow days like this, he would sit on a ridge and kill infected for sport. Practice focusing his sight, calculating the wind, keep his mind in check by hitting his targets and ridding the world of another one of those things.

There are different kinds of hunters out today.

He hears them before he sees them. He knows what kind they are when he hears their laughter. Low and untamed, sloppy and fucking messy. They always are. These kind spoil their treasures. They eat their food until it makes them sick, and then they do it all over again. They never learn their lesson.

When he settles his rifle down along a fallen tree, he eyes them through his scope. There are two of them. Both are fattened, with dark hair and lazy eyes, and they look greasy. Their clothes are in ruins, and their packs are light, and Ghost figures that they look enough alike to be perhaps brothers, or maybe cousins. Their smiles are equally as sadistic. The taller one tugs something along, and when Ghost aims the scope down a little, he sees her.

Her.

He's dragging her by her legs. She's kicking, but it's hard for her to do much when her arms and legs are bound by mismatched bits of fabric and rope. She's crying, that much is clear, squirming as she spits and gargles around the gag in her mouth as she tries to break free. She has heart, but she isn’t a fighter. If she was, she would’ve realized her teeth could snap that fabric of her gag, and she would know that the knot they’ve tied succumbs easily to upwards pressure.

He follows them. They keep going, dragging you and laughing as they make it to a makeshift camp hidden amongst a clearing. There's a few tents set up, a small dip in the earth to hold a campfire, and when they settle on tree trunks to sit, the smaller one takes a blade and cuts your gag off, leaning over you with a low chuckle. They mean to maim and to take and then to kill, and you know this when you look into his eyes.

"Hello, darling."

"Bite me."

He laughs again, dropping onto his knees over you, but when he gets close enough, you sit up with what little strength you have and bite him along his ear. The cartilage rips, and you tear half his ear off, and then he's scrambling off of you, screaming, holding the side of his head as he rolls around in circles in the snow. He colors it red, and you snarl with satisfaction. Ghost takes a deep breath in and lets it out shakily. The look in your eyes–he can taste that, roll it around on his tongue. You did not clock the poorly-tied knots, but you do see opportunity, and you are the kind to take it.

"You bitch!"

Just as the taller one is about to get on top of you, Ghost decides he's seen enough. He closes one eye, lines up the sight, and he lets out a cool breath as he drops the both of them within a second of each other. They fall easy; a bullet clean through the back of their heads, and now they're finally quiet again. They will not get up, either.

Your lip trembles as you look towards the trees. You watch as the leaves rustle, and when you see a man emerge from the thick of them, you start to cry. You think maybe you're seeing things; you must be so dehydrated, so hungry, that a reaper has come for you, and you are much deader than you thought.

The reaper stares down at you curiously. He swings his rifle over his shoulder, tilting his head to the side as he bends, getting a blade out of his boot before he cuts the restraints that bind you. He doesn’t hesitate when he does this; he does not deem you enough of a threat to keep you bound.

You sit up slowly, wiping your face, and when you meet his eyes, you're surprised to see how human they are. They're dark, but alive, and he has blonde lashes and pale skin underneath. He covers himself, but you can still see him. There's a man under there, not a reaper.

Just a man.

I hate men.

You shake off the rest of the restraints, turning your wrists and ankles and flexing your muscles for good measure. When you realize you are nothing but a little shaken up, you look back up. He's still staring at you, hard eyes lowered in a glare as he looks you over. He's sizing you up, maybe, deciding what to do with you. You meet his eyes one more time before gathering the saliva into your mouth and spitting onto the floor. It's a garbled mess of blood, from the flesh you had severed from that man.

He blinks slowly at that, makes some decision that he doesn’t voice out loud, and then he starts to walk away.

