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hanalwayssolo · 6 years

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Date and Time: Ch. 1

A/N: And so here I am with the first chapter of a three-parter reader insert for Ardyn, as commissioned by my lovely pal @valkyrieofardyn who has been kind and patient with me in bringing her story idea to life! In a nutshell, this will involve a time travel AU, some heavy angst, and a chance to turn things around for this dastardly villain.

Tagging them lovely fellas! @raspberryandechinacea @gowithme @blindedstarlight @hanatsuki89 @emmydots @bleucommelhiver @noboomoon @lazarustrashpit @animakupo

Link on AO3

It is the end of a tragic tale. At least, that’s what it all feels like. The decrepit walls of the Citadel stand witness to your devastation. How awfully apt, to be so broken in an equally broken place.

Frankly, you have yourself to blame. The only fool wandering around these empty, sordid halls is you. You hope the ghosts of Lucian kings curse to your shameful sorrow. What a sight it must be to see an ex-Imperial general who had the misfortune of falling in love with their forgotten Lucian royalty. A lamentation seems to be a fitting consolation. All those months of searching every corner of Niflheim and Altissia and Lucis, dedicating all of your resources with nary to waste for one Ardyn Izunia—or Ardyn Lucis Caelum, which, for fuck’s sake, his true name still rolls strangely at the tip of your tongue—only to find out the dastardly deeds of his past. Though that is not as shocking when he tells you that you never meant anything to him. Perhaps you should go back to the throne room and plead Ardyn to kill you instead. Death seems infinitely sweeter a punishment than a broken heart. He should have just stabbed you with a sword right through your chest, instead of leaving you with the ruthless words I do not love you, and I never will.

You cannot help but look back at the time you have spent with him, and the sweet memory of it is a sharp ache that bleeds you dry. How can you have possibly believed that a man such as Ardyn would be so capable to return your affection? He is neither a saint nor a pilgrim. Even at his best, he is not an easy man. He claims he is a monster of his creation, and yet you have chosen not to see the worst in him.

Love can really turn the smartest of men into the dumbest of fools.

You march down the steps of the Citadel, forcing yourself not to turn back around. There is nothing left for you in the ruins of Insomnia, nothing left in the raging chaos that has veiled Eos to perpetual night. The darkness hums. In the silence, time ticks forward. Only the quiet minutes hear your helpless plea as you say, Take me back, take me back, take me back.

It is the eve of the departure for the signing ceremony when you find Ardyn outside your doorstep. In a heartbeat, he pins you back against the wall, the door to your quarters slams shut in shameless violence. A bang that seems to purposely croon an echo that says, Let them hear us. He stares down at you, and you stare back. The moment of silence bears a heavy challenge.

So you let go of any rational thought as your fingers thread through his hair; a slow sweep, and then that sharp tug. A bold move for someone like you, if you dare say so yourself. But at this point, you know how much he likes it. And he lets you know how much when his lips find the crook of your neck, hungry and greedy and desperate for every inch of your skin.

“I’m assuming you had a difficult day with His Imperial Majesty?” you say, stifling a moan that hitches its way out of your mouth.

“Not as difficult as you, my dear,” he whispers against your ear. “Now be a darling and help me get you out of this horrible armour.”

You do not oblige. Instead, your hands first make its way to unbutton his shirt, and he watches you with sheer pleasure as you tug him out of his coat and every layer of his clothing, one after the next. But Ardyn never lets you get ahead. His own hands respond in kind when he begins to do just the same. He has done this way too many times that he already knows each belt and buckle to unfasten. The pauldrons slip, the cuirass drops, the armour unravels. A sharp clang meets the hardwood floor, a sound that now bellows an invitation: Let us put on a show.

But frankly, this is hardly a show. If anything, this has always been a competition neither of you are winning. As far as you are concerned, this was only supposed to be a one night affair. Nothing more. You know very well how this would jeopardize your position as the Brigadier General in the Imperial Army.

And of all the people to have these amorous trysts with, you just had to pick the Chancellor of Niflheim.

You brush your thumb across his bottom lip. “So much for being discreet, aren’t we?”

Ardyn says nothing, but the sultry smirk on his face speaks volumes. He only propels you to your bed, pushing you back against the sheets, peeling you off from the rest of your garments, piece by urgent piece. In that moment, whatever formalities or gentlemanly grace he possesses, he no longer bears it. He lays it all at your feet. You watch him as he kneels before you, spreading your legs apart, pressing kisses on your inner thighs. The heat of his breath lingers on your skin.

“If only these fools could hear you like this,” he says, as he finally dips a finger inside you, one that he matches with the clever movement of his mouth.

Your voice cracks to a helpless whimper, your body wilts into his touch. On and on, he curls his fingers in and out, circling at a blinding pace; his tongue, rough and hungry for your taste. This man has only known you for months, and yet he has mastered all the tricks to make you bend into his will. He wields this knowledge of you like a blade, whetted sharply for your pleasures. Gods forbid, you know how he is determined to use this against you until you sing his name over and over—

“Ardyn, please. Inside me. Now.” The command leaves you in an exhausted moan as you struggle to pull yourself up, your hand catching a fistful of his hair.

