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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 4 months

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A Guiding Hand 1

No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc.

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as noncon/dubcon, age gap, parental neglect, depression, inference of self harm, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: your online academics are affected by your personal struggles but your professor won't let you give up so easy.

Characters: Raymond Smith, Lee Bodecker in the background

Note: surprise double chapters!

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

You lay in the dim glow of your laptop, the screen saver swooshing back and forth, giving light to the dark. You’re limned it its idleness, in a similarly inert state. You blink, eyes dry and raw, your head pounding. Your back and shoulder pang with your inactivity as you lay on your stomach, neck twisted to one side.

Your vision is static and fuzzy, the air humming. You groan and drag an arm up, the effort alone like lifting a boulder. The world is distant and desolate. There is nothing beyond those four walls.

A chime comes from your laptop. You stare at the curtain, darkness along the borders. It’s night time already. Or again. You don’t know. You lost count of the hours, rather, days.

You roll over and peer at the abyss above. The ceiling is similarly shrouded in shadows, the corners clustered with darkness. Your head spins at the effort of your movement. Your tongue is starchy and sticky from neglect. You cough and sit up, nearly falling back against your pillow.

You don’t want to be awake. It’s so much easier to sleep. Nothing makes sense in your dreams but everything is awful in real life.

You push yourself to the edge of the bed and reach for the plastic cup of stagnant water. You sip from the brim and a slam brings you back into focus. Your hand shakes and you clack the cup back on the table, turning to watch the wall as chaos erupts on the other side.

“Goddamn, Irene, get off of me. I ain’t tellin’ ya again,” the holler rolls through like thunder. “Fuckin’ skank.”

Your eyes round as your ears ring. You cover them and back up to cower against the headboard. Your lip trembles as you hear a crash followed by the shatter of glass.

“We were having fun, sweetheart,” your mother’s desperate yawl comes over the patter of her feet, “don’t go so soon, please, baby.”

“Why you actin’ like a goddamn whore?” The man snarls and you hear your mother whimper. You sniffle as you fold yourself up and push your chin down against your knee, shielding your head as if it’s you taking the blow.

“I--” your mother snivels, “I just wanna love you, hon.”

You close your eyes. Lee huffs and stomps past your door, his shadow flickering beneath. He’s just another in a line of men your mother brings around; each one as angry as the last. It always starts the same; at first, they’re nice, then you hear how they change.

“I’m too damn tired and it’s too damn late. I’ll be back when you get your head screwed on,” he retorts and hits the wall, making you jump again as the springs of your bed squeak. “And you’re a goddamn mother... should know better...”

You crouch in fear, locked up as you listen through the wall. You hear him moving around as your mother begs him to stay. You press your hands to your ears so you can’t make out her words. The front door of the apartment snaps shut and quaver out a breath.

You wait until you hear your mother retreat, herself crying, and the clink of a glass comes shortly after. You wipe your face and lift your head slowly. You won’t be able to sleep, not with your heart racing like this.

It takes all your strength to crawl across the bed and put your feet to the floor. Your stench clings to your unwashed clothes. You haven’t changed in a couple days at least. You can barely remember the last time you left your room.

You sit down in front of your computer. The metal seat of the folding chair is hard and cold, even through your pants. You squiggle your fingers over the touchpad of the outdated laptop, as thick as a book.

The screen wakes up and you key in your passcode with one finger. The wallpaper comes up, the colours stinging your eyes, and you squint as you adjust to the glare. You tap on the envelope icon to open your inbox.

At least a dozen unread emails clutter the folder. Reminders and notifications automated by your obligations and inactivity. You scroll through and delete the messages telling you to submit your assignment and noting several missed tests. At the very top, the latest of the bunch, is from a person.

Your heart sinks as you see the name and the subject line. Professor Raymond Smith, Attn: Overdue Work. God. You clutch your head and your eyes tinge once more. You don’t have enough moisture to summon any more tears. Your head pulses and your eyes itch but you can’t cry.

You shudder and make yourself look at the screen. You hover your hand over the mousepad and make yourself tap. Just one quick touch and the message opens.

The professor greets you by name. You want to dissolve into nothing. It’s easy to just be a student number on a screen but now he picks you out of the bunch and you know exactly why. You haven’t logged into the learning site in a week or more. You haven’t been able to make yourself.

‘It has come to my notice that your last tasks have gone unsubmitted. As your instructor, I am obligated to check in to see whether I can expect these assignments to be submitted for grading. As well, I would offer any support necessary for you to do so.