You stand on shaky legs, taking it as your cue. You watch as he rips open the flimsy tents that those men had left behind, and he's already grabbing backpacks and rifling through them for goods. He already starts filling his own vest and backpack with the things he finds; some flashlights, fishing line, more food and ammunition. You follow him, moving to the other tent beside it and starting to grab their things and toss them outside. You get to your knees and open the packs, laying out what you find carefully. They have interesting materials in here, ones you associate with explosives. C4. Lighters. Batteries. Wiring. You clench your jaw when you pull out the last box in the bag.

Condoms.

Bunch of pricks.

He finds your discoveries useful. He opens up an empty pack he found and fills it to the brim with supplies. When he zips it up, your stomach drops when you think he might toss it over his shoulder and leave. It only sinks for a moment before he turns the backpack around, holding it up for you.

You pause for a little and think. It only takes a few seconds for you to decide to stand up and slip your arms through the straps.

When he walks again, you follow.

The sun is setting by the time you find somewhere to sleep, but it looks like luxury to you. A quaint little brick house tucked between the hills, a ways from the road and positively hidden. He spotted it through his scope a few hours ago, and he made a beeline for it. It's difficult to keep up with him; he has incredible stamina and the longest legs. He moves like a ghost, too quiet for his own good. You would never know from looking at him how stealthy he could be. For such a huge man, you would never notice him before he could get the drop on you. It makes you conscious of your own steps and how loud they are, and you try to mimic the way he moves as you keep walking.

You don't know why, but you think he must be very pleased with how quiet you've gotten. You don't know why that fact pleases you, too.

He makes you stay outside when you arrive. He pulls a small handgun out of his backpack, and he checks the chamber before handing it to you. He clicks his tongue, forcing your eyes on his, and he puts a finger to his mask-covered lips, telling you to keep quiet. You take the gun from him, pointing it at the ground and holding it at your side, and he touches a knuckle under your chin before he twists a silencer onto his own gun.

You watch with rapt attention as he clears the house. His movements are quick and calculated, and he keeps low to the ground. It's mesmerizing. Big and capable, one with the shadows. The only thing you see in the dark is the white of the skull over his face, and if you didn't know it was him, you would think that you have just seen God.

But God isn't real. Apparently ghosts are.

He is back outside in less than ten minutes, nodding his head at you. You take it as your cue to come towards him, and you hand him the gun back when you pass him. You go into the house and immediately start to light some of the candles scattered around. You set your backpack down, rubbing your shoulders out, and you take a seat on the couch.

It hits you then, the gravity of it all. Men are your captors, and then they are your savior. They'll never leave you alone. They'll never let you go. You were ruled by their iron fist in a previous life, and you will endure their wrath in this new one.

You start to cry. It's the first sound you've made since screaming. You cover your face with your hands, and you don't know why you feel safe enough to cry, but you do, and it comes out of you fast.

He tilts his head to the side as he watches you. It's a strange thing to see something so...alive. He's used to only seeing things moving that can't speak back to him. If he does see things alive, he puts them down as if they are rabid dogs.

He can't find it in himself to kill you. Something is so odd about it. About you.

Everything about today seems more than coincidence. He won the game today. And then he found you.

When he tries the sink in the bathroom, he's surprised to find it working. He grabs a bowl and fills it with water, and when he comes back into the living room, you are staring at one of the flickering candles blankly, shivering. You have stopped crying, but your face is still wet with fat, lingering tears.

It looks like you've been hit by a brick wall. Your hair is matted in places, in tangles. It’s in desperate need of a cut. It's stuck to your face around the perimeter, caked by sweat and mud and dried blood. Your clothes are in ruins; you wear a ripped jumper, thin jeans, and the soles of your boots are starting to fray and come off, and he can see where you've tried to mend them unsuccessfully with duct tape. You wear no jewelry, and your fingernails need to be cut. Those men have left marks on you, but those will fade.

He kneels in front of where you sit on the couch. Using a threadbare cloth, he dips it into the water and raises it to your face. You show no resistance. You let him wipe your face off, the tears, the dirt, the blood. It stains the cloth ugly, but you can't look at anything else except for his eyes.

They're so dark. Brown, like bark, like honey. You haven't spoken a word to him yet, but the silence is sort of bliss. All you can hear is the drip of the water when he rings out the cloth.