He pulls away, positively amused. He takes your hand, nibbles at the base of your palm. A devilish smile crosses his face. “I can’t quite hear you, my dear—“

“I’m bloody serious,” you say with an impatient groan, “I’m going to kill you if you don’t—“

“Now, General—let’s not resort to violence, shall we?” Ardyn hauls himself up, settles his body between your legs, but he does not heed your command. Yet. Instead, he hovers over you, treading the landscape of your flesh with teasing, open-mouthed kisses. He cruises the wave of your waist, the valley of your breasts, the ridge of your collarbones. He sinks his teeth at the skin on your neck when he spreads you even wider, pushing himself inside you.

With bated breath, a gasp breaks out of your lips, while your name spills on his in a breathless chant. Your legs lock around his waist as the tempo of his thrusts grow into a maddening rhythm. The beat of his hips against yours is nothing less intoxicating. Night after night, you realize that this is how the two of you make music: dipped in a passionate fire, both artist and arsonist, each grunt and groan a melody meant to be burned into memory. And you want this. You have always wanted this, and you have always wanted him.

All spent and sated, Ardyn crashes on the bed, his body on top of yours. He rolls on his back and takes you along with him. You rest your head on his chest, still catching your breath. For a moment, you let the silence linger; you find yourself drawn to the uneven sound of his heartbeat when he says, “I hope you don’t mind if I stay over.”

His suggestion startles you that you sit up in an instant, dragging the sheets up to your chest. “I beg your pardon but—what? Why?”

“What do you mean why?” Ardyn props himself up by his elbows. “I just want to, is all.”

“But you never stay over. It’s always fuck and go, remember?”

“You make it sound like what we have is a terrible arrangement.” Ardyn laughs, taking your hand in his. “Surely we can make minor amendments to that?”

The way he calls this as simple as an arrangement slightly stings that you pull your hand away from him. A strange expression passes over his face. You eye him warily, one eyebrow raised with suspicion. “But why?” you ask again.

Ardyn sighs. “Is it so terribly inappropriate for me to want more than just to fornicate and would prefer wanting some amiable company for a night?”

“Really—fornicate?” You stifle a bubbling laughter. Sometimes, Ardyn’s choice of words in his day to day vernacular can be oddly archaic, one that you find strangely amusing. “I can’t decide if you’re painfully formal or simply too old.”

“I’d say both,” Ardyn admits noncommittally. “I am a very old man, after all.”

“Well, you certainly do not fuck like one.”

“My, how vulgar. So—“ he pulls you back to his chest that you squeal in surprise— “shall I take that as a yes?”

You hold his gaze a little longer than you should. The logical part of you begs for you to say No, leave me be, let’s end this here before it turns into something else. The fear of that something else torches your throat dry. Because the truth is, what should have ended after one evening of an arrangement have already spiraled into weeks and months in your bed—or his, if you count the rare occasions he has let you in his personal bedchamber. One night should have been enough. It never should have gotten this far. It never should have ended up with this night where you punctuate the insignificance of this nameless affair by considering if he could stay over, not when the real question you should be asking is if he could stay in your life—

“Only for tonight,” you say quickly, sealing the deal with a feathery kiss, as if hoping the gesture will dismiss the troublesome train of thought away.

But had you known the circumstances that lie ahead, you would have done things a little bit differently. Perhaps, you would have kissed him harder. You would have let him stayed without any reservation. You would have permitted yourself to indulge this short time you had together. You would have said the things you have always wanted to say, and then you would not have spent the next months tormented with regret.

It is the eve of his departure. Still, even on a night like this, being with you never fails to make Ardyn a little ill at ease with a troublesome thought. What makes it particularly troublesome is that it is as nebulous as a foggy day in Gralea; he struggles to grasp the right words to shape his restlessness into meaning. One might say that it is a strange occurrence for a man such as Ardyn, who takes pride in his own eloquence, who is always charmingly articulate, the sort of fellow who never minces his words. But this predicament of his holds his vocabulary hostage. What he knows for a certainty that this has everything to do with you.

If Ardyn were to be honest—and mind you, he somehow considers himself quite an honest man, heavens forbid—he would admit that the only reason why he wanted to stay over is to be with you. Not to fuck—as you would so casually put it—but to simply relish each other’s company. And if he were to be really honest, he would also admit that he adores the smallest of things about you. Best believe he is drawn by the scent of your hair, the sound of your laughter, your clever mouth sharpened by your wit, and the sweet taste of your kiss that beckons a strong desire to be closer to you. He does not understand why these things seem to matter to him. All he knows is that a vague longing in him stirs. A burning need for you seethes. Would it be so wrong of him to watch over you while you sleep, to hold you in his arms for a night?

Perhaps the object of his restlessness is less of a thought and more of a feeling.

And perhaps it bothers him so because it has been a long while since Ardyn felt things.