Please respond to this email at your convenience so we might rectify this situation. You may also schedule a meeting through my calendar linked in my signature.

Best Regards,

Professor Smith’

You cringe. How do you explain to him that this always happens? That you’re just a failure?

This was supposed to be different, but just like everything, you blew it. You thought that you could make this work. You remember the day you got your acceptance; the program is manageable and you can do it all online. You thought you were getting better but your mom stopped refilling your script and you stopped caring.

You sit, blindly staring at the screen. For an hour, maybe more, caught between shame and sadness. You can’t just run away from another thing. You take a breath and raise your hands over the keyboard. It’s just letters on a screen.

Dear Pro

Hello Professor

I apologize for not submitting my work. I will not be able to complete this course due to mental health personal reasons.

Thank you.

You read and re-read. You guess it’s good enough? You don’t know. Whatever. Just another poor excuse.

You hit send and you peek at the time. You look at the original email. It’s a bit strange the instructor would email that late. You delete the email and go back to bed, hiding under the blanket. Typical, just another stupid idea.

📓

Your head throbs as you wake up. You’ve slept too much. Nothing different than usual but you haven’t left bed for more than a couple minutes at a time. Your skull feels ready to cave in and swells with each movement.

You get up, stumbling as you find your bearings, shuffling to your door and into the hall. You go into the bathroom. It’s a mess, like usual. Your mother’s clothes are on the floor and a man’s razor is on the edge of the sink. Is he here again?

You relieve yourself and flush, washing your hands then your face. You should probably shower while you’re in there. You lift your arm and confirm the need. You stink and your clothes are damp with your sweat.

You undress and crank on the faucet. You step into the grimy booth behind the counter as the water splashes down cold and slowly warms in the whining pipes. You shiver and let it cleanse you as much as it can.

You squeeze out some of the discount soap that smells like a hospital and scrub yourself as the air steams around you. You hear an odd creak then the plastic of the toilet seat hitting the porcelain tank. What the heck?

You grab the edge of the curtain and peek around it, smearing lather along the plastic. It’s opaque enough to blue your silhouette but not completely hide you. That man, Lee, belches as he holds his dick and pisses. He looks over and smirks.

“Ah, sorry, darling, didn’t know you were in here,” he chuckles and turns straight, leaning to brace the wall as he sighs, “goddamn, my balls are tight.”

You pop back behind the curtain and grimace. Ew. It’s not the first time you’ve had an awkward run in with one of your mother’s suitors, for lack of a better term, but no less jarring than any other. You shut off the water and back up, reaching past the other end of the curtain to grab the towel.

Something closes around your wrist and has you yelping. You cling to the curtain, staying behind it as Lee tugs on you.

“Don’t needa be shy, darlin’,” he tries to drag you out, “doubt it’s much different than your mama.”

You try to yank back but he’s too strong. You slip and barely save yourself as you grab onto the towel bar. You cry out, “let go! Please!”

He squeezes and you wince, pressed against the curtain as your knees buckle. Your soles are slippery on the wet tile. You whine and whimper, heart pounding in your chest.

There’s a knock at the door and he lets you go. You quickly pull free the towel and hide in the shower to wrap your body in it. You don’t think it’s clean.

“Everything okay?” The door groans with your mother’s entry.

“Ah, I’m just tryna piss and your daughter’s making all sorts of fuss,” he scoffs and flushes the toilet, “like she ain’t never seen a real man before.”

“Oh, Lee, you shoulda let her finish--”

“What’s the big deal, she was in the shower,” he deflects, “you know I ain’t her for that brat.”

You pant and lean against the wall, veins coursing with adrenaline. Your mother grumbles as they leave. You feel the draught of the open door and warily sidle out from behind the curtain. You gather your clothes and check that the coast is clear and find your way back to your room.

You pull on a fresh hoodie and your least dirty pair of sweats. You need to do laundry desperately. You need to do a lot of things. Your computer bings as if to agree with that sentiment.

You sit down at the table and stare at your laptop. The folding plastic thing has barely enough room for that and your notebook. You sigh. All you do is sigh. Everything is just a disappointment. You have nothing but trash around you and you fit right in.

You open the lid and login. You could watch that play through of the new fantasy game you can’t afford. Or you just break that damn thing. You have an email.

You don’t click on it right away. Instead, you scroll through a subreddit on an obscure television show you streamed on Youtube. All the posts are years old and the place is dead. If you’re good at anything, it’s avoidance.