He helped you. He didn't have to. He could've kept walking, but he stayed with you. He didn't leave you. He could've walked away again, but he let you follow.

He isn't a good man. You know that. Anyone who has lasted this long isn't a good person. You've done the same. You've let it take you, once or twice, let the snarl in the back of your throat guide your hand. You've let the voices fester, let them eat at the acid in your stomach until they begged for more, and you won't admit it, but it felt good. Felt good to protect yourself. To rid the earth of something terrible. To say no.

He must understand that. He's decorated in its essence, the one of understanding, the one that says I know what it's like to take matters into your own hands, and he did it with you, too.

He's doing it now, cleaning you up, and you don't know him, or his face, or his name, but you'll try hard to give it back. To give him something. To tell him you are worthy and not useless. It doesn't show today, how far you've come, but you'll try.

"Thank you," you finally whisper. He's dragging the cloth over your bottom lip, and he blinks rapidly, as if a bit startled by hearing your voice. When you speak again, it's to tell him your name, and he thinks for a few moments before continuing, wiping under your jaw.

He doesn't sleep that night. He stares out the window, like a guard dog, and he lets the soft breaths of your sleep keep him awake.

The gas lighter on the stove still works. It takes a match to light it properly, but when the fire starts, you take some of the soup cans from your pack and make breakfast.

Your smile when he comes into the kitchen nearly blinds him. You look more rested than yesterday, and you ladle some soup into a bowl for him, setting it down at the table. He notices the two bowls, his and yours, and he notices that his bowl has more food.

It is then that he decides to keep you.

What he doesn't know is that you've decided the same. The world has thrown you the way out. A man, built like a bear, happy finger on the trigger and capable of getting you out of harm's way. You need to convince him that you are worthy. You need to convince him that you are valuable. A keepsake.

Men are what start wars, not what end them. Men are the cause of chaos and destruction, it is prevalent throughout history, and it is why you are here now, in a place that doesn’t exist, where people don’t breathe the same air anymore. A man thought himself correct, but he was wrong, and he didn’t listen when someone told him otherwise. They are the ones that take advantage of your vulnerability, and instead of trying to understand it, they use it to get what they want.

You can do the same.

You start by mending his clothes. He's laid some out to dry after washing, and you notice the tears in his shirts. When he comes back a little while later, with dinner hanging off his shoulder, you are seated on the couch, feet tucked under you, with a needle in your hand as you sew up one of his shirts.

You've bathed, found new clothes, warmer ones, and your hair is braided and off your face. He hates to say he prefers you a little dirty, but he likes this, too. A natural beauty. A soft face.

You make a real dinner that night. There's canned vegetables that you try to spruce up with the spices you find in the cupboards, but the real meal is the venison you're served. He butchers it outside like a professional, and he sears it on the stove with a perfect touch. When he feeds you that first bite, your mouth explodes with flavor. Your belly is full that evening, and when he blows out the candles for bed, he eats you out in the dark of the corner bedroom.

He's not sloppy like you thought he might be. Not overeager. He's easy with it, casual. Big hunk of a man smothered between your thighs, and he laves his tongue through your folds like his very own personal dessert. He drinks straight from the source, holy water spilling sweet between his teeth, and when he gets his tongue inside of you and holds it there, you nearly leave earth for somewhere else. You come like that, too, his filthy mouth sucking on your clit before he's slipping that tongue in you again, and you mewl against the bed as he tucks his hand under your ass and spreads you wider.

He tells you his name a few nights later. He doesn't speak, not ever, but when you're crying around his thick fingers, he whispers it against your ear.

"'s Simon," he growls, and you know what he means by that. He wants you to say it while you bounce on his fingers, when you rut against his thigh. He wants you to say his name when you're coming undone riding his face, when you're wetting his mask with your pussy and making him choke on your cum. Such a wet, sweet girl you are, and sometimes he skips wash day for his mask so he can shove it into his mouth and pant around it and taste you while he fucks his own fist.