A long while would be a gross understatement for all those countless millennia. All those years—those wretched immortal years—Ardyn has long abandoned the notion of affection, intimacy a concept that no longer bears any meaning. He is now a foreigner to trivial things such as these. He has been far too accustomed to the company of his emptiness, of anger and fury, of cold indifference. This is all that he has left.

And yet, with you…

Ardyn heaves a sharp sigh. He tucks a strand of your hair behind your ear as he watches the steady rhythm of your breaths, the rise and fall of your chest. He presses a kiss on your forehead before he gets dressed, leaving you in this lonesome night without another word.

A woman is standing at the end of the Citadel steps that you are almost convinced that the ghosts of Lucian royalties of yore have answered your call. But the woman appears neither royal nor ghostly; she looks plain as any old civilian, white hair and pale face and all.

“Who are you? And what are you doing here?” you ask, purely out of concern. In the midst of the darkness, her eyes are piercing blue, and you slowly notice the quiet boldness that emanates from her graceful face. “It’s dangerous to be out here on your own—”

“You came here for Ardyn, have you not?”

You raise an eyebrow. “And what if I have?”

“Then I have come to seek the right person,” the woman says unsmilingly.

“What do you mean? Who are you?” you ask again, firmly holding her gaze. Far ahead, a gust of wind billows.

“A Messenger of the Bladekeeper,” the woman answers. “You can call me Johanna. And I’m here because I want to ask you a favour.”

You cast her a wary and immensely suspicious glance. You must say, you admire her boldness to come this far on her own with a favour, but also for her ridiculous claim to be a Messenger of the Gods. And of Bahamut, even.

“So, Messenger of the Bladekeeper,” you repeat as you circle Johanna, studying her from head to foot, “how can a mortal such as myself possibly help you? You, who have all the power at your disposal?”

“You have every right to doubt my intentions,” says Johanna tactfully, unflinching. “But you and I are after the same person. I am also here for Ardyn, but not in the same way you are here for him. I cared for that child before he was a man grown, and I have been far too complacent—and complicit—to the will of the gods had in store for him. I will carry that shame in all my immortal days.”

“So what now?” you challenge, folding your arms over your chest. “You seek to defy the gods to save that lonely man who sits on the throne without a kingdom to rule over? Is that it?”

“Indeed. Whatever punishment the gods have for me, I am prepared to pay the price.” Her voice is strong and sharp, and unsettlingly so. “And I am certain that you, too, would do the same for him.”

You consider Johanna for a moment. “And what would you have me do?”

The expression on Johanna’s face remains blank with expression. “I’m afraid we have to go back to the very beginning,” she says, and the last thing you hear is the snap of her fingers before the world shifts to a blinding white.

#final fantasy xv #ffxv #ffxv fanfiction #ardyn izunia #ardyn x reader #my writing #writing commissions

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loversandantiheroes · 7 years

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Like Blood Running Warm - Part 2

Author’s Note: So this is largely the result of my attempt at Nano participation, which is honestly pretty paltry. Thanks to @longjackets, @nikkidee, @kingandcrook, and @veradune for the beta help - sorry I tried to flag you all down on a mutual hell week! There’s a lack of musical references in this chapter. My apologies, I promise there’ll be more in chapter 3.

Summary: A snowstorm strands a group of bus passengers at a near-derelict station overnight near the Colorado border. One of them just can’t seem to get warm.

Rating: M probably for the sake of blood and swearing and bodily harm.

Warnings: Angst by the bucket, Terminal Illness, Simm!Master being…Simm!Master and thus a walking dumpster fire, Actual Blood and Vampirism, Implied Harassment, Light Body Horror (no really, it got an “ew” from all the betas).

Word Count: 5314

AO3 Link: here

Previous Chapter: 1

- 1:28am

The sudden darkness was dizzying, and John shuffled off-balance. The quiet mutterings and conversations around him twisting into startled cries and yelps. Someone screamed. Blackpool’s hand clamped down almost painfully on his, and the dark brown of her irises gave a dull flash in the darkness. The first real thread of fear wound itself around his chest, drawing tight.

Well good job, old man, he thought, wheezing, either you’re delirious or you’ve flipped your fucking lid.

The maglite twisted in his hands, sliding back into the ring at his belt and pinching two of his fingers with it. He jerked it free, cursing, and clicked it on. Faces turned to the light like moths, wide and blank and fretful.

“It’s alright,” he said, trying to pretend he couldn’t hear the reedy rattle and whine in his own voice. “It’s alright. Lines go down every winter. Probably the only thing they account for around here. There’s a generator in the back.”

John leaned over the front desk, letting loose an unpleasant hitching cough as the pressure got to be too much. It was like his lungs itched. He searched blindly in the cubby under the desk, listening to the clatter as more than a few things were jostled loose and clattered to the floor. Finally, his hand seized on a thick, rubberized, plastic handle and hauled up a heavy torch lantern. He clicked it on and handed it to London.