Finally, your anxiety knots tight enough for you to do something. You close your browser and open Outlook. You make a strange noise as you see the response to the email you sent days ago. Or by your estimation. You scratch your neck until the skin burns.

You work at deleting the spam from your inbox before you’re forced to face the Re:

You click and read with trepidation. Again, the professor addresses you by name.

‘I understand that you are dealing with personal obligations. Considering how far we are in this course, I would like to allow you the opportunity to complete it successfully. If the current workload is too much, we can discuss alternatives to meet the learning objectives.

I would prefer that we have this conversation face-to-face. If you would like explore your options, please use the link below to meet with me on Tuesday at noon. Please confirm here and I look forward to meeting and speaking with you then.

Also let me know if I can do anything else.

Professor Smith’

You want to melt into nothing. You want to evaporate from existence. You want to just keel over and die. How embarrassing!

You want to delete it a forget. You want to say now and through everything away. You want to go back to how you’ve always been. You want to be a slug in the dirt. You want to stop hoping because it only ever ends like this.

But you can’t. You hit the trash button but then you can’t help but stretch your fingertips between CTRL and Z. The message reappears and you read it again and again and again. It feels like this is the moment. This is the big decision you make; is your life always going to be like this or are you going to try?

You hit reply.

‘Thank you, Professor Smith. I will meet you on Tuesday. I appreciate your understanding and I will do better.’

Your eyes blur as you move the cursor over the little arrow. You take a breath and tap your fingertips. That’s that, then.

#raymond smith #a guiding hand #dark raymond smith #dark!raymond smith #professor au #the gentlemen #raymond smith x reader #fic #dark fic #dark!fic #series

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shiorimakibawrites · 9 months

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Code of Conduct (Part 1 of VG)

Code of Conduct - Part I of A Vigilante and a Gentlemen

Pairing: Frank Castle x Fem! Reader Word Count: 2,594 Chapter Summary: You were just trying to get to work. Warning(s): Sexual harassment, fear of sexual assault, swearing Series Masterlist My Masterlist Tag List: @loves0phelia Please let me know if you want to be added to the tag list.

Code of Conduct

When you saw the construction site on your way to work, you were tempted to find another route to work. Very tempted. But you were still learning your way around New York and didn’t want to get lost. Furthermore, you didn’t have time to get lost this morning. You couldn’t be late for work. You hated it but you needed this job. The rent wasn’t going to pay itself.

So you took a deep breath, trained your eyes on the sidewalk in front of you, and started walking at a fast clip. You hoped that you would be ignored. There was nothing eye-catching about your outfit – a knee length shirt, light weight blouse, both in neutral colors. You hoped it was too noisy for the sound of your heels to be heard. You hoped that these men would prove your worries misplaced by concentrating on doing their jobs.

Your hopes were dashed almost immediately. Almost as soon as you were in view of the crew, you heard a shrill whistle. This was quickly followed by a barrage of that mixed comments about your ass and your breasts with suggestions of various sexual acts you could perform with them. Your shoulders were hunched up around your ears and your face felt like it was on fire.

You didn’t know how many people were leering at you, how many were shouting. You didn’t want to look. You were already going to have those voices, those words echoing in your ears, when you tried to sleep tonight. You didn’t need their faces haunting your nightmares. You wanted to run but you couldn’t really run in these shoes. You were already felt humiliated enough without falling flat on your face. Or your ass. The best you could do was to hasten your pace.

Just a little further, you told yourself, seeing the end of the construction and the corner that would soon take you out of view.

Then one of the men – if the safety equipment he was wearing was any indication – stepped out on the sidewalk. Turned and planted himself in your path. You barely managed to avoid running into, skidding to a halt. The scrap of boot on concrete had you looking behind you. Another man dressed similarly to the first. Your heart began to pound. Your eyes looked frantically and your fear only grew when you realized the only way out involved running into traffic.

“Hey, bitch, don’t ignore me,” the man in front snarled. You might have called him handsome but the sneer and utter contempt in his eyes ruined any appeal he might have had. You also didn’t like how he seemed to enjoy your fear as he took a step closer. You wanted to take step back but you couldn’t risk getting any closer to other man behind you.

Movement out of the corner of your eye alerted you to someone else approaching. You risked a quick look and felt your heart sink even further as another large man walked toward you. You took a step back, preparing to run. You would take your chances with the traffic. The cars only might hurt you.

To your surprise, the approaching man stopped moving toward you. He was handsome through his nose looked like it had been broken at least once. His generous mouth was twisted into a scowl, dark eyes blazing with ice cold fury.