It's insanity, he thinks, as he's cleaning his rifle. The idea of traditional. But it's what befallen him, what he sees all around him, and he tucks his index finger into a hole too small to pinch himself just to make sure he isn't living a dream. You're in the kitchen, mending more clothes, something warm boiling on the stove. There were seeds in the greenhouse, and you're saving them to plant in the spring, so for now, you make do with canned goods and whatever Simon hunts for during the day. You found books in the attic, and you read them at night, head in Simon's lap as he plays with your hair or rubs your sore ankles or cuts your nails. You're the only one that ever speaks; he hasn't said a word to you except for telling you his name, and you're content to be the only one that uses their voice.

He always listens. You told him one time that you loved the shade of green that the trees wore, and he came back one day with a sweatshirt of the same color for you. He noticed you trying to mend those terrible boots, and he found a new pair for you, your size this time, barely worn and fit for winter. He brings lots of things for you; books, clothes, even rocks sometimes, when he just thinks he found one that you might like.

You do like them. You have started filling a small bowl with the ones he brings, and he notices you rifling through it sometimes, just looking at them, and it makes his chest swell with pride.

Like giving a treat to a dog. Like giving him a fucking bone.

He teaches you how to shoot. You know how to pull a trigger, but that’s the extent of your expertise. He teaches you how to stand, how to turn the safety on and off, how to hold the gun between two hands so not even his own can take it away from you. He makes sounds when you please him. Hums low, lets out a soft breath, sucks in the air through his teeth. You can’t see his face, but the way he looks at you when you fire a bullet and knock bottles off their ledges, it warms you, all the way down your spine, reaching your toes. You want him to keep looking at you this way, so you try hard, and he notices.

You’ll never be what he is, but the small victories are what have him chubbing up in his cargos and falling asleep between your thighs. You give, and he takes, and he keeps coming back for more.

He teaches you that distance is your strength. You aren’t like him; you aren’t built like a brick house, you won’t be bigger than a lot of your opponents. You need to keep them away from you, however you can. He makes you good with that gun because it’s your best chance, but in the even that you lose it or you run out of bullets, he shows you how to aim a hatchet so that the blade always lines up between someone’s shoulders.

The way you listen makes him salivate. The way you blink up at him and say yes, Simon and take his orders, it makes it difficult to keep away from you.

Today marks two months in the house tucked on the hill. Simon hunts, and you cook, and you live in some sick, twisted housewife fantasy at the end of the fucking world. Simon provides, and you keep, and when the box of condoms falls out of your backpack one day, you glance at Simon for just a moment before he's on you.

It's animal, that first time. He tackles you practically onto the carpet of the living room, and he props you up onto your elbows and only pulls down your jeans enough that he can fit his cock between your thighs. You hear the tear of the condom wrapping, and then he's laying over your back, sinking to the base, cock nestled inside of you as he grips your throat gently and fucks you into the carpet. Poor beast, he's definitely going to need his knees massaged after this, but you can't think about that much when you're taking the fattest cock of your entire life and trying to survive underneath him. It's that fine line between pleasure and pain that you're desperate for, and you pull threads out of the carpet as you try to hang on and take it like a good girl.

You can hear his voice. It's low, and subtle, but he grunts with each agonizing thrust, hips snapping against your ass as he fucks you back onto him over and over and over again.

It's primal. Nasty. You wish he wasn't wearing a condom, you want him to be in your skin, you want him to fill you until you're full, let it spill over, and then do it all over again. You want him to bite into your throat and tear, and you want him to eat you and then put you back together, and then do it again and again and again.

"So big," you gasp, and he falters at that. You recognize it, the need for praise, and you latch onto it with claws and stay there. I need him to stay here with me. "So good...so good t-to me, Simon–"

He groans. It's music.

Keep me. Keep me. Keep me.