“Point it up,” he said, gesturing to the ceiling. “Diffuses the light, should keep you from burning any retinas.”

“Yes boss,” she said with a little salute. She was smiling, but the beam of light from the lantern jittered and shook across the acoustic tiles.

John clucked his tongue, pointing at Masters. “You, give me a hand in back.” He stifled another ragged cough with his jacket sleeve. Inhale three, exhale two. Not far out enough to make it rattle. Come on, you old fuck, get it under control.

Masters gave him a look that was all puckered forehead and pursed, scowly mouth, but when John dragged on his coat and made for the Employee’s Only door, Masters followed.

“Should be through here,” John said, shining his torch down the narrow hall. To his left was a storeroom; to his right the back office, break room, and the driver’s office, which was furnished with a cot and a couch. At the far end was a heavy door that led to the sheltered storage compartment.

“Not quite sure what you need me for,” Masters said, and for the first time, John heard a faint trace of Northern England in the man’s accent. Not the caricature he’d used on Blackpool; this was real, but faint and faded. Stateside awhile then, maybe. “Starting up a generator isn’t exactly a team exercise. Push button, pull cord. It’s usually pretty fucking simple.”

“Maybe,” John agreed. “But the way things are going tonight, I’d rather not make any assumptions. And besides,” He turned, pointed the beam of the torch at Master’s chest and watched him squint. “I really don’t trust you.”

“I...excuse me?”

“You’re new to this route, yeah?” John turned away and heard the shuffle and squeak of the man’s shoes as he stumbled a little in the dark.

“Yeah.”

“Fairly new myself,” John said. “Only been working here a few months. But you get used to people, y’know? At least a few of them. This stop’s rubbish. Most of the big stuff goes straight through to Denver. We get little outbound trips or layovers and a few little stops and changeovers, like your one.”

“You gonna get to a point, old man?” Masters regarded him strangely in the glow of the torch, head tilted, eyes narrowed.

“My point is you’ve had this route for one night, and there’s already two women walked off that bus that cannot wait to get away from you, can barely stand to look at you, and as far as I’m concerned that tells me everything I need to know.”

“Bullshit,” Masters said, weak light bouncing off his teeth as he bared them in a nasty grin.

“Oh, I doubt that.” John felt his pulse pick up, drumming fretfully in his throat. He gestured to the badge on Masters’ chest. “New route, old ID. I’d be willing to put down a fair chunk of my last paycheck you got shunted off your old route for the same thing you’re trying to get up to now. Probably even the one before that. Must have friends in Admin somewhere, but if they’ve stuck you all the way out here, I’d say you’re probably on your last legs. Been getting too handsy or too mouthy.”

“I don’t think you know anything. I think you just want to play white knight for your little girlfriend back there so you can try and get in her panties before the roads clear, provided you can get that withered old pecker to stand up on its own. What about it, Granddad? That thing even raised its head since Y2K?”

“This is your last shot, am I right?” John carried on, unblinking, patient. “Last run before they drop you for good, before somebody can press charges and make it shit for the whole company instead of just you.”

Masters blinked, his grin faltering and falling into a sneer.

John stepped forward, eyes boring down on the shorter man. “Ah. There it is. Thought so. Now, alas, my scrapping days are a bit behind me. So as much as it’d do my heart good to chib your perverted little ratface back through your arsehole, I’m afraid that’s not really an option. But I promise you, if you so much as breathe at those ladies wrong, I will be on the phone to human resources first thing come daylight, and I will do my level best to make sure there are charges filed against you. Are we clear?”

Master’s lip was twitching. He looked fit to spit nails if he was given half a chance. “Crystal,” he snapped.

“Wonderful.” John made for the heavy door, twisting the handle. The door crackled, gave a fraction, a thin whistle of cold wind coming through the infinitesimal gap, and stopped. It wasn’t iced over, not properly. The outer storage was sheltered, but it was cold enough it had frosted up the gap in the door frame just enough to stick fast.

“Damn. Gimme a hand here, door’s stuck.”

Masters socked his shoulder against the door.

“On three,” John said. The itching in his chest was maddening. He zipped his coat all the way up, ducking his head to cover his mouth and nose with the collar, puffing in what little warmish air he could.

“Three!” Masters lunged suddenly, driving his shoulder into the door.

John yelped as the door popped open with a loud crack, sending him spilling down the short steps to the concrete floor, flashlight tumbling from his grip, scraping skin from the heels of his hands and twisting his left knee painfully beneath him. The storage room was sheltered but not heated, and the pavement was icy cold. The first lungful of cold air hit his lungs like ice water, and he coughed it back up, pins and needles pricking up and down his arms and chest as he rocked and wheezed.

Masters stood over him, regarding his current state with mild distaste. “Ooh, sorry about that, Granddad. Guess I got a little over-eager.” He squatted, knees popping. “Y’know I gotta tell you, friend. You don’t look so good.”