Fury, you suddenly realized, that wasn’t directed at you but the man standing in your way.

“Stop being an asshole and leave the lady alone, Jackson,” he said. Part of you wanted to shiver. He had a good voice, deep like a roll of thunder. It wasn’t a trained voice but there was a snap and bite of command to it. It reminded you of the voice that your uncle, who had been in the military, used whenever he was expected to be obeyed immediately.

The front man – Jackson – didn’t like being called an asshole. He took an aggressive step toward the newcomer and snarled, “What did you say to me Castigilione?”

“You heard me,” the newcomer – Castigilione – said. “Stop being an asshole and leave the lady alone. Right now.”

Castigilione wasn’t yelling. He was speaking just loud enough to be heard. But his voice was filled with warning, one that matched the look in those angry eyes. A look that screamed that Do not test me. You will not like the results.

The air between the two men crackled with barely restrained violence. On the surface, they seemed evenly matched. Both men were about the same size but there was something about Castigilione. Something you couldn’t quite put your finger on, a feeling that this man was a lot more dangerous than he looked. And he looked plenty dangerous already – a tall, well-built man with an eerily calm expression on his face and eyes filled with grim warning.

Jackson was a creep but he was apparently a creep with at least some self-preservation instincts. Because he was the first to look away, turn and go stomping back into the construction site. Muttering no doubt unkind words under his breath as he went. Jackson’s unnamed friend behind you was made of even less stern stuff because it only took one hard stare from Castigilione to send him packing. Likewise, the men who had stopped working to come over and harass you, one look and suddenly they remembered they had actual work they should be doing. Immediately. Somewhere else.

Castigilione turned his attention toward you. The look in his eyes immediately thawed, his expression shifting from that eerie calm to contrition. “I’m sorry about that, ma’am. I’ll see to it that this doesn’t happen again.”

You didn’t quite believe him. You believed his apology. He looked and sounded sincere. But you had heard such promises before. Sooner or later, they always got broken. But you had neither the time nor the desire to argue with him. So you just nodded acknowledgment and continued on your way to the office.

Work was work. Stressful. Your job title might have been office manager but the duties were closer to secretary-receptionist along with whatever data-entry jobs your company was currently short-staffed on. Which happened a lot since there was a pretty high turnover rate. First because the bulk of the staff were college students who left after the summer or they graduated. Second because it didn’t pay very well. Third the boss was an asshole.

You often thought about quitting but couldn’t without another job lined up. This job search had been slow going. Usually because by the time you got off, your eyes ached from staring at computer screens all day. So much that you couldn’t bare the thought of looking at them for another couple of hours to go through job listings, let alone fill out an application.

You had tried resting them by laying on your couch with a cool damp washcloth over your eyes. It had helped sooth your tired, often itchy eyes but you also almost always feel asleep.

Those were the good days. On the bad days, you walked home trying not to vomit from the migraine pounding through your skull. Those days you made sure the curtains were drawn in your bedroom, slipped on the noise-canceling headphones, and tried to get some sleep. Pain relievers sometimes eased the pain a little but the only effective cure you had found for your migraines was dark, quiet, and a nap.

It was frustrating. And not just on the finding-a-new-job front. But on the achieving your dreams front. You wanted to be a writer. You had finished writing the outline for your first novel. You were actually writing your first draft of it. But completing that first draft was slow going when you were so often too tired to do anything but eat dinner and go to sleep. You were trying to get up early and write in the morning before work but it seemed like everytime you got on a roll where the words were pouring out of your fingers and onto the page, the alarm on your phone would signal that it was time to get ready for your other job . . .

Writing wasn’t the only thing that you enjoyed that had been falling by the wayside lately. Your to-read stack of books had barely been touched and the stack of e-mail notifications of fan fics you had been subscribed to was equally bereft. Your other creative endeavors were even more neglected than your novel. You hadn’t been cooking much and you couldn’t remember the last time you baked.

Stop thinking like that, you told yourself sternly. All you are doing is making yourself feel worse.

You tried to steer your mind toward the positives. It might not be going as fast as you would like but you were making progress on that first draft. It was getting to be summer and the company always hired a bunch of college kids during the summer months so your work load should lightened for a little while. You had found a job listing last night that had looked promising and had e-mailed your resume before you could talk yourself out of it. Maybe you would actually cook dinner tonight. Buttered noddles might not be fancy but it wouldn’t be microwaved or take out.

It was time for lunch. You hadn’t brought anything with you and there were no vending machines in the building. If you wanted food, you would have to go out and get it. Something that filled you with dread. Getting to the nearby restaurants meant going by that construction site again. And very thought was making your stomach twist into knots.