"Simon, please–" You scratch at his arm, not satisfied until you feel blood. When you break the skin, he laughs, a breathless laugh that has your eyes rolling back in your head as he shoves your face into the carpet and mounts you like a fucking horse. The deep slap, slap, slap of skin is enough to send you away, send you home, your mind foggy as your pussy squeezes him for all he's worth. The slick of the condom is pleasant, but you want it raw. You want every part of him carved into you, and you arch your back, suck him in, whine and cry and beg for him to just, "please, Simon, I need it, I need it."

"Need wot?"

The sound of his voice is whiplash. He hisses when he sinks deep, staying there, holding you at a sharp angle so he can knead your ass and watch it bounce back on him. He sucks on his teeth, and there's drool slipping out of your mouth. That accent, his voice, like velvet, from deep within his chest. You want to hear more of it.

"Be a man," you gasp. "Be a man, and fuck me."

He doesn't see the desperate look on your face when he slips out of you. He doesn't see the relief that washes over you when you hear the condom come off, latex crumbling as he tosses it, but he feels the warmth of your pretty pussy when he sinks back in, skin to skin, and feels you clench for dear fucking life.

"Fuckin' Christ," Simon groans, and you reach back for him, gripping his arms, forcing him to fall over on top of you. He settles with his elbows on either side of your head, and you bow your back and grip the carpet again as he fucks into you nice and slow, deep, fat head leaking precum and making you cry because finally, yes, please, this is it, what I want, I'll have you forever.

You're so pretty. Even in his past life, Simon never got to have anything pretty. He was too ugly, too big, too awkward. Any woman of good faith stayed 100 yards away, as if his mere presence was a warning alarm, some invisible radius that kept them away from him. He always thought it was for the better. He always thought good riddance, they shouldn't have me, I shouldn't have anyone. Not when only days before, he had tortured a Russian militant until he had no teeth and hung his severed fingers on twine around his own neck.

But you won't run away. He's given you opportunity. He's left the cottage and staked out the outside just to watch you, and all he sees is you moving between windows, shaking out the dust from old blankets and washing the dishes. All he sees is you sewing his clothes and cooking his food, and when he comes back inside, all he sees is your smile and your face and your pretty mouth that falls open when he makes you come all over his hand.

Now it's the end of the world, and he lets a coin flip decide whether or not he lives or dies. And even when he flips it now, it never agrees. When he asks to die, the coin tells him no. When he asks to live, it’s always interrupted by you.

Yes, it tells him. Yes, yes, yes, because it's been keeping him here, because it knows, because it saw, because he couldn't see both sides of the coin, but he can see it now, plain as day, and she's underneath him now, letting him inside, and she's begging him to come and to fill her up, and she's crying because he's such a big man, and she wants him everywhere and always and all at once, and Simon is nothing if he isn't an insatiable bastard that can finally be fucking selfish.

The way you say his name could make him move mountains. That soft breath you take. The falter of your voice. The whine. The world has gone quiet, but he'll make a new one, and he will leave it at your feet for you to step on or pick up.

Whichever you choose. You can do no wrong.

When he comes, he moans. Into your ear, he lets you hear him, lets you bask in his pleasure as he spurts hot inside of you, hauling you a little higher on your knees so he can make sure you come, too. He gives you the palm of his hand to grind on, fucking into you at the same time, humming deep when he feels you squeeze around him and shatter like glass.

He takes his mask off for the first time that night. You see his face, all of it, not just glimpses when he lifts it to eat or to drink, you see the whole thing. He has a terrible looking face. Something only a mother could love. Too old of scars to be from this new life. They slash across his brow, across his cheeks. He has a jagged nose, and the skin around his lips had been reconstructed poorly from however they had been slit.

He's a terrifying piece of flesh. He is surprised when you lean in and kiss him. He's even more surprised when you kick off your jeans, turn over, and fuck him again.

The mantra that sounds like mine repeats in his head over and over. He feels it, deep, warm and beating under his ribs alongside his heart that hasn't moved in a long while.

