#featuring: arthur pruitt (valiantsword)

[embalmic]

@valiantsword || 100 nonverbal prompts || accepting!

∗ 52﹕ sender takes a [ punch / stab / bullet ] meant for receiver .

Laura's heels make an echoing clack down the alleyway as she makes her way out of the club towards her car leaving behind a group of girls from work that are way so drunk that their already annoying personalities became outright fucking unbearable by the third round of overly sweet drinks that she decided she'd pass on. One beer in and an hour of her time wasted, she was completely sober and ready to run.

She hears the footsteps behind her, gives the source a cursory glance over her shoulder and gets that gross feeling in her stomach when she sees the guy. Her keys are gripped tighter, woven between her fingers until her knuckles fade to a porcelain white. When he matches her steps that pick up speed, her eyes roll to the cloudless sky overhead and she decides, "Fuck it.."

"What the fuck do you WANT," she's not quiet about it. Nothing about her seems dainty. Besides her size. She's got that going against her by miles. Doesn't matter. The way she stands there..you'd swear she was six feet tall. Even tells the guy to go to hell when he demands she fork over her purse. (Do you know how hard it is to replace your license these days? Fuck the DMV.) But that's what gets her him launching himself at her. And that's what ends up with her and a guy a set of shoulders and a head higher than her in an outright..fistfight.

She's taken her fair share of punches (she's losing but she's not gonna admit that) when she's managed to crawl up onto his back (go down fighting), a fist in his hair and one punching as hard as she can into his neck when he backs up and slams her into a wall so hard the world goes black for a second. She feels the pavement under her knees and then it all stops. There's two voices and she turns her head to look up, licking the blood off her lip to see another guy's come along and shit he takes a punch square in the jaw for her before the asshole decides he can't fight a man and is swinging trying to back off towards the exit.

"Mother fucker," she wipes the back of her hand across her mouth and drags herself up onto her knees looking up at the guy who stepped in and the other trying to escape. "Yeah? What now, asshole? Christ.." God damn, now the adrenaline's gotta start wearing off. And that guy's gonna have at least a shiner for helping. "I...uh...you can..um.. I think he's gonna piss himself."