You considered skipping lunch but you had only had an apple and coffee for breakfast this morning. You weren’t sure you would make until you got off work without getting hangry. As satisfying as it might be to tell your boss exactly what you thought about him, getting fired would be far less satisfying.

So you did your best to swallow your nerves and went out to get lunch. As you got closer to the construction site, the tension in your body grew. Your hand was clenched so tightly around the strap of your purse that the knuckles were white and the veins were popping into high relief. You were starting to feel so nauseous that you weren’t sure that you’d be able to eat.

Like this morning, you walked fast. Unlike this morning, you watched the men. It would probably mean more hollering once they realized they had gotten your attention but you couldn’t trust them to stay in work site. What if one of them tried again? And this time you didn’t see him in time to avoid being grabbed? It might be the middle of the day in a densely populated city but plenty of potential witnesses hadn’t stopped them before . . .

You tensed when one of the men noticed you. Your heart sank when you recognized the same man from this morning. Jackson the Creep. Saw the leering look and his mouth started to open . . . only to abruptly snap shut when Castigilione smacked him hard against the back of the head.

Jackson turned to (you assumed) glare at him but it didn’t seem to phase the other man. Who simply returned his (assumed) glare with one of his own. The same hard stare with ice cold eyes from this morning. Again, he didn’t say a word. Did nothing that could be considered threatening. Just stared at him and waited, his body looking relaxed and confident. Jackson said something – you couldn’t hear what – but whatever it was had little effect on Castigilione.

The only change was this grim, little smirk that spread across his face. Castigilione looked like the embodiment of ‘fuck around and find out.’

It, to put it very frankly, made him look very hot. Which, now you were taking a closer look, he didn’t really need help doing. Those blue jeans showed off powerfully built legs and that white tee shirt under his safety vest was clearly one size too small because it strained to contain those broad shoulders and torso, those muscular arms . . .

“Are you alright there, ma’am?”

You jumped at the voice. You looked up and realized that Castigilione was no longer in a staring contest with Jackson the Creep. Also that you had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and had been staring, completely oblivious of the other pedestrians jostling past you. You felt your face get warm with embarrassment.

“Fine! All good!” you managed to get out and cringed. Your voice had come out high-pitched and squeaky. Like a chipmunk. You wanted to melt into the ground. Why were you always so awkward and embarrassing around cute guys?

It really didn’t help your embarrassment to see his lips twitch in an obvious effort not to laugh. Or that smile that spread across his face was so stupidly adorable that it made your heart flutter. You scurried off before you could embarrass yourself further.

The possibility of embarrassment did nothing to prevent you from checking him out again when you walked back toward your office with your sub. You added a nice-looking ass to his list of other attributes. Along with the observation that he had the straight-backed good posture you associated with people who had been in the military. Maybe recently in the military since none of his hair could be seen from under that hardhat. Granted some men just preferred wearing their hair very short but recently military fit with the manners. Only military guys had ever addressed you as ‘ma’am.’

Another thing you learned during that trip was the Castigilione didn’t miss much. He noticed you watching him almost immediately. Your face warmed at getting caught staring. Again. Warmth that only increased when he winked at you.

Work conspired to put Castigilione out of your mind by getting pulled into extra work when a coworker called out sick. You managed to get it done but it was late by the time you did. Night had long since fallen. Now you were nervous for a different reason. You didn’t like walking alone this late at night. Yes, this was the Kitchen and all you had to do was scream. Then the Devil would come. You believed that. Trusted it. But rather hoped that you would never need it.

But you couldn’t afford to take a cab everytime you worked late. Not unless you wanted your meals to consist entirely of cheap ramen. If you were lucky. So you prayed to whoever might be listening and felt inclined to be kind to lone travelers, and walked home.

The construction site was dark and silent as you went past it. The men had long since downed tools and went home. You tried not feel disappointed about missing seeing Castigilione again. Unless he had quit at the end of the day, you would see him again. You went this way every day that you worked.

You would probably check him out every day too. And maybe, just maybe, you might work up the courage to actually talk to him. Have a real conversation where – knock on wood – you wouldn’t squeak like a chipmunk. Or otherwise make a fool of yourself. Maybe while having a coffee or something.

You shook your head, pushing those thoughts out of your head. This was not the time for daydreaming.

#fan fic #the punisher #frank castle x reader #frank castle x you #frank castle x fem!reader #a vigilante and a gentlemen series

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