He found you in those woods, kicking amongst predators, and he took you home with him. Picked you up like a stray, fed you, clothed you, and now you've stayed. For a moment, he thought it wasn't real. Thought your full belly is what kept you here, the warm house. He didn't mind pretending, but he figured it wouldn't last.

He doesn't think that anymore. Not with the way you kiss his severed face. You nuzzle into it, cup his cheeks, and he finds it agony when you pull away.

He hovers now. In whatever room you are in, Simon must also be in it. If he leaves, he makes you board the doors, and you are only allowed to open them if he knocks in his special way. He tested you once, came back earlier than expected, and he was so pleased you did not open the door to his casual knock and only the special one that he made you come one, two, three times with your thighs locked around his face.

A terrible thing happens.

Not to you.

You're searching the greenhouse. Hoping to find some flower pots for the herb seeds you found, you're rummaging through the cabinets beside it. Your gun is sitting away from you, and although Simon would chastise you for this, you feel safe here, and it doesn't bother you.

It flings itself at you. It cries, what used to be a teenage girl, reaching for you because it wants a chunk of your softness, of the life you pump into the muscles that keep you running. You're protected by all the clothes you wear for the weather, and it is slow because of the cold freezing their rigid, dead bones, but it does not lessen the hunger, the fight, the determination to eat and spread.

Before it can bite, the back of its head explodes. You close your mouth and shut your eyes as rancid brain matter splatters the white snow and you, and it is wrenched off of you immediately. Simon stands there, his pistol in hand, and you have never seen him quite so angry as he is right now.

His eyes are wild. He heaves under that tact vest, breathing hard, and his grip on the handgun shakes, so much that he has to shove it back into the holster at his thigh and lean over to pick you up off the ground.

He jostles you. Growls. Is nearly an animal himself as he shoves you up against the glass of the greenhouse and snarls.

"Wot the fuck is wrong with ya?!" Simon snaps. "Is y'r fuckin' head on?!"

It's so quiet in your head even as he yells. Your eyes tear, but not because you're upset. You reach out and cup his face gently, and he stops. Stops talking, just watches, just looks at you as he bends and leans his forehead against yours and squeezes you to his chest.

What is this thing you have? What have you become? What innate thing has festered between you? He’s gripping the edge of the glass so hard, you hear it crack under his hand. There is some kind of sick sense of devotion among you. Some kind of responsibility. He’s angry because something under his tongue tasted bitter when he saw you struggling. It won’t be this easy. He won’t make it this easy. If he doesn’t get to die, then neither do you, and he will make sure of that, because that is the only way this game can remain fair.

You never wander to the greenhouse again. He makes you promise (lest he wastes his cum between your thighs instead of inside you, that's it, promise me).

Another terrible thing happens.

Not to you.

They're wanderers. When they knock at the door, they don't use Simon's special knock, so you don't open it. Instead, you blow out the candles and hide, peeking at them from the fogged window in the attic.

They are men (you aren't surprised, they seem to be the only thing that survives nature's heavy hand). Cold. Shivering. One of them is bleeding, you can see it from the blood trail he leaves in the snow that seeps from somewhere under the hem of his jeans. The one uninjured tries to force his way through the door, but Simon added more deadbolts to it, and it doesn't give under his weak attempts. You trade your handgun for the rifle, aiming it at them. If they get through the door, maybe you can draw them back out, keep them away from the house.

You try to stay quiet, but the healthier one uses his body and a log of wood to get through. They're desperate, desperate enough to not care that breaking through the door cuts him severely, splits through his jacket. The second man limps behind him, getting inside, and you decide to put the rifle back.

You will stay quiet until Simon gets back. Your strength is not being a bulldozer, so you'll hide until he can be that for you. You steady your breathing; even if they make it to the attic, you won't go quietly. You tried that last time, and if it wasn't for Simon, you'd surely be naked and dead in that clearing that you were dragged to.

This time, if you go, you will take someone with you at least. Severed ears are not enough. You will not make them artists, you will make them forgettable and unrecognizable, and you will give back what they give you tenfold. Even if it kills you.

