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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 9 months ago

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Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 9: Some Days He Feels Like Dying]

A/N: Below are your guesses...let's see how you did!!! 🥰😘

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon™️, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes.

Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Extraordinary Girl” by Green Day.

Word count: 8.3k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

Let’s go back to the beginning of the end of the world.

On the big-screen tv in the Liberty Center at Saratoga Springs, Wolf Blitzer is saying: “We are receiving confirmation of additional outbreaks of the so-called Florida Fever, the first cases of which here in the U.S. were reported in Miami a little over one week ago. Concern is now growing nationally, especially as the modes of transmission, symptoms, and treatment options remain unclear. Let’s go across the country to Natasha Chen for the latest information. Natasha?”

“Hi, Wolf. I’m here outside the UC San Diego Medical Center where early this morning, two individuals suspected to be suffering from the illness were admitted. I’ve been informed by hospital staff that both patients are currently in stable condition, but there is still so much confusion and conflicting information regarding this ‘Florida Fever,’ and of course that uncertainty is leading to fear, rumors, and honestly a bit of hysteria. Even how to refer to the sickness is controversial, with no official name having been decided upon by scientists. Cases in Australia are known as Ragepox, the U.K. has dubbed it the 21st Century Sweat after a mysterious disease from the 1500s, and Russia is calling it the Ukrainian Flu while Ukraine has opted for the Russian Red Rot, inspired by the skin lesions that some patients experience.”

“Can you tell us what we do know, Natasha? Are doctors classifying this illness as a virus, or as a bacterial infection more akin to tuberculosis or meningitis?”

“At this time, what I’m hearing is that doctors are fairly certain it’s a virus, as patients do not seem to respond to antibiotics when they’ve been explored as a potential treatment. But there’s truly very little information at this early stage, and I think we’re all being reminded of those first days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when no one really knew how to best to avoid contracting the virus or what the long-term effects would be both nationally and globally.”

“There are absolutely some similarities, Natasha, which I’m sure is contributing to the unease surrounding the situation. What precautions are doctors currently recommending?”

“Wolf, doctors are urging the public not to panic, and to exercise common sense measures like avoiding crowded spaces, sanitizing surfaces, and staying home if they’re feeling unwell. Suspected cases of the illness should be reported to primary physicians or local hospitals. Typical symptoms appear to include headaches, fever, gastrointestinal upset, skin discoloration and blistering, and unusual bleeding, as well as behavioral changes, particularly disorientation, aggression, and even violence in some patients…”

“That ain’t what it is,” Rio says. He jabs his index finger at the tv from where he sits on the couch beside you. “Snowflake wasn’t sick, he was dead. He was motherfucking dead, flatline, code blue, crossed the rainbow bridge, he was gone. He was dead and then he woke back up, and he wasn’t a person anymore. He was…something else.”

“Dumbass, people don’t come back from the dead,” Mike says from the ping pong table. People are milling around pretending to play pool, darts, chess, poker, Monopoly, Uno, Parcheesi, but really you’re all here for the same reason. You want to know what’s happening.

Rio turns to you. “Wasn’t Snowflake dead?”

“He definitely seemed dead,” you reply, knees tucked to your chest and still watching the tv. Wolf Blitzer’s voice is calm, but his pale blue eyes have a manic sort of light to them, too large and too rattled.

“Man, fuck Florida,” says Desmond, a utilitiesman born and raised Trenton, New Jersey. “Nothing but psychos and alligators. Saw them off of Georgia and just let them float away.”

“What was that?” Tyler replies combatively. He’s from a trailer park in Tallahassee.

“Ty, why do you care? You’d be fine. You’re already up here. You can stay.”

“They’re lying,” Rio mutters, meaning Wolf and Natasha on CNN. “When the corpsmen called the hospital, they said to be prepared to restrain Snowflake and that he might try to bite us. Why aren’t they warning people about that?!”

Kayleigh, a steelworker from Oklahoma City, looses a frenetic sort of laugh. “Because there’s no non-panic-inducing way to say: Hey, go buy some duct tape and bungee cords to tie up your loved ones, because they might try to fucking eat you.”

Rio doesn’t frown often, but he is now; he slips his phone out of the pocket of his camo pants and types out a WhatsApp message to Sophie. You only know her from photos and quick hellos via video chat, a sweet diminutive woman with white-blonde hair and blue eyes that seem to fill up half her face, as fragile as Rio is overwhelming. She likes baking and romance novels and elephants; whenever Rio finds elephant-themed souveners, he ships them home to Oregon for her, refrigerator magnets and wallets and scarves and snow globes. Sophie wears a lot of long flowing skirts and hand-knit sweaters, and offers strange suggestions when she and Rio discuss baby names: Sage, Fox, Laurel, Coral, Juniper, Karma, Rune, Otter. Otter?! Rio had exclaimed. Babe, if you name our kid Otter, even I’M gonna have to bully them.

“I’m telling Sophie to stay with my parents,” Rio says to you. “They’ve gotten super weird with all the off-the-grid stuff, but they have years’ worth of supplies and grow most of their own food now, and they’re thirty miles from the nearest town. And no one knows how to defend themselves like doomsday preppers.”

“Good idea,” you reply, watching the tv. Now Wolf Blitzer is talking about tornadoes in the Midwest, and you could almost believe the world is normal again.

A few days later all major social media platforms begin censoring content related to the so-called Florida Fever, and then the internet goes down completely, and then the power turns off and on and off again, and finally quits like a car driven to its last mile. The combat units are moved out of Saratoga Springs—never to be heard from again—and the construction projects paused indefinitely, and one of the master-at-arms that Rio is friends with (Rio has a lot of friends, surely you aren’t so remarkable) relays information that he shouldn’t: tales of planned missions, impossible plagues, overrun cities, innumerable deserters in every branch of the U.S. military.

“Hey,” Rio whispers, shaking you awake one night, moonlight streaming through the windows and the pops of distant gunfire you aren’t supposed to ask about. “If I leave, will you come with me?”

It’s a big commitment; it could be a lifetime. You fear he might just be trying not to hurt your feelings. “I don’t want to slow you down.”

“No, you don’t get it,” Rio says. “I’m not leaving without you. Are you going to Oregon by choice, or should I tie you up and throw you in the back of the Humvee?”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s a young one, maybe a teenager, little buds for horns and only weighing a few hundred pounds. This is good; if it was any heavier, Cregan and Rio wouldn’t be able to drag it back to the ranch. You’re still in Red Desert, Wyoming, and the bison are grazing just off I-80, an asphalt artery that cuts through an endless steppe of sand-colored rocks and tall grass. They gaze lazily in your direction with bulbous dark eyes, perpetually chewing, not terribly intelligent. The Colt pistols of the men who found you at the RV had been loaded with 9mm bullets, the same caliber your Berettas take; there weren’t many, but enough to fill both of your clips, something that feels like winning the lottery. You are lying on the rocky, dusty soil and lining up the shot. If you miss, the herd will scatter, and you’ll watch dinner vanish beneath a blue sky—pale like Aemond’s eye, a weak shallow blue—and rough white scars of cirrostratus clouds.

“Feels kind of wrong to kill a baby,” you murmur. Daeron, Luke, Baela, Helaena, and Ice are back at the house. Aemond, Rio, Cregan, Rhaena, and Aegon are here on the ground with you; Aegon insisted upon being brought along, and Rio agreed to carry him. Aegon had never seen American bison outside of the Oregon Trail computer game, those pixelated brown blobs migrating across the screen no more material than unicorns or faeries or basilisks.

“If the baby didn’t want to get killed, it shouldn’t be made of steak,” Aegon points out. He’s on a lot of Vicodin, the only narcotic Aemond could find back in Ogallala, Nebraska.

“No pressure, Chips,” Rio says, chewing on a long blade of little bluestem grass. “If you miss we’re just going to have to eat each other like the Donner Party.”

Aegon wrinkles his nose in confusion. “The what?”

“She won’t miss,” Aemond says, and Rio snickers to himself and gives you a quick wink that no one else notices.

“I don’t think one 9mm bullet will do it,” Cregan mutters. “Cows got thick skulls, I figure bison are the same way. You’ll have to hit it a few times, and before it can take off and disappear on us.”

Aemond casts him a patronizing glance. “And you’ve killed a lot of cows?”

“Oh yeah. Worked in a slaughterhouse for a while before I got hired by the power company. Hated it, went home and could still smell the blood and brains on myself no matter how many times I showered. Couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”

Aemond looks like he regrets asking. Rhaena frowns worriedly at the bison. “Will they charge if someone shoots at them?”

Cregan shrugs. “Probably not.”

“Probably?!”

You squeeze the trigger five times in quick succession, hit the calf thrice, tiny puffs of scarlet mist that spring from its woolly head. It flops over as the rest of the herd jolts into a gallop, kicking up dust and fleeing across the steppe.

“Yes!” Rio booms as everyone applauds. “We’re in business! We’re having ribeyes tonight! Cregan, my good sir, I take mine medium rare.”

“You’re getting well done,” Aemond tells him. “Everyone is. Just in case the bison has parasites.”

Rio groans. “You’re ruining my life, man.” Then he and Cregan trot over to grab the baby bison, each of them taking one of its back hooves.

“So,” Aegon says dreamily. “Now that Rio is preoccupied, who would like to assist me in returning my disgusting, debilitated body to the ranch? Anyone? Anyone?”

Rhaena turns to you. “When we have more bullets, could you give me shooting lessons?”

“Sure,” you reply, a bit startled. “Really? You’re interested?”

“Well…” Rhaena hesitates. “Baela’s always been the brave one. At home, at school, when we were shopping, even when restaurants would mess up my order, Baela would do the talking and make sure I was alright…and I would literally hide behind her waiting for her to solve all my problems. And now…with the baby, with Jace…it’s been really different being the one to help her for a change, and I don’t think I’m very good at it yet. But Baela deserves to have people to lean on, just like I’ve always had her. And…when I stabbed that guy in the RV…I kind of liked it.” She titters nervously when she sees the shock on your face. “No, not like that! Not the killing part, or the gushing blood, that was all super gross. But the fact that I helped protect Baela and Luke? The fact that I wasn’t useless in that situation? That was a good feeling. Baela is clever, and she’s courageous and caring and funny, and she’s always been better than me at everything, and I never minded because she…she was like my own personal superhero, you know? But now I feel like I need to start learning how to do things myself so I can help her. Even if Baela is still better at everything, and probably always will be.”

Aegon grins toothily and pushes his neon green plastic sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. “I know how you feel. It’s pretty impossible to look heroic next to Aemond.”

“Stop,” Aemond says, but he’s smiling, and a bloom of bashful pink blood appears in his cheeks.

“You already took over the driving,” you tell Rhaena encouragingly. “That was a big help.”

“Yeah,” Rhaena replies, a bit pensive. “Let’s hope I can keep that going.” Between the gas Aemond found in Ogallala and what was siphoned from the would-be attackers’ GMC Yukon, you got enough fuel in the Tahoe to take it halfway across Wyoming; but now the gauge is not just at but venturing below the E, and it can’t have more than five or ten miles left. That might not even get you to the next ranch, let alone a proper town. You need a working vehicle. There are nearly a thousand miles between here and Odessa, Oregon.

Aegon is pawing at Aemond like a cat. “Come on, hero. Help me up.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“This is why we’re friends,” Rio tells you as he shovels forkfuls of bison steak into his mouth, juice dribbling down his chin. Cregan gutted the bison and butchered it, then you helped him cook the steaks—not very uniform in size and shape, yet no one is complaining—on a pan heated in the woodstove. You fed the fire with books you found in the house, mostly religious in nature. “You convince me not to commit suicide when we’re stranded on a transmission tower, you share your Cheddar Whales, you’re good at shooting things…”

“How did you two become friends?” Baela asks. You are all arranged around the dining room table; there are just enough chairs for everyone. Ice lies beneath it mauling on bison bones that Cregan set aside for her. The room is illuminated by flashlights. Baela looks great: in good spirits, glowing, alert, wearing a loose cotton dress that Helaena found in an upstairs closet for her. Baela napped most of the day, something she rarely allows herself to indulge in, and the benefits are evident.

Rio says nonchalantly: “I talked to everybody and she barely talked at all. So of course I had to investigate and figure out what that was about. Turns out she’s kind of cool. You know the Wheel of Fortune game at arcades where there’s like a hundred little lights in a circle you have to press the button when the one that says Spin Zone lights up? She’s a freak, she can hit it almost every time. Can’t sink a basketball or sing karaoke to save her life, but you know, we all have flaws.”

Aegon looks up from his map, which he is scrutinizing as he eats his bison steak. “Do you realize that if we could just stop at gas stations like back when everything was normal, we’d be in Odessa or the Bay Area in fifteen hours? Literally less than one day. Fucking unreal. And yet here we are trapped in yee-haw country, freaky giant animals, no civilization but Jesus billboards everywhere, hell on earth.” He holds up a palm. “No offense, Cregan. You’re okay.”

Cregan smiles mildly. “None taken, Fried Foot. You know you’re a little well done yourself these days.”

“That’s ableist,” Aegon replies.

“We’ll find gas tomorrow,” Aemond says. He sounds confident because he has to; he’s not allowed to panic, to give up. He’s seated at the head of the table like a patriarch. His steak is the smallest and the most ragged. He wouldn’t accept any of the others.

You ask Baela: “Have you decided what to name the baby?”

“Kind of.” She rests both hands on her belly, a globe like a full moon. Helaena glances over at Baela, frowning and preoccupied. “If it’s a boy, I’m going to name it after Jace. We had already picked out Theodore…and Teddy for short, isn’t that cute? But now…I’d want him to have that connection to his father. The baby won’t have any pictures of him, or videos, or memories, or papers he wrote in school, or ties or rings or cufflinks, or…anything. But he could have Jace’s name.”

The rest of you nod, eyes downcast and feeling terribly sorry for her. “I really like that idea,” Luke says quietly.

Now Baela is thinking, her gaze traveling around the room as she chews on a cube of streak. “I’m not sure what I’d call a girl. Maybe something naturey like Violet, Rosemary, Ivy, Indigo, Fern…”

“You should name it Otter,” you say, and you and Rio erupt into raucous laughter. Aemond smiles as he watches you.

Baela is grinning uncertainly, trying not to be insensitive. Perhaps people named their kids stuff like Otter where you came from. “Um, sorry, what?!”