John could feel his face turning purple, as much from humiliation as from strain. Brokedown old fool, you can’t even protect yourself let alone anyone else. There was a horrible tearing sensation in his chest, and he groaned and hocked up some horrible mass of spongy tissue that did not feel like phlegm. He spat into the darkness, wiping his mouth judiciously without sparing a glance to whatever had torn itself loose.

Masters tutted. “In point of fact, you’re in just about the sorriest state I’ve seen anybody who wasn’t rattling the chain ‘round the pearly gates.” The man rocked back on his heels, chuckling.

“I’m good enough,” John grated and pulled himself up, hanging onto the door handle for purchase. His knee throbbed but just barely took his weight. A hot flush surged through him. The first sharp little beads of sweat formed across his forehead, stinging in the cold. Not good. Not good at all.

John waited. A taste of copper lingered in the back of his throat. His stomach knotted. He balled his fists but did not raise them, shifting his weight to his good foot.

“If you mean to try it, be my guest,” he said. Every word hurt, like his chest was full of knives. “Have at. Then you can have a jolly old time explaining to the day manager why you took the half-dead porter out into the cold for a few rounds. I mean, provided I don’t just keel over after one hit, right? Come on. Give those chains a good rattle, mate.”

The glee drained away from Masters’ face, leaving only that ratty, pinched look of disdain. The prick didn’t want a fight, especially one that might leave a half-frozen corpse in the storage shed of his employers. “Well, well,” he said bitterly. “Spunky old fuck, aren’t you?”

John pointed to the far corner. “Generator,” he snarled.

“Yeah, yeah. Right. Generator.”

Only when Masters had backpedaled a good five feet did John bend to retrieve the flashlight. The generator was shored up behind a plywood and chainlink partition, latched but not locked. The beast itself wasn’t quite as old as the rest of the building would’ve left him to believe, but it was hardly new. It was, at least, fairly well maintained by the looks of everything. The fuel tank was nearly full with diesel, and the exhaust hose still had a solid seal. Small mercies, finally. Master had been right about one thing: this was not a two man job. The generator had a simple on/off switch and a pull cord. Flip one, pull the other.

John flipped the switch. He took a deep breath, hiding his mouth and nose under the collar of his coat again, and pulled the cord. The generator belched fitfully, then roared, sending up little wafts of exhaust and steam into the cold. The open doorway filled with thin light as the electrics kicked on.

“Right. In,” John said, jabbing the maglite at the open door. “And I meant what I said. I don’t much care what happens to me, doesn’t matter much at the end of the day. But you leave them alone.”

“Yes sir,” Masters sneered.

- 1:59am

“Blimey, you look like death, you alright?” London jogged up as John came limping in, rubbing her palms nervously on the legs of her jeans.

John shook his head dismissively. “Back door was stuck, took a tumble, I’ll be fine. Everyone alright here?”

“Yeah, yeah, we’re good. Susan had to use the ladies, Clara went with, so I gave them the torch. They’ve been gone for a few though. Clara’s been looking kinda pale, probably just nerves or bad cafeteria nosh.”

“I’ll go check on them.”

London blinked. “I mean, that’s sweet, sort of, but it is a ladies’ room. Fairly certain you’re not a lady. I can do it.”

“I didn’t say I was going to just walk in. There’s this fantastic thing that got invented a while back called knocking. People do it on doors, I hear. Wild stuff, thought I’d give it a shot.” He spared a glance at Masters, who had found himself a spot on a bench in the far corner and was fanning through the pages of some expired magazine.

“Here,” he said, an idea striking him. He pulled the keys from his belt, found the strange, fat, round one, and held it out to her. “Vending machine. Bottom of the panel. Be sure you lift up when you try to open, it sticks.”

“You sure? Won’t you get in trouble?”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh I’ll definitely get in trouble. They’ll whinge and moan and take twenty dollars in junk food out of my next paycheck. To hell with ‘em. You lot could use a pick me up.”

“Sweet!”

The bathrooms were down a narrow hallway next to a janitorial closet and a pay phone. John raised his hand to knock, then froze. A grunt came from inside, followed by a thud. In his mind he saw Blackpool dropping like a stone to the stone tiled floor and any sense of propriety immediately fled. He threw the door open and staggered in, preparing himself for anything.

It wasn’t Blackpool that had fallen. Susan, the older blonde, lay half-propped against the tiled wall under the electric hand dryer. Her eyes were rolled up to the whites, lids fluttering, mouth ajar. It was the sort of vacant, ecstatic look John had only ever associated with either good drugs or good sex. Blackpool bent over her, stroking her hair gently, face buried in the blonde woman’s neck.

“B-Blackpool?”

Her head snapped up. A thin line of blood trickled from one corner of her mouth. Her eyes had gone a bright, burnished gold like wedding bands around wide, blown pupils. “Fuck. Glasgow,” she said, almost mournfully. Her canines were too long, too sharp, bone-white spindles glinting bloody in the greasy fluorescent lights. “Please don’t be scared.”