It takes them all night before they finally make it to the attic. They eat your food and take showers in your bathroom and stink up the living room, you can hear them. And when their bellies are full and their minds wander, you dread the pull of the attic door as he wrenches it open and the ladder falls.

You manage to kill one as he drags you out from the corner. He latches onto your ankle, and as he pulls, you put your finger on the trigger of your handgun, and you put one right between his eyes. The other takes advantage of your moment of pause, turning you over onto your stomach so hard the gun flies across the attic from your hand. He tosses you down from the attic, and you land on your side in the hallway, and you cry as you get to your elbows and crawl, trying to get to your feet, but he's larger than you.

He catches you in the kitchen. Slams you over the kitchen counter, using his weight to pin you down, but Simon taught you better than that. He taught you not to give in. He taught you not to give up. You think about him when your fingers find the discarded fork on the counter and you drive it right through his fucking eye.

You don't stop. You don't let his cries keep you from bringing your arm down again. And again. And again. You make his face your blank canvas, and you paint it with your anger. For every man that ever touched you. For every man that ever thought himself worthy to have you. For every man that tried to make your body his prize, you poke a thousand holes in him, and you scream with him as you do it until he can't scream anymore.

You're holding the fork and standing over him when Simon comes home. His handgun drawn, silent as he makes his way in, his body visibly relaxing when he sees you. He glances at the man at your feet, still alive, gurgling there, choking on his own blood as he tries to breathe through the holes that are scattered across his face and neck. You meet his eyes, and you smile. It's uncanny to do it now, but you are happy to see him.

"There's..." You sniffle, wiping your face with your sleeve. "There's another i-in the attic."

You don’t get to see him smile under the mask. You don’t hear the near purr that leaves him as he climbs the ladder and sees the perfect place you’ve left your mark. He’d frame it if it wouldn’t rot.

You twirl the fork in your hand before going to the sink, dropping it in there, and you close your eyes as you listen to Simon's footsteps as he goes into the attic. It takes him a little less than an hour to get the bodies out the back door, and when he comes back inside, you're already wiping up the floor in the kitchen.

There's nothing to talk about. This is normal. This is just another day. Tomorrow, you might have to do it again, and you'll still cook dinner after sunset and clean the kitchen like you're doing now and sit Simon on the edge of the bathtub and cut his hair.

Simon found chocolate on his trip today, and you make cake with it. You sit in his lap under the candlelight, and you feed each other, bite by bite, and you giggle when Simon gets it all over his lips.

You kiss him to clean it off, and then you reach for another bite of cake. There's some measure of satisfaction you feel when your tongue finds the dent in the fork prongs from when you used it earlier. The chocolate tastes better somehow. Sweeter.

You catch him in the morning, limbs tangled with yours under the sheets, flipping a coin. You smooth a hand over his thick chest, along his pudgy stomach, and you watch with him as the coin lands on the bedside table, falling flat.

It comes up tails.

He decides then that he doesn't have to flip it anymore. It's pointless. He asked for answers, and he got one.

You were not luck. You were fate. And because of it, the coin will always land the same way.

His thoughts are interrupted when you reach for the coin. You twirl it between your fingers, thinking. He doesn't see what you see, but that's okay. Maybe he'll let you play now. Some other game, a better one.

Heads or tails, win or lose, alive or dead. Either way, you are attached. Woven together, thread by thread. There are no vows to say in this new place, but you aren't tested by the same kinds of things. There is no law to keep two people together, no governing power of men that say if left is truly left and that right is really right.

You are drawn together by shared experiences. The same trauma. You won't leave each other not because you said you wouldn't leave, but because there is no one else in the world that has seen the same things you have seen and has done the same things you have done. There is no one else in the world that will forgive you for what you had to do to survive. That will love you not just in spite of it, but because of it, because you did what was necessary, and you are here now to learn a lesson and not suffer its consequences.

It's just a game. If you win, he wins. If you lose, he loses. If you're alive, he's alive.

And if you're dead, then he must be, too.

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