“That was one of the baby names on Sophie’s list,” Rio clarifies. “I vetoed it. Or at least…I think she agreed to cross it off…? Oh my God, imagine I finally get to Odessa only to find out my firstborn child has been named Otter.”

“You’d have to turn right back around,” you say. “Total abandonment would be the only honorable choice. We’d have to start over someplace else. I’ve heard Texas is nice.”

Aegon snorts. “You can’t live in Texas. They don’t even have legal weed there.”

Rhaena squints at him. “I don’t really think that’s a concern anymore, Aegon.”

Aegon smacks his forehead theatrically. “Oh no, I forgot about the apocalypse again!”

“So Cregan,” Baela says. “You were planning to vote for Trump.”

Everyone at the table groans. “No politics,” Aemond says.

“They’re all dead now, so it doesn’t matter,” Rhaena adds. “Biden, Kamala, that insane Kennedy brain worm dude, Trump…”

Aegon says: “If I was a zombie, I wouldn’t eat Trump.”

“I just found that interesting,” Baela continues, looking at Cregan like she’s expecting him to explain himself. Rhaena and Luke exchange a nervous glance. Daeron reaches under the table to pet Ice; you can hear her tail thumping cheerfully against the hardwood floor.

“I was a Trump voter, yeah,” Cregan replies between bites of steak. Aemond is studying him uneasily, but Cregan’s baritone voice is calm. “That doesn’t mean I approved of a lot of the things he did and said. I’m not a monster, I don’t believe in mocking people or all that January 6th stuff. But he was good for the economy. Back when Trump was president, groceries were more affordable, and houses were cheaper, and more companies were hiring. If I had tried to move out of my parents’ place in 2023 instead of 2019, there’s no way I could have done it. And I really needed to get out of there. A lot of people feel that they don’t have the luxury of voting for the nicest candidate, or the candidate they agree with on social issues. Something abstract like climate change isn’t even on the radar. They have to vote for their basic necessities.”

You and Rio understand what he means, you’ve both met plenty of people with the same perspective; everybody else seems shellshocked.

“But I don’t want y’all to think that I’m…” Cregan looks around the table, his eyes catching—interestingly—on Helaena, who observes him with a fully present attentiveness that you’ve learned is rare for her. “You know, like a sexist or a racist or that I hate foreigners or anything. Because I’ve never felt that way, and now I’m very happy to have found you guys, and I respect the hell out of you. And I want to be allowed to stay.”

“You can stay, Cregan,” Helaena reassures him.

“Yeah,” Rio says. “Especially since we’d probably starve without you.”

Cregan beams, clearly grateful, and there are chuckles and the tension breaks; and Baela is placidly skating her palm over the arc of her belly, and now that you’ve eaten all you can, Rio is spearing the remaining chunks of your steak with his fork and gobbling them down. He doesn’t ask before he does this; he knows you don’t mind. You’ve never understood why he’s given you so much over the past nearly five years. You are eternally offering him atonement.

Suddenly, Baela asks you: “What would you name a baby girl?”

You have to think about this before you answer. “Well, if you’re looking for something related to plants…I had a friend when I was growing up named Briar, and I always thought that was pretty.”

“Briar,” Baela echoes, intrigued.

“It means bramble, like a thorny shrub where blackberries grow. I remember her telling me that her mama wanted it to be a reminder that people go through rough patches and that life gets hard sometimes, but you have to keep going, and eventually you’ll find your way out.”

“Briar,” Baela repeats. “Yeah, that’s kind of neat. I’ll add it to the list!”

“And you’d have the same first initial,” Rhaena says. “Baela and Briar. Isn’t that adorable?”

Baela smiles. “And a few Rs thrown in there too. For Rhaena.”

Rio turns to Aegon. “Hey Honey Bun, if you had to name your kid after a plant, what would you name it?”

Aegon says without hesitation: “Marijuana.”

Now it’s an hour later, and Aemond is examining Aegon’s burned leg on the living room floor, Helaena holding a flashlight and you and Rio standing by for moral support. Underneath the bandages is a wasteland of red, weeping flesh…and yet there are spots where the skin seems to be hardening into white islands of scar tissue. Rhaena and Luke are keeping watch by the windows, Baela is passed out in one of the bedrooms, Cregan is showing Daeron how to put his wavy blonde hair up in a man bun.

Aemond points to a blackish patch on the top of Aegon’s foot, only a few inches from his ankle. “I have to debride this part here,” he says like an apology.

Aegon is afraid to ask. “What does debride mean?”

“It means I have to cut it out.”

“Cut it?!”

“It’s getting infected. I have to remove it or it will spread to the rest of the foot and you could get sepsis. I might even have to amputate the whole leg.”

“Okay, cut the dead stuff off,” Aegon swiftly agrees.

Aemond doesn’t have any more injectable morphine. He gives Aegon as much Vicodin as he dares and then begins working, carving away layers of dark disease with his scalpel and scrubbing the area with disinfectant. Aegon clutches your hand, squeezing so hard it feels like your bones might crunch, shrapnel-like splinters of marrow-stained organic glass beneath your skin. Rio has Aegon’s pink Sony Walkman—once owned by Ava—and takes one earbud while giving Aegon the other. They sing along to Sean Paul songs together, laughing as tears stream down Aegon’s sunburned cheeks:

“Well, woman, the way the time cold, I wanna be keepin’ you warm

I got the right temperature fi shelter you from the storm

Oh Lord, gal, I got the right tactics to turn you on

And girl, I wanna be the papa, you can be the mom…”

Now you’re curled up in bed, your arms crossed over your belly as you struggle to fall asleep. Aemond comes to bed late now; each night he waits until Baela is sleeping and then teaches Rhaena about childbirth and recovery: what to expect, what could go wrong. She is a good student, borrowing Helaena’s spider notebook to take notes and asking detailed questions. She wants to know everything she can so she can help when Baela goes into labor.

At last, the bedroom door opens. Out in the living room you can hear Rio asking: “Do you have Wagon Wheel? I love that song.”

Aegon scoffs. “No, of course I don’t have Wagon Wheel. Shut up and listen to your Enrique Iglesias.”

“You are so racist, man…”

Aemond sees that you’re in agony, rummages around in his medical kit, and gives you an oval-shaped white pill to wash down with the can of orange Sunkist on the nightstand; Helaena found a case of it in the pantry. “Why didn’t you tell me it was this bad?”

“I didn’t want to take any Vicodin from Aegon or Baela. They’ll need it more than me.”

“Your pain is as real as anyone else’s.” Aemond’s weight shifts the mattress as he crawls into bed beside you, his arm settling protectively around your waist, his hand covering yours where it rests on your lower belly. “If the Tahoe runs out of gas, will you be okay to walk tomorrow?”

“Don’t worry about me. I had three periods during basic training, I honestly thought I might die. After that I can power through just about anything.”

“I’ve noticed.” You feel the soft smile on Aemond’s lips as he kisses your temple. “Do you want quiet, or do you want to talk?”

“Talking would be a nice distraction.”

Aemond wastes no time. “Do you like kids?”

“Well, since birth control doesn’t exist anymore, I’d hope everybody does.”

Again, he is smiling; you can hear it in his voice. “Okay, but do you intend to have your own?”

“Yeah, I always envisioned myself having kids. I wanted a normal family and figured I’d have to make one myself, DIY it, you know? I don’t think the plan has changed. Gotta repopulate the earth somehow.”

“I wouldn’t try to sway your decision one way or the other. It’s a burden you should only have to endure if you actively choose it. But if you want to have children one day, I’d help you.”

You giggle in the dim orange glow of a single flashlight. “How self-sacrificial.”

“No,” Aemond says, laughing. “Not like, the making them. I mean, I’d help with that too, that aspect would be fun. But I was talking about the delivery, and recovery, and taking care of a newborn. I don’t know everything, but I know a lot. I could help you get through it. So that’s an option I want you to be aware of, if…you know.” Now he pauses. “If you trust me.”

“I trust you.”

“Sometimes I don’t know if you should,” Aemond murmurs; or at least that’s what you think he says as you lose consciousness, plummeting into sleep as if falling from a great height.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Tahoe runs out of gas just east of Tipton—not a city, not a town, just a collection of service roads linking sprawling ranches to I-80, the only continuous route across southern Wyoming—and Rhaena guides the SUV as it coasts to a halt on the shoulder of the highway. You hike about a mile to the nearest ranch house: Luke carrying the siphoning hose and empty gas can in case you can find fuel, Rio carrying Aegon on his back, Baela walking slowly and with great effort, Ice panting as she lopes across the dusty earth. You can’t spot any cattle or horses behind the endless strings of barbed wire fencing. Perhaps they are in a different pasture, or escaped or were stolen, or died of thirst without being tended to, or were consumed by a wandering hoard of zombies, never sleeping and always hungry. The house at the end of the dirt driveway is modest, old, and painted white. The front door is open; the screen door bangs in the wind.

“Rock Springs is the next real town,” Aegon says when Rio drops him to the ground, reading his map.

“And how far is that?” Rio asks.

Aegon deflates. “About fifty miles.”

“Great,” Rhaena says. “What’s the plan, to fly there?”

“Yeah, start flapping your wings, little bird. You’re light enough, you can make it.”

“No car in the driveway,” you tell Aemond. “Nobody home, maybe?”

He’s scrutinizing the house, his blue eye narrow. “Maybe.”

A thought occurs to Aegon. “Do you think ranchers have golf clubs?” he asks hopefully.

“No,” Aemond snaps. Rio is now on the front porch and pounding the butt of his unloaded Remington shotgun against the doorframe to see if anyone appears. Daeron is nocking one of his makeshift arrows as he trots around the perimeter with his compound bow.

Luke, peering through his binoculars, points to a large cylindrical aluminum structure about a hundred yards from the house, by a small red barn. “What’s that thing?”

“It’s a grain bin,” Cregan says. “Full of feed for cattle.” Ice whimpers at his feet, and he twirls his axe in his large, calloused hands. “Are we clearing the house or not? Something’s in there.”

“We are,” Aemond answers tonelessly. “Luke, Rhaena, stay out here with Aegon and watch for trouble. Daeron, you too.”

“Got it.”

“Baela—”

“Can I go inside?” she asks. “Please, Aemond. I’m so sick of sitting around feeling useless and exhausted. I want to help. I want to do something, I’m going insane.”

“Fine,” Aemond agrees. “It should be an easy one.”

It is easy, but it’s not pleasant. The house smells like dark, sickening decay. In the living room are the skeletal remains of two bodies, both children judging by the size; the maroon-stained bones are notched with indents from gnashing teeth. Cregan shadows Helaena as she searches through closets and drawers. She takes no clothing—it would have absorbed the stench of death—but fills her burlap messenger bag with matches, lighters, batteries, pills. She gives you a bottle of Advil before you can ask her for it.

“Thanks,” you say, a bit startled, as you tuck it away in your backpack.

It is not until Ice leads you to the final room, the bedroom at the rear of the house, that you hear the familiar, blood-chilling hissing and moaning of a zombie. It is in the closet, and emerges one limb at a time: one arm and then another, one leg long like a spider’s, streaked with a thick soup of rotting organs that spills from a gaping hole in her belly like the mouth of a mineshaft. Something has happened to its other leg; it is missing, and the corpse that was once a thirties-something woman—a soccer mom, perhaps, with a minivan and propensity to make meatloaf and fish sticks—drags itself across the fawn-colored carpet towards you, slow and pathetic. Ice growls and barks. Rio raises his Remington.

“Wait,” Baela says. Her hammer is in her right hand. “Can I do it?”

“Of course, be my guest,” Rio says; though you can tell he’s slightly disappointed. He loves clubbing things.

Baela approaches the yowling zombie—jaws snapping, claws swiping—and grimaces down at it, this one of millions of monsters that ended the world, that killed Jace and stole all the rest of her life from her too, all those normal things she was supposed to have, all those strings of fate that the plague cut through like a razor and sent floating aimlessly out into the void of the universe. Then with a scream, Baela swings her hammer and a catastrophic impact crater appears in the side of the zombie’s skull, and it crumples to the floor, its mindless brains spilling out onto the carpet.

“Nothing good?” Aegon asks when you reappear in the driveway, popping a Vicodin into his mouth.

“No,” Aemond replies grimly. “No gas, no bullets, no food, nothing to drink.”

“I knew it would be lean pickings once we got out here,” Cregan says, and Aemond looks like he could kill him.

“Well, fortunately, Luke might have some good news for us,” Aegon says with a grin.

Aemond perks up. “Really? What?”

“I saw a truck out there,” Luke says, using his binoculars to gesture to the grain bin. “It’s parked between the barn and the grain thing, I can just see the very front of it sticking out. And if there’s a truck, there might be gas.”

Aemond ruffles Luke’s fluffy dark hair. “Good job, kid.” And Luke lights up like how cities used to look at night, back when the power was on: Washington D.C., Key West, Corpus Christi, Chinhae. Rio stoops down so Aegon can hop on his back, and all of you trek together across the field.

“Nothing,” Cregan announces as he squeezes the little pump on the siphoning hose after opening the gas cap of the ancient Chevy Silverado and threading the hose inside. “Not a drop.”

“Fucking fantastic,” Aegon sighs from where he’s slumped on the ground. His eyes are glazed; he’s pretty stoned. He gazes pitifully up at you; you pat his shoulder sympathetically. You and Rio have already checked the barn, dilapidated but perfectly devoid of zombies. The roof has caved in; one of the two front doors are missing. “What now?!”

“We can go back to the interstate and walk until we find the next ranch,” you say, looking absentmindedly at the grain bin. It’s much larger up close, and rusty in spots. A ladder runs up one side to allow access to the roof. Ice isn’t whining or nudging anyone’s hands, but she’s sniffing the air as if she’s detected something interesting, unfamiliar.

“Yeah,” Luke replies miserably. “We can walk another five or ten miles and then maybe find a safe place to spend the night.”

Rhaena shades her eyes as she peers up at the sky. “It’s past noon already. Maybe we should just stay here.”

Rio barks out a sardonic laugh. “In a house with no supplies and that reeks of dead people?”

“Cregan, go kill us something to eat,” Aegon commands.

He chuckles in his deep, gruff voice. “It’s Miss Chips who is good at the killing, I’m just the authority on butchering at the moment.”

Aemond is watching Ice, his forehead furrowed. “What’s she doing?”

Cregan whistles. “Hey, princess, you okay?” Ice ignores him, still sniffing, her grey ears straight up in the air. Then it appears from behind the barn: a tiny brown creature, a baby bear.