Please don’t be scared. It was more than a request. He felt it hit the center of his brain, the flow of adrenaline suddenly ceasing. The scream he felt bubbling up died off in his throat. He was not calm, but his fear had been stopped wholesale. The shock of it, after everything, was too much. His knees gave, and he collapsed in a tangled heap.

Blackpool watched him fall, pained, as if she hadn’t meant to use whatever power she’d thrown at him. “I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry. Give me one moment. I can explain. I promise you. Please. Just let me explain.”

She stuck her thumb in her mouth, and John heard an unpleasant crunch of as one of those fangs punched through the skin. She squeezed until the blood ran, then swiped it across the neat punctures on Susan’s neck. They closed almost instantly, and Blackpool bent to lick away the remains.

“This, this isn’t, this can’t be. You can’t be…”

And then she was beside him, cold hands cupping his face. He squeezed his eyes shut. Sharp nails scraped against the sides of his scalp. He breathed her in, a bouquet of bloody lilac and dark chocolate like a grim valentine, and beneath it something darker, wilder, older. Here at last was death, not inside him but above him, with feral teeth and bloody breath. The first tears, hot and stinging, started to fall. In the absence of his fear he was left with a cold, bone-deep emptiness, a ragged hole where the fear had been. He marked the shape of it with mild interest, noted where it sat, the odd frayed ends where it connected to him. It was a queer sensation, this detachment, but the separation brought with it it’s own horrible realization: in this manner or any other, he was afraid to die.

Her thumbs traced the hollows of his face. “Glasgow. Doctor. Look at me. Please.”

Cautiously he opened his eyes. The gold in her eyes was fading slowly back to warm brown, fangs receding. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Her hands fell away, and whatever control she had imposed on him fell with it. She slumped away from him, wild patches of roses blooming in her cheeks.

“I didn’t want you to see that,” she said.

“Tell me I’m delirious, Blackpool,” he whispered. “Do that. Please. Tell me I’m crazy. Anything.”

“I’m sorry, but you’re not.”

“This is real?”

“Yes.”

John passed a hand over his face. “You’re a vampire. Vampires are real and you’re one of them.”

“Yes.”

“Right. Okay.” A long beat. Then: “Is she dead? Did you kill her?”

“No,” Blackpool said immediately. “I don’t do that. I won't do that. I took no more than I needed. She would’ve given up more in the back of a Red Cross van. She’ll only be out for a few minutes.”

John’s laugh sounded horrible to his own ears, something mad and hyena-like, high and wheezing and verging on hysterical. “Then we should get her out of here. Quickly, before someone else comes to check.”

Blackpool stared blankly at him. “What?”

“Would you rather leave her on the lavatory floor?”

“No, I just… You’re going to help me? You saw what I did, and you’re going to help me?” she asked disbelievingly.

“For the moment, yes. I’m going to help you. And then I’m going to put the kettle on, and you and I are going to sit down and you are going to explain this to me, because right now I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“And what about the rest of them? What will you tell them?”

“What will you tell them?” he asked, too sharply. “I found you in here with her after she’d collapsed. If anyone needs a story here it’s you.”

“She fainted,” Blackpool said without hesitation. She didn’t even blink. “Clocked her head on the tiles.”

“Fine. Good enough. There are cots in the back in the driver’s room. We can lay her down there. Help me get her up.”

He moved to get up, but his knee buckled, and he slid back to the floor, stifling a yelp.

“What happened, what’s wrong?” She was leaning towards him cautiously, hands out.

“I…” he considered, reconsidered, shook his head. “Door to the back was frozen shut. We got it open, but I took a spill. It’s fine, I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, so you keep telling me.” That concern was back, her mouth set, brow furrowed. Carefully, she laid a hand on his knee, feeling him wince away from the touch. Reflexively, she put her other hand to his chest, meaning to hold him still or calm him, he wasn’t sure which, but then she stopped dead.

The hand on his chest slid down, twisted, curled around his ribs. Her face fell. She could feel it. Somehow she could. He’d found her not five minutes ago feeding on the blood of some upper middle class housewife in a public bathroom and now here she was on her knees beside him with pain and pity in her eyes, fingers finding in seconds what it had taken sixteen hours in an ER and a CT scan for the doctors to find. “Oh God. Glasgow-”

“Don’t,” he said, his heart in his throat, strangling the word. “Not now.”

She swallowed hard. “Alright. Alright, I won’t. But your knee will not hold up you and her both, and you’re running a fever. It’s not bad, not yet. I can help, a little, if you’ll trust me to.”

John found his mouth too dry to speak. The initial shock was fading, and the fear he’d felt for that brief moment still had not returned to take its place. Behind Blackpool on the tiles, Susan had taken to snoring gently. The banality of it was jarring, clattering up against the still-fresh image of the grotesquerie he had stumbled in on. It was getting harder and harder to believe he had seen what he had seen. Monsters, in his limited experience, were not meant to be merciful.

What, then, did that make her?

He asked, “What did you have in mind?”

She held up her right hand in offering. Blood still trickled slowly from her thumb. “It won’t change you, not like me,” she added reassuringly. The hand on his side squeezed gently. “And I’m sorry, but it won’t cure you. But it will help for a time.”