“Aww, it’s so fuzzy!” Aegon squeals, stretching his arm out to pet it. Rio yanks him away; everyone else is backing up towards the grain bin. A second bear cub has now arrived, padding clumsily along, large cartoonish eyes and a little pink tongue poking out from its muzzle.

“Don’t touch them!” Aemond shouts to everyone. “Get away from them! If there are cubs, there’s probably—”

And around the barn comes the mother, a grizzly bear of 400 pounds. She bares her teeth and snarls, saliva dripping in long gluey strings. Ice is barking viciously; Aegon is shrieking and scrambling onto Rio’s back.

“Baela!” Aemond says because she’s closest to him, urging her towards the ladder of the grain bin. She gets the idea and begins climbing. Then Aemond reaches for you. “Come on, you next!”

“Rhaena, go,” you say instead, and she clambers up the ladder after Baela. Cregan is brandishing his axe; Rio has his Remington in his hands, Aegon still clinging to his back like a baby opossum to its mother. Now Helaena is climbing up the ladder, and Daeron nocks an arrow. You whip one of your M9s out of its holster, aim for the bear’s head, and pull the trigger.

Your bullet hits its skull, Daeron’s arrow pierces its chest; and the mother bear does not die but roars and rises up onto her back feet—taller than Rio, taller than Cregan—and then drops back down and charges towards you and the grain bin. Cregan blocks the way, swinging his axe. The bear reluctantly pauses, testing him with swipes of her claws that he evades. Rio is just a few steps behind Cregan, waving his Remington around hostilely. Aegon is screaming and holding on for dear life.

“Don’t shoot!” Cregan yells. “9mm isn’t big enough, you’ll just make her more angry!”

Aemond finally gets a grip on your wrist and drags you to the ladder. You obey and climb until your feet are several rungs off the ground, then you turn to see what’s going on below. Aemond, Luke, and Daeron are at the bottom of the ladder, their backs to you. Cregan is still wielding his axe.

“Fuck off, Mama Bear!” he bellows, standing as tall as possible and swinging his axe above his head. Rio follows Cregan’s lead and holds his Remington aloft. Ice is barking; the baby bears are fleeing in terror. Aegon is sobbing hysterically and saying he’s going to die. “You don’t want us and we don’t want you! Go on! Go get your babies! I’ll put this blade right between your eyes if you don’t change your stupid mind right quick!”

The bear pounds the earth with her front feet and growls, a beastly subterranean rumble, but she seems to be losing her nerve. The rungs of the ladder creak and groan; you see rust like blood-hued moss around the bolts.

“Get out of here!” Cregan shouts. “Go, you hairy old bitch! Go back to your babies!”

The bear glances back to see her cubs vanish behind the barn. Her mouth is open and panting, spittle gleaming on her pointed teeth; her black eyes are uncertain. As you hold onto the ladder with one hand, you have your M9 aimed at the bear’s left eye, just in case. Aemond is watching Cregan; on his scarred face a sharp severity, fascination and resentment and fear.

“Go on,” Cregan says firmly. “Leave us alone. You belong in the mountains, not down here. Go eat something that’s already dead, a nice easy dinner. You don’t want us. We’ll fight you.”

The grizzly bear shakes her head—flopping ears, shaggy fur filthy with dust and pieces of grass—and whirls, lumbering off to find her cubs. When she rounds the barn, Cregan waits a few long, tense, silent minutes and then turns to the grain bin.

“Alright y’all, we oughta hurry up and leave. I don’t think she’ll come back, but she might.”

From the top of the ladder, approximately forty feet off the ground, Baela begins to laugh. “Did that really just happen?! That was insane! Cregan, buddy, you can vote for whoever you want to. You and I are cool forever.”

He smiles up at her, wincing in the bright afternoon light. “I’m very glad to hear it, ma’am.”

Rio sets Aegon down on the ground and stretches his back; it must be hurting him. Aemond is taking your hand and helping you off the ladder, and you are reminded of the transmission tower where he found you in Catawissa, Pennsylvania, one of those middle-of-nowhere places like Tipton, Wyoming. As Helaena climbs down, you go to Rio and—with as much force as you can manage—knead the small of his back with the heel of your hand like you know helps him.

“You okay?”

He sighs loudly, relieved. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Oh, wow, that’s good. Harder…oh yeah…”

There is a snapping sound, metal squealing as it breaks, and by the time you turn to look she’s already falling: her cotton dress billowing around her, her arms wheeling helplessly. It happens too quickly for her to scream—for her to understand what is going on and what it means—but there is a stunned gasp and then she hits the ground, and you hear a muffled crunch of bone—skull?? spine??—and she is completely, unnaturally still as she lies on her back, no pain, no words, nothing.

“Baela!” Rhaena shrieks, and she rushes down the ladder and runs to her sister. You are all gathering around Baela, petrified to move her—to make it worse—but pleading for her to wake up, examining her with terrified eyes. Baela’s own eyes, dark and glassy and serene, are open only a sliver like obsidian crescent moons. Aemond is asking Helaena for a flashlight and then prying them wide, checking Baela’s pupils.

“There’s no reflex,” he says numbly.

“What does that mean?!” Rhaena cries. “Aemond? Aemond?!”

“She’s…she’s…” He’s in denial; he’s in shock. He’s feeling for a pulse on her carotid, he’s digging his fingernails into her forearm to try to get her to respond to pain.

“Aemond?” you say softly.

“She’s gone,” he tells you, like he doesn’t believe it, like he’s waiting to wake up.

“The baby,” Rhaena says. “Try to save the baby.” And then, when Aemond doesn’t immediately understand, she grabs his backpack and begins ripping it off so he can get the medical kit inside. “The baby, Aemond!”

Now he knows what he has to do. He pulls the scalpel out of his kit as Rhaena moves Baela’s sundress to expose her belly. She was wearing biker shorts beneath, lavender, cute, something you might have picked out in a store. In less than a minute they will be soaked with blood. Cregan leads Daeron away, and he’s telling him that they need to keep watch in case the grizzly bear returns, but you think it is an act of mercy more than anything else. Ice goes with them. Helaena, her face pale and grave, is shining the flashlight on Baela’s belly, just beneath her navel.

“Aegon?” Aemond says.

“What? What do you need?”

“I need people to help hold open the incision once I make it. I have to be able to see the amniotic sac so I can cut the membrane without harming the baby.”

“I get it, I’m here, I’ll help.”

Aemond presses the blade of the scalpel to Baela’s skin and draws a semicircle from the top of one hip to the other. There is blood, but it is slow-moving and thick and dark; it is the blood of a dead woman, not a living one. Immediately, Aegon hooks his fingers under layers of fat, skin, and muscle, and opens the wound as much as he can. You and Rio reach in too, and you do this without thinking, without allowing yourself to feel the horror of it until the work is done.

“I can’t see,” Aemond is murmuring. Rhaena gets another flashlight and helps Helaena illuminate the area. Luke is on his knees with both hands clamped over his mouth, his eyes glistening with dread and disbelief. Aemond is slicing, pausing to probe around with his fingers, cutting again. Then his arm plunges into Baela’s abdomen up to his elbow and, with some difficulty, pulls out the gore-covered baby by its feet, a girl, large and limp and silent.

Rhaena sobs, equal parts grief and joy, a smile appearing on her face. “Is she okay? Aemond? Is she…why isn’t she crying? Aemond?!”

Rio yanks off his shirt and uses it to wipe blood and gelatinous clumps away from the baby’s eyes, mouth, and nostrils. Then Aemond takes the shirt and wraps the baby in it, warming her, rubbing her lifeless little limbs. When she does not stir, Aemond lays her on the earth and begins CPR: compressions with two fingers on her tiny heart, two breaths down the airway she’s never used. There are no sounds except his efforts. There is no crying when the baby wakes, because she never does.

Enough, you are thinking, as if from very far away: an island in the Indian Ocean, the Appalachian mountains in eastern Kentucky. Enough, enough, enough.

Aemond stops trying to revive the baby. He picks her up and holds her against him, and no one says anything. There is only the barrenness of the Wyoming steppe, an anemic blue sky, tall dry grass that bows in the breeze, black vultures that are landing atop the barn and the grain bin.

Aegon jolts out of his paralysis and reaches for his brother with bloodied hands. “Aemond, hey, Aemond, listen to me, it wasn’t your fault. Okay? Are you listening? Aemond, man, you did everything you could. You gave them a chance. You didn’t give up.”

But Aemond doesn’t respond; he only kneels there beside Baela’s butchered body, her dead baby girl in his arms.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Alys?” he calls, seeing that she never came back to bed. He is lying on his stomach, tangled in red sheets damp with sweat. It’s hot, too hot, and there is no humming of the air conditioning. When Aemond picks up his iPhone from the nightstand, it’s still plugged in but only at 87% battery. The power must have gone out.

He gets up, rubs the damp skin by his temple—headache, dehydration—and lifts open the nearest window. It’s odd: there is shouting, distant and indistinct, like the sound of a carnival or a concert. There are car alarms too, and sirens, and horns blaring, all too far away for him to see. It must be because of the power outage, traffic signals thrown into chaos, neighbors relaying the latest information back and forth. That’s the only logical explanation.

“Alys?” Aemond says again, groggy but with increasing curiosity, concern, guilt.

She started to feel sick last night, a pulsing in her skull and chills and powerful nausea. The possibility of it being the so-called Florida Fever barely registered in his mind. Alys gets migraines, and tofu is a migraine trigger, and he took her to a Thai restaurant (maybe he should have known better) and the curry Alys ordered ended up having tofu in it, and by the time she paid the check (as Alys always did) she was swallowing an Imitrex from the box in her snakeskin purse. She said she was going to lie down in the guest bedroom for a while so she wouldn’t wake him if she spent the next few hours dashing to and from the bathroom, a likely outcome, and if he was honest with himself about it, Aemond would admit he was relieved.

He shuffles to the bedroom door—black boxers, bare feet, century-old hardwood floors—and opens it. Now he can hear thudding, like someone tenderizing meat with a mallet. “Alys? Baby, you feeling okay?” There is no answer, only that rhythmic hammering. He realizes that it is coming from the guest bedroom, a door at the end of a long hallway still fuzzy through his half-awake eyes.

It had never felt right, but it had felt good: good in the body when she touched him, good in the soul when she told him he did something right. But lately—especially here, in the vast creaking historic house she shares with her husband and her children, who are presently sailing in Cape Cod—Aemond cannot shake the feeling that this entanglement is a surrender rather than an aspiration, something he fell into and now rests at the bottom of like a swimming pool or the sea, the cold weight of it threatening to pour into his lungs and drown him.

“Alys?” Aemond says, now with profound and inexplicable dread. Outside an ambulance or police car zooms by, sirens blaring. The pounding on the door of the guest bedroom grows faster.

I want to go home, Aemond thinks suddenly. At home, in the Federal-style townhouse his parents rented for him (Criston picked it out, a safe and quiet neighborhood in Beacon Hill, and Viserys paid), Daeron is visiting from California and watching golf tournaments with Aegon on the living room couch, pretending to be interested when Aegon describes the different types of clubs. Helaena, pursuing an Entomology PhD, is researching the Mediterranean mantis, clicking around on her MacBook Pro from the garden in the backyard. Jace and Luke live there too, and so Baela and Rhaena have all but officially moved in, keeping their apartment in Seaport only to have somewhere to retreat to when the Targaryen chaos becomes too much…and so the baby can have its own room. Baela bought a crib, a changing table, a rocking chair, a dresser, and about a million unisex onesies, mostly space-themed. Baela is studying Aeronautics and Astronautics, after all. Maybe one day she’ll work for NASA and fly rockets to the moon.

The door is rattling on its hinges. Aemond’s hand closes around the knob. On the other side is something terrible, and he knows this. But he cannot just leave her. Aemond is not someone who abandons people; he is not someone who turns away from responsibilities.

He opens the door of the guest bedroom, and immediately she is staggering towards him, limp dripping hair and naked like she was interrupted mid-shower: blood bubbling from her gaping mouth and the whites of teeth peeking through the crimson, necrotic skin hanging in strips from her fingers, eyes misty like steam on a mirror.

“Alys, stop! Alys! What’s wrong with you?!”

She’s alive but she’s dead. She’s yowling and clawing at him, but her flesh is the rotting swampland of a corpse. He’s pushing her away; his palms sink into her, places he once noticed and then fantasized about and then at last—euphorically, ashamedly—touched, held, borrowed but never kept. She’s trying to bite him. She’s trying to kill him. None of this is possible, and yet it’s true.

Aemond flings her away, and the woman who was once Alys stumbles backwards and down the staircase, sick wet thumps all the way to the ground floor, bones splitting through dissolving grey skin, organs sloshing around until they spill out. He can hear her still hissing, flailing, trying to get up again.

Without thinking—slipping seamlessly into what he learned during his psych rotation is called automatic action—Aemond races down the steps and grabs her by the skull, cracks it against the antique hardwood floor she once extoled the value of as he fucked her on it: shipped east from Oregon and laid in 1912, the year the Titanic sank. When she lurches up to try to bite him, he slams her head against the floor again and again until she is still.

Then Aemond kneels there alone for a long time, sirens shrieking outside, far-off strangers screaming for help, putrid black blood clotting on his hands.

#aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen #aemond x reader #aemond x you #aemond x y/n #aemond targaryen x y/n #aemond targaryen x you #aemond fanfiction #aemond targaryen fanfiction #hotd fanfic #hotd fic

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fuck-customers · 6 months ago

Note

This one just made me giggle all day. This was about a month ago

"Thank you for calling Dr. [OB/gyn], how can I help you?"

*very masculine sounding voice but I didn't think anything of it. If you got the parts and need the care, we'll see you* "Hi I need to make an appointment for an extraction consultation"

*SUPER CONCERNED, because maybe this person is speaking in code. Maybe someone unsafe is listening and they're trying to tell me they need something without alerting someone nearby. Panic mode activated!* "Is it okay if I ask specific questions and you answer as best you can?"

"Yeah?"

"Okay, so if you mean (uterus-centered health procedure) say August and if you need (different procedure) say September. If you need something different, say October."

"Huh??? No, I don't need any of that! I'm a man!"

"Oh. Okay, uhh... I'm not sure how we can help with an 'extraction'. What exactly do you need, sir?"

"I got two molars that need to come out! My dentist said to call you!"

"Oh! Okay! Unfortunately, you called an Obstetrician. We can't help you with that. You need an orthodontist."

Poor guy went silent then hung up very quickly

Later in the week we found out there's a new doctor in our medical plaza a couple buildings over with a similar name. He's like Dr. John and our doctor is Dr. John-Jim. We went over there as an office later to trade info with them so we can send mixed-up calls back and forth.

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dirtyvulture · 2 years ago

Text

Something’s in the Air - Part 1

Natasha Romanoff x Beefy!Reader

18+ only, read at your own risk

Summary: Natasha returns from a mission after being exposed to a chemical that makes her extremely, extraordinarily feral for you.

Word count: 2362

AN: Here is the opening act of the long-awaited collaboration with @jedi-luca! Enjoy, sinners!

Reader has a penis, no pronouns used.

Natasha races down the empty hallway, trying to ignore the blaring alarms and flashing lights overhead. She can’t read any of the symbols marking the doors, and all she knows is that she’s looking for one with a triangle in the center of three overlapping circles, like a variation on the classic biohazard sign.

“You find him yet, Nat?” Clint buzzes in her earpiece.

“Not yet,” she responds.

“Well, you’ve only got about another minute before HYDRA agents flood the building–”

“I know!” she snaps, her eyes finally settling on a triangle surrounded by three circles. “I found it!”

“Get him and let’s go!”

Natasha doesn’t need to be told twice, and she inputs the ten-digit code into the keypad on the door. It lights green to grant her access and she steps into a tiny, square room, no bigger than a broom closet, the heavy steel door automatically closing behind her.

“Uh oh,” she says when she hears the door click shut.

Suddenly, a white smoke starts to fill the tiny room, jetting out from the piping running along the walls and ceiling. Natasha covers her mouth with her arm, fumbling on her belt for a proper mask. The smoke stings her eyes and burns her throat, but the initial shock of pain is quickly overtaken by a warm, fuzzy feeling. Natasha staggers back into the wall, not even feeling the impact of the solid concrete as her stomach clenches in a way that’s familiar and foreign at the same time.

But just as quickly as it had started, the pipes stop pumping out the gas and it clears away through the vents. She wipes at her watering eyes and sees a door in front of her with no lock. More cautiously this time, she opens it and finds herself staring down a young boy behind a glass wall.

“Clint, I found him.”

***********************************************************************

Natasha safely extracts the boy, wrapping him up in a ragged blanket she found on his bed, and carries him out in a bundle. She meets Clint just in time before the HYDRA agents realize their base has been compromised. They leave the boy in the custody of a SHIELD van and six agents. Natasha gives him a chocolate before they part ways. Her and Clint escape on the Quinjet, only breathing a sigh of relief once they are safely hidden amongst the clouds.

“When I was trying to get him, I got sprayed with something,” she tells him in a low voice.

“With what?” Clint doesn’t take his eyes off the dashboard.

“I don’t know.”

“You seem fine.”

As if on cue, the same sharp pain that she experienced upon first inhaling the smoke punches her stomach again and she doubles over.

“Shit,” she curses, trying to massage out the ache and feeling her cheeks flame in embarrassment when she finally realizes what the pain reminds her of. Although she wouldn’t describe it as a pain, but that feeling of being so aroused she wants to burst.

“Nat?”

“Uh, never mind,” she says, not wanting to get into details with him.

“I’ll call ahead and have Dr. Cho ready to see you in the medical bay,” he says.

“I–Wait, I don’t think that’s necessary,” Natasha says, but Clint won’t listen to her, he’s already typing out a message to send to the doctor.

Natasha grumbles wordlessly and takes the seat next to Clint. She still isn’t sure why SHIELD made such a point to send in some of their best Avengers to free a single young boy, but sometimes, the less details they knew the better, and now she had to worry about what exactly had been in that smoke.

She takes her phone out from the backpack under the chair and sends you a text. But it’s almost three in the morning, so her text goes unanswered. With another 30 minutes until they’re home, Natasha boredly scrolls back up in the conversation, her attention caught by some of the old pictures you’ve sent her.

The first one she looks at is probably the most innocent of the bunch, a slightly blurred snapshot of you post-workout, your skin gleaming with sweat and your muscles pumped. Natasha bites her lip as her eyes trace down the veins on your stomach, following their path to the waistband of your shorts, which is not quite low enough to reveal perhaps her favorite body part of yours.

She quickly skips to the next picture, which is much more scandalous and should not be viewed in a public setting, but luckily Clint is sitting in front of her. You’re lying down, the camera positioned down towards your muscular legs, but Natasha’s attention is drawn to the thick cock you have your hand wrapped around. Her center clenches around nothing; Natasha wishes she had your length inside of her, ramming into her hard and fast, until you came undone and pumped your seed deep into her womb.

“Fuck,” she mutters to herself, crossing one leg over the other, trying to alleviate the pulsing at her core and failing. There was still so much time left until they landed, she didn’t know how she was going to survive. Out of pure desperation, she considers touching herself (still in the vicinity of where Clint can hear her, but he can turn his hearing aid down, can’t he?) right there in the Quinjet, and it takes all of her mental strength to keep her hands on her knees. She doesn’t know what’s gotten into her, why she’s so horny all of a sudden.

All she knows is if she doesn’t have you inside her in the next hour, she may actually die.

Using her advanced Red Room torture resistance techniques, Natasha barely clings to her sanity for the next 30 minutes. She grinds herself subtly on her seat, although it does next to nothing to ease the ache in her stomach.

“Can’t you fly faster?” she asks Clint eventually through gritted teeth. “It’s not like there’s any traffic in the sky.”

“I’m doing my best,” Cint responds.

“Well, going a little faster would be nice.”

Clint doesn’t bite back at her even though he wants to. Overall, Natasha seems okay even after her exposure to the unknown gas, but Clint knows his best friend better than herself. Something is bothering her–badly–and she doesn’t want to talk about it, which means it can only be one thing.

Natasha wants to cry in relief when the iconic “A” of the Avengers Tower comes into view. She practically hijacks the controls from Clint trying to land the plane faster, but just before she can sprint out of the Quinjet, Clint grabs onto her.

“You have to see Dr. Cho first,” Clint says sternly, holding onto her arms in a vice grip.

“I don’t want to see the doctor. I want Y/N,” Natasha says, almost in tears. Her core is practically on fire at this point and she wouldn’t be surprised if her panties are ruined.

“Y/N will be there,” Clint assures her, dragging her to the elevator and going one floor down. Despite the early hour, Dr. Cho waits sleepily to greet them at the entrance of the medical bay. Natasha practically throws a fit as Dr. Cho escorts her to a private room, while Clint disappears without an explanation.

“I’m fine, Doctor,” Natasha insists as Dr. Cho has her sit down on the edge of the plastic bed.

“Agent Barton said you may have been exposed to some unknown chemical,” Dr. Cho says, shining a bright penlight into her eyes and opening her mouth to examine her tongue and tonsils.

“I’m fine,” Natasha repeats, shifting agitatedly and crinkling the white paper covering the bed.

Dr. Cho squints at her. “I’ll be back to run some more tests,” she says, disappearing with a flip of her white lab coat.

Natasha groans and falls back on the bed, unzipping the collar of her uniform down to her chest, flapping her hands to cool her face. She thinks back to the pictures of you she looked at on her phone and before she can even stop herself, sticks her hands down her pants, ignoring how unusually wet she is, her fingers gliding through her soaked folds to press into herself.

“Fuck,” she mutters, kicking her legs wider to find a more comfortable position. Natasha can easily fit three fingers into herself already, a feat that normally takes some working up to, although it pales in comparison to the size of your cock. She pants at the thought of you on top of her, your body hot and heavy against hers, the feeling of your muscles flexing as you devote your strength to pleasuring her. She clenches hard around her fingers, trying to imagine them as your cock instead, hard and throbbing, stretching her apart in the best of ways and filling her better than any toy or substitute can.

Suddenly, there is a knock on her door and Natasha pauses mid-thrust.

“Nat? Babe, it’s me,” your croaky voice says on the other side.

“Come in!” she responds.

You open the door, still in your pajamas. Clint had called you until you woke up, telling you that while the mission had been a success, Natasha had come down with something and you needed to see her immediately. Without properly dressing, you staggered down to the medical bay, worried about your girlfriend despite your own exhaustion and delirium from being woken up at three in the morning.

And now you stare at her, jaw dropped, as Natasha is lying on the hospital bed, her hand disappearing down her shorts, her forehead covered in a light layer of sweat.

“Are you–” you start.

“I need you,” she begs, removing her hand and your heart thumps when you see that it is completely soaked in her slick. “Y/N, please, I need you.”

“What happened?” you ask, as your legs seem to have a mind of their own and gravitate to her side. Natasha reaches out for you, her hand twisting in the front of your shirt to draw you closer. She tugs it up, trying to shove her hand into the waistband of your shorts next and you stop her gently. “Nat.”

“I got sprayed with something while I was trying to free the subject,” she says, clawing at your abs. “At first it didn’t seem to affect me, but when we were on the way back, I just felt this overwhelming need…for you.”

“For me?”

She nods, biting her lip and looking at you with her bedroom eyes. Suddenly, your whole body lights awake, and you strip out of your shirts and shorts, climbing on the bed with Natasha and the structure squeaks under your added weight. Natasha pulls you on top of her, frantically wiggling out of her suit so she can feel you skin-to-skin. She kisses you ferociously, bruising your lips and clacking her teeth against yours, but you respond with equal enthusiasm, not really sure why she’s so desperate for you all of a sudden but not going to complain either.

You roll your hips in a gyrating motion, dragging your hardening cock along the insides of her slick thighs, unable to help yourself when you let out a moan at her impressive wetness. You’ve never seen her so ready for you, and you know you’ll have no trouble slipping inside.

“Fuck, fuck,” Natasha pants, dragging her nails along the muscular planes of your back and gripping onto your butt. “Stop teasing, baby,” she begs, trying to guide you to her entrance but you hold back.

“I haven’t even gone in and you’re already going to cum,” you point out, although you’re surprisingly close yourself, seeing how turned on your girlfriend is for you. You look down to see your cock shining with her wetness, the veins on it throbbing.

“I can’t cum without you,” Natasha says, and you lose all patience and discipline. You line yourself up with her entrance and push in hard, moaning when wet velvet wraps around your cock and Natasha moans in absolute relief at finally being filled. You pound into her, the muscles in your thighs and abs flexing like steel bands. Natasha keens as she takes you, knowing that you’re the only one who can bring her to a high that will have her entire body shaking, her lungs screaming, her nails marking red lines down your shoulders and back that everyone will see when you go to the gym tomorrow.

“God, Nat, you’re so wet,” you say between thrusts, using all your strength to hold yourself upright, when Natasha’s pussy is so tight and hot around you that your thighs are trembling and you can’t focus on anything other than the heat between your legs. You want to last longer, so you broaden your strokes, slowing down your pace but burying yourself even deeper with each thrust.

“Yes, just like that,” Natasha moans as the head of your cock presses against her sensitive walls. “Keep going, baby. Don’t stop.” She wants you to be buried to the hilt when you release her load, she wants to drain you of every drop you have to offer.

“Almost…there…” you grunt, squeezing her hips tighter as you pin her against the bed. The ball of arousal in your stomach burns hotter as you near your peak, and Natasha knows your body well enough to sense that your finish is near. She pulses around you harder and you drop your head against her breasts, panting like you’re running the last mile of a marathon. “Nat, Nat I’m gonna–”

It takes one more powerful thrust that causes the entire hospital bed to collapse under your combined weight. You jerk your hips forward as your cum shoots out of your cock in short, hard bursts. Natasha practically cries in relief as you fill her to the brim.

At the same second all of this is happening, Dr. Cho comes back into the room. She says nothing, only nodding in immediate understanding and quickly backing out.

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

AN: Part 2 by @jedi-luca is here!

Please like, reblog, and comment! Follow for more content.

#natasha romanoff #black widow #natasha romanoff smut #natasha romanoff imagine #natasha romanoff x reader

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gamergirl929 · 1 year ago

Text

Going Under the Knife (Emily Sonnett x Kelley O'Hara x Reader)

You knew surgery was a big deal, which is why you'd did your best to hide it from your teammates, particularly Emily Sonnett and Kelley O'Hara, two women who were currently dating and two women you were desperately in love with. However, a single phone call draws them to the hospital, and to your bedside, where everything changes.

Your heart clenched roughly in your chest, your anxiety spiking as the IV punctured your skin, resting within a vein that would be used to lull you to sleep so the surgery could begin.

You knew your teammates would be livid when they realized you’d hidden your injury from them, but if there was one thing you didn’t like, it was to be fussed over.

You’d assured them time and time again that the slight limp you developed after a rough tackle during the World Cup was nothing to worry about, that the grimace on your face when you walked was nothing, and that the groan when you pulled your cleat off was in relief and not excruciating pain.

You stare at the white ceiling above you, glancing at the empty seat resting at your bedside.

You knew you should’ve told someone, anyone, that you were about to face a four-hour surgery, but again, you didn’t want to be fretted over.

Despite that, you knew you should’ve told THEM specifically, knowing that once they found out you were in the hospital and hadn’t told them, they would be far from happy.

Kelley O’Hara and Emily Sonnett had been dating for well over a year and considering this had been the first actual holiday they had together, you didn’t want to intrude on that.

Your heart again clenches in your chest, the surgery the furthest thing from your mind when you think about the couple.

It didn’t take long for feelings to develop between you and the couple, the light caresses, and the flirty retorts making you fall harder and harder for the pair.

No matter how hard you fell, you knew that they would never be interested in you, how could they when they already had each other?

You’re pulled out of your thoughts by the sound of a clearing throat, your eyes widening when you see your doctor standing before you, the man wearing blue scrubs.

“Are you ready Ms. Y/L/N?” He asks and you inhale deeply, your eyes fluttering shut as you nod reluctantly.

“I’m ready.”

************************************************************************

Alex Morgan rolled her eyes playfully as Servando chased her daughter around the living room, Charlie giggling wildly as he caught her, swinging her up into the air and kissing her face over and over again.

Alex’s brows furrow when her phone, which was resting on the counter begins to ring, the woman making her way across the room to pick it up.

She hums at the sight of the unknown number stretched across the screen, a number starting with, what she knew, was the area code for Seattle, Washington.

She clears her throat before answering, ducking into the kitchen to escape the noisy living room.

“Hello?” She asks.

“Is this Alex Morgan?” The woman on the other end of the phone clearing her throat.

“Ye-Yes, this is her.”

“Hello Ms. Morgan, this is UV Medical Center, calling in regards to a patient of ours, Y/N...”