Heaven help me. This night cannot get any stranger.

He nodded dumbly. “Alright.”

John opened his mouth and waited, thinking distantly of kneeling before a priest for communion. Blackpool slid her thumb into his mouth, three neat droplets of blood collecting on his tongue. Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.

The effect was almost instantaneous. The pain in his leg vanished, the stiffness in his joints, too. The prickling flush of the building fever faded, leaving in its stead a low, pleasant hum. He felt good. He felt fantastic, actually, the hum building into something warm and sweet that made a small shiver trickle down his spine. Instinctively, he moved forward, wanting more, but Blackpool pulled her bloodied thumb back and held him fast.

“No. That’s enough.”

John blinked, hearing his breathing come a little too quick and ragged. “Sorry,” he said stupidly.

“It’s ok. I should’ve warned you first.” She rocked back onto her feet. “Can you stand?”

He laughed. “I think I could run the Boston Marathon right now. What the hell are you made of, morphine and adderall?”

“And slugs and snails and puppydog tails.” She smiled and offered him a hand.

For the first time in maybe fifteen years, John’s back and knees gave no protest as he stood. Three drops, he marveled. Better than Vicodin.

Susan gave a snorting groan and half-rolled onto her side, sliding down a little further toward the floor with her blonde hair trailing sticking to the tiles, trailing above her in a little fan. She was mumbling, a train of words lost in a slur of sleep, the only thing John could make out sounded suspiciously like “pancakes”.

Lifting her was astonishingly easy, as if she weighed nothing at all. Carrying her out proved to be far more awkward. Blackpool was so damned short and John so tall that Susan hung askew between their shoulders like a sagging laundry line. In his present state, John felt he could’ve hoisted her one-armed on his own, but everyone had seen him limp in from the back, and this didn’t need to seem any stranger than it already was. John managed to use his elbow to pry the door open just far enough to jam one bony hip through and shove it the rest of the way.

“Oi!” he called out, surprised at the strength of his own voice. “London! We could use a little help!”

The squeak of her shoes echoed down the hall. London gasped when she rounded the corner, her jog turning into a sprint. “Oh my god, what happened? Is she okay?”

“I dunno she just passed out,” Blackpool said as they hobbled her out to the hallway. “One minute we were drying our hands and talking about wanting breakfast and next thing I know she’s just collapsed.”

Oh, she was good. John kept his eyes judiciously forward, jerking his head in the vague direction of the back offices. “There’s a cot in the driver’s break room, give us a hand with the doors, yeah?”

“Yeah! Of course, yeah, doors, I can do doors,” Bill said, jogging along nervously beside them.

There was a small outcry when they cleared the lounge as the other passengers got a look at the unconscious woman.

“She’s alright,” John said in his best reassuringly authoritative tone. “Just a little fainting spell, nothing to worry about.”

“Pancakes,” Susan grumbled.

“Hey, you’re comin’ round,” Blackpool said, giving the woman a hopeful pat.

“I want pancakes. There’s nooo pancakes,” Susan whined, head lolling. “I-wanna-speak-to-your-manager.”

“Does anybody know, did she eat anything in Cheyenne?” London asked loudly, pushing open the door to the back offices. A few folk shrugged. “Might be low blood sugar. Moira, my foster mum, she gets it all the time, goes a little too long between meals and gets all wobbly. Passed out in Sainsbury's once on a display full of kievs.”

The driver’s room was small, walls painted the same ancient off-green as the rest of the place. A long faded brown couch sat catty-cornered next to a big boxy television with at least half of its plastic buttons snapped off. Three cots were lined up in the back, past a round chipped formica table under a row of tall, narrow windows. London scooted past them, shoving peeling vinyl chairs out of the way, and waved them to one of the green cots.

“Alright, ease her down,” John said, slipping the woman from his shoulders. “Get her feet please.”

London stooped and grabbed Susan’s fleece-lined Uggs. “So what do we do? I mean we can’t get a doctor in.”

John bent, feeling around on the woman’s wrist, counting beats and watching the second hand on the yellowed clock face on the wall tick by. “Damned if I know,” he said. “No medical bracelet, anyway, so. Pulse seems good, at least, but if she knocked her head on the way down she’s gonna have a hell of a headache when she comes around.”

He turned to London, who was chewing fretfully on her nails. “Can you stay here, keep an eye on her?”

“Yeah, yeah of course.”

“If she wakes up, make sure she stays put, don’t let her up. I’ll get another round of tea and coffee started and bring you a handful of nibbles out of the machine. Hopefully, it is just one too many missed meals.”

London tucked herself onto the cot next to Susan, hands around her knees.

- 2:20am

John left a stack of foil-wrapped Mrs. Field’s cookies and two styrofoam cups of tea with London. She seemed grateful, piling up the foil packets on the TV tray someone had turned into an erstwhile cot-side table and starting immediately on her tea, but her face was strained and the flesh under her eyes was beginning to bulge and sag.