***********************************************************************

Considering you spent your early years on the Orlando Pride alongside Alex Morgan, she almost immediately took you under her wing, the woman becoming not only a mentor to you, but something akin to an older sister.

It was soon after that, that she became your emergency contact, the woman the only one you trusted to handle an emergency.

Thankfully for her, she had yet to receive a call concerning your health, unfortunately, this was the day everything changed.

The second she’d hung up with the receptionist she immediately called the first woman who came to mind, her longtime friend and teammate Kelley O’Hara, who she knew was in Seattle with Emily Sonnett.

“Hey Al, what’s--”

“Did you know Y/N was in the hospital?” Alex cuts her off, noting the hitch in Kelley’s breath.

“N-N-no, what happened?!” She asks anxiously, her voice quivering, her distress alerting the blonde who’d just made her way back from the bedroom and into the living room.

“What’s wrong?” She asks, Kelley waving a dismissive hand in her direction, the defender listening intently to the woman on the other end of the phone.

Without warning, Kelley leaps to her feet before rushing towards the door, stuffing her feet in her shoes before grabbing her jacket, the anchor holding her into place being Emily Sonnett, the woman’s hands resting on her back.

“Kel, what’s wrong?” She asks nervously, the woman turning towards her, her brown orbs wide.

“Y/N’s in the hospital, we have to go.”

And with that Emily too begins rushing to grab her things, the pair slamming the apartment door shut behind them as they rush to UV Medical Center, and to your side.

************************************************************************

Despite the fact that UV Medical Center was MASSIVE it didn’t take them long at all to find where you were, Kelley rattling off what Alex had relayed to her on the car ride to the hospital.

You’d gone under the knife for ankle surgery over 5 hours ago, the extent of the injury you’d entered surgery for becoming much more prominent the deeper the doctor’s dug beneath your skin, which eventually resulted in a call to your emergency contact, that being, Alex Morgan.

“While we’re here, we’re getting added to the Emergency Contact list.” Kelley had mumbled as they rushed through the hospital towards the waiting area outside of the surgery suite you were currently located in.

Seemingly, the receptionist knew who they were, considering the second they spoke their names, she’d waved someone over, that someone leading them out of the waiting room towards a nearby elevator.

“The surgery went on longer than we expected, there was more damage to the ankle than we anticipated.” He explains as the elevator doors slide shut.

“Is she awake?” Emily asks, the man shaking his head.

“We had to increase the amount of anesthesia we used, so we’re having a hard time getting her to wake up.”

Kelley turns to Emily nervously; the nervousness Kelley is feeling conveyed right back at her from Emily’s hazel orbs.

“Do you know how long it’ll take for her to wake up?” Kelley asks, her fingers tangling with Emily’s, the blonde giving her hand a squeeze.

“We don’t know.”

The second the elevator door opens the man is leading them down the hall and into a nearby room, that turns out to be a secluded waiting room, offering the pair privacy.

“We’ll inform you immediately when she wakes up and leaves the recovery room.” He smiles softly, leaving the pair in the empty room, a TV hanging in the corner playing softly as the pair sit side by side on a small couch.

"Do you think she’ll be okay?” Emily whispers, resting her head on Kelley’s shoulder, the woman taking her hand, giving it a squeeze.

“She will be.” She whispers, unwilling to put her anxiety and worriedness into words, choosing to remain hopeful for the sake of the blonde beside her.

************************************************************************

As the time ticked away, the anxiety and fear within both women began to grow, and after an hour had passed, that anxiety was near teeming over, that was until the door clicked open softly, the man from earlier giving them a small smile.

“Ms. Y/L/N is in her room; I’ll take you to her.” He smiles, the pair jumping to their feet and rushing down the hall behind him.

“She may be in and out, she’ll DEFINITELY be groggy thanks to her pain medication, but she’ll be back to herself in no time.”

It doesn’t take long for the pair to be ushered into a room, the two immediately zeroing in on your ankle, which hangs well above you, your ankle wrapped tightly in bandages.

Kelley glances at Emily, seeing her own concern written on her face, the two slowly making their way hand in hand to your bedside.

A soft whine draws their attention to your face, your face which is currently scrunched up as you tiredly survey your surroundings before your eyes again flutter shut.

Silently, the doctor makes his way out of the room, the door clicking shut softly behind him, the three of you now left in complete silence.

You hum, turning towards the two, your eyes remaining shut before you peek between your eyelids.

“They must’ve really given me the good shit if I’m hallucinating.” Your tired eyes darting from Kelley to Emily and back.

“I’ll call and tell you guys later.” You whisper tiredly, your eyes fluttering back shut.

“You don’t have to tell us anything Y/N, we’re right here.” Emily says, giving your hand a squeeze.

“Alex called us.” Kelley says, shaking her head when you start to sit up.

“Well, I better call her back then.” You grumble, glancing around the room, your eyes still shut as you search for your phone.

“Sit still Y/N.” Kelley whispers, placing her hand on your shoulder to hold you in place.

“But I have to call Alex, she called me.” You mumble, completely unaware that the woman had indeed NOT called you.

“No Y/N, she called us.” Emily says, unable to bite back a smile when you turn to her in confusion.

“She called me, she didn’t call you, you’re not real.” You slur, the older defender on the opposite side of the bed cupping your cheek.

“But we are real.”

You shake your head.

“No, Kelley and Emily are on holiday together, because they love each other, not me, they wouldn’t come visit me.”

Kelley and Emily share a glance, Emily tucking a strand of hair behind your ear.

“What do you mean Y/N?” She asks softly and you growl.

“Just what I said, they don’t love me, not like I love them.”

The pair stiffen, hearts stalling in their chests as the stare at one another in not only shock, but elation.

“What do--

Kelley’s cut off by a loud snore, the pair turning their attention back to you, realizing you’re again fast asleep.

Kelley gently caresses your cheek as Emily runs her fingers through your hair.

“Looks like we have a lot to talk about when you wake up, huh?” She whispers, ducking down to kiss your temple, Emily following suit moments later.

The blonde reaches across the bed, covering Kelley’s hand with her own, the pair sharing soft smiles before turning back to your sleeping form.

It didn’t take a genius to see that Kelley O’Hara and Emily Sonnett were absolutely smitten with Y/N Y/L/N, the moment they met.

The pair had been fearful when it came to their feelings for you, fearful it may end their relationship, but when they came to the realization that they both felt the same way about you, both had attempted to pursue you, something you were unfortunately not aware of.

However, with the sudden realization that you too felt the same, they knew everything was about to change.

“Do you think she meant it?” Emily whispers and Kelley smiles, glancing across the room at your sleeping form.

“I think she did, high mouths speak sober thoughts. I guess we’ll just have to ask her when she wakes up.” Kelley smiles, turning abruptly towards Emily when she sniffles.

“What if she didn’t mean it?” She asks, voice barely above a whisper.

Kelley cups her cheeks, resting for forehead against the younger woman’s before she presses a kiss to her lips.

“We’ll just cross that bridge if we come to it, okay?” She whispers, and Emily nods, the blonde unable to bite back a smile when Kelley kisses the tip of her nose.

“Okay.”

************************************************************************

It’s well into the afternoon that you begin to stir, pulling Kelley and Emily’s attention away from one another and onto you, the two leaning forwards in their seats, which they’d taken residence in beside your bed.

Your eyes crack open, your teeth clenching in pain, the overhead lights making your head throb.

Despite that, you keep them open, Y/E/C orbs darting from Kelley, to Emily and back.

“Wh-What are you guys doing here?” You ask, your voice rough and raw.

Kelley grabs a nearby cup and holds in to your lips, letting you take a greedy sip before she speaks.

“Alex called us.”

Your brows furrow.

“Alex?”

Kelley nods.

“The hospital called her, they found more damage to your ankle then they first thought, they wanted permission to continue the surgery.”

You hum, glancing sadly at your ankle, which is still hanging high off the bed.

“Looks like you’re going to have a lot of down time.” Emily smiles sadly, caressing the back of your hand, causing your cheeks to flush.

“Yeahhhh...” You sigh, leaning back, your eyes fluttering shut as your head rests against the pillow behind you.

“Why didn’t you tell us Y/N?” Kelley asks and you sigh.

“I didn’t want you guys to worry, I knew you planned on spending the holidays together, and I didn’t want to ruin it.”

Emily scoffs.

“You could NEVER ruin our holiday, honestly, we were going to come see you anyway.”

Kelley’s hand rests on top of yours and Emily’s.

“We really wanted you to be a part of it.”

Your eyes double in size, your heart skipping a beat in your chest as you glance down at your joined hands, your cheeks flushing.

“You had some things to say when we got here...” Kelley starts, and your brows furrow.

“I-I did?” You stammer and she nods.

“You did.”

You swallow roughly, your heart racing wildly in your chest, the thought you may have confessed your feelings making your palms go clammy.

“Wh-Wh-What did I say?” You stutter, eyeing your blankets nervously.

“Well, you didn’t think we were real.” Emily smiles and you chuckle, shaking your head.

“What else did I do?” You ask Emily and Kelley sharing a glance, which goes unnoticed by you.

Kelley clears her throat.

“You said we didn’t love you.” She whispers, your head snapping upwards, your eyes locking with her dark brown orbs.

“Wh-What...?” You stutter, sliding your hand out from beneath there’s only for Kelley to catch your hand before you can rest it in your lap.

“You said we didn’t love you, like you loved us.”

You mouth falls open, your eyes darting between the two women as your cheeks redden, the tips of your ears beginning to burn as your gaze falls to your lap, tears prickling at the corners of your eyes.

“I-I-I'm so sorry... Y-You weren’t supposed to find out... I-I-I... I mean...” You mumble, unable to look at the two women.

Unbeknownst to you, Kelley glances at Emily, who nods, the woman cupping your cheek before turning you towards her, your eyes glassy as they meet her brown orbs.

“I don’t know where you got that idea.” She whispers, your eyes widening dramatically when Emily glances at Kelley.

“What idea?” You ask, your voice quivering, Kelley tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear.

“The idea that we don’t love you like we love each other.”

Your heart stalls in your chest, your eyes darting from brown orbs, to hazel orbs and back, your breath hitching when Kelley’s brown orbs drop to your lips, her tongue running along her lips before she begins leaning in.

Your breath catches in your throat, the thought that this may still be a hallucination still prominent in your mind, that is until Kelley’s lips meet yours for the first time, her hands gently cupping your cheeks.

All thoughts of this being a hallucination leave your mind as the woman kisses you softly, your bottom lip trapped between hers as the two of you kiss, parting with much reluctance.

Kelley’s forehead rests against yours the woman smiling softly.

Moments later she’s pulling away, her forehead being replaced by Emily’s her hazel orbs locking with yours as she leans in, her eyes fluttering shut as her lips too, meet yours.

You cup her cheek boldly, your fingers tangling in her hair as you kiss, the woman sighing against your lips.

Again, you part, the blonde pulling back, only to turn your head, kissing your temple softly, the older of the pair resting her head against your own as well.

“So, what do you think now?” Kelley whispers and you chuckle.

“I’m thinking I REALLY hope I’m not still hallucinating.”

Kelley chuckles as Emily giggles, their laughter contagious despite the pain you’re currently feeling.

"How can we convince you that this is real?” Kelley asks and you grin.

“I mean, a few more kisses might help.” You shrug, unable to bite back a grin.

Kelley and Emily share a glance, the two grinning before Kelley leans back in.

“I think that can be arranged.”

#uswnt x reader #kelley o'hara x emily sonnett x reader #so'hara x reader #kelley o'hara x reader #emily sonnett x reader #id love to hear what you think!#ive never written for so'hara so be gentle. XD

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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 years ago

Text

The surveillance advertising to financial fraud pipeline

Monday (October 2), I'll be in Boise to host an event with VE Schwab. On October 7–8, I'm in Milan to keynote Wired Nextfest.

Being watched sucks. Of all the parenting mistakes I've made, none haunt me more than the times my daughter caught me watching her while she was learning to do something, discovered she was being observed in a vulnerable moment, and abandoned her attempt:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2014/may/09/cybersecurity-begins-with-integrity-not-surveillance

It's hard to be your authentic self while you're under surveillance. For that reason alone, the rise and rise of the surveillance industry – an unholy public-private partnership between cops, spooks, and ad-tech scum – is a plague on humanity and a scourge on the Earth:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/16/the-second-best-time-is-now/#the-point-of-a-system-is-what-it-does

But beyond the psychic damage surveillance metes out, there are immediate, concrete ways in which surveillance brings us to harm. Ad-tech follows us into abortion clinics and then sells the info to the cops back home in the forced birth states run by Handmaid's Tale LARPers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/29/no-i-in-uter-us/#egged-on

And even if you have the good fortune to live in a state whose motto isn't "There's no 'I" in uter-US," ad-tech also lets anti-abortion propagandists trick you into visiting fake "clinics" who defraud you into giving birth by running out the clock on terminating your pregnancy:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/15/paid-medical-disinformation/#crisis-pregnancy-centers

The commercial surveillance industry fuels SWATting, where sociopaths who don't like your internet opinions or are steamed because you beat them at Call of Duty trick the cops into thinking that there's an "active shooter" at your house, provoking the kind of American policing autoimmune reaction that can get you killed:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/14/us/swatting-sentence-casey-viner/index.html

There's just a lot of ways that compiling deep, nonconsensual, population-scale surveillance dossiers can bring safety and financial harm to the unwilling subjects of our experiment in digital spying. The wave of "business email compromises" (the infosec term for impersonating your boss to you and tricking you into cleaning out the company bank accounts)? They start with spear phishing, a phishing attack that uses personal information – bought from commercial sources or ganked from leaks – to craft a virtual Big Store con:

https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/safety-resources/scams-and-safety/common-scams-and-crimes/business-email-compromise

It's not just spear-phishers. There are plenty of financial predators who run petty grifts – stock swindles, identity theft, and other petty cons. These scams depend on commercial surveillance, both to target victims (e.g. buying Facebook ads targeting people struggling with medical debt and worried about losing their homes) and to run the con itself (by getting the information needed to pull of a successful identity theft).

In "Consumer Surveillance and Financial Fraud," a new National Bureau of Academic Research paper, a trio of business-school profs – Bo Bian (UBC), Michaela Pagel (WUSTL) and Huan Tang (Wharton) quantify the commercial surveillance industry's relationship to finance crimes:

https://www.nber.org/papers/w31692

The authors take advantage of a time-series of ZIP-code-accurate fraud complaint data from the Consumer Finance Protection Board, supplemented by complaints from the FTC, along with Apple's rollout of App Tracking Transparency, a change to app-based tracking on Apple mobile devices that turned of third-party commercial surveillance unless users explicitly opted into being spied on. More than 96% of Apple users blocked spying:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/96-of-us-users-opt-out-of-app-tracking-in-ios-14-5-analytics-find/

In other words, they were able to see, neighborhood by neighborhood, what happened to financial fraud when users were able to block commercial surveillance.

What happened is, fraud plunged. Deprived of the raw material for committing fraud, criminals were substantially hampered in their ability to steal from internet users.

While this is something that security professionals have understood for years, this study puts some empirical spine into the large corpus of qualitative accounts of the surveillance-to-fraud pipeline.

As the authors note in their conclusion, this analysis is timely. Google has just rolled out a new surveillance system, the deceptively named "Privacy Sandbox," that every Chrome user is being opted in to unless they find and untick three separate preference tickboxes. You should find and untick these boxes:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/how-turn-googles-privacy-sandbox-ad-tracking-and-why-you-should

Google has spun, lied and bullied Privacy Sandbox into existence; whenever this program draws enough fire, they rename it (it used to be called FLoC). But as the Apple example showed, no one wants to be spied on – that's why Google makes you find and untick three boxes to opt out of this new form of surveillance.

There is no consensual basis for mass commercial surveillance. The story that "people don't mind ads so long as they're relevant" is a lie. But even if it was true, it wouldn't be enough, because beyond the harms to being our authentic selves that come from the knowledge that we're being observed, surveillance data is a crucial ingredient for all kinds of crime, harassment, and deception.

We can't rely on companies to spy on us responsibly. Apple may have blocked third-party app spying, but they effect nonconsensual, continuous surveillance of every Apple mobile device user, and lie about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

That's why we should ban commercial surveillance. We should outlaw surveillance advertising. Period:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/ban-online-behavioral-advertising

Contrary to the claims of surveillance profiteers, this wouldn't reduce the income to ad-supported news and other media – it would increase their revenues, by letting them place ads without relying on the surveillance troves assembled by the Google/Meta ad-tech duopoly, who take the majority of ad-revenue:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising

We're 30 years into the commercial surveillance pandemic and Congress still hasn't passed a federal privacy law with a private right of action. But other agencies aren't waiting for Congress. The FTC and DoJ Antitrust Divsision have proposed new merger guidelines that allow regulators to consider privacy harms when companies merge:

https://www.regulations.gov/comment/FTC-2023-0043-1569

Think here of how Google devoured Fitbit and claimed massive troves of extremely personal data, much of which was collected because employers required workers to wear biometric trackers to get the best deal on health care:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/google-fitbit-merger-would-cement-googles-data-empire

Companies can't be trusted to collect, retain or use our personal data wisely. The right "balance" here is to simply ban that collection, without an explicit opt-in. The way this should work is that companies can't collect private data unless users hunt down and untick three "don't spy on me" boxes. After all, that's the standard that Google has set.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/29/ban-surveillance-ads/#sucker-funnel

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #commercial surveillance #surveillance #surveillance advertising #ad-tech #behavioral advertising #ads #privacy #fraud #targeting #ad targeting #scams #scholarship #nber #merger guidelines #ftc #doj

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enigmalynne · 10 months ago

Text

Life at the Breaking Point: Love, Duty, and a Deadly Confrontation in the ER

Title – Life at the Breaking Point: Love, Duty, and a Deadly Confrontation in the ER Pairings – Jensen x Reader, Jared x Madison Word Count – 8,526 Warnings – mentions of shootings, beatings and violence, inaccurate police scenarios, hostage situation JAcklesverse Square – “I thought I lost you forever.”

He's a SWAT team member at the Sheriff's Office, and she's a doctor at St. David's Medical Center Emergency Room. They met at Jared and Madison's wedding, becoming fast friends with a longing for more that the other knows nothing about.

Those feelings come screaming to the front of his head and heart when Jensen hears about a shooting at the hospital where Y/N works, where she's held hostage at gunpoint. Will he be able to remain professional, or is his love for this doctor going to make him do something crazy?

Y/N was sitting at her desk, typing notes from her last patient, when she heard the popping sound. She didn’t think anything of it at first since the emergency room faced the highway and cars backfired all the time, but when she heard the succession of pops a second time, she lifted her eyes toward the glass doors heading outside.

“What was that?” one of the nurses asked as she walked by. Y/N kept her eyes on the glass doors and listened intently for the sound again. When she heard it the third time, it was louder, closer to the entrance. She knew what it was immediately.

“Oh, God,” she muttered, eyes going wide. She swung her head toward the nurses standing nearby. “Get as many people and patients out of here as you can. Get them to the elevators and send them up at least three floors.”

“What?” a nurse asked.

“Now!” Y/N shouted, grabbing the phone in front of her. “Go!!” The women were startled and started running into action. With a quick punch of numbers, Y/N’s voice went over the intercom for the entire emergency room.

“Code Red! We have a Code Red in the emergency room!” she said, looking behind her to ensure people were moving. “Code Red in Emergency!”

Suddenly, the front doors to the emergency room were kicked open, glass breaking and metal bending. The mechanism that makes them slide open sparked and broke, causing them to stop working. Y/N ducked her head to make sure none of the glass got close to the desk area she was at.

“Someone get over here and help me!” a furious voice shouted. Y/N looked toward the entrance of the ER to see a man standing there, holding another man who looked like he had been shot. He had a gun in his hand, and Y/N instantly knew he was the one firing the shots outside.

“You!” he growled, pointing the weapon in Y/N’s face with furiously narrowed eyes. She immediately lifted her hands in a show of surrender despite her fear. A few nurses and an orderly nearby froze when they saw the weapon.

“You. You a doctor?” he asked. Y/N nodded.

“Yeah, I’m a doctor,” she responded.

“Good. You help him. If he dies, you die,” the man said. Y/N nodded again, swallowing back her terror.

“What… what happened to him?” she asked carefully.

“What does it look like happened to him? He was shot, you dumb bitch!” the guy shouted. Y/N flinched. “Now help him, or you’ll be shot next!”

“Can you take the gun off us long enough for us to help him? Please?” she asked timidly. The guy gave her an incredulous look, but she continued. “Just put it away until we get him into a room and get him help. You can keep it on me the entire time I’m working on him, but for now, I need you to put it away so we can focus,” she begged.

The man glared at Y/N before looking back at the man he was carrying. He looked back at the doctor before nodding his head and slipping the gun into his jacket pocket. Once it was out of sight, Y/N moved.

“I need a gurney here! Now!” she shouted, causing a flurry of action. The two nurses ran up while the orderly dashed off to find a gurney. Y/N helped the nurses assess the injured man as best they could and lifted the wounded man onto it once the gurney showed up. As it rolled away, stats started to be shouted out.

“Gunshot wound to the abdomen, no exit wound. We need to get him intubated.”

“Trauma 2 is open; make a hole, people!”

“Blood pressure is low; pulse is thready; he needs a transfusion; get me two units of O-Neg!”

“Someone get surgery on the phone, let them know we need a room now!!”

As they were running into the trauma room, the gunman followed along close by.

“What’s his name?” someone asked.

“Mark,” the gunman said. “His name is Mark.”

“Count of three, people… one, two, three,” Y/N said, and the group moved the victim onto the bed. The activity kicked up a notch as a third nurse jumped in to assist by putting leads on his chest and turned on the monitors nearby, causing beeping and tones to start in the room over their talking.

“Mark, can you hear me? I’m Doctor Y/N,” she said, checking out his eyes. Y/N continued to assess the injury as one nurse cut the clothing off him and another put an IV in his arm. More information is being shouted around, causing the gunman to watch in confusion.

“Mark, if you can hear me, squeeze my fingers,” Y/N said, putting two fingers inside his left hand. When nothing happened, Y/N frowned, shaking her head. Suddenly, alarms went off around them.

“He’s flatlining!”

“Someone get the LUCAS!” Y/N shouted. One of the nurses ran off to grab the machine while Y/N and the other nurse got the man ready. “Get that bag ready!”

“C’mon, Mark, don’t do this to us,” Y/N muttered as the three women got the machine into place. As the nurses strapped Mark’s arms into place, Y/N set the machine and once cleared, it began compressions.

“Start breathing for him,” she snapped at one of the nurses. Every twenty compressions, a nurse squeezed the bag connected to the vent in his throat to provide air into his lungs. The gunman watched with wide, panicked eyes. Just then, the surgeon, Benny, walked into the room.

“What d’ya got?” he asked, his Creole accent thick. The gunman was startled and pulled his gun back out of his pocket, having forgotten about it while watching the work being done to his friend. Y/N noticed it and tried to hold the man’s arm down. In frustration, he yanked his arm free and whipped the gun across her face, causing gasps from the nurses in the room.

“Whoa,” the surgeon shouted, stepping forward to stop the attack but freezing when the gun was pointed at him. Y/N was on the ground, a hand on her now bleeding head.

“Back off,” the gunman growled.

“Stop!” Y/N shouted roughly from the ground. “We have to get him into surgery if you want us to save his life!” The gunman glanced at her on the floor, then backed up at the people in the curtained room.

“She’s right,” one of the nurses explained. “He was shot in the stomach, and there isn’t an exit wound. The bullet is still in his stomach somewhere, and we have to get in there, get it out, and stop the bleeding.”

“Look, man, if you want to save his life, you have to let us work,” Benny said, his hands placatingly. He’s already on the LUCAS, which means he’s already close to death. The more time we waste here, the less of a chance he has.”

The gunman reached down and grabbed Y/N by the hair, pulling her up. Once she was on her knees in front of him, he placed the gun on her temple. The other people in the emergency room whimpered at the movement, including Y/N. The gunman looked back up at Benny expectantly.

“I will kill her if he dies,” he said. “Now, go.” Benny glanced down at Y/N’s tear-filled face before turning and giving orders to the nurses. The three pulled the gurney toward the elevator and made the move to the surgical floor. There was a momentary pause where the quiet took over, then the gunman dragged her up to her feet and shoved her ahead of him so they could walk back into the waiting area.

“You’re coming with me, Doc,” he said, keeping his weapon aimed at her head, his hand still gripping her hair. Y/N swallowed back a sob, tears still running down her face. “Get up.”

Attention all units: shots were fired at St. David’s Medical Center Emergency Room, with an unknown number of shooters, at least four victims.

Jensen was finishing up some paperwork in his vehicle when the call came over the radio, causing him to pause and listen to the report. St. David’s Medical Center is where Y/N worked, a woman he met at Jared’s wedding a few years ago. Throwing his car into drive with lights flashing and sirens blaring, Jensen peeled out of the parking lot he was sitting in and headed toward the hospital as fast as he could.

When Jared told him he was proposing to Madison, a schoolteacher he fell in love with after meeting her at a law enforcement appreciation day, he couldn’t have been happier for the man. Jensen had seen Jared through many failed relationships because he was a law enforcement officer, and he hated seeing his friend discouraged. As a man from a big family, Jared always imagined having a wife of his own with three or four kids running around. When Jared and Madison met, Jensen could see the instant connection. When Jared asked Jensen for help picking out a ring a year later, he couldn’t have been happier for his best friend.

During the planning process, he, the best man, met the maid of honor, Y/N. The emergency room doctor was the complete opposite of Madison. While both girls were outgoing, friendly, and energetic, Madison was more sophisticated and genteel, whereas Y/N was a bit more wild and carefree. Jensen had no idea how they became best friends until he saw them hanging out together, and their personalities blended perfectly.

The two spent much time together helping the bride and groom prepare for a storybook wedding, laughing and making fun of the couple. They connected instantly and even gave a joint toast at the reception. They have remained friends ever since, though if Jared had his way, they would have been a couple since the end of the wedding.

Jensen arrived at the hospital quickly and jumped out of his SUV, eyes scanning the building. He popped open the back and unlocked the case that held his rifle. He pulled it across his chest and slid some extra magazines into the slots on his bulletproof vest before closing the hatch, locking his car, and running up to where the rest of the deputies had taken point. Once he got to a safe location, he knelt and aimed at the front of the hospital. Five minutes later, Jared Padalecki came up beside him.

“Mads called me on my way over,” Jared said quietly. Jensen glanced over at him, but Jared’s narrowed eyes never left the front doors to the emergency room. “Y/N’s working today and isn’t answering her phone.”

“Fuck,” Jensen cursed under his breath. “That means she’s in there and probably one of the hostages.”

“Yeah.”

“Ackles! Get over here!” a voice shouted from the Incident Command Center bus. Jensen popped up from where he was and ran over.

“Yessir!”

“I understand you have a solid understanding of this hospital, including how we can contact someone inside,” Lieutenant Singer said. Jensen nodded.

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“You’re coming with me, Doc,” he said, keeping his weapon aimed at her head, his hand still gripping her hair. Y/N swallowed back a sob, tears still running down her face. “Get up. The rest of you get moving. If you can walk, walk up front,” he growled. The remaining nurses, techs, and patients who could move did so quickly with their hands up in surrender. With the gun pressed to Y/N’s head, the hostages knew they had to obey the gunman’s orders.

“Look,” Y/N started, stumbling as she tried to keep up with the man dragging her by her hair. “We have sick patients in the ER right now. There are injured people just outside the doors; they need medical attention. Please, you have to let us help them, or they could die.”

“I can’t do that,” he said quietly. The man cocked his weapon, causing Y/N to inhale sharply and the people nearby to cry out. Once they were in the waiting room in front of the ER, he ordered the hostages to line up. When they didn’t move, he shouted. “Line up against those fucking windows, now! Or someone else will get shot today!” Everyone rushed to line up against the windows, sobbing echoing through the now-empty waiting room.

The gunman glanced out the front doors, catching sight of the flashing lights, and cursed under his breath. Looking around, he ordered two of the hostages to stand in front of the shattered doors. They scampered to do his bidding, glancing at Y/N as they went by. The gunman continued to drag her with him, his fist tightening in her hair. Y/N whimpered, wincing at the pain in her scalp.

“Why don’t you tell me your name, huh?” she said suddenly, trying to get him talking.

“I’m not telling you my fucking name!” he shouted, spittle flying from his mouth. Y/N flinched, her hands starting to shake as she held onto his hand in her hair. The gunman aimed his gun toward the ceiling and fired a round, the sound echoing around the emergency room, causing people to scream.