“You ok?” he asked, nudging her shoulder gently.

“Yeah,” she said, an easy and automatic lie. He tipped his head, a wordless question, and she sighed. “No. I mean, it’s stupid. Don’t mind me.”

“If you’re not alright, you’re not alright,” John said, sitting carefully on the last empty cot. “It’s been a weird night. You’re allowed to not be alright all the time.”

“I just, I’ve had this bad feeling all day, and it just keeps getting worse. Like, I’m just about the least intuitive person you’ll ever meet. Ask any of my friends and they’ll tell you that. Night out on a pub crawl, I tried to ask the number of this gorgeous girl, and it wasn’t until we actually left that pub that my friends bothered to point out that the girl’s boyfriend was sitting next to her the whole time. Something could be staring me right in the face waving a little flag and I’d never see it. But…” She trailed off picking at the rim of the styrofoam cup.

“But?” he asked. The tiniest push.

“Something’s wrong,” she whispered, as if afraid someone would hear, “or is gonna be wrong. I feel like, like I’m standing on a diving board, and there’s no water in the pool. Just right at the edge of something awful. I can feel it in my stomach, snaking around. The longer this day goes on, and the more happens, the worse it gets. And I keep trying to ignore it because it’s stupid, you know? Queen of the Oblivious suddenly turns anxiety-psychic. That’s just not a thing.”

John leaned forward on his elbows. “You’re scared.”

She laughed. “Yeah, Dumbo. I’m scared. Properly bricking it.”

“Me too,” he said gently.

London looked at him, all at once stricken and relieved, and burst into tears.

“I just wanna go home to my girlfriend,” she said between hitching sobs. “We had a fight before I left on holiday. Heather, she was supposed to come with me, and then she couldn’t, and I said something stupid, and she said something stupid, and we were both just so bloody stupid. I haven’t even been able to phone her since I left. Too bloody chicken. And today I woke up cold and miserable in a cheap motel with mouse-eaten sheets, and the very first thought in my head was: I’m never gonna see her again. And the last thing she’s going to remember of us is me slamming the door.”

After everything that had happened that night, somehow this was the worst. London was a sweet girl, bright and sharp and funny, and seeing her crumble in some grubby little back office hurt in some fundamental fashion John couldn’t quite name. He wanted to comfort her, but Christ, he was terrible at comfort anymore. The part of him he’d swung open so easily to admit others had all but rusted shut with grief and disuse.

John dropped to a crouch and tugged one of her hands into his. “There is nothing wrong with scared, London,” he said, willing his voice to softness. “Scared keeps you from sticking forks in light sockets or playing tag with traffic. And scared is how you know when something matters to you. Really matters. Because you don’t fear losing the things that have no value to you.”

The shaking in her shoulders was easing, but only just. “It’s not just that.”

“What is it? What is it that has you so sure you’re not going to make it home?”

“I dunno,” she said. “Like I said I just, I felt it, soon as I woke up. It’s stupid, I know.”

“I don’t think it’s stupid. I think you’re a long way from home and things have gone spectacularly pear-shaped. But I think there’s more to it than you’re telling me.” Her hand gave a little jerk. “Is it about the driver?”

London all but shrank into herself, wiping at her eyes with the heel of her hand.

“That’s a yes, then,” John said.

“Leave it. Please.”

John took a deep breath, all at once too angry to marvel at just how deep and easily he could breathe for the moment. “Alright.” He thought to say more, to promise her protection, safety, to try for a warm, roguish smile and tell her that if Masters meant to get at her he’d have to go through him first, but the incident in the storage room was still too fresh. He was no protector, even if he wanted to be.

Instead, he said: “You ever seen the sun come up over the snow in Colorado?”

London shook her head, sniffling. He gave her hand a squeeze.

“Well,” he said, glancing up at the clock. “In about three hours, you’re going to. And by then the plows will be out, and they’ll dig out this little dungheap of a station so you can get on the next bus to Denver. Yeah? And you’ll call your girlfriend on the bus out and find out she’s probably already forgiven you for the thing you haven’t forgiven yourself for.”

She let out a dry bark that was half sob and half laughter.

“You’re gonna be ok.”

That got a smile through a fresh fall of tears. “Thank you,” she muttered.

He gave her hand one last squeeze. “Drink your tea. I’m just around the corner, alright?”

She nodded, scrubbing at her face with the sleeves of her jumper.

As John turned to leave, he found the doorway occupied. Blackpool stood leaning with her shoulder against the frame, looking at him with a teary sort of disbelief, as though he were the creature spun up from a storybook and not her.

“I’m starting to wonder if you’re real,” she said.

He propped open the door to the break room with his elbow. “So sayeth the vampire,” he muttered softly.

“It’s easy to believe in monsters,” she said earnestly. “After awhile it gets harder to believe in kindness.”

#whouffaldi #twelve x clara #doctor who fanfiction #twelfth doctor #clara oswald #vamp!clara #two in a row woohoo

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