“Any more dumbass questions, and the next one will be in your head, understand?” the gunman growled. Y/N nodded as well as she could with his grip on her. Suddenly, a phone on the main desk rang. The gunman growled as he shifted his gun to one of the nurses standing by the windows.

“YOU! What’s your name?” he asked a young brunette in bright pink scrubs who was crying. She whimpered loudly before swallowing hard.

“Ma… ma… Maggie,” she stuttered.

“Well, ma, ma, Maggie…” he said, mocking the girl. “Answer the fucking phone and get rid of whoever it is.” Maggie nodded, rushed over to the desk, lifted the receiver, and placed it to her ear.

“He… hello?”

“This is Lieutenant Singer of the Travis County Sheriff’s Office. Is everyone okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How many hostages are in there with you?”

“Um, well…”

“Hang up the fucking phone!” the gunman shouted, causing Maggie to flinch and whimper.

“See if you can get him on the phone,” Singer said calmly. Maggie looked over at the gunman and held the phone out to him.

“It’s the police. He says he wants to talk to you,” she said, her voice slightly whimpering. The gunman dragged Y/N with him as he stalked over to where the nurse sat, snatching the phone out of her hand.

“No one here wants to talk to you, asshat!” he shouted into the phone. The gunman then yanked the phone and threw it against the wall.

When they heard a gunshot inside the hospital, tensions grew in the parking lot where police were set up. Singer tried to reach them on the phone to ensure everyone was okay, but it ended in a dial tone. Roman was using his binoculars to investigate the emergency room through the glass doors in front of the building.

“Roman, what can you see?” Singer asked.

“Looks like most of the hostages are in the lobby, lined up in front of the windows. He’s got one by the hair,” Roman responded. “He’s trying to make it hard for anyone to get a shot off through the glass.” Singer cursed under his breath, realizing sniper work was not an option.

“He knows what he’s doing,” he muttered. Jensen stood nearby, his AR-15 aimed at the hospital. He kept his green eyes locked on the front of the hospital, watching for movement.

“We got intel,” a voice said over the radio. “Shooter is Andrew Clarkson, age 32. Has a long rap sheet, mostly petty theft and small crimes, but recently, he’s been picked up on a few drug charges. Don’t know why he’s decided to hold the ER hostage, but this would be his first major crime with a firearm.” Jensen shook his head, glancing at Singer. As he was about to open his mouth and say something, a man started to walk into view.

“Suspect is coming to the door; he has a hostage with him,” a voice echoed across the radio. Everyone lifted their weapons and aimed as all eyes faced the entrance to the emergency room, including Jensen. The gunman shoved the broken glass door aside with his foot, dragging someone with him. The gun pressed to her head gave everyone pause. He yanked the hostage forward and hid behind a brunette dressed in blue scrubs; his hand fisted into her hair as he shoved her in front of him. Her hands gripped his, her pale skin tear-stained and bruising as she tried to control her breathing.

When Jensen realized who the hostage was, fury burned viciously in his veins.

“That son of a bitch,” Jensen growled.

“Get back!” the gunman shouted, pressing the gun into Y/N’s temple. “Get back, all of you!”

“Let her go, Andrew,” Singer said into the mouthpiece of a megaphone. The gunman, Andrew, grew angrier, yanking at Y/N’s hair. The cry that came from her was like ice down Jensen’s spine. Jared glanced at him from the corner of his eye, ensuring the man didn’t do anything stupid.

“All of you just stay out of the way, and no one will get hurt,” Andrew shouted. Then he smirked. “Well, any more hurt than they already are.”

“What is it that you want?” Singer asked. “Maybe we can help in some way.”

“What I want is my brother to survive, and if this here bitch doctor and that surgeon friend of hers upstairs do the job right, he will,” Andrew spit out. “That ain’t none of y’all business, so go about your way and let me handle this.”

“You know we can’t do that, Andrew. You’ve shot four people already. You have an emergency room full of doctors and patients in there being held hostage,” Singer shouted, shaking his head. Jensen was starting to get twitchy, Jared noticed.

“Hey, take a breath,” Jared muttered quietly. “You aren’t going to help her going in halfcocked.” Jensen shot him a furious glance. “I want her outta there too, but we must use our heads here.” Jensen took a deep breath and adjusted his grip on his rifle. He studied the man who was holding Y/N hostage, her cries of pain infuriating him as he watched Andrew drag her back into the emergency room. Once they were out of sight, Jensen and Jared lowered their weapons, but not without sounds of frustration.

“There’s gotta be some way for us to get in there without being detected,” Jared said, looking up at the building. Jensen shakes his head.

“They already have guys working on going in from the roof,” he said with frustration. He turned and looked at the sign in front of him pointing the way to the back of the building. Noticing the directionals, he had a sudden thought.

“I have an idea,” Jensen said, looking at Singer. “Emergency rooms typically have a back entrance when they must take people from an ambulance. It’s different from where the public comes in, so they don’t get traumatized. I’m betting our perp doesn’t have that back entrance covered.”

Jared catches on to what Jensen is saying, snaps his fingers, and points.

“Right! Some of us could go back and sneak in that way while you have the rest of SWAT coming down from the roof,” Jared said. Jensen nodded.

“Make it obvious we are coming in from the rooftop; get him distracted so he isn’t aware of us coming in from the back. We sneak in, take him by surprise, pin him down, and it’s all over,” Jensen explains. Singer looks at Jensen with narrowed eyes, then nods slowly.

“Alright, let’s do it. Pick three more to go with you. The rest will go up,” Singer said. Jensen turned to Jared, bumping fists.

“You in?” Jensen asked.

“Always.”

“Awesome. Go get Seb and Jake; meet back here in five.”

Jared turned and jogged off to pull the two men away and get them ready to go around the back. Jensen looked back over to the front of the hospital and took a deep breath. Hang on Y/N, we’re coming.

Andrew and Y/N made their way back into the emergency room, the sound of muffled sobs echoing around the room. Andrew shoved Y/N away from him, causing her to stumble and fall. She landed hard on her knee before collapsing against one of the sets of chairs put together. The chairs were loud as they scratched along the floor, moving as Y/N slammed into them.

She moaned quietly, her hand going to her head to rub her scalp as she looked over to where Andrew was now pacing the floor in agitation. Y/N wasn’t sure what would happen next, but she knew things were about to get nasty.

Jensen and his team slowly made their way around the back of the emergency room, running in time with each other, their weapons held at the ready. The helicopter carrying the rest of the SWAT team was flying above them at the same time, making it evident that the sheriff’s office was about to drop deputies onto the roof to make their way down. Jenson glanced up at them once as he made his way around.

Once the back doors came into view, they slowed down to walk so they could see around the corner without drawing attention to themselves. Jensen signaled for the men to pause while he made his way over to the doors and glanced in. It was quiet; the only noise came from machines tracking heart rates and other vital information from patients left behind.

“Just as I thought, no one is back here,” he muttered quietly. “Okay, Seb and Jake take the far end. Jay, you stick with me.” The men nodded their heads in agreement before moving toward the automatic doors. As they quietly swooshed open, the team silently moved forward. Each man made their way through the curtained area of the emergency room, checking on the patients who were still in beds with machines hooked up to them. A few of the patients who were not unconscious saw them moving and were startled by the sudden appearance of a law enforcement officer. The deputies made movements for them to keep quiet.

“Stay here, and don’t move no matter what you hear. We’ll come back and get you out,” Jared whispered to a young couple who sat terrified next to their elderly mother. They nodded frantically, fear radiating off them. Jared then got on his radio, messaging the deputies out front that there were innocent people in the emergency room beds, forgotten and left behind by the gunman. Once the front lobby appeared, Jensen held up a hand to stop them.

From where he stood, he could see Andrew pacing in front of the desk where a nurse was sitting. The hostages were still lined up against the windows. He didn’t see Y/N anywhere but knew she had to be there somewhere.

“Will someone answer that fucking phone already?” Andrew shouted. The nurse at the desk suddenly shot up from her seat and ran over to a different desk to grab the ringing phone. She spoke into the receiver momentarily, then held it to her chest.

“It’s surgery. They want to talk to Doctor Y/L/N,” she said. Andrew spun around, stalked over to some of the chairs in the waiting area, and bent down. It wasn’t until he stood up that Jensen realized it was Y/N. She must have been on the ground. Andrew dragged her to stand by her arm and shoved her over toward the phone.

“Answer the phone. Find out about Mark,” Andrew growled. Y/N stumbled toward the desk and took the phone from the nurse. She kept her back to the gunman; from her expression, Jensen saw that whatever news she was getting wasn’t good. Jensen glanced at Seb and Abel, giving them hand signals to move forward slightly but low to the ground. His gut was telling him this was about to get ugly.

Y/N hung up the phone slowly and turned to face Andrew, the gunman. Her eyes were filled with tears and sorrow for the man standing before her. His gun was being held on her, and she knew when she told him the update she was most likely going to get shot herself.

“Well? What did they say?” Andrew asked angrily.

“Andrew, you have to understand; Mark was already in a bad place when you first brought him in…” Y/N started.

“What are you saying? Are you telling me that my brother is dead??” Andrew asked incredulously, causing Y/N to whimper and startle. Tears slowly started to make their way down her cheeks as she swallowed thickly.

“He had already lost a lot of blood before you got here… and then there was an infection that started where the bullet wound went in. Moving him around with the bullet inside him did a lot of damage, too,” Y/N explained, her voice choked with tears. “We sent him up on the CPR machine, remember?”

As Y/N was explaining what happened, Andrew’s arm with the gun was drooping slightly. She thought maybe she was getting him to understand, and he would not shoot her, so she continued explaining.

“Benny did all he could to bring him back, but it was just too much for his body to handle. He died twenty minutes ago. I’m so sorry, Andrew,” Y/N said.

The next moments happened very quickly, causing panic and confusion. Andrew looked back at Y/N, lifted the gun, and fired at her. Y/N flinched, which moved her to the right, which caused the bullet to just graze the skin of her temple instead of embedding itself into her skull. The strike still caused her to fly backward and hit her head on the desk behind her, then crumpled to the ground.

All four deputies who were in the emergency room saw what was about to happen and opened fire on Andrew, hitting him in the chest and taking him down. This caused chaos among the other hostages in the waiting room area. Jensen moved up to kick the gun away from the dying suspect as his fellow deputies moved forward with him as backup.

“Jake, stay with this guy. Seb, see if any of those nurses are stable enough to help him. Jay, take the rest of the hostages to the back. I’m going to check on Y/N,” Jensen ordered his team before moving. He didn’t stop to hear them answer. Instead, he leaped over a counter and moved to where Y/N was crumpled on the floor. Just as he reached her and started to roll her over, Jensen was quickly pushed out of the way.

“I got her, Jen,” a doctor named Chris said, pushing him aside. He then rattled orders to three other people next to him, lifting her onto a gurney that appeared out of nowhere. “I need a CT scan on her head; I wanna find out if that bastard did any permanent damage!” he heard as they ran down a hallway and into an elevator.

Jensen stood and watched as they rushed her off and away from him, startling slightly as Lieutenant Singer set his hand heavily on his shoulder. Once she was out of sight, he turned and looked at Singer, then nodded before walking to rejoin his team. An investigation would be conducted on the shooting of a suspect. They would need his weapon to interview him, and he would be put on administrative leave until everything was completed. Until then, however, they had a hospital full of people and a petrified emergency room.

Y/N sat on her couch dressed in a pair of old pajama pants and an oversized t-shirt wrapped in an old, soft blanket as she stared into nothingness, thinking about what had happened that day.

Her hair was damp from the long hot shower she had taken earlier, during which she drained the hot water tank and stood under the spray. She was pretty sure Madison, who rushed over to the hospital once she was able to get in, was sitting outside the door the entire time. Once she left the bathroom, Madison took one look at her red eyes and held her for a long time before gently braiding her hair back.

Y/N had two butterfly bandages holding the small cut on her temple closed, the bruising darkening as each hour passed. The bump on the back of her head was sore but not visible, thankfully. She didn’t have a concussion, but she would have a headache for a while. Thankfully, the CT scan showed no permanent damage to her head or her brain. She’d just be bruised up and sore for a while.

She had a hard time grasping that she went in for a typical 24-hour shift at the hospital only for her day to end in the middle of a hostage situation slash shoot-out that should have killed her. A bullet was aimed directly at her head. A shudder of fear ran through her for the hundredth time that evening, causing her to close her eyes, take a deep breath, and attempt to calm her nerves. Tears once pressed against her eyelids, and she struggled to hold them back. She wasn’t ready to fall apart yet.

Madison had lit one of her favorite candles after hustling her into the shower, so the room smelled of apples and cinnamon, but it wasn’t giving her the comfort it usually did. Her relaxation playlist on the Alexa speaker wasn’t either, despite it being her usual after-shift routine. Something was missing, and she couldn’t put her finger on it yet.

“Here,” Madison said as she sat beside her on the couch. Y/N’s eyes dropped to the mug of coffee in her hand. “I know you’re not allowed any alcohol with the painkillers you’re on, so I figured coffee was the next best thing.” With a small smile, Y/N unwound her arm from around herself with the blanket and carefully took the mug with a shaky hand.

“Thanks, Mads,” she whispered. She held the mug and sipped the coffee between her hands, enjoying the sweetened warmth filling her. “You used my salted caramel creamer.”

“This was a good reason to splurge, I figured,” Madison said with a shrug. “You should try to eat something. I can order pizza?” Y/N shook her head slowly.

“I feel like if I eat something, I’m going to throw it up,” she said quietly. A knock at the door startled her, causing her to wince after. Madison glanced at the door, then back at her friend.

“I’ll get it. You stay here,” she said, standing. Y/N nodded, then sipped from her coffee once again. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the warmth, listening carefully to Madison making her way to the front door.

After taking Andrew down and getting Y/N help, it took Jensen and the rest of the SWAT team longer than expected to clear the hospital. Then, he had to go back to the office and hand over his weapon until the investigation into the shooting was completed. It was a long, tedious process that included an interview with internal affairs and a meeting with the chaplain. When he was finally done for the day, he decided to shower in the locker room so he could just head straight over to her place.

He was grateful that Madison showed up at the hospital to care for Y/N while he was still working. Given her injuries, there was no way she was going to be able to drive home, and she really shouldn’t have been left alone after what happened. The few times he texted Madison to check on Y/N, her responses weren’t encouraging, which only solidified his decision to go over and check on her in person.

He wasn’t surprised she was struggling. While Y/N was trained to handle a crisis, being held at gunpoint wasn’t exactly in the job description of an emergency room doctor. That was more his world, one he never wanted to introduce her into. Once Jensen was cleaned up, he left the sheriff’s office, stopped at his favorite Chinese food place to grab some takeout, and headed to Y/N’s place.

When Madison answered the door, Jensen frowned slightly. He expected Y/N to answer.

“Hey, Jen,” she said, smiling sympathetically at him. She stepped aside to let him in the condo. Jensen looked down the hallway before turning back to the woman with concern on his face.

“How is she?” he asked quietly. Madison locked the door and turned to face him with a shrug.

“I think she’s still in shock right now. She was crying a little earlier, but she keeps stopping herself from doing it now. I think she’s going to break down when it all hits her,” Madison said. “She’s been quiet, which isn’t like her. I’m really worried.”

“Yeah, me too,” Jensen said with a sigh. “Thanks for sitting with her until I could get here.”

“Hey, don’t thank me. I would have been here regardless,” Madison waved off his thanks.

“Why don’t you head out of here? Jared should be home by now, and we’re on administrative leave until the investigation into the shooting is done. I know he’d love to see you right now,” Jensen said, giving the woman a tight hug.

“Are you sure?” Madison asked, returning the hug.

“I’m sure. I’m not planning on going anywhere; I got her,” Jensen nodded.

“You’ll call me if you need anything?” Madison asked, pointing at him. Jensen smiled gently.

“Yeah. I’ll call if we need you,” he agreed. Madison nodded as she led the two into the living room where Y/N was sitting.

“Hey, Y/N, Jensen’s here,” she said with a smile. Y/N was resting, the coffee cup forgotten as it sat on her table; her head was in her hand, her arm leaning on the arm of the couch, and her eyes closed as her breaths remained steady. Her fingers pressed into her hair, rubbing slowly against her scalp in a light massage. Madison stepped closer to her, resting a hand on her shoulder. Y/N startled slightly, lifting her head to face the two.

“You okay?” she asked, and Y/N smiled slightly, humming. Jensen studied the woman, frowning slightly. He’d never seen her look so defeated before. Even earlier, with a gun pressed to her head, she looked confident and strong. Right then, she looked... broken.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Jensen said quietly. Blue eyes looked up at him, and after a moment of stillness, a small smile made it across her tired face.

“Jensen, hey,” she said softly, causing him to smile gently at her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were here.”

“It’s okay. I brought dinner. You okay with Chinese?” he asked, holding up the bag of Chinese. Y/N’s eyes dropped down to the bag of food he had in his hand, and it didn’t smell all that appetizing.

“I’m not that hungry,” she said, looking back at him. Jensen smiled softly at her, setting the bag down.

“I’ll make a deal with you. You have some soup and maybe a little lo mein, and I won’t bug you about it the rest of the night. Doesn’t have to be a lot, but it has to be something,” he said, kneeling in front of her. Y/N frowned, looking back at the bag of food with a sigh.

“Soup counts?” she asked, returning her eyes to Jensen. He nodded.

“Soup counts,” he repeated.

“Okay,” she whispered, nodding slightly. Clearing her throat, she tried to speak louder. “Yeah, okay. I’ll get some plates.” She unfolded herself and stood, making her way toward the kitchen. Madison stepped aside to let Y/N by, using Jensen’s shoulder for balance as she made her way. Jensen stood once she was passed. The two friends then watched her walk away before Madison threw Jensen a look.

“I know. I promise I got it,” Jensen said, raising a hand before Madison could say anything. “Jared is waiting for you at home. Go.” Madison nodded and walked into the kitchen behind Y/N.

Jensen started pulling the food out of the bag and setting the boxes on the coffee table. When Y/N returned from the kitchen carrying the dishes and flatware, Jensen stood and took the items from her.

“What would you like to drink?” Y/N asked quietly. “I have some beer and soda. There’s still some coffee left that Madison made.” Jensen smiled softly at her and gently guided her to sit.

“I know where everything is. Why don’t you get comfortable, and I’ll grab us some sodas?” he said. She thanked him and sat back on the couch, pulling one of her blankets around herself. Jensen walked into the kitchen and pulled two sodas out of the fridge. He carried them back to the living room, setting them on the table while watching Y/N as she stared out the window. Jensen sat down next to her and reached an arm behind her.

“Hey,” he muttered quietly to get her attention. Y/N turned and looked at him, blinking away the distant look in her eyes. “Tell me what you need.”

“I’m fine,” she said, dropping her eyes and sighing. “I’m just…” she started. She trailed off and shook her head.

“Just what?” Jensen asked. Instead of answering him with words, she simply shifted her body to face him and ducked her head so she could lay it on his shoulder. Jensen pulled her closer to him, moving her legs so they laid over his and he could cradle her against his chest. This allowed him to start running his hand up and down her back. After a bit of silence, her hushed voice caught his attention.

“I keep thinking about what we could have done differently,” she muttered quietly. Jensen frowned. “I knew there was nothing we were going to be able to do to save his brother just by examining him. He waited too long to get him to us. I was able to get him to put the gun away long enough for us to try, but when we had to pull the LUCAS out… Surgery was a long shot, but we needed to try?”

“Yeah,” Jensen muttered under his breath, his voice rough.

“But then we were waiting, and things just got…” she trailed off again, shaking her head. “Nothing I was saying to him was making a difference. I knew it was only a matter of time before his patience wore out and he was going to start killing people. Then, when we got word that his brother died… I just knew.”

“You knew what?” he asked softly.

“That he was going to kill me,” she replied. Jensen’s arms tightened around her.

“What you did in that hospital, keeping your head… talking to him like you did… that was exactly right. It was the right thing to do,” Jensen explained. Y/N shook her head, her eyes downcast.

“You did everything right, sweetheart,” Jensen reiterated.

“Then why did he still try to kill me?” Y/N asked after a moment of silence. Jensen sighed heavily, his heart hurting badly for this woman in his arms.

“Because sometimes, even though you did the right thing, the bad guys don’t care and still react violently. Sometimes they just want to hurt others like they were hurt,” he said quietly. Y/N’s eyes started to fill with tears once again, against her will.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said, tears breaking free and running down her cheeks.

“I know you didn’t,” he reassured.

“Those people he killed didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I know.”

“I was trying to help him; I wanted to save his brother.”

“I know you did.”

“I tried to save him; we all tried to save him…”

“I know,” Jensen said, hushing her as she began to cry earnestly. “You did everything you could, and it’s not your fault. Andrew should have realized that. You’re safe now, and he can’t hurt you anymore. I won’t let anything hurt you anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she sobbed.

“It’s okay, don’t apologize. I’d be worried if you weren’t upset,” Jensen said, pressing his lips to her temple. He held her close as she cried herself out. When finished, she lifted her head and wiped her eyes, glancing at the man who held her close.

“Better?” Jensen asked, wiping the tears from Y/N’s face with the thumb of one hand. Y/N nodded a little, sniffling a bit. “Let’s eat.”

“I’m not that hungry,” she admitted.

“Hey, you agreed to try. It doesn’t have to be a lot, but you need to put something in your stomach,” Jensen said, cradling her head. She lifted her sad blue eyes to meet his tender green ones.

“Okay,” she muttered.

“Okay,” Jensen repeated, pressing a kiss to her forehead. He then reached over to the food and grabbed two of the Styrofoam containers with soup in them. He carefully opened the lid of one of them and handed it to her. She smiled gently and sipped the soup.

“Let’s find something we can watch on TV, okay?”

Jensen didn’t want to leave Y/N alone; she wanted to stay in case she needed someone or something. She argued, saying she’d be okay, but he knew better. As they watched television, Y/N fell into a doze on Jensen’s shoulder while clinging to the blanket around her shoulders.

“Do you want to watch another episode?” Jensen asked, looking over at her. “Y/N?” That’s when he noticed her closed eyes. A gentle smile fell across his face as he watched her sleep. Moving carefully, he lifted her into his arms. The blanket wrapped around her fell away as he carried her across the living room, down the hallway, and into her bedroom. Thankfully, her bed was rumpled from a nap she had taken earlier, so he could lay her down and cover her with the sheet and comforter she had there. He pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“Good night, beautiful,” he said quietly before leaving the room.

With an arm behind his head, Jensen was dozing on the couch as he rested on a few of Y/N’s throw pillows. Y/N’s scream had him leaping and running to her bedroom. He opened the door he had closed earlier to find her sitting in bed with one hand pressed to the side of her head. She seemed to be trying to get away from something or someone, Jensen thought as he watched her sob. He frowned as he walked into the room and calmly hushed her.

“Hey,” he said quietly. “Hey, hey, hey, shhhh…. It’s okay. You’re safe,” he muttered.

“He’s gonna kill me,” she bawled, shaking her head and then whimpering. He was sure she was in pain with how she was holding her head.

“Okay, okay, come here,” Jensen said, pulling the blankets back. She launched herself into his arms once she was free of the blankets. He caught her with a soft ‘oof,’ the weight unexpected, but once he had his arms secured around her, he sat on her bed.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he whispered, his heart aching for her. He situated himself so his back was against the headboard, and Y/N rested against him. She ended up in his lap, her legs straddling his hips while her head rested on his shoulder with her face pressed into his neck. Jensen wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, gently placing a hand on her head and massaging his fingers against her scalp. Her tears ran down his neck to his shirt, causing him to pull her closer.

“I’ve got you,” Dean said gently. “I won’t let anything happen to you ever again.” Without moving her from against him, he reached down and grabbed her blanket and wrapped it up in it, offering warmth and comfort. Once he was happy with how they were situated, he turned his head and kissed her forehead. Having her in his arms like this, with her crying, was wrecking him.

“God, Y/N…I thought I lost you forever,” he whispered against her, her sobs quiet but intense. He knew she didn’t hear him; it wasn’t for her. His heart screamed at him, hurting at how this could have turned out. It took a long time for her to calm down, and Jensen held her and rubbed her scalp the entire time. Once her sobs subsided, the room was quiet, aside from a sniffle here and there. They remained like that for a long time.

“I thought I was going to die today,” she muttered, her voice clogged with tears and terror. Jensen tightened his arms around her, pulling her impossibly closer. He turned his head to press his lips against her temple and closed his eyes against the onslaught of emotions that raged inside of him.

“He’s dead, right?” she asked worriedly, pulling her head away so she could look at him. Jensen looked over her face, noticing the bruising on her temple had gotten worse. The bandages and wounds on her delicate skin practically glowed in the dim light of her bedroom. He gently brushed a few strands of hair sticking to her cheek from the tears behind her ear as he nodded slightly.

“Yeah,” he grunted, clearing his throat before speaking again. “Yeah, he’s dead. He’s not going to hurt you again.” Y/N nodded slightly, looking down. “Hey. You’re safe. I promise. I’m here and won’t let anything happen to you.” Y/N nodded her head before laying back down against his shoulder. Jensen cradled the back of her head with his hand, holding her there, resting his head on top of hers gently.

“Thank you for saving my life,” she whispered after a long silent pause. Jensen shut his eyes against another onslaught of emotion, swallowing hard. He pulled his head back to look at her.

“You’ll never have to thank me for that,” he said, eyes studying the woman in his arms. “When I saw him come out with you, I almost shot him right then. I never want you to be in a situation like that again.”

“You gonna become my bodyguard?” Y/N asked, a bit of humor creeping into her voice.

“I don’t think you understand, Y/N. You’ve become the most important person in my life,” Jensen explained. Y/N lifted her head to stare at him as he spoke, her wide eyes watery. Jensen stared back at her, more severe than he had ever been with her. “I was so angry when I realized that you were in there with that maniac. I wasn’t going to stop at anything to get you out of there safely, and when you got hurt…”

“It wasn’t your fault, Jen,” Y/N whispered. Jensen shook his head, his own eyes getting misty. The following words were out before he could stop himself.

“If anything were to happen to you… I don’t know what I would have done. I’m so in love with you, Y/N. I can’t imagine my life without you in it, and that asshole almost took you away from me,” he explained, resting his forehead gently against hers. Y/N’s breath caught at his admission.

“Jen… I love you, too. I think I have for a long time now,” she admitted. Jensen pulled back and stared into Y/N’s eyes, searching. Once he found whatever he sought, he gently pressed his mouth to hers in a passionate but modest kiss. Y/N tried to deepen it, moving her hands to his neck and fingers to his hair, but he pulled back.

“No. Not now,” he explained gently. Y/N frowned, hurt. “You’re hurting and need to take some painkillers. I know your head hurts you. And honestly, I just really want to hold you for a while. I almost lost you. I thought I lost you.”

“Does that mean you’ll stay?” Y/N asked timidly. Jensen nodded her head.”

“Yeah, I’ll stay,” he said quietly. Y/N nodded. “Where are your pain medications?”

“They’re right here,” she said, facing her nightstand. She picked up one of the three prescription bottles sitting there, and Jensen took it. He opened it and shook out one of the large pills into her open hand. She then reached over for the bottle of water to swallow down the pill before taking the prescription bottle and setting both back on her nightstand.

“Let’s get some rest, beautiful,” Jensen whispered. Y/N nodded as she laid her head back down on his shoulder. After a while, the two adjusted their positions so that they were lying down instead of sitting up against the headboard.

That was where Madison found them the following day. She smiled wistfully as she called out to Jared and waved him over to the doorway to Y/N’s bedroom. There, lying in her bed, was Jensen with Y/N curled beside him. Her head was still on his shoulder, her hand gripping the shirt he had on tightly. Jensen wrapped his arm around her waist, the other cradling her head against him, his face turned toward her as his lips pressed to her forehead. The two onlookers smiled softly at the two.

“She must have had a bad night,” Madison whispered, leaning against Jared.

“It’s nice to see them finally together, too,” Jared muttered quietly, kissing Madison’s head.

“Wonder how long till we are planning their wedding,” Madison gleefully whispered as she closed the bedroom door. It was quiet for a long moment, then…

“We’re gonna elope if I have anything to say about it,” Jensen whispered, smirking.

“We’ll do it at one of those tropical resorts in the Caribbean. It’s still kind of eloping, but I still get to dress up, and we still get pictures and flowers and shit,” Y/N said under her breath as she snuggled against him. Jensen tightened his arms around her, pressing a kiss against her forehead.

“Okay, I like that idea better,” he sighed.

“This is why I’m the smart one, and you’re the pretty one,” she replied with a soft giggle. He huffed at that comment.

“You’ll pay for that later. Go back to sleep.”

“Kay